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lreay89's review
2.0
Not my favourite book of the year but passable. It got off to a strong start and feels really atmospheric.
My major issue with this book is I’m not sure how Athelstan actually figured out who the murderer was. It just happened so out of the blue and quickly at the end with lots of meandering around in taverns with the coroner getting drunk in between.
It’s not a bad book by any stretch of the imagination I just felt myself getting bored and skipping large chunks of text towards the end of the book which was a shame after the strong start. Not my cup of tea but not a bad book all in all.
My major issue with this book is I’m not sure how Athelstan actually figured out who the murderer was. It just happened so out of the blue and quickly at the end with lots of meandering around in taverns with the coroner getting drunk in between.
It’s not a bad book by any stretch of the imagination I just felt myself getting bored and skipping large chunks of text towards the end of the book which was a shame after the strong start. Not my cup of tea but not a bad book all in all.
didactylos's review
2.0
I have little interest in the intricacies of the life of a friar, nor do I tend to the ‘it was all mud and misery’ in the Middle Ages....... so I found this tedious in the attention to the details aforementioned. The main characters take a long time to develop and frankly lost my concern for them as people. The narrative plods..... I won’t be reading any more of what I gather is a lengthy series.
lccstutterheim's review
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
indigoviolet86's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
informative
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
jhbandcats's review
adventurous
dark
informative
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
A disappointment. Interesting enough story but I had a lot of problems with the way it was written - or (not) edited. Word repetition - for example, the word "squat,” which isn't too common in regular conversation, was used twice in the introduction and again later.
There's an opening scene where Friar Athelstan and the coroner Sir John travel through the poorer area of Cheapside. It seems like the author wanted to include everything he'd ever learned about a medieval city - rubbish piles of dead animals and excrement, "stinking streets,” women with "plucked eyebrows and white pasty faces," a skeletal woman "crooning over her dying baby,” etc. It just seemed like these descriptions were checked off on a list of examples of medieval life.
Aside from the friar, none of the other characters is remotely likable. Sir John is repellent, an odd choice for a main character who's a good guy. At least there was a cat….
This is the first of a long series but I won't be reading any more.
There's an opening scene where Friar Athelstan and the coroner Sir John travel through the poorer area of Cheapside. It seems like the author wanted to include everything he'd ever learned about a medieval city - rubbish piles of dead animals and excrement, "stinking streets,” women with "plucked eyebrows and white pasty faces," a skeletal woman "crooning over her dying baby,” etc. It just seemed like these descriptions were checked off on a list of examples of medieval life.
Aside from the friar, none of the other characters is remotely likable. Sir John is repellent, an odd choice for a main character who's a good guy. At least there was a cat….
This is the first of a long series but I won't be reading any more.
jhbandcats's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
informative
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
A disappointment. Interesting enough story but I had a lot of problems with the way it was written - or (not) edited. Word repetition - for example, the word "squat," which isn't too common in regular conversation, was used twice in the introduction and again later.
There's an opening scene where Friar Athelstan and the coroner Sir John travel through the poorer area of Cheapside. It seems like the author wanted to include everything he'd ever learned about a medieval city
rubbish piles of dead animals and excrement, "stinking streets", women with "plucked eyebrows and white pasty faces," a skeletal woman "crooning over her dying baby,” etc. It just seemed like these descriptions were checked off on a list of examples of medieval life.
Aside from the friar, none of the other characters is remotely likable. Sir John is repellent, an odd choice for a main character who's a good guy. At least there was a cat.
This is the first of a long series but I won't be reading any more.
There's an opening scene where Friar Athelstan and the coroner Sir John travel through the poorer area of Cheapside. It seems like the author wanted to include everything he'd ever learned about a medieval city
rubbish piles of dead animals and excrement, "stinking streets", women with "plucked eyebrows and white pasty faces," a skeletal woman "crooning over her dying baby,” etc. It just seemed like these descriptions were checked off on a list of examples of medieval life.
Aside from the friar, none of the other characters is remotely likable. Sir John is repellent, an odd choice for a main character who's a good guy. At least there was a cat.
This is the first of a long series but I won't be reading any more.
viktorreads's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Blood, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Death, Excrement, Fatphobia, Confinement, Gore, Homophobia, Murder, Pedophilia, Police brutality, Suicide, Violence, Transphobia, and Vomit
Moderate: Addiction, Ableism, Bullying, Child abuse, Death, Fatphobia, Excrement, Grief, Homophobia, and Pedophilia
vesper1931's review
4.0
1376 A goldsmith named Sir Thomas Springall has been found in his bed, murdered. Sir John Cranston, coroner and his assistant Brother Athelstan are called in to investigate. But how and why was he killed. Then there is another death.
