Author: Jeri Westerson

Review: The Twilight Queen by Jeri Westerson

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
Review: The Twilight Queen by Jeri WestersonThe Twilight Queen (A King's Fool mystery, 2) by Jeri Westerson
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, ebook
Genres: historical fiction, historical mystery
Series: King's Fool #2
Pages: 224
Published by Severn House on January 2, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

Court jester Will Somers is drawn into another gripping and entertaining mystery when malevolent forces strike again at the court of Henry VIII - and Anne Boleyn is the target.
Greenwich, Palace of Placentia, April 1536. Queen Anne is in peril. In the mid of night, court jester Will Somers is summoned to an urgent assignation when she discovers a body in her chamber. The queen wants Will to find out who the man is and how he ended up there. Is someone trying to frame her for his murder?
Anne has many enemies at court, and to make matters worse, Henry VIII is lining up his next conquest and suspects her of treason. Has the formidable Oliver Cromwell been whispering vile lies in the king's ears, and could Anne be the target of a Catholic conspiracy? As further attacks plague the court, Will is determined to uncover the truth behind the plotting and devilry, but he will need to keep hold of all his wits to do so!

My Review:

There are characters, whether real or imagined, who seem to get reinvented or reinterpreted for each generation. Henry VIII, that towering, looming figure of British history, with his outsized body and equally outsized personality – along with his fascinating and scandalous pursuit of a son and heir for his crown – seems to be one of those characters.

That his story – or rather the reinterpretation of his story through the characters of his six wives – has been reimagined yet again in the Tony Award winning Broadway play, Six: The Musical, is just the latest in a long line of portrayals, beginning with the Bard himself, William Shakespeare, written under the rule of King James I of England and VI of Scotland – a reign that could be said to be the direct result of Henry’s failure to secure a healthy male heir.

Which makes this portrayal of Henry, his court and his wives and paramours, as seen through the eyes of his Court Fool, Will Somers, just that much more fascinating and relevant, as it appears that this series is also going to trip its way through Henry’s nearly 40-year reign through the machinations of his court and his courtiers through each of his successive – but not all that successful – marriages.

The first book in this series, Courting Dragons, took place as Catherine of Aragon’s star at court was rapidly waning, and Anne Boleyn’s was on the ascendant.

In the midst of the King’s ‘Great Matter’, the impending divorce that severed not only Henry’s first marriage but also his country’s religion, a murder took place among the foreign diplomatic corps that threatened to destabilize the already fraught negotiations over, well, pretty much everything at that point.

A murder that was ultimately solved by a not-so-foolish investigation by the King’s Fool, Will Somers.

Just as that first murder of a Spanish diplomat had political implications for Catherine of Aragon, the murder that opens The Twilight Queen has potentially deadly implications for Anne Boleyn, whose brief, tumultuous reign is now in its twilight.

A dead musician has been discovered in the Queen’s private chambers. It’s obvious to Anne that the intent is to stir up rumors that she is unfaithful to her royal husband. A treasonous pot that someone influential at court is already stirring.

Because no good deed goes unpunished, when the Queen has need of a discreet investigator, she calls upon the King’s Fool to poke his nose into all the places he can to figure out who left this dead and potentially deadly ‘package’ in her private chambers – in the hopes that the truth will stave off her inevitable downfall.

Escape Rating B: Genre blends such as historical mystery are always a balancing act – much like Will Somers position is a balancing act between making his sovereign laugh, forcing his master to stop and think – and keeping both his job and his head.

For a historical mystery to be successful, it has to balance upon the knife edge of being true to its historical setting AND following the somewhat strict conventions of the mystery genre. It must allow the reader to maintain that crucial willing suspension of disbelief when it comes to history while still delivering that ‘romance of justice’ that is crucial to a mystery’s satisfactory ending.

As much as I love this particular period of history, this series so far reads like it tilts more than a bit towards the description and details of the historical setting. Not that the mystery doesn’t get solved, but rather that the mystery feels more like an excuse to dive into the history instead of the historical period being a setting for a mystery.

Reflecting on this second book in the series, I believe that impression is a result of Will Somers’ life and work being so far removed from ordinary life either in his time or our own. Even Crispin Guest, the protagonist of the author’s Medieval Noir series, feels like more of a standard archetype, as he’s operating as a kind of private investigator in a big city. Even though the details of his circumstances are even a century or two before Somers, what Guest does and the way he does it – and how he feels about it – reads as something surprisingly familiar.

