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srlemons42 's review for:
The Sword-Edged Blonde
by Alex Bledsoe
In the kingdom of Arentia the reigning Queen has just been charged with murdering her son (and royal heir) in a particularly brutal way. King Phillip doesn't want to believe that his wife is capable of such violence but is very low on options. Queen Rhiannon was found in a locked room surrounded by blood and bones after all. The king can only think of one person he trusts enough to look into this horrific crime, his old friend Eddie LaCrosse. Eddie has spent years running from a painful past and now, reluctantly, heads back to the last place he wants to be to help out his friend.
What follows is a reasonably interesting locked-room mystery. Most places will describe this story as a: " hardboiled noir in a fantasy world". While that is pretty close to what it is, i felt that it wasn't as hardboiled as I was led to believe. Oh sure a lot of terrible things happen in this book and the backstory for our main character Eddie is pretty dark the horrors were really low key. Perhaps I'm just so used to everything that happens because of my reading habits. It did read very "realistic" and there was all the good things I like about Hardboiled detective fiction such as corrupt officials and detectives with very gray moralities.
That's not to say i didn't like it. Quite the opposite actually. I felt that the story set up the vaguely medieval fantasy setting well and the characters were all pretty well drawn. The mystery held my interest and had some good twists in there that surprised me. It also got pretty mystical and magical which did surprise me, as I wasn't informed ahead of time that the book contained such things. I liked it though! It's good to be surprised once in a while, there's nothing worse than being bored by a book.
The characters are all pretty well drawn. Eddie LaCrosse, our main character, is a little flat in this first book. He is hard-edged and cynical....but only mostly in his own head. He truly cares about others and works hard to protect them and fight for the truth. His angsty back story is dark but thankfully doesn't consume the whole story or make his too depressing to read about.
The women in this story.....are less well drawn. I felt they were mostly one-dimensional and mostly there to be tragic or sexy or tragically sexy. There are some exceptions, but not very many. My hope is that in future stories that this gets better.
Overall, I'd recommend these stories to read. They won't set the world on fire with a mind blowing tale, but they are really fun fast reads. The main character is interesting with an interesting backstory that doesn't drag down the plot and the mystery is interesting with some good twists.
What follows is a reasonably interesting locked-room mystery. Most places will describe this story as a: " hardboiled noir in a fantasy world". While that is pretty close to what it is, i felt that it wasn't as hardboiled as I was led to believe. Oh sure a lot of terrible things happen in this book and the backstory for our main character Eddie is pretty dark the horrors were really low key. Perhaps I'm just so used to everything that happens because of my reading habits. It did read very "realistic" and there was all the good things I like about Hardboiled detective fiction such as corrupt officials and detectives with very gray moralities.
That's not to say i didn't like it. Quite the opposite actually. I felt that the story set up the vaguely medieval fantasy setting well and the characters were all pretty well drawn. The mystery held my interest and had some good twists in there that surprised me. It also got pretty mystical and magical which did surprise me, as I wasn't informed ahead of time that the book contained such things. I liked it though! It's good to be surprised once in a while, there's nothing worse than being bored by a book.
The characters are all pretty well drawn. Eddie LaCrosse, our main character, is a little flat in this first book. He is hard-edged and cynical....but only mostly in his own head. He truly cares about others and works hard to protect them and fight for the truth. His angsty back story is dark but thankfully doesn't consume the whole story or make his too depressing to read about.
The women in this story.....are less well drawn. I felt they were mostly one-dimensional and mostly there to be tragic or sexy or tragically sexy. There are some exceptions, but not very many. My hope is that in future stories that this gets better.
Overall, I'd recommend these stories to read. They won't set the world on fire with a mind blowing tale, but they are really fun fast reads. The main character is interesting with an interesting backstory that doesn't drag down the plot and the mystery is interesting with some good twists.