An enjoyable historical mystery
An enjoyable historical mystery
frater's review
2.0
This is the probably the most mixed review i've had to give a book in quite a while. Anyone who follows my reviews knows that i'm not overly difficult to please - I simply like to be entertained when I read a story, however right up until the last page I was set to give this one only 2 stars, possibly my first 2-star review for the year.
So first, the bad:
I expected a lot from this book as I'd seen Doherty praised, a lot, in mystery lover circles, and historical crime novels - particularly those set in middle-age England - are among my favourite story indulgence. This was however his first novel, so perhaps I am being overly harsh, but for such a short book it really draaaags.
The central story of Nightingale Gallery is quite a clever little locked-room mystery, with a few Christie-like flourishes and an entertaining cast of characters. However, the key to a good, entertaining historical mystery is to have a complex, well research setting as a background to the story itself. Background being the key word. Whilst you expect the setting, differences in culture and law and the like to play major parts in the story, Doherty indulges himself in this novel, showing off his research in endlessly tedious and pointless scenes.
As an example, one long extended scene over quite a few pages simply has the main character walking from one place to another, and describes the route he takes (street by street) and everything that happens along the way. The story doesn't benefit from this scene at all - nothing that occurs has any relevance to the story itself, it is just an excuse for the author to play with his historical toys for a while, forcing us to watch as he does so.
Maybe i'm not the target audience for this novel, but I am familiar with history in broad strokes, and some parts in detail. I read works of historical non-fiction and find them quite entertaining, and I have read many works of historical crime fiction, because as I said before they are one of my favourite indulgences.
The point is, I already know that in the 14th century, London's streets were paved in shit. That it smelt bad, that people were poor and unhealthy, that the rats were numerous enough to form their own union for better wages and so-on. Had that entire lengthy multi-page love letter to his research notes been entirely omitted and replaced with "Athelstan spent the morning pushing through the crowds to X", the story wouldn't have suffered in the slightest.
In fact, if you remove all of the indulgent padding, what you're left with is closer to a short story than a full novel, and probably would have felt tighter and more satisfying if it had been one. If the setting material had instead been crafted in smaller chunks, with more subtlety, maybe it would have made a nice novella.
Unfortunately, the mystery section fell flat for me as well. Although it was, as I said previously, a clever little mystery - Doherty, at least in this book, doesn't "play fair" as fans of Dame Christie would know it. Instead, he uses the annoying little tricks and smirks at the reader to try and build up tension. Letters get read by the characters that "suddenly explain things", but their contents are not revealed to the reader. The protagonist, while meditating, "suddenly realises what he saw and what it means" but this realisation isn't presented to the reader until later chapters. One of the major telling pieces of evidence that gives away the murderer is a wood carving that is described in quite a lot of detail, however the single most important detail of the carving is withheld from the reader, for the protagonist to dramatically reveal in the final scenes. The details are withheld, of course, because if available to the reader the mystery would be no mystery at all - the answer is obvious. Which then leads to the obvious question; What took them so long to figure it out? There are no real twists in this story, the only surprises come from things that were noticed or told to the sleuths but never to the reader.
The reason I gave this book three stars instead of two, can be narrowed down to a single quote on one of the last pages:
"A moment later Athelstan header him roaring to Cecily the courtesan that he didn't care how pretty her arse was, she was to get out of his saddle!"
For all its faults, there is a certain amount of charm in the book, primarily in some of the colourful characters. They are not always believable - it may be that i'm just coming off "Lamentations" by Sansom, whose portrayal of the real terrors of life in the final years of King Henry VIII are a work of claustrophobic genius, but I find it very difficult to accept characters or relatively low station (or in the case of Athelstan, _very_ low station; a dominican parish priest isn't that much up the social ladder from a mendicant) feeling perfectly nonchalant in close quarters with the Regent of England, and his charge the young king. Doherty, who spends pages describing how ordure builds up in the alleys, doesn't even have his main characters bow to the most powerful men in the land. As Athelstan the dominican friar happily gives his Poirot-like rambling accusation story, he speaks to these lords as equals.
For this reason among others, Athelstan, the main protagonist, is probably one of the least sympathetic characters in the book. It was disappointing, I expected Susanna Gregory's Bartholemew, but I got a cardboard cut-out that doesn't quite fit instead.
And after all that, i've actually talked myself back down to two stars after all. I will try more novels in the series, to see if they improve over time, but I doubt i'll ever be back to re-read Athelstan's first steps.
TLDR; -- Not a terrible book, but when your alternative choices include Susanna Gregory's Bartholomew stories, Candace Robb's Owen Archer stories, Ellis Peters' Cadfael stories and C. J. Sansom's Shardlake series - i'm not sure why you'd bother.
So first, the bad:
I expected a lot from this book as I'd seen Doherty praised, a lot, in mystery lover circles, and historical crime novels - particularly those set in middle-age England - are among my favourite story indulgence. This was however his first novel, so perhaps I am being overly harsh, but for such a short book it really draaaags.