Will Somers’ dependence on and love of his ‘master’ the King, on the other hand, jars a bit in the 21st century mind whether it rings true or not. A kind interpretation of their relationship would liken it to the relationship between Frodo and Sam in The Lord of the Rings – except that Frodo couldn’t order Sam’s head to be struck off. Will Somers’ relationship with his king reads a bit too close to the so-called ‘love’ of slaves for their masters in the antebellum South. It’s not comfortable, no matter how fascinating a character Somers has turned out to be.

Which he most definitely is.

In the end, I found the history behind this story more interesting than the mystery within its pages. Your reading mileage, of course, may vary. I am, however, still terribly curious about the next book in this series, which is planned to take place during Henry’s brief but fruitful marriage to Jane Seymour, tentatively titled, Rebellious Grace.

Review: The Isolated Seance by Jeri Westerson

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> book reviews
Review: The Isolated Seance by Jeri WestersonThe Isolated Séance (An Irregular Detective Mystery #1) by Jeri Westerson
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, ebook
Genres: historical fiction, historical mystery, mystery
Series: Irregular Detective #1
Pages: 224
Published by Severn House on June 6, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

The first in a gripping new Victorian mystery series set in London from critically acclaimed author Jeri Westerson.
Watch out, Sherlock! Introducing one-time Baker Street Irregular Timothy Badger and his partner-in-crime Benjamin Watson, two exciting and unconventional young consulting detectives, mentored by the great man himself, tackling intriguing and unusual cases in Victorian London with endearing verve and wit.
Sherlock Holmes's protégés Tim Badger and Benjamin Watson are catapulted into a tricky first case when a man is brutally murdered during a séance.
London, 1895. Former Baker Street Irregular Tim Badger is determined to follow in the footsteps of his great mentor, Sherlock Holmes, by opening his own consulting detective agency with his partner, Benjamin Watson. The intrepid duo are ready to make a name for themselves . . . if only they had clients!
Their luck changes when Sherlock recommends his protégés to Thomas Brent. Brent is eager to find out who killed his master, Horace Quinn, during a séance at Quinn's house. What was Quinn desperately trying to find out from his deceased business partner, Stephen Latimer, before he was stabbed through the heart?
It seems that everyone in Quinn's household had a reason to want him dead. Can Tim and Benjamin step out of Sherlock's shadow to navigate dark secrets and unexpected dangers in their pursuit of a cold-blooded killer?

My Review:

Sherlock Holmes was such a towering figure of investigative genius that it takes not one but two men to even think of stepping into his shoes. Someday, when they’ve got a little more experience under their belts and are a bit more confident in their ability to even hold a clue-seeking magnifying glass up to the ‘Great Detective’s’ bootprints.

Sherlock meets the Irregulars in A Study in Scarlet, as illustrated by Richard Gutschmidt.

Once upon a time, and not all that long ago in the year 1895, Tim Badger was one of the many street urchins that Holmes employed as his Baker Street Irregulars, beginning in Holmes’ very first adventure, A Study in Scarlet, back in 1881.

In 1881, the Irregulars were all children – or at most teens. Inevitably, they grew up. Well, some of them at least, as the game afoot on the streets of London in the late 19th century in their circumstances was that of survival of the fittest – and the Irregulars all entered that game with the deck stacked against them.

But it’s not a surprise that one of those survivors would outgrow the Irregulars with a talent for detection and the same burning need that drove their mentor Holmes, a desire to make a living by righting wrongs and pursuing criminals. Even though there are better ways to make a living and the odds are still stacked against them.

Tim Badger is just one of those ragamuffin boys who has aged out of being invisible and now has to make a living for himself. He’s chosen to follow in his mentor’s footsteps, with the assistance of his very own Watson. But unlike Holmes’ Dr. Watson, Mr. Benjamin Watson is in every bit the same poverty-stricken circumstances as Badger.

Ben Watson is a young black man with a penchant for chemistry and an oddly assorted collection of surprisingly useful odd jobs in his past. A past that isn’t nearly as checkered as Badger’s.

Their first big case is a desperate one, and so are they, even though they’re handed that case on Holmes’ silver salver, for reasons that Badger and Watson have yet to determine. Holmes claims he’s too busy, but that’s pure balderdash and Badger knows it. For Holmes the case would be easy as pie, but for the two fledgling detectives in a race to prove that a young man was wrongfully accused of murdering his employer – it’s the chance of a lifetime.

Or the end of more lives than just their client’s, including, quite possibly, their own.

Escape Rating A-: Surprisingly and delightfully, The Isolated Séance is a story of Sherlock Holmes, of all people, paying it forward – in spite of that phrase not being in common parlance until more than a century later.

As a way of making the leap from Holmes himself to a ‘new generation’ it’s an excellent way of shifting the focus of this Holmes pastiche from the great man to a couple of young men just getting their start – as Holmes and his Watson were when they first took rooms together at 221b.

