Customer Reviews

Falconer's Crusade (A Medieval Oxford Mystery)

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Morson works a fast-paced tale of murder in medieval Oxford by zipping between several different persceptives. He appears to have a very firm grasp of the setting his mysteries occupy and many of the historical details that make reading this sort of mystery enjoyable. I especially appreciated the subplot involving the Jewish quarter of Oxford and issues related to the prejudices of the times. I found the plot to be compelling and I happened to enjoy the quick pace. However, the use of shifting perspectives every few paragraphs was frequently disorienting and some of the characters could use a bit of fleshing out. All in all, a very nice leisure read.

Falconer's Crusade is a muddy, bloody stroll through medieval Oxford. It is the first in a series that improved as it went along. This introductory adventure has serious plot flaws.

One problem is that the suspects are not internal to the plot, by which I mean, we as readers know that they are the suspects, and that one of them is the murderer, because they are the characters we are told about. There is no reason for Falconer to consider them suspects. He puzzles over which one of them is guilty, but there is no reason why any of them should be, or any reason why anyone else shouldn't be. The guilty party is easy to spot in the end, and if you haven't got it by the end of chapter 13, review what you've read up to then and you shouldn't have much difficulty. The clues are obvious.

Another problem is the coincidental beginning, the main characters happening to be in the same place at the same time. Readers of mysteries don't seem to mind this, of course. If Miss Marple's quiet village or Poirot's vacations become a bloodbath so that they have a good supply of mysteries to solve, we take it in our stride. So perhaps we should not be surprised that Falconer and Thomas are just where they should be, when they should be.

Morson mixes in plenty of historic authenticity, which readers of the medieval mystery genre insist upon. I am not convinced he always gets it right. For example, the nef (elaborate condiment holder) laid before Prince Edward belongs to a later period, I thought. Also, would a Jewish girl of the period really have 'an ivory skin'?

Morson writes well, with an occasional artistic flourish. He is fond of describing 'dust motes dancing in the sunbeams', for example. So the book is a pleasure to read. It just doesn't pass muster as a mystery.