LION HEARTS

In a trilogy finale, swashbuckling mercenaries the Essex Dogs, having gone their separate ways following the bloody siege of Calais, find their way back to each other to fight a new enemy.

With the imminent marriage of King Edward III’s daughter Princess Joan and Castilian regent Alfonso XI’s son Prince Pedro, an easing of tensions between England and its pirating rival is in reach. But all bets are off after Joan dies of the plague. Weary, battle-scarred ex-Dog Loveday FitzTalbot has hopes of settling down with his companion, Gilda, in the English town of Winchelsea, where he buys a tavern. But his life is thrown into turmoil after he turns for help in fixing the tavern’s leaky roof to the king’s sergeant-at-arms Richard Large, who wants to recruit him for the fight against Castilian pirates. Reluctant at first, Loveday is drawn in after the Castilians rampage through town, burning down his tavern and beating him to a pulp. Then the old warrior encounters his young archer, Romford, who also needs Large’s aid. Romford’s lavish earnings from the fighting in France have petered out through loans to his strapped mentor, Sir Thomas, who is still waiting for the ransom Edward promised him for kidnapping a French aristocrat, the Count of Eu. Romford plans to sneak the count out of Windsor and sell him back to the French. Compared to the widescreen action and ribald turns of Essex Dogs (2022) and Wolves of Winter (2023), this final volume takes a while to really get going. But it’s worth the wait to see the reunited Dogs, including their long-presumed dead comrade Scotsman, rediscover their passion for battle: “Once a man has been to war, it will always come and find him again.”

Jones scores again with this highly entertaining, impeccably researched adventure.