We get just enough of a glimpse of Badger and Watson’s original circumstances to see just how much the two young men are in over their heads when Holmes steps in and gives them not just a case but an astonishing hand up in their attempts to follow the path he has already broken and solve a case that is every bit as convoluted as anything Holmes himself took on.

Holmes calls his starting grant to them an investment in his legacy, and so it proves. It also helps kick the story into a higher gear as it removes many of the external impediments to their possible success, giving both the characters and the reader a chance to focus on those impediments that are inherent to the case itself and to their maturity – or rather its lack. Particularly in Badger’s case.

(Although both men are very young, Watson’s circumstances as a black man in a city that is prejudiced against him at every turn gives him a bit of caution and maturity that Badger sadly lacks. Watson’s perspective as someone who will always be considered an outsider even before he opens his mouth reminds this reader of the relationship between a young Mycroft Holmes and the more mature Cyrus Douglas in Kareem Abdul Jabbar’s Mycroft Holmes series. Please consider this a readalike recommendation as the Jabbar series is marvelous.)

The case itself is a farrago of mysterious circumstances, wild conjectures, police intractability and mistaken identity from its murderous beginning in the midst of a seance to its tragic, justly unjust ending. Elements which are present in much of Holmes’ canonical casebook as well.

But the way that Badger and Watson come to their solution – and wrestle with their consciences along the way – stands on its own merits. As do they. I look forward to watching their career continue in the second book in this series, The Mummy of Mayfair, hopefully this time next year!

Review: Courting Dragons by Jeri Westerson

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews
Review: Courting Dragons by Jeri WestersonCourting Dragons (A King's Fool mystery, 1) by Jeri Westerson
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, ebook
Genres: historical fiction, historical mystery
Series: King's Fool #1
Pages: 224
Published by Severn House on Publication date January 3, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

Introducing Will Somers, the king's jester but nobody's fool in this exuberant, intriguing and thoroughly entertaining mystery set in Tudor England – the first in a new series from the author of the critically acclaimed Crispin Guest Medieval Noir series.

1529, London. Jester Will Somers enjoys an enviable position at the court of Henry VIII. As the king's entertainer, chief gossip-monger, spy and loyal adviser, he knows all of the king's secrets – and almost everyone else's within the walls of Greenwich Palace.

But when Will discovers the body of Spanish count Don Gonzalo while walking his trusted sidekick Nosewise in the courtyard gardens, and a blackmail note arrives soon after demanding information about the king, is one of his own closely guarded secrets about to be exposed? Trouble is afoot at the palace. Are the king's enemies plotting a move against him? Will must draw on all his wit and ingenuity to get to the bottom of the treacherous and deadly goings-on at the court before further tragedy strikes . . .

My Review:

Henry VIII was always a towering, larger-than-life figure, even before he became the obese caricature of himself that has become the popular image of him. Just as he loomed large over the life of his court and everyone in it, so too he dominates this historical mystery told from, not Henry’s point of view, but through the eyes of his fool, or court jester, William Somers.

Who was every bit as real a person – whether or not he resembles the character in this story – as the king he served.

If you remember the old doggerel, “Divorced, beheaded, died. Divorced, beheaded, survived” as a way of tracking Henry VIII’s six wives, this story takes place in 1529, in the midst of the long and ultimately futile negotiations between Henry and Pope Clement VII in regards to that first divorce, sometimes referred to as the King’s Great Matter.

Which it most certainly was.

So the court is in ferment, divided between the rapidly waning star of the old queen, Catherine of Aragon, and the woman who will be the next queen, Anne Boleyn. Tension is everywhere among the usual cutthroat jockeying for favor and position that was always an integral part of serving in the King’s court.

Will Somers, the king’s fool, has been among Henry’s closest companions since he had arrived in court several years before. Somers was the one person who could, by the very nature of his position, go anywhere, talk to anyone, walk in and out of the King’s apartments, and generally do as he pleased as long as he was always available when the King called for him.

Somers is perfectly placed to find himself in the role of amateur detective when that metaphorically cutthroat jockeying results in the actual cut throat of one of the Spanish ambassador’s attendants.

That the bisexual Somers had spent the previous night with the dead man only adds to his distress. Someone he genuinely cared for is dead, and a thorough investigation could discover Will’s own clandestine behavior. He wants justice – and he needs to protect himself.

In the midst of the King’s Great Matter, with the Spanish on one side and his King on the other, the crime could also have political implications. Somers will have to tread carefully, but still poke his, or his dog’s, nose into every nook and cranny to find the killer – even while that killer is stalking him and those he holds dear.

