Customer Reviews

The Tainted Relic

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

 

 

'The Tainted Relic' is collaboration between the 'Medieval Murderers' collective of murder mystery writers (namely Simon Beaufort, Michael Jecks, Susanna Gregory, Bernard Knight, Ian Morson, Philip Gooden). The relic in question is (allegedly) a piece of the true cross taken from Jerusalem after the Second Crusade took the city in July 1100. The Crusaders' victory is marked by indiscriminate slaughter of Jews and Moslems living in the city, and the Arab guardian of this relic curses it after finding that the Crusaders have butchered his family and are about to cut him down. The relic brings death to those who possess it, and travels through the medieval timeline in England, encountering the different characters and eras which have been used by the Medieval Murderers in their respective novels. What makes this novel particularly interesting -apart from the joint author aspect- is that you can read it as a sequence of murder mysteries, or you can read it as a horror novel. Or perhaps on a more esoteric level,as a comment on the nature of Medieval Christendom, forever corrupted by the brutality of July 1100.

This is the first work in historical murder mystery I have ever seen with multiple authors writing on the same theme. While not all the authors meet the level of Jecks or Knight, the work as a whole still deserves 5 stars. You may not like parts of this "meal" but you won't leave hungry for a treat in murder mystery. It starts in one time period and ends ... well buy it and read it. They don't pay me, I purchase their works when not reading academic works, etc. I am also disabled veteran who needs a break from the other materials mentioned. It was my good fortune to find Jecks and Knight and now these other friends of theirs. There are too many writing "murder mystery" and getting away with their writing and folks like these not getting the credit due them.

In many ways, The Tainted Relic is five separate novellas all created with a single theme. An interesting concept, five different writers each take a period of time and then build a story around an alleged splinter of Jesus' cross that is stained with his blood. An invaluable possession in the medieval period of the stories, it carries with it a curse that leaves everyone that comes in contact with it dead. The stories are loosely connected across time, and provide for some good casual reading.

This was a good idea, to have several writers get together and work on a common theme. It has been done before and most of the ideas came off quite well. This particular book did not quite make the grade.

The basic story is a good one. A piece of the true cross with a curse attached to it as it from hand-to-hand during different periods. A short story from each of the authors covers each period. Unfortunately, some of the authors were not that good and the story as a whole suffered because of that.

Group of well known historical mystery writers got together and wrote a novel in installments. Sounds like a grand idea. The piece of the True Cross is exchanging hands through centuries, bringing death as a consequence of an ancient curse.

All the writers are well respected schollars of history and it shows in their books. We learn a lot about the times long past without having to read dusty historical books. That part of the whole project works great. Things get little bumpy in execution, when the connections between the chapters get a bit stretched.

All and all, it is very entertaining if a little too long book. I'll gladly try another one.

This book is well written and I particularly like the access to more then one author of the genre that it offers. It's a good way to sample the work of an author before buying their full blown novels.

The reading of this novel was helpful to me because it gave me a chance to sample the writing style of five different* authors. The basic story follows the travels of a religious relic from Jerusalem to modern day London. This relic was said to have been cursed by it's caretaker when the soldiers of the Crusade invaded the city of Jerusalem and committed wholesale slaughter, often for absolutely no reason whatsoever. According to the curse, any person who actually touched the relic itself, not just the container, would die as soon as the relic had passed into the hands of another. The segments are written in novella form, meaning that there are no chapter breaks, merely spaces within the segments which signify passage of time or moving to the perspective of another character. This is how the story progresses:

Prologue - Jerusalem 1100, pages 1-27, written by Simon Beaufort*

Act One - Devonshire 1194, pages 28-108, written by Bernard Knight

Act Two - Oxford 1269, pages 109-194, written by Ian Morson

Act Three - Lincolnshire, 1323, pages 195-293, written by Michael Jecks

Act Four - Cambridge, 1353, pages 294-425, written by Susanna Gregory*

Act Five - London, 16??, pages 426-500, written by Philip Gooden

Epilogue - London, 2005, two pages, written by Bernard Knight

*Beaufort is the pseudonym of Gregory

I had already read a novel by one of the authors featured here and had not liked the style of writing, but I did want to use this method to find out whether I might enjoy reading the works of some of the other authors. The book served it's purpose in that way, but this particular novel is not something I would ever wish to read again. The story is very uneven, surely a result of so many differing styles of writing, and I found that it was really rather uninteresting to me. I could never make myself care anything about what was happening to the relic and since that is the item which carried through from one "act" to another the book never worked for me on anything more than a superficial, investigative level. The Epilogue does make for such an ironic ending that I just groaned aloud.

These authors are doing a great job with the stories. The story flows well from one author to the next.Great Job!!

This book is very uneven and at times almost painful to read. I would have appreciated the author's names being listed with each short story. If I am understanding the layout correctly, it would appear that Susanna Gregory is the author of Act Four - the story that I found most tedious. This is surprising since I generally like what she writes under her Simon Beauford pseudonym. I would not recommend to other than the most dedicated mystery medieval history fans.

I read Tainted Relic and Sword of Shame, and am looking forward to other books by this excellent set of authors!