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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Tries, but falls short . . ., July 22, 2008
This review is from: The Excalibur Murders: A Merlin Investigation (Paperback)
Merlin is not a magician, but a scholar and a doctor who must try to solve the mystery of who killed the king's sons. This is all very well, but the author, writing under the pseudonym JMC Blair (for good reason, it turns out), has too much history to overcome to make this novel anything but irritating. In addition, the pacing of the book is off -- the first murder doesn't even happen until forty-five agonizing pages into the book. The primary problem with this book is that it tries too hard. It tries to overcome centuries of well-established legend by breaking the characters out of their assigned personality roles. While I applaud the attempt, it just doesn't work. The author turns Arthur into a bossy, bull-headed,petty drunk; Guinevere into a spiteful shrew; and the rest of the well-known knights into either party-going ego-maniacs, or overly-pious weenies. And Nimue is Merlin's assistant? I also question the wisdom of turning Spenser's Britomart into a knight. I can see where that interpretation might come from, as the legend is vague about what Merlin told her when she visited him in his cave, but squaring off against Edmund Spenser . . . really? There are two characters that work well in this book: Morgen and Mordred. The author does a really fine job of interpreting these two, the rest aren't well developed, and the author spends a lot of time just trying to fight the stereotypes of historic precedence. Other problems include the assumption that it's OK to use modern terminology in conversation between the characters ("Have a good workout" says Merlin to uber-jock Lancelot); a lot of exposition where dialog and action could spare the reader the encumbrance; and an overabundance of adverbs. I have to give the author credit, though: The idea is absolutely brilliant, and it's truly a daunting task. Unfortunately, that's precisely the novel's downfall. As mentioned above, the author is forced into the position of trying to tear down the walls of conventional Arthurian legend in order to establish his own world and characters. It does this rather self-consciously and damages the actual story in the telling. I loved the premise of this book, but the author just isn't up to the task in this first one. I truly hope he finds his stride on the next. bw 2/5 22 jul 08
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting premise; don't waste your time or money, July 30, 2008
This review is from: The Excalibur Murders: A Merlin Investigation (Paperback)
My husband knows how much I enjoy reading historical mysteries, especially the medieval sub-genre, so he was very pleased with himself when he found it among the new paperback releases at a major chain bookstore. And the fact that it was the first in a new series was a plus. However, when I started to read it, I nearly put it down because it was so disappointing. It could be that the Arthurian legends are so well known to most readers that it was a very difficult task to devise a credible plot built around them. The author didn't even attempt it. What he chose to do instead was to write a "modern" mystery. The dialogue is 21st century, the characters are unsympathetic and poorly developed, and the plot is thin. There was no attempt to integrate life in that period of English history into the storyline; it could have occurred anywhere in the 21st century. I compare it to those of my favorite historical mystery novelists, Peter Tremayne, Michael Jecks, Bernard Knight, Margaret Frazer, Ellis Peters, Sharon Kay Penman whose novels so evoke the periods during which they occur, whose characters are so well-developed, and whose storylines are so rich. It does not compare favorably. So, save your hard-earned money to buy and to read a mystery novel by one of these writers.
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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Sad that trees died for this, July 21, 2008
This review is from: The Excalibur Murders: A Merlin Investigation (Paperback)
Create a mystery, set it in a castle, use names out of Arthurian legend, hope that people will buy it because Merlin, Arthur, and Camelot have a large following. Don't bog down the story with actual research, either into the well-established Arthur of legend and literature or the much murkier historical Arthur who may have existed anytime during the 2nd through 6th centuries. Make Nimue Merlin's student and research assistant, disguised as a young man because no one would figure out that a young woman is posing as an adult male. (Not a spoiler - the reader finds this out right away). Have a female knight of the Round Table. At some point the willing suspension of disbelief crumbles under the author's relentless refusal to toss the reader even a crumb that is recognizable as anything Arthurian, legendary or historical. Although the story has people called Merlin, Arthur, Nimue, and the rest of the cast, they are not the people we know. If you have never heard, read, or seen a movie about Arthur et al., this book might work for you. However, I absolutely can't recommend it to its natural audience, those who, like me, would buy it because of the title and sub-title.
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