The Family of Henry VIII (c. 1545), unknown artist. Left to right: ‘Mother Jak’, Lady Mary, Prince Edward, Henry VIII, Jane Seymour (posthumous), Lady Elizabeth and Will Somers. Oil on canvas, 141 x 355 cm. Hampton Court Palace, East Molesey, Surrey

Escape Rating A-: Hybrid genres like historical mystery have to achieve a balance between the two genres being blended. In the case of historical mystery that means that the historical setting has to feel authentic and the mystery has to be puzzling and fit the conventions for solving the crime that has taken place.

Courting Dragons is one of those historical mysteries where the reader is dropped right into the historical period from the first page, and where the history that wraps around it is integral to the plot – even though it can’t change any of the known historical facts. (For anyone who remembers the movie or the play, Anne of the Thousand Days, Courting Dragons read a LOT like returning to that setting and characters.)

So one of the reasons that I loved Courting Dragons was because I saw that movie in 1969 – I was twelve – and fell in love with the entire Tudor Period, warts and all. Going back was a delight. Howsomever, I read a lot in the period after I saw the movie and was familiar with the historical background.

Courting Dragons read like that balance between the history and the mystery was weighted towards the history, to the point where unless you are either familiar with the period, or enjoy learning a surprising amount of detail about a period with which you are not well acquainted, you need to be aware that the historical setting and tensions of Courting Dragons dominate the mystery. As I said, I loved it but your reading mileage may vary.

It does take a while for the mystery to get itself going, because there is just so much to learn and explore about life at court and Will’s circumstances within it. Which are fascinating but may not be what you read mysteries for.

There was one bit of the story that niggled more than a bit. It doesn’t feel inaccurate, but it was jarring to a 21st century reader all the same. And that involves Will’s relationship with the king. On the one hand, Will is utterly financially dependent on his work. He has a relatively high place for someone of low birth, but it can be snatched away at any time – and so can his life. He is the one person who can tell the king “No” and not get killed for it. He can needle the king about matters, such as his divorce, that the king doesn’t want to hear contradicted in any way. But he has to be careful of how much and how far he goes all the time. Very much on the other hand, in the book it is clear that Will is the king’s man through and through, and actually loves him in a way that seems a lot like the way that Sam Gamgee looked up to Frodo in The Lord of the Rings. Or the way that slavery proponents claimed that slaves felt about their slavemasters. It may be the way things actually were, but it still disconcerts.

So, if you like your historical mystery to dive deeply into the historical milieu in which it is set – or if you are just plain fascinated with the Tudors, Courting Dragons is a terrific mix of royal history and rotten murder. Will Somers, and his master Henry VIII, will be back in The Lioness Stumbles, hopefully this time next year!

Review: The Deadliest Sin by Jeri Westerson

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> book reviews
Review: The Deadliest Sin by Jeri WestersonThe Deadliest Sin (Crispin Guest Medieval Noir #15) by Jeri Westerson
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, ebook
Genres: historical fiction, historical mystery, mystery
Series: Crispin Guest #15
Pages: 224
Published by Severn House Publishers on December 7, 2021
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads


Crispin Guest is summoned to a London priory to unmask a merciless killer. Can he discover who is committing the deadliest of sins?
1399, London. A drink at the Boar's Tusk takes an unexpected turn for Crispin Guest, Tracker of London, and his apprentice, Jack Tucker, when a messenger claims the prioress at St. Frideswide wants to hire him to investigate murders at the priory. Two of Prioress Drueta's nuns have been killed in a way that signifies two of the Seven Deadly Sins, and she's at her wits end. Meanwhile, trouble is brewing outside of London when the exiled Henry Bolingbroke, the new Duke of Lancaster, returns to England's shores with an army to take back his inheritance. Crispin is caught between solving the crimes at St. Frideswide's Priory, and making a choice once more whether to stand with King Richard or commit treason again.

My Review:

Pride is one of those infamous “Seven Deadly Sins”. It’s also the one that “goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall”, at least according to Proverbs 16, verse 18 of the King James Version of the Bible. Which was still more than two centuries in the future at the close of this final book in the Crispin Guest series.

Which does not make the verse any less apropos.

Because this is a story about pride. The blind pride of the Prioress at St. Frideswide’s Priory, the ambitious pride of Henry of Bolingbroke, the long-ago pride and puissance of the late John of Gaunt, the privileged but unearned pride of Richard of Bordeaux, and last but not least the battered pride of Crispin Guest, once lord, former knight, convicted traitor to the king that is about to be deposed, but loyal to the death to the king that is about to be.

But while all this pride is swirling in the air and down the length and breadth of England, someone is killing the Holy Sisters of St. Frideswide’s Priory and staging their bodies in a gruesome parody of the mural of the Seven Deadly Sins that serves as a chilling backdrop to the reliquary of St. Frideswide’s relics.