The central story of Nightingale Gallery is quite a clever little locked-room mystery, with a few Christie-like flourishes and an entertaining cast of characters. However, the key to a good, entertaining historical mystery is to have a complex, well research setting as a background to the story itself. Background being the key word. Whilst you expect the setting, differences in culture and law and the like to play major parts in the story, Doherty indulges himself in this novel, showing off his research in endlessly tedious and pointless scenes.
As an example, one long extended scene over quite a few pages simply has the main character walking from one place to another, and describes the route he takes (street by street) and everything that happens along the way. The story doesn't benefit from this scene at all - nothing that occurs has any relevance to the story itself, it is just an excuse for the author to play with his historical toys for a while, forcing us to watch as he does so.
Maybe i'm not the target audience for this novel, but I am familiar with history in broad strokes, and some parts in detail. I read works of historical non-fiction and find them quite entertaining, and I have read many works of historical crime fiction, because as I said before they are one of my favourite indulgences.
The point is, I already know that in the 14th century, London's streets were paved in shit. That it smelt bad, that people were poor and unhealthy, that the rats were numerous enough to form their own union for better wages and so-on. Had that entire lengthy multi-page love letter to his research notes been entirely omitted and replaced with "Athelstan spent the morning pushing through the crowds to X", the story wouldn't have suffered in the slightest.
In fact, if you remove all of the indulgent padding, what you're left with is closer to a short story than a full novel, and probably would have felt tighter and more satisfying if it had been one. If the setting material had instead been crafted in smaller chunks, with more subtlety, maybe it would have made a nice novella.
Unfortunately, the mystery section fell flat for me as well. Although it was, as I said previously, a clever little mystery - Doherty, at least in this book, doesn't "play fair" as fans of Dame Christie would know it. Instead, he uses the annoying little tricks and smirks at the reader to try and build up tension. Letters get read by the characters that "suddenly explain things", but their contents are not revealed to the reader. The protagonist, while meditating, "suddenly realises what he saw and what it means" but this realisation isn't presented to the reader until later chapters. One of the major telling pieces of evidence that gives away the murderer is a wood carving that is described in quite a lot of detail, however the single most important detail of the carving is withheld from the reader, for the protagonist to dramatically reveal in the final scenes. The details are withheld, of course, because if available to the reader the mystery would be no mystery at all - the answer is obvious. Which then leads to the obvious question; What took them so long to figure it out? There are no real twists in this story, the only surprises come from things that were noticed or told to the sleuths but never to the reader.
The reason I gave this book three stars instead of two, can be narrowed down to a single quote on one of the last pages:
"A moment later Athelstan header him roaring to Cecily the courtesan that he didn't care how pretty her arse was, she was to get out of his saddle!"
For all its faults, there is a certain amount of charm in the book, primarily in some of the colourful characters. They are not always believable - it may be that i'm just coming off "Lamentations" by Sansom, whose portrayal of the real terrors of life in the final years of King Henry VIII are a work of claustrophobic genius, but I find it very difficult to accept characters or relatively low station (or in the case of Athelstan, _very_ low station; a dominican parish priest isn't that much up the social ladder from a mendicant) feeling perfectly nonchalant in close quarters with the Regent of England, and his charge the young king. Doherty, who spends pages describing how ordure builds up in the alleys, doesn't even have his main characters bow to the most powerful men in the land. As Athelstan the dominican friar happily gives his Poirot-like rambling accusation story, he speaks to these lords as equals.
For this reason among others, Athelstan, the main protagonist, is probably one of the least sympathetic characters in the book. It was disappointing, I expected Susanna Gregory's Bartholemew, but I got a cardboard cut-out that doesn't quite fit instead.
And after all that, i've actually talked myself back down to two stars after all. I will try more novels in the series, to see if they improve over time, but I doubt i'll ever be back to re-read Athelstan's first steps.
TLDR; -- Not a terrible book, but when your alternative choices include Susanna Gregory's Bartholomew stories, Candace Robb's Owen Archer stories, Ellis Peters' Cadfael stories and C. J. Sansom's Shardlake series - i'm not sure why you'd bother.
lauraellis's review
2.0
A mystery set in the years of [just after] Edward III’s death, when John of Gaunt was acting as regent for Richard II. Brother Athelstan is a friar acting as assistant to the king’s coroner and they are investigating the death of a goldsmith, with bodies of others piling up as they persist.
I thought this book suffered from an excess of period details, and also it did not keep my attention—it took me several days to finish this mystery [at a time in my life when I had lots of spare time to read].
2020 note: In the 1990s I tired of mysteries that have religious persons (nuns, monks, priests, ministers) as detectives.
I thought this book suffered from an excess of period details, and also it did not keep my attention—it took me several days to finish this mystery [at a time in my life when I had lots of spare time to read].
2020 note: In the 1990s I tired of mysteries that have religious persons (nuns, monks, priests, ministers) as detectives.
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