Review: Medieval noir but kept me reading anyway
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 03 25, 2013
In thirteenth century England, retired soldier turned assistant coroner Stephen Attebrook accepts a private commission to find and bring back a runaway apprentice that turns into a feud with a nobleman. When the apprentice's hard-hearted master turns up dead, the town instantly convicts the mouthy boy. But Stephen continues searching for another candidate.Mixed reactions on this one. Vail kept me reading, always a good sign. But the storyline almost qualifies as a medieval PI story, with someone attempting to kill Stephen every few pages in between him brooding on his sad history, and an almost complete lack of likable characters: the apprentice thinks he is the center of the universe, his new wife keeps jibing at Stephen, even the local beggar needles Stephen. And the political complexities left me confused as to who supported whom. Vail also suffers from the novice historical writer's tendency to information dumps, although most of his were mercifully short. (The exception was a long, lovingly detailed description of Stephen arming himself for a duel. Totally irrelevant to the storyline.) Spelling, grammar, and Kindle formatting were mostly okay; Vail used principle instead of principal, hair lip instead of harelip - errors but not story-shattering. Vail started every chapter with the location, month, and year. But the month and year didn't change during the whole book, so I'm not sure what the point was of repeating that information every chapter. The title was appropriate but not creative. Noir fans will probably enjoy this more than I did, but I liked it enough to at least try the next in the series.