Even if some of those relics have been stolen. After all, greed is also one of those seven deadly sins.

Crispin Guest has been reluctantly (very reluctantly) called to the Priory to investigate a string of murders. It’s what he does as the infamous “Tracker of London”. The Prioress’ grudging cooperation and high-handed stonewalling isn’t enough to keep him from figuring out who committed the crimes, but his distraction over the changes sweeping the country and the monarchy make the solution more elusive than it should be.

On every side.

Escape Rating A-: Not every historical mystery series involves itself as much with the politics of its day along with the mystery, but from this reader’s perspective it seems like the best ones do, going all the way back to Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael series along with Candace Robb’s Owen Archer and C.S. Harris’ Sebastian St. Cyr series right alongside Crispin Guest. All these series take place during one succession crisis or another in English history, and all of the detectives had some involvement, great or small, in the roiling political climate of their day.

(If you’re wondering, the Cadfael series takes place during the succession war between King Stephen and Empress Maud, Owen Archer protects the city of York as the curtain goes up on the Wars of the Roses, Crispin Guest is collateral damage in that same war as it heats up and royal heads start rolling, while St. Cyr is operating during the Regency, which was itself an inventive solution to the succession crisis that followed in the wake of George III losing the American Colonies and his mind.)

The politics were built into this series from its beginning, all the way back in Veil of Lies, published in 2008. At that point, Crispin had lost everything except his life as part of a plot to push Richard II off the throne and put John of Gaunt on it. (The Wars of the Roses happened because Edward III had too many sons who survived to reproduce, and all of them fought over who had the right to be king in one succession crisis after another from Edward’s death in 1377 to Richard III’s death at Bosworth Field in 1487.

So readers have followed along with Crispin as he learned to be a commoner, and as he honed his skills as the “Tracker of London”. By the time this story takes place in 1399, Crispin has been the Tracker for 15 years. He’s not just learned to survive, but he’s actually become mostly content with his circumstances, only for his entire life to be upended once again.

Crispin’s final case is a troubling one. Someone is murdering nuns inside a closed priory and posing their bodies in horrific tableaus. The Prioress wants the murders solved, but stands in the way of Crispin’s every attempt to solve them. She has her own vision of the work and life of her priory, and doesn’t want anyone to spoil her illusions.

As if three, then four dead sisters didn’t spoil it quite enough.

Without forensics, Crispin is forced to rely on his wits, his memory, and on his opponent making a mistake, while he’s distracted by events in the kingdom that might serve as vindication for his long-ago trials, or that might change his life. Meanwhile, the priory that is supposed to be a haven of religious service is actually a hotbed of sin, vice and favoritism that the prioress doesn’t want Crispin to see – or expose.

The situation is a mess, as so many of the situations Crispin gets himself into are. It’s also an unexpected ending. An ending that Crispin is afraid to anticipate out of fear of having his hopes dashed yet again.

I was sorry to see this much-beloved series come to an end, although the end is in all ways fitting, as Crispin’s journey from disgrace to penitence to vindication has come full circle. But there’s this niggling sensation at the end that, as content as Crispin now is with his restored life and honors, he misses the intellectual challenge of being the Tracker. And that it might just be possible to lure him back.

I sincerely hope so.

Review: Sword of Shadows by Jeri Westerson

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> book reviews
Review: Sword of Shadows by Jeri WestersonSword of Shadows by Jeri Westerson
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, ebook
Genres: historical fiction, historical mystery
Series: Crispin Guest #13
Pages: 224
Published by Severn House Publishers on April 7th 2020
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon
Goodreads


A quest to find the ancient sword Excalibur quickly turns into a hunt for a determined killer for Crispin Guest.

London, 1396. A trip to the swordsmith shop for Crispin Guest, Tracker of London, and his apprentice Jack Tucker takes an unexpected turn when Crispin crosses paths with Carantok Teague, a Cornish treasure hunter. Carantok has a map he is convinced will lead him to the sword of Excalibur - a magnificent relic dating back to King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table - and he wants Crispin to help him find it.

Travelling to Tintagel Castle in Cornwall with Carantok and Jack, Crispin is soon reunited with an old flame as he attempts to locate the legendary sword. But does Excalibur really exist, or is he on an impossible quest? When a body is discovered, Crispin's search for treasure suddenly turns into a hunt for a dangerous killer.

My Review:

“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there,” or so the saying goes. And that’s certainly true in the Crispin Guest Medieval Noir series, of which Sword of Shadows is the lucky, or unlucky, 13th book.

