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The Excalibur Murders (2008)

by J.M.C. Blair(Favorite Author)

3.28 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0425222535 (ISBN13: 9780425222539)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Berkley

series

Merlin Investigation

review 1: I wanted to read this because I try to keep current on King Arthur related materials. It was a real disappointment. There are a significant number of times where the language used is just too modern and the story itself is weak. Merlin presents himself as just a man - a learned man with a wide variety of experiences under his belt, but just a man. Arthur is portrayed as next to an idiot with some really unsavory personal habits. The mystery itself is not too difficult to figure out though a few red herrings did cause me to question my theories. Definitely not worth following the series.
review 2: That's an interesting twist on things, making Merlin a predecessor of Sherlock Holmes. And Nimue (sorry, I meant Colin) makes a good Watson. As someone who has r... moreead a lot of Arthur retellings that didn't go down easy, believe me when I say that this is the best one I've read so far. Some of the plot twists were predictable and the villain was made apparent a little too early for my taste, but the actual unmasking was satisfactory. I'm basing my rating mainly on the characters of Merlin and Nimue: The mixture of smarts and sarcasm was right up my alley if I don't say so myself. This felt more like a skewed Arthur Conan Doyle story than anything--it just happened to take place in Camelot. Maybe in that respect it's not a good Arthur book at all, but it's still a good book, no matter how you slice it. less

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