{"id":50,"date":"2011-11-13T14:11:34","date_gmt":"2011-11-13T14:11:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/book-ish.com\/?p=50"},"modified":"2011-11-13T14:11:34","modified_gmt":"2011-11-13T14:11:34","slug":"the-devils-hunt-by-p-c-doherty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/book-ish.com\/?p=50","title":{"rendered":"The Devil\u2019s Hunt by P C Doherty"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>PC Doherty, according to the \u201cblurb\u201d on the book jacket, studied the reign of King Edward II for his doctorate and now he is putting what he learned to good use! The novel is one of an on-going series, set in medieval England, not far removed from Ellis Peters\u2019 better known Cadfael series. Though it concerns a slightly different era; the 14<sup>th<\/sup> century rather than the 12<sup>th<\/sup>. \u00a0As with the Cadfael books, there is a civil war going on in the background, which gives the murders an interesting context.<\/p>\n<p>Doherty\u2019s detective is Sir Hugh Corbett, a minor Norman landowner and the former clerk of the King\u2019s Secret Seal. While he would far rather stay at home to govern his people, watch his small daughter grow up and take care of his pregnant wife, the King commands him to solve some mysterious deaths in the academic world of Oxford University. There is also the matter of the \u201cBellman\u201d, an anonymous dissident who writes treasonous letters and pins them on the church door. Oxford is a filthy, dangerous place to live in, where the students wear rags and carry daggers and the merchants carry swords. Sir Corbett faces peril on all sides as he clashes with a contingent of Welsh students keen to rake up past grievances, and he is threatened by the Bellman.<\/p>\n<p>PC Doherty\u2019s style is perhaps less rich in period detail than it could be; a cut-price Ellis Peters. Yet he can tell a good story. The one unconvincing note is the seemingly sudden conversion of Corbett\u2019s bodyguard Ranulf from a swaggering bully-boy to a possible candidate for the priesthood. Perhaps the groundwork for this was laid in previous novels, but it seemed to come on rather suddenly and without reason, more than halfway through the story. It takes the attention away from the mail plot, which is perhaps the author\u2019s intention. But it is not very convincing and the novel would have been just as good without the addition of this piece.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Devil\u2019s Hunt\u201d is not always as satisfying as some other detective fiction, and Ellis Peters is still the better medieval murder writer, but it is enjoyable. A page turner!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PC Doherty, according to the \u201cblurb\u201d on the book jacket, studied the reign of King Edward II for his doctorate and now he is putting what he learned to good use! The novel is one of an on-going series, set in medieval England, not far removed from Ellis Peters\u2019 better known Cadfael series. Though it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[13,15],"class_list":["post-50","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-historical-novel","tag-doherty","tag-historical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/book-ish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/book-ish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/book-ish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/book-ish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/book-ish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/book-ish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/book-ish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/book-ish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/book-ish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}