They may DO things differently in 1396 A.D., but that doesn’t mean that human beings are actually any different, either better or worse, than they are in 2020. Or than they were at the time of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, whether that was the quasi-medieval era as later chroniclers made it, the latter part of the Roman occupation of Britain, as historians claim it, or a magical period of myth and legend as written in the chronicles of Geoffrey of Monmouth – the only version that would have been extant in Crispin’s time.

King Arthur shouldn’t be relevant, as Crispin deals in facts and motives, evidence and crimes, in the real world. But he also needs to keep a roof over his head and food in his belly. While he is best known as the “Tracker of London”, solving crimes and righting miscarriages of justice, sometimes he takes other work.

So this tale begins. A gentleman “treasure hunter” feels that he is on the track of Excalibur. While the sword may be shrouded in myth and legend, Carantock Teague believes that he has found clues to the fabled artifact’s location – that Excalibur is hidden somewhere near Tintagel Castle in Cornwall, purported to be the site of King Arthur’s birth. Teague hires Crispin – and Crispin’s apprentice Jack – to come with him to Cornwall and help him search for it. And to guard him if he finds it.

The pay is too good to turn down, even with a wet, cold, miserable fortnight’s journey to Tintagel by horseback to start it off.

But once there, the search for the sword is complicated by the discovery of not one but two extremely recent corpses. Meanwhile, Crispin’s sometime quarry and occasional lover, Kat Pyle, has arrived in this remote spot to either bedevil Crispin, nab the treasure before he can, or make some other mischief.

Knowing Kat as he does, Crispin can’t help but wonder if the answer is “all of the above – and more.”

The question is whether it is only Crispin’s heart at risk – or his life.

Escape Rating A-: Sword of Shadows was a terrific read. It was a return to a series that I’ve picked up off and on over the years and always enjoyed. It dipped into a legend that has always fascinated me, the Matter of Britain, or as it is better known, the tales of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. And it was also a reminder of journeys of my own, as I read the first three books in this series, Veil of Lies, Serpent in the Thorns and The Demon’s Parchment, on a Caribbean cruise, back when such things were possible. This series was among the first things I read on my then-new Nook. How time flies.

That being said, although there were nostalgic elements attached to this story for me, I don’t think they are necessary to enjoy this book. If you love historical mystery, this is one of those series where the author has meticulously researched every detail, and the reader feels as if they are walking beside Crispin whether on the streets of London or exploring the caves on the Cornish coast. This is a series where you not only feel the feels, but you also smell the smells – good and bad.

It is a series where some prior knowledge is probably helpful, but does not have to be exhaustive. I haven’t read the whole series, just dipped in here and there, and enjoyed the journey back to England during the reign of Richard II, during the opening stages of what history would call the Wars of the Roses.

This particular event in Crispin’s life is a bit different than the usual stories in this series as it takes Crispin out of the London that he has come to call home and out into the country, far away from not just his home but from any place with which he is familiar. Crispin has become a creature of London, a man of the city, that’s where his reputation and his living are.

In Tintagel he is a complete outsider, and has to do his job of tracking the murderer – or murderers – in a place where he is not well-known, where his current reputation is of no help but his long-buried past as a traitorous knight is still remembered. He knows no one, but he still has a job to do – even if it’s one that he isn’t getting paid for.

At the same time, he is teased and tormented by the search for Excalibur and the legends surrounding it. In the end, catching the murderer, as difficult as it is, turns out to be easier than letting go of the search for the sword. The myths that are wrapped around the hilt of Excalibur have caught better men – and many, many searchers – before Crispin, and have continued to do so after, inspiring creators century after century. The way that Excalibur fades into the mists of Cornwall in this story feels right – and sends a chill up the spine at the same time.

The author claims that Crispin’s story is coming to an end. His next outing, Spiteful Bones, will be his next-to-last adventure. Normally I’d say that I couldn’t wait to read his next book, but knowing that his journey is coming to an end means that I’ll be happy to wait a bit. I’ll be sad to see him go – but I hope it will be into a happy and successful retirement. We’ll see.

Review: Season of Blood by Jeri Westerson

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B+ Reviews> book reviews
Review: Season of Blood by Jeri WestersonSeason of Blood (Crispin Guest Medieval Noir #10) by Jeri Westerson
Formats available: hardcover, ebook
Series: Crispin Guest #10
Pages: 224
Published by Severn House Publishers on December 24th 2017
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
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A missing Holy Relic. A mysterious and beautiful woman. Two murdered monks: Crispin Guest tackles his most intriguing investigation to date.

1390. Hailes Abbey, Gloucestershire, England. Two monks lie murdered, their Holy Blood relic stolen: a relic that is said to run liquid for the sinless and remain stubbornly dry for the sinner. Unwilling to become involved in a bitter dispute between a country monastery and Westminster Abbey, the disgraced former knight Crispin Guest attempts to return the relic to Hailes where it belongs, but somehow it keeps returning to his hands no matter what.

