Customer Reviews

The Mad Monk of Gidleigh (Knights Templar)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you're here because you read all adventures of Brother Cadfael and you found, like I did, that you wanted more stories about medieval England then you have come to the right place!

Let me say that although the mystery in the story is sufficient, it's in the characters and in the reality of everyday life that the story comes alive. The author (who, btw, knows medieval history so well he plays with his inexperienced readers from time to time) is fascinated with the imbalance of power between the serfs and their masters: the nobles and the clergy. He describes with passion the abuse of power perpetrated by the not-so-noble knights on the submissive local serfs. The knights think themselves invulnerable as they believe they have the support of the most powerful family in the kingdom. Yet, their plotting leaves them with no real friends and their newly acquired castle is guarded by hired soldiers who have their own agenda in mind.

A girl is viciously murdered and the priest who had an affair with her is accused, but soon we find out he's not guilty of killing her and her death is somehow tied to another murder of a man whom she has never known, but who held some secrets of the lord of the castle. Into that complicated web of local gossip and vicious plotting for yet more power Sir Baldwin arrives. He's an ex-Templar, now married and for the first time since the destruction of his Order daring to be happy. He's been charged by the king with finding the truth. He's a worldly man, a little cynical from his experiences, yet a kind man despite his ruling manner. By the time he's figured out the depth of evil contained in the murder mystery the reader will believe the medieval times were indeed very dark. Yet, things are at their darkest just before sunrise. It's the good act that redeems the cruel man and there is no act that can't be redeemed. We see the men get up and live their simple lives in dignity because the justice was done just as our knight marches off on a pilgrimage to pay for his mistake.

I think Brother Cadfael would say "things are as they should be."

I have read all previous books in this series, and find this to be the least laudable. It is as wordy as Dickens with descriptions of place unnecessarily and inappropriately long. Too much text is spent in ascription of emotions and attitudes to the characters--most of which are either repetitious or irritatingly conventional and perfunctory (or both).
I found the plot too complex for the novel's perameters. Normally, Jecks's establishes and develops several subplots, then ties them all together in a grand climax. This had too many small loose ends which had to be dealt with at the end, producing a leaden climax--so different from his usual neat and powerful conlusions.
I wish to make clear that I like reading Michael Jecks and will continue to read the series. It's just that at times I thought this one might have been written by someone else.
Robert Gaines 1/13/08

First Sentence: In the darkened room, the man's shattered body gave a final convulsive jerk.

Sir Baldwin Furnshill, Keeper of the King's Peace, and Bailiff Simon Puttock must leave their families and travel to the village of Gidleigh. The beautiful daughter of the town's miller has been found dead, the young monk, by whom she was pregnant, the obvious suspect. This wouldn't have involved Simon but that a miner has also died, and that is under his jurisdiction.

Upon their arrival at Wonson Manor, they find Sir Ralph is the new owner and his son Esmon in charge of a band of mercenary soldiers. Tension in the village increases as truths are exposed and more die.

Jecks is one of the better historical writers. There is excellent attention to period detail and a very strong sense of time and place.

All the characters are fully dimensional and well drawn. I like that the two protagonists' lives have changed through the series. They come through as real people with great strengths and realistic weaknesses and consequences. They are not the only characters who change, others do as well.

The story is very well plotted. Just when I thought I knew where it was going, it turned. I particularly liked that the point was made that small actions can have big consequences.

This was another very good book in an excellent series and I'm happy to know I've many more books to go.

This book leaves much to be desired. I found myself wondering more than once if it was worth finishing. It was sooo slow. The cover says 'the most wickedly plotted medieval mystery novel". I did not find that to be true. I might try another of his books, but it might be a awhile.

This is the most engrossing book in the series so far.. One truly becomes totally involved with the characters, and Michael Jecks surely knows how to excel in his character development. The plot is complex but most believable and intriguing. I think this is his best yet, and can't wait to read all the rest!

If you have any interest in the medieval period, as does my wife, this series makes the lives of ordinary people come vibrantly alive again. The characters became her old friends, the plot is absorbing, and once she discovered this series, she galloped madly through it, dragging me along with her. I have enjoyed the ride. Mad Monk of Gidleigh was particularly absorbing.

Michael Jecks gave up a career in the computer industry when he began writing the internationally successful Templar series. Well all I can say is the Computer Industries loss is the reader's gain. He has now written about a score of the Knights Templar mystery books featuring Sir Baldwin de Furnshill and Bailiff Simon Puttock and there are more to follow. Michael's books are full of intrigue and mystery and they are particularly well researched. Mr. Jecks lives in the area he writes about and I am sure this must assist him a great deal with his background research.

Alone on the edge of Dartmoor, in a windswept chapel who could blame young priest, Mark, for seeking affection from the local miller's daughter, Mary? But soon his world will come crashing around his ears. Mary's body is found, she has been stabbed. They have been seen together and the young priest becomes the No. 1 suspect. When Mary's body is examined it becomes obvious that she was pregnant and this only seems to confirm Mark's guilt.

Keeper of the King's Peace Sir Baldwin and Bailiff Simon arrive to investigate and soon begin to have their doubts about the guilt of the priest. Mary it seems had many admirers. Could it not have been one of them who had murdered her in a fit of jealous rage. Also her father the miller is acting increasingly strangely and what exactly is the local Baron trying his best to hide from them. Finding the murderer will not be easy . . .

Fans of historical mysteries will find the detailed medieval setting of this mystery to prove most realistic and satisfying. Mary and her unborn child are brutally murdered, and villagers place the blame on a priest who must flee his home for a crime he didn't commit. It's 1323, and the young priest faces some of his greatest challenges in this moving mystery.

I had never been exposed to Michael Jecks' books until late this summer and became so addicted to his well researched books especially for the quality of writing in
"good English" (not "dummed down English")that I read everything he has written to date up to 2006 (except awaiting his new November 2006 release)in under two months
while still reading academic works. The author has not received the aclaim he deserves to include his superior research.

This is my first encounter with Jecks, and it will also be my last. The author belongs, with a few notable exceptions, to the "tell instead of show" school of writing, producing some really flat prose. The exceptions are his descriptions of husbands' love for their wives and his descriptions of the fugative monk's sufferings as he flees and is imprisoned.

More important than the style, the plot reads like a male author's fantasy world of sex and violence. Much of the mystery consists of surprising relevations, in a deus-ex-mechina fashion, about who fathered whom (the ending suprise is totally egregious and unmotivated, apparently existing only for its own sake), and the author apparently revels in descriptions of the villainous aristocrats' overdrawn cruelty and the long-drawn-out decisive battle.

I will give him credit for his portrayal of the helplessness of the non-powerful in the early years of the fourteenth century. In his negative view of medieval life, he and Edith Pargeter, a.k.a. Ellis Peters (author of the thirteenth century Brother Cadfael series) balance each other. However, he commits a historian's howler by making the early protagonist a monk; although the size of their estates in the fourtenth century led abbots and their agents into the world on monastery (and, notoriously, occasionally personal) business, monks were explicitly dedicated to retiring from the world to a life of prayer, and were a branch of clergy quite distinct from diocesan priests entrusted with the care of a flock as Father Mark was.