Sunday, August 19, 2012

Rashmi bookmarks “The Hangman’s Hymn”


Paul C. Doherty creates historical crime / mysteries set in the Middle Ages, taking, as his setting, well known stories, legends and myths from Classical Greek, Ancient Egypt etc.

Prior to reading The Hangman’s Hymn, I had read The Cup of Ghosts (from the Mathilde of Westminster Series) and The Mask of Ra, The Horus Killings and The Anubis Slayings (from The Egyptian Mysteries). Those books had been amazing discoveries; I had not read anything along these lines, and was also very impressed with the style of writing - simple, yet powerful enough to take me back hundreds and thousands of years with each read, and with an urgent and undying sense of intrigue!

The Hangman’s Hymn is part of the ‘Canterbury Tales’ series of books (based, of course, on The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, which depicts a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together on a journey from Southwark to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral).

Before I go any further into this review, I have to say, when I borrowed this book from the library, I did not realize I was picking up a book that was part of a series - and not even the first of a series, at that! So this review is for this book alone. Perhaps in conjunction with the whole, it might have been a better read; unfortunately, this tale, narrated by the Carpenter, was not one of my more memorable reads.

The story seemed to waver between horror and a murder mystery - and ended up being weak at both. The horror parts were barely spooky; all the typical ingredients were there - the witches, the un-dead… but it just was not scary (and this coming from a relatively squeamish person!) The mystery element was not enough either - the plot was too dragged out, and eventually the payout was just not there. As an example, one person who is, after a long time, discovered to be in league with the witches, says he took that route, as he was bitter about a missed promotion he felt was rightfully his.

The description of the period and the details that go into creating the ambience (that I have known in Doherty’s other books) are still good.

I do realize it might not be fair to review this book as a standalone… perhaps read as a whole, this portion of a series might not seem quite as weak… in time, I will read the entire series and revisit this Tale!

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