Felicia J. (FeliciaJ) reviewed on 7/27/2006 + 136 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 2

Michael Jecks seems to have found a following in America, while novels by many other excellent British historical-mystery writers remain hard to find here. Judging by this first book, I don't understand the accolades Jecks has received. Plodding and dull, with little understanding of the Middle Ages, the book left me unwilling to try any more by this author.

There is very little mystery in the novel, just a story that drags on and on as it follows a dim-witted king's baliff all over the West Country. Simon Puttock does not so much solve a mystery as stumble onto a solution. And the resolution of the mystery makes the set-up for the rest of the series hard to accept.

Leave this one on the shelf and read some Ellis Peters instead.

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