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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An okay read, November 6, 2009
This review is from: A Plague of Poison (Templar Knight Mysteries, No. 3) (Mass Market Paperback)
#3 Bascot de Marins "Templar Knight" historical mystery set in 1201, Lincoln UK. Bascot, attempting to make a decision as to whether or not he should leave the Templars and accept King John's offer to have his father's lands restored to him and allow him to name an heir. He worries that his ward, Gianni, a ragamuffin that he rescued from a life of poverty on the streets, will end up back where he came from if he were to go back to his Templar brothers rather than leave the order and remain one of Nicolaa de la Haye's retainers.
He's distracted from thinking about his choices, however, when a rash of poisonings plague Lincoln, with several deaths both in castle and town, apparently through honey laced with a deadly herb that lead to a quick and violent death. Near-panic begins to take the townsfolk, with people suspicious of everyone around them. Lady Nicolaa places the castle cooks under orders to serve only plain, unspiced foods, and charges Bascot with finding the vile murderer. His first task is to determine the motive of the killer, and to do that, he must try to figure out if the actual victims were the intended victims.
I like this series and am beginning to like Bascot more each book, but one thing I have found is that there are too many peripheral characters, such that when the killer was revealed, I barely remembered who they were. While not a wholly satisfying book, I'll definitely read on--a great sense of time and place and interesting major characters overshadow the meandering investigation.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Mixed emotions, May 3, 2009
This review is from: A Plague of Poison (Templar Knight Mysteries, No. 3) (Mass Market Paperback)
I wanted very much to like this book. I found the protagonist and his young ward engaging, the writing fluid, the setting one of my favorite historical periods.
Unfortunately, knowing too much worked against me. Some rather startlingly inauthentic elements jarred me from engagement, the secondary characters were far too flat, and the almost comical "conclusion jumping" of many of the characters, including the protagonist Templar, made it hard to really believe in what was happening. Other reviewers have claimed the first two in the series were better. I'll have to give those books a chance and read them. The author and her main character are strong enough to cause me to do that, but I can't commend this book to a first time reader of the author. Start with something else.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A bitter honey, April 9, 2009
This review is from: A Plague of Poison (Templar Knight Mysteries, No. 3) (Mass Market Paperback)
First Sentence: With the celebration of Eastertide at the end of March, a warm spring radiance had descended on Lincoln.
Templar Knight Bascot de Marins is recovering in the castle at Lincoln after eight years captivity and torture in the Holy Lands. Someone has poisoned a scribe of the castle and the family of a merchant in the town. The poison is traced to a high-grade honey and the poisonings were deliberate. It is also realized that the victims where not those intended. The first victim was to have been the castle's castellan, who asks for Bascot's help in finding the killer.
I very much enjoyed the first two books of this series, but the third wore a bit thin. It is a classic investigative mystery, which was well done, but short on dialogue and contained very little suspense. Although we know something of the primary characters, there is not a lot of depth provided to them. The sense of time and place was adequate but not rich or terribly evocative. In all, I'd have to say this was a good read, but not much more than that.
In all, I'd have to say this was a good read, but not much more than that.
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