Originally published on my blog here in April 2000.Many historical novelists have a period of history for which their writing seems particularly well suited. This is partly because writing a good historical novel involves a good deal of research, so that the background is most convincing when it ...
I've enjoyed all of the books in the Brother Athelstan series, and read several of Harding's (aka P.C. Doherty and other names) other mystery series, generally finding them extremely well-researched and well-written if at times a bit dry and humorless. "House of Crows" was a delight, however, wit...
I decided to give the series a second go after not really enjoying the first, and perhaps unsurprisingly, I didn't particularly enjoy the second book in this series either. I really wanted to, and tried hard, but in the end, no. I even put it down for several months before deciding to finish th...
I'm still reading the medieval mystery series starring Hugh Corbett, although I'm almost up to date, woohoo!!! This is the 15th in the series and was another great medieval 'whodunnit', published in 2007.This time the historical fiction was set in 1300 - 1303 and the plot involved the legend of a...
Some stories will fit in any setting and this is one. Let the world hear about a possible buried treasure and large numbers will set out to find and claim it, even allowing for the crown's claim on treasure trove. In fact, the crown itself in the person of John of Gaunt, the Lord Protector, might...
Another murder mystery solved, but not by me :) I wondered but wrongfully gave up on who I thought it was in the beginning. You do get a little help with who the murderer is because it's never the characters that appear in all the books, it's always one of the new characters. Kind of like so of t...
I'll be kind here; maybe more of a 2.5. Another in the series of ancient Egyptian mysteries featuring the astute Chief Judge Amerotke and his sidekick the dwarf Shufoy during the reign of Hatshepsut [Hatusu]. This one involves tomb robbers, murders, arson and kidnapping of four temple maidens. Th...
I'm having a tough time sticking with this book. Too much of it is just not right.Why, for instance, would the pharaoh insist that only mutilated people serve his son? There was no explanation that I caught. Akhenaten was never called The Veiled One. He was given a name and called by that - it...
It's has been quite awhile since I last read a Paul Doherty historical mystery so I had forgotten his ability to transport magically to a specific time and place with his descriptive narrative. Sadly though, the story is set in the Middle Ages where the smell of body sweat, rotting sewage and gen...
Satan’s Fire written by Paul C. Doherty and featuring Sir Hugh Corbett, a clerk in the court of Edward I of England starts when the King visits York to meet the French envoy, to discuss the terms of marriage between the King’s son and the daughter of the King of France, Phillip III. No sooner had...
Another Winner for the Author: Paul Doherty is the consummate storyteller and whatever subject he happens to pick to write about the books and the characters within them seem to come to life. Be it medieval England or Ancient Egypt his grasp of the subject is always first class. He has written ma...
a murder mystery set in Rome at the time of the Emperor Constantine! The "detective" is a young woman in the service of Constantine's mother, Helena. We get a picture of what Rome was like at the very beginning of the ascendancy of the Christian church. Two crimes which seem to be totally unrelat...
This one was a slow starter for me and then I couldn't put it down!Set in the reign of Emperor Constantine when Christianity is no longer proscribed but not yet the official religion. Young Claudia agent of Empress Helena is summoned to the imperial summer residence to solve the mystery of a stol...
