Adulterous widow Philippa hires attainted knight Crispin Guest to find a mysterious relic in her house, but he is more interested in finding her husband’s killer … and in her.
Finally, a medieval PI who doesn’t sound and act like Sam Spade. He is a bit too tormented for my taste, with endless grieving over his lost status. And I got tired of him being beaten up halfway through and skipped to the end. But the plot was moving along logically and the characters were true to their era.
Laurence is imprisoned on board ship and Temeraire is held in the breeding grounds by his concern for Laurence when Napoleon invades England.
I lost interest in this series with #4, but got #5 because I had hopes of a trial that would redeem the story. Instead, this book begins after the trial, with Laurence imprisoned and threatened with hanging if Temeraire misbehaves, but reported dead when his ship sinks. Novik’s judgmental attitude towards the humans who fail to treat the dragons better than equal shows a woeful lack of understanding of the times. White Europeans could and did treat black Africans and Asians of various colors as inconsequential barbarians. Further, an epidemic among their enemies would have been hailed as God’s providence, not a catastrophe that overrode their current warfare and called for sharing of cures. As soon as I realized this book was going to be more incorrect and illogical events, I gave up.
Erlendur and the team investigate the murder of a fired hotel doorman who may have been sitting on a fortune in rare records. Eva Lind has been clean since the death of her baby daughter but finds life not worth staying drug-free for. The team also watches the trial of a father who beat his young son almost to death.
Another well-written, moody/gloomy entry in the series. Not particularly fast-moving but it held my attention. Also not a cozy mystery where the clues are all laid out, but the reader learns them as Erlendur does.
Typical sappy romance. I sure don’t know why romance writers think nurses have nothing to do but fall in love with doctors, but I definitely find it annoying as well as untruthful.