As he tries to shield a former nemesis from a charge of murder while becoming entangled with a mysterious and beautiful woman caught between Church politics and the dangerous intrigues of King Richard's court, Crispin begins to suspect that someone at Westminster is conspiring with the assassins. Can the Blood of Christ point to the killer?

My Review:

Season of Blood follows last year’s A Maiden Weeping, and Crispin seems to have learned very little from all the trouble he got into during that case.

A man dies on his doorstep with a knife in his back. In Crispin’s down-at-heels section of London, that actually might not be all that uncommon an occurrence. But the dead man in this particular case is a monk. And in addition to his corpse, he leaves Crispin with two big problems.

That knife in the monk’s back clearly bears the seal of Simon Wynchecombe, former Sheriff, current Alderman, and always a thorn in Crispin’s side. Simon hated Crispin while he was Sheriff, and beat and belittled him at every turn, including when he needed Crispin to resolve a case.

The second problem presented by the corpse is that he has a religious relic in his possession. Crispin has been involved with relics before. He doesn’t trust them or the people who traffic in them. But the damnable things keep invading his life, and that never ends well for him.

On the heels of the corpse, a woman hires Crispin to find her errant niece, who seems to have run off with a married man – that married man being the same Simon Wynchecombe whose knife was in the dead man’s back.

This all should scream “unlikely coincidence” to Crispin the expert tracker, but something about this woman has Crispin doing most of his thinking with his little head instead of his big one. Not that that hasn’t happened before, too. Crispin can never resist a pretty face, especially when there’s a clever brain behind it.

So Crispin, as usual, finds himself investigating a case where he trusts that no one is telling the truth. He is forced to rely on his own wits to determine who killed the first monk (and eventually the second and the third) without having anything like 21st century forensic science. Only his own knowledge of how things work and how people behave – even if his wits are a bit addled by the beautiful woman who seems to be at the center of this spider’s web of a case.

And just because he doesn’t believe in the truth of the relic, doesn’t mean that others are not willing to kill for them. Or that just because so many of the people involved with this case are celibate monks, does not mean that there are not men under those robes, just as fascinated by a pretty face as he himself is. Possibly even the same pretty face.

The chance to solve this conundrum tests Crispin at every turn. But the unexpected chance to score against an enemy – PRICELESS.

Escape Rating B+: A part of me wants to say that this was fun, in spite of the dead bodies falling at every turn. This case is interesting because it is so foreign. The past is definitely another country in this one.

Crispin is skeptical about the truth and the efficacy of those much venerated relics. His attitude is in some ways almost modern, and in others fits within his time. He’s not sure they are real, but if they are, we don’t deserve them. And it’s not for him to judge their religiosity, only to follow the trail of death and end it – no matter the cost.

But this is a case where trying to follow “who benefits?” is difficult because the benefits don’t seem based in our reality – even though they are in theirs.

As always, Crispin is a fascinating character. Once upon a time, he was a nobleman, who lost his station and his fortune by backing the wrong claimant in one of the early skirmishes of what became later known as the “Wars of the Roses”. He should have been killed for his treason, but instead he was reduced severely in station.

He should have died of his ignorance, but instead was helped and taught until he could manage to make his own living as the infamous “Tracker” who solves problems for a fee and shows up the Sheriffs at every turn. He has seen life from both the heights and the depths, but is a stranger in both and at home in neither.

He’s also in his mid-30s and starting to feel that he is no longer young. At the same time he has no idea of if or how to “settle down”. He does have a knack for gathering interesting people around him who both help and support him. A group that gets more interesting all the time, particularly in this outing.

If you like historical mysteries where you really feel (and occasionally taste and smell) just how different the past is from our own present, Crispin Guest is a master at bringing his world to life – and solving its suspicious deaths.

Review: A Maiden Weeping by Jeri Westerson

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> book reviews
Review: A Maiden Weeping by Jeri WestersonA Maiden Weeping (Crispin Guest, #9) by Jeri Westerson
Formats available: hardcover, ebook
Series: Crispin Guest #9
Pages: 256
Published by Severn House Publishers on August 1st 2016
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" When Crispin Guest finds himself trapped in circumstances outside his control, he must rely on the wits of his young apprentice, Jack Tucker, to do the rescuing. " Crispin awakens in a strange bed after a night of passion when he finds a woman dead, murdered. Drunk, Crispin scarcely remembers the night before. Did he kill her? But when other young women turn up dead under similar circumstances, he knows there is a deadly stalker loose in London. Could it have to do with the mysterious Tears of the Virgin Mary kept under lock and key by a close-lipped widow, a relic that a rival family would kill to get their hands on? What does this relic, that forces empathy on all those surrounding it, have to do with murder for hire? With Crispin shackled and imprisoned by the immutable sheriffs who would just as soon see him hang than get to the real truth, Jack hits the ground running and procures the help of a fresh young lawyer to help them solve the crime.

