Thoroughly enjoyable, if less exciting than The Last Hours. Read them both, and in order.
Survivors of the Black Death’s terror search for safety in this sequel to The Last Hours (2018).
In 1348, while pustules and agonizing death plague the rest of the English countryside, Lady Anne has the good sense to wall off Develish and surround it with a moat. So no one there dies from the plague, but they can’t survive indefinitely in isolation. “Milady” has backup from Thaddeus Thurkell, a strong, intelligent, and courageous serf. Readers of the first novel will know many of the details already because the two books are one tightly woven story. For example, Sir Richard, Anne’s late and unlamented husband, not only impregnated their daughter, Eleanor, but carelessly helped spread the plague (the dirty rat!). Most have no clue of the plague’s cause. The official answer of church and royalty is that God really, really hates sinners—apparently even those whose infractions are trivial or imagined—so He inflicts a pestilence that could “[rob] all England of its peasant class.” Of course it afflicts nobles as well, because “the pestilence makes equals of us all.” But Milady sees the problem as not wrath but rats, hence the wall and moat. She conspires with Thurkell for him to go away and return as My Lord of Athelstan so he’ll be better able to protect her people. Then he must safely lead everyone from the village through a countryside laid low by disease. They face strong opposition from enemies such as Master de Courtesmain, who thinks Thurkell a “harlot-hatched bastard” as well as a thief and murderer. Courtesmain also correctly accuses Milady and Thurkell of conspiring to let the serfs of Develish buy themselves out of bondage. Thurkell’s bravery complements Lady Anne’s use of “kindness and reason to quell the anger in men’s hearts.” We should be “loved and honored for who we are,” Lady Anne writes. Yes indeed.
Thoroughly enjoyable, if less exciting than The Last Hours. Read them both, and in order.Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7783-0883-6
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Harlequin MIRA
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
More of a western than a mystery, like most of Joe’s adventures, and all the better for the open physical clashes that...
Wyoming Game and Fish Warden Joe Pickett (Free Fire, 2007, etc.), once again at the governor’s behest, stalks the wraithlike figure who’s targeting elk hunters for death.
Frank Urman was taken down by a single rifle shot, field-dressed, beheaded and hung upside-down to bleed out. (You won’t believe where his head eventually turns up.) The poker chip found near his body confirms that he’s the third victim of the Wolverine, a killer whose animus against hunters is evidently being whipped up by anti-hunting activist Klamath Moore. The potential effects on the state’s hunting revenues are so calamitous that Governor Spencer Rulon pulls out all the stops, and Pickett is forced to work directly with Wyoming Game and Fish Director Randy Pope, the boss who fired him from his regular job in Saddlestring District. Three more victims will die in rapid succession before Joe is given a more congenial colleague: Nate Romanowski, the outlaw falconer who pledged to protect Joe’s family before he was taken into federal custody. As usual in this acclaimed series, the mystery is slight and its solution eminently guessable long before it’s confirmed by testimony from an unlikely source. But the people and scenes and enduring conflicts that lead up to that solution will stick with you for a long time.
More of a western than a mystery, like most of Joe’s adventures, and all the better for the open physical clashes that periodically release the tension between the scheming adversaries.Pub Date: May 20, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-399-15488-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2008
This ran in the S.E.P. and resulted in more demands for the story in book form than ever recorded. Well, here it is and it is a honey. Imagine ten people, not knowing each other, not knowing why they were invited on a certain island house-party, not knowing their hosts. Then imagine them dead, one by one, until none remained alive, nor any clue to the murderer. Grand suspense, a unique trick, expertly handled.
Pub Date: Feb. 21, 1939
ISBN: 0062073478
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Dodd, Mead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1939
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2025 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.
