History, mythology, and mystery mix in a rollicking adventure that offers a fresh perspective on the famous Arthurian legend.
In 1396, a famous tracker of men and objects leaves London for the wilds of Cornwall in search of a fabulous treasure.
Crispin Guest and his apprentice, Jack Tucker (Traitor’s Codex, 2019, etc.), meet by chance with Carantok Teague, a Cornishman who offers them a large sum to help him track down the mythical Excalibur. Although neither is convinced the sword exists, they leave immediately on the long trip to Treknow, the closest village to Tintagel. Since Crispin, a disgraced but honorable former knight, refuses to participate in illegal treasure hunting, it’s fortunate that Teague has an old letter from King Edward III allowing him to search for treasure. A group of traveling players they encounter includes Kat Pyke, a former lover, burglar, and swindler who’s bested Crispin in the past. Crispin also meets the scholarly Marzhin Gwyls, a caretaker at Tintagel Castle, a crumpled ruin guarded by a few men at arms and a constable. On their first visit, Teague moves the heavy stone over the hole where he stores some of his treasures only to find the body of a man at arms. The castle constable asks Crispin to find Roger Bennet’s killer. The castle is barely guarded, and Bennet had a reputation as a womanizer who had earned the enmity of many a maiden. While Crispin investigates the murder, Jack helps Teague search for the sword, and Kat, always interested in items of value, seduces Crispin, who should know better. Among the suspects are the villagers, Bennet’s fellows at Tintagel, and hostile pagans living nearby. Teague, it turns out, does indeed have a nose for treasure, and the search looks to be successful if they’re not all killed off by the mysterious person who’s killed another man at arms and left Kat to take the blame.
History, mythology, and mystery mix in a rollicking adventure that offers a fresh perspective on the famous Arthurian legend.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-7278-8921-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Severn House
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
Irritatingly trite woman-in-periler from lawyer-turned-novelist Baldacci. Moving away from the White House and the white-shoe Washington law firms of his previous bestsellers (Absolute Power, 1996; Total Control, 1997), Baldacci comes up with LuAnn Tyler, a spunky, impossibly beautiful, white-trash truck stop waitress with a no-good husband and a terminally cute infant daughter in tow. Some months after the birth of Lisa, LuAnn gets a phone call summoning her to a make-shift office in an unrented storefront of the local shopping mall. There, she gets a Faustian offer from a Mr. Jackson, a monomaniacal, cross-dressing manipulator who apparently knows the winning numbers in the national lottery before the numbers are drawn. It seems that LuAnn fits the media profile of what a lottery winner should be—poor, undereducated but proud—and if she's willing to buy the right ticket at the right time and transfer most of her winnings to Jackson, she'll be able to retire in luxury. Jackson fails to inform her, however, that if she refuses his offer, he'll have her killed. Before that can happen, as luck would have it, LuAnn barely escapes death when one of husband Duane's drug deals goes bad. She hops on a first-class Amtrak sleeper to Manhattan with a hired executioner in pursuit. But executioner Charlie, one of Jackson's paid handlers, can't help but hear wedding bells when he sees LuAnn cooing with her daughter. Alas, a winning $100- million lottery drawing complicates things. Jackson spirits LuAnn and Lisa away to Sweden, with Charlie in pursuit. Never fear. Not only will LuAnn escape a series of increasingly violent predicaments, but she'll also outwit Jackson, pay an enormous tax bill to the IRS, and have enough left over to honeymoon in Switzerland. Too preposterous to work as feminine wish-fulfillment, too formulaic to be suspenseful. (Book-of-the-Month Club main selection)
Pub Date: Dec. 2, 1997
ISBN: 0-446-52259-7
Page Count: 528
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1997
A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be...
Box takes another break from his highly successful Joe Pickett series (Stone Cold, 2014, etc.) for a stand-alone about a police detective, a developmentally delayed boy, and a package everyone in North Dakota wants to grab.
Cassandra Dewell can’t leave Montana’s Lewis and Clark County fast enough for her new job as chief investigator for Jon Kirkbride, sheriff of Bakken County. She leaves behind no memories worth keeping: her husband is dead, her boss has made no bones about disliking her, and she’s looking forward to new responsibilities and the higher salary underwritten by North Dakota’s sudden oil boom. But Bakken County has its own issues. For one thing, it’s cold—a whole lot colder than the coldest weather Cassie’s ever imagined. For another, the job she turns out to have been hired for—leading an investigation her new boss doesn’t feel he can entrust to his own force—makes her queasy. The biggest problem, though, is one she doesn’t know about until it slaps her in the face. A fatal car accident that was anything but accidental has jarred loose a stash of methamphetamines and cash that’s become the center of a battle between the Sons of Freedom, Bakken County’s traditional drug sellers, and MS-13, the Salvadorian upstarts who are muscling in on their territory. It’s a setup that leaves scant room for law enforcement officers or for Kyle Westergaard, the 12-year-old paperboy damaged since birth by fetal alcohol syndrome, who’s walked away from the wreck with a prize all too many people would kill for.
A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be welcome to return and tie up the gaping loose end Box leaves. The unrelenting cold makes this the perfect beach read.Pub Date: July 28, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-58321-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: April 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
