Simon Beaufort, Author, Bernard Knight, Author, Michael Jecks, Author ). Simon & Schuster U.K. $14.95 (502p) ISBN 978-0-7432-6795-3
This entertaining but uneven round-robin effort by six British crime writers traces the sinister history of a "fragment of the true cross" from its origin in Jerusalem in A.D. 1100 through 10 bloody centuries. In Beaufort's prologue,...
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Susanna Gregory, Author, Bernard Knight, Author, Michael Jecks, Author . Simon & Schuster U.K. $14.95 (405p) ISBN 978-1-84737-346-5
Five of Britain's most notable historical mystery authors team for the fifth time (after 2008's The Lost Prophecies
) on a volume whose whole, in this case, is less than the sum of its parts. In 1191, the apparent discovery in Glastonbury...
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Michael Jecks. Crème de la Crime, $28.99 (224p) ISBN 978-1-78029-098-0
In Jecks’s Rebellion’s Message (2016), gambler Jack Blackjack, who lives among “the purse-snatchers and pilferers” of London, got caught up in the 1554 rebellion that sought to overthrow Queen Mary. In this engrossing sequel set in the same year,...
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Michael Jecks, Author . Headline $28 (366p) ISBN 978-0-7472-6919-9
In this richly detailed tale of serial killing in the Middle Ages—the 12th in the medieval West Country mystery series—British author Jecks convincingly re-creates the atmosphere of Dartmoor, Devonshire, in the summer of 1322. When the
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Michael Jecks. Severn, $28.99 (224p) ISBN 978-1-78029-085-0
The year may be 1554, but a distinctly Dickensian atmosphere rules in this energetic series launch from Jecks (Templar’s Acre). London’s vast underworld teems with pickpockets, gamblers, prostitutes, and pimps. Real-life Tudor figures, such as...
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Michael Jecks. Simon & Schuster U.K. (IPG, dist.), $19.95 trade paper (576p) ISBN 978-0-85720-518-6
Jecks's stirring 32nd Knights Templar mystery, a prequel, takes series hero Baldwin de Furnshill back to his beginnings for what may well be the knight's final adventure, according to an author's note. In 1291, war between Christians and Muslims has
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Michael Jecks. Simon & Schuster U.K. (IPG, dist.), $24.95 (464p) ISBN 978-0-85720-521-6
Set in 1327 England, Jecks’s 31st Knights Templar mystery (after 2011’s King’s Gold) is a textbook example of how to blend action and detection in a historical. Supporters of Edward II, who was forced to abdicate and then imprisoned at Berkeley...
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Michael Jecks. Simon & Schuster U.K. (IPG, dist.), $24.95 (518p) ISBN 978-1-84737-902-3
Rebel forces cause Edward II, England’s unpopular king, to flee London at the violent start of Jecks’s engaging 30th Knights Templar mystery featuring Sir Baldwin de Furnshill and Simon Puttock (after 2010’s The Oath). The deposed monarch finds...
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Michael Jecks, Author Headline Book Publishing $27.5 (320p) ISBN 978-0-7553-0170-6
In Michael Jecks's 15th intricate historical, The Templar's Penance: A Medieval West Country Mystery, Sir Baldwin de Furnshill and Bailiff Simon Puttock travel on pilgrimage to Santiago de Campostela, where they find themselves looking into the...
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Michael Jecks, Author Headline Book Publishing $28 (320p) ISBN 978-0-7553-0168-3
Sir Baldwin Furnshill and Bailiff Simon Puttock investigate a Dartmoor murder in Michael Jecks's The Mad Monk of Gidleigh, the 14th entry in his dependable medieval West Country mystery series. Did an isolated young priest do in the pregnant...
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Michael Jecks, Author Headline Book Publishing $28 (332p) ISBN 978-0-7472-7402-5
When Moll, a young nun, dies mysteriously at St. Mary's Priory in Belstone, England, the suffragan bishop orders Sir Baldwin de Furnshill, Keeper of the King's Peace, to investigate. Together with Bailiff Simon Puttock, his assistant in seven other...
