So it has been too long since I have signed in. I had teased that I would write about Tatiana de Rosnay's latest book, A Secret Kept. I will admit that I got through the beginning of the book, but I couldn't get interested enough to finish it.It wouldn't be fair to review the book, since I'm not completely sure that it just wasn't the time for me to read it. Since then, I have plowed through a bunch of seriously crappy novels. The Demon's Parchment isn't included in the list of crappy books.
This is the third book in the Crispin Guest series. Author Jeri Westerson calls these "medieval noir." They are mystery stories with the hint of the supernatural. In the first book, Veil of Lies, we meet Crispin Guest, a dishonored knight that barely escaped execution after joining a conspirancy to assassinate King Richard II. Crispin now makes a living as a sort of private investigator. He's gained enough fame to be known around London as "The Tracker." The second book in the series is Serpent in the Thorns. Both of these books have Crispin looking for one relic of another.
Not high literature, but entertaining and quick to read. In this installment, the relic is Jewish, not Christian. Westerson doesn't modernize Crispin completely, which a little annoying but more realistic. In the beginning he's anti-Semitic, just as most Christians were back then I'm sure. He's hired by the Queen's physician, a French Jew brought in to help the Queen conceive, to find a Jewish manuscript which contains information that could doom the doctor and his son. Crispin doesn't readily agree.
The story moves quickly, with a few surprises (and not so surprising surprises) here and there. Although he's incredibly smart, Crispin does manage to get into trouble that he could avoid. He gets beat up several time, as he does in the first two books. He's no superhero. Still, he's likable enough that you want him to succeed.
I'm not particularly good at figuring out who did what, and I have to say I figured it out right away in The Demon's Parchment. Still, I wanted to see how Westerson got the reader to the big reveal. She has given Jack, Crispin's young "valet" if you will, a bigger role with each passing book. I'll enjoy seeing him work his way to becoming Watson to Crispin's Holmes.
Next up: The Imperfectionists, by Tom Rachman.