My Review:

As the saying goes, “the past is another country, they do things differently there.” That saying seems especially true in A Maiden Weeping. In this case the past that is so different is just that, a case. A legal case. We tend to think of the law and the court system as being bound in tradition, and that its tradition has not changed in centuries.

As this historical mystery shows all too clearly, human nature may not have changed much in the past 600 plus years (or possibly the past 6,000 or even 60,000 years) but the court system certainly has. As American readers, we expect contemporary English courtrooms to operate slightly differently from our own, but not that much – they do spring from the same root.

What we see here is much, much closer to that root, and the operations of the court are very different from what we expect. Whether that is for better or for worse is certainly a matter for opinion and debate, but absolutely different.

veil of lies by jeri westersonCrispin Guest, who normally tracks down murderers and thieves, this time finds himself as the accused. And where he once was accused quite righteously of treason (read the first book in this series, Veil of Lies, for more of Crispin’s background) in this particular case Crispin is innocent of the crime.

But he is very, very definitely in the frame. The Sheriffs of London are tired of Crispin making them look like fools, and eagerly snatch the possibility of removing him from being a perpetual thorn in their sides. His guilt is in some doubt from the very beginning, and the small powers that be do their level best to get Crispin tried, convicted and executed before he has a chance to prove himself innocent.

So the expert ‘Tracker’ of London is forced to rely on others to discover the truth. Foremost among those others is his apprentice Jack Tucker, who will need every scrap of the knowledge he has gained from Crispin to discover who and what is at the bottom of this case, and the farrago of lies that surrounds it.

But Jack knows that he needs help. So he finds himself at Gray’s Inn, the first of four law courts of London, and not yet half a century old. The young lawyer that Jack engages is just barely out of his own apprenticeship, but Nigellus Cobmartin is eager and energetic in taking Crispin’s case, even as he prays that this case will have a better outcome than his last case. Which was also his first case. And he lost.

Nigellus best option is simply to delay, to give Jack time to investigate. But the more Jack digs, the more strange events he uncovers, and not all of them seem related to the mess that has Crispin behind bars. Two families are feuding over a priceless relic, with both Crispin and the murdered woman caught in the middle. But there is also a serial killer on the loose, murdering women just like the original victim. Is this all about the relic? Is it a case of a fetish gone wrong? Or is there a third possibility, yeet to be revealed?

And can Jack figure it out in time?

Escape Rating A-: I read the first three books in this series several years ago, swallowing them whole while on a cruise, and being absolutely enthralled. But like many other series, I lost track of Crispin Guest in the “so many books, so little time” conundrum. I’m looking forward to the chance to catch up.

It takes a bit to set the stage for this one. At the beginning, Crispin isn’t doing well, and makes a series of rather foolish mistakes that land him in this pickle. One gets the feeling that he should have known better, but at the time, he was, well, pickled. He needs to take himself in hand, and it is not a pretty sight.

At the beginning, Jack is lost and scared, and so he should be. His first case requires him to save Crispin’s life, as Crispin saved his. Jack grows up, as he needs to. He fumbles more than a bit before he finds his way.

The court system operated very differently in the late 14th century than it does now. Even if you don’t normally read the “Foreward” to a book, in this case it provides an essential bit of stage-setting for how justice functioned at this time. It’s different and fascinating and all the things that we are used to seeing in a courtroom are either completely turned on their heads or, like the use of lawyers, just barely in their infancy.

Part of the frustration at the beginning is that it is obvious to the reader that Crispin is being framed, and equally obvious that the officials that we believe should be finding the real criminal are using this mess as a convenient way of getting rid of Crispin, and that they are all in on it. It offends our 21st century sense of justice. This feels correct for the period, but it makes for hard reading.

But once the stage is set, the story really gets going. Jack is on the run every second, trying to do what he believes Crispin would do, meanwhile learning as he goes. The roadblocks deliberately strewn in his way are many and dangerous.

Crispin is a character at a crossroads. He spends much of the book contemplating his life from a cold prison cell, a sneaky feline his only company. He is forced to think about how his life has come to this particular pass, and both what he needs to do, and what he needs to accept, if he is to have a life after this point. In a way, he too grows up and changes, in spite of being well into his 30s. The man who emerges is different from the one who began.

And that makes him an interesting character to follow.