So, it was a nice day today and I went for a walk to pick up some mint sauce. Well, technically, also to pick up some ship-to-store books I ordered to the local Chapters, since I don't do 1-hour round-trip walks just for mint sauce. Usually.
And while I'm waiting for the lamb I plan to eat it with to finish cooking, might as well catch up on the umpty recently-read book deficit.
A while ago, I finished
The Unquiet Bones by
Mel Starr, which is the 1st in his Chronicles of Hugh de Singleton, Intrepid Fief-Trotting Medieval English Surgeon murder mystery series, which had the first few volumes as a brief-lived and
probably glitch freebie, and then the 4th on sale, which I went and bought since it was cheap and I'd just gotten the first 3 books free.
Anyway, this was a rather nice historical mystery with actual history in it, not of the "personages and events" sort that usually gets written, but in terms of "medical practices and beliefs, and cultural notes, too", which it turns out, the author specializes in and teaches and incorporates to a prominent, but not overwhelming degree.
It's actually pretty nifty the way the author manages to balance the sort of forward-looking thinking we expect these days with period superstitions, so the titular surgeon Hugh ends up quasi-justifying practices like washing wounds with herb-steeped boiled water, and using alcohol to sterilize stuff without knowing that's actually what he's doing by saying that he has heard that "such-and-such noted authority X who is respected by the Church" has written on the subject and it seems to help, or some midwife in village Y did it that way and it didn't seem to hurt, so why not?
It's like seeing proto-empirical testing leading towards an ur-scientific method!
Which is probably more surprising than it should be, given that these are technically Christian fiction books from a dedicated Christian fiction publisher (Lion Hudson, a UK imprint, where, to be fair, the UK has a rather different kind of view of religion than the US, for the main part) and that Hugh himself is written as a former aspiring priest who discovered a greater calling for healing (and murder-solving, but we'll get to that).
As for the actual murder mystery case, it was a reasonably solid whodunnit with decently planted Clues™ and the examination thereof, and a couple of surprises which ultimately fit the explanation. And I liked that Hugh's medical practice existed mostly separately from his murder-solving remit and he didn't end up using most of his skills investigating the bodies (and in fact used the license of his growing circle of patients access to gather gossip leading to evidence).
In terms of characters, again, this story seemed fairly sensible and reasonable with both the short-term interactions and setting a long-term supporting cast. There were the obligatory love interest bits for several couples, some of which I'm pleased to say to say didn't work out since I'm a no-romo (not that I cheer bad break-ups; well, okay, sometimes if they're entertaining enough), because they were presented realistically in that possibly-mutual love across limiting boundaries don't necessarily conquer all and sometimes the stars are not right (unless it's to summon Cthulhu*) and you just have to settle for what you can get (before being devoured by squamous and rugose eldritch abominations).
Medium recommend if you're in the mood for proto-science-y medieval mysteries with reasonably well-explained and researched period-accurate medical and cultural practices. I'm already kind of committed to the first 4 in the series, but I enjoyed this enough that I've put the rest on the wishlist to await a price-drop (apparently a rather rare occurrence for this particular publisher).
More recently (as in, the book I finished a couple of days ago and am now on #2 in the series of), read
The King's Hounds by Danish author
Martin Jensen, translated by Tara Chace, 1st in another medieval murder mystery series, this one set in England under the Danelaw under the rule of King Cnut the Great, which is
currently on sale for $2 from Amazon's exclusive AmazonCrossing imprint for translated works.
I sometimes wonder what non-English readers think of AmazonCrossing's offerings, since as far as I can tell, the stuff that gets translated from English to mostly-German is mainly glorified self-pub stuff (ahahaha… I recognized amongst their titles one of the self-pub authors who got banned from MR for harassing people and then ended up on Fandom W*nk for harassing people on another self-pub promo forum he got banned from), whereas into English we're generally getting much nicer-looking things from prize-winning national bestseller types of authors.
In any case, Jensen is indeed one of said national bestselling authors in his native Denmark, and it's easy to see why.
This was the start of a very engaging series starring Halfdan, who is Exactly What It Says In His Name, a young half-Danish, half-Saxon dispossessed-by-the-recent-conquest nobleman's son who becomes the traveling companion/bodyguard/sidekick/Watson of Winston the (Saxon) Illuminator, a former about-to-be-monk who ultimately decided against taking vows† for reasons that are explained in his introductory backstory, and now travels around the Danelaw illuminating manuscripts in between solving murders.
Well, I'm kind of getting ahead of myself, since this is the story where they actually meet (and end up fighting crime!).
Anyway, the setup of this is that Winston the Illuminator has been summoned by a certain lady of high rank to illuminate a manuscript which requires a portrait of the newly-conquering King Cnut, and upon traveling to Oxford where said king is holding some kind of hostage-ransoming payment-taking and oath-swearing thing, finds that the lady is not there for safety reasons (there being a concentration of excitable people who are used to solving their problems with violence), but that King Cnut does have a use for him, having observed Winston's own keen observation when an inconveniently-murdered body suddenly turns up (as they so often do).
While these are almost purely narrated by Halfdan (excepting the prologues), I appreciated the dual-viewpoint of Halfdan's somewhat irreverent upper class warrior-trained-but-inexperienced youth view with his recounting of the forty-ish Winston's educated literate well-travelled lower-class Saxon perspective on matters. There's not only good banter between the two, but also a growing appreciation that's punctuated with occasional moments of pettishness and dissatisfaction, enough to make it seem like a realistically evolving relationship and not just a mutual admirationfest.
The unfolding of the case is handled fairly well, with both parties contributing their own unique skills towards helping to follow clues and gather evidence towards solving the crime, as well as picking up useful (and not-so-useful) tricks from one another.
Actually, I rather liked the resolution of the whodunnit, which was done in a surprising way where (not really spoilers, since I'm being pretty vague and mentioning things in a general abstract manner, but just in case)
A reminder, perhaps, that justice is not perfect, even in fiction, and subject to political considerations. Especially when it's based in an historical setting, on historical events involving actual historical people (most of the ones in here were likely made up, though, but I'm getting the feeling it was done so that Jensen could explore Issues That Conquering Danish Kings Have To Deal With By Assigning Saxon Illuminators To Investigate Them).
Medium-firm recommend for this, especially if you think you'll like the somewhat unusual setting. This has a few shaky patches, but overall the author incorporates a reasonable amount of cultural/historical detail for the time period (and makes distinctions between the different British tribes, which sometimes other medieval mystery/historical authors tend to lump into one as though they were a homogenous people back then, which they weren't, and distinguishes between 2nd+ generation Danes who've been occupying the Danelaw and the native Danes newly-arrived from the homeland) and explores the lingering political tensions due to the recent conquest (and ongoing long-term occupation) which he uses the conveniently half-Danish half-Saxon Halfdan to explain both sides of, and the character dynamic is fun.
I've already bought all the books currently available in English in this series, and have wishlisted the translation of the 3rd, which is out next year. After that, there are apparently at least 2 more already written in Danish, but unfortunately my shaky grasp of written Danish (actually, written Norwegian, which is mostly close enough) is nowhere near good enough to read the originals. So,
that they sell well enough that AmazonCrossing keeps translating them!
* Kids, don't try this at home.
† Which kind of makes this 2-for-2 in terms of my reading medieval murder mysteries involving lapsed-former-about-to-be-clergy-turned-high-demand-specialist-professionals. Is there some kind of backstory trend going on?