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Michael Jecks, Author Headline Book Publishing $28 (331p) ISBN 978-0-7472-7247-2
A welcome addition to Jecks's successful medieval mysteries, this 10th in the series takes place at Christmastime 1321 in the city of Exeter, whose citizens are preparing for the holy day and for the election of the ""boy-bishop,"" who for 24...
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Michael Jecks, Author Headline Book Publishing $28 (328p) ISBN 978-0-7472-7403-2
In this medieval romp, the ninth in the series (Belladonna at Belstone, etc.), Sir Baldwin de Furnshill, keeper of the king's peace in Crediton, and his old friend, Bailiff Simon Puttock, join the throngs gathering at Lord Hugh de Courtenay's castle
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Michael Jecks, Author Headline $24.95 (403p) ISBN 978-0-7553-2299-2
Despite myriad characters and rapid, often cumbersome scene changes, Jecks's 17th medieval historical (after 2005's The Butcher of St. Peters's) paints a vivid and bloody panorama of Edward II's ""war-scarred kingdom."" In 1324, rival landowners...
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Michael Jecks, Author Headline Book Publishing $24.95 (391p) ISBN 978-0-7553-3282-3
British author Jecks displays an impressive command of period in his ponderous 24th Knights Templar mystery (after 2007's Dispensation of Death). In 1325, Sir Baldwin de Furnshill, a Knight Templar, and his friend Simon Puttock accompany Queen...
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Michael Jecks, Author Headline Book Publishing $9.99 (352p) ISBN 978-0-7472-5952-7
The brutality of medieval life underpins Jecks's seventh mystery in this worthy series featuring Sir Baldwin of Furnshill, keeper of the king's peace and noted investigator of violent crimes. During the troubled reign of the decadent Edward II,...
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Michael Jecks, Simon & Shuster U.K. (IPG, dist.), $24.95 (528p) ISBN 978-1-84737-900-9
The inexplicable slaughter of Bristol merchant and moneylender Arthur Capon and his family propels British author Jecks's chilling 29th Knights Templar mystery (after April 2010's The Bishop Must Die). In October 1326, Edward II faces perhaps the...
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Michael Jecks, Author Headline $24.95 (403p) ISBN 978-0-7553-4420-8
The 28th entry in Jecks’s Knights Templar series (after 2009’s No Law in the Land
) takes its time bringing series lead Baldwin de Furnshill into the main plot, but readers won’t mind the wait. In 1326, Walter Stapledon, the bishop
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Michael Jecks, Author . Headline $24.95 (384p) ISBN 978-0-7553-4418-5
Set in the autumn of 1325, Jecks's 27th Knights Templar mystery (after July 2009's The King of Thieves
) boasts an exciting, twisting plot. England's Edward II rules a kingdom thick with dishonest men, including his own second-in-comma
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Michael Jecks, Author . Headline $24.95 (366p) ISBN 978-0-7553-4416-1
Fans of well-researched historicals will welcome Jecks’s 26th Knights Templar mystery (after 2008’s The Prophecy of Death
). In 1325, England’s Edward II prepares to pay homage to the French king, Charles IV, in order to retain two
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Michael Jecks, Author . Headline $24.95 (336p) ISBN 978-0-7553-4414-7
Set in 1325, Jecks’s solid 25th Knights Templar mystery (after 2008’s The Templar, the Queen and Her Lover
) finds Edward II, England’s unpopular king, trying to calm his factious nobles and dispel threat of foreign invasion by...
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Michael Jecks, Author . Headline $24.95 (399p) ISBN 978-0-755-33276-2
Without the character list, glossary, maps and author's note, a reader could get lost in Jecks's 23rd Knights Templar mystery (after The Dispensation of Death
), but the tale, set in 1324 Exeter during Edward II's corrupt regime, is...
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Michael Jecks. Crème de la Crime, $28.99 (208p) ISBN 978-1-78029-108-6
In Jecks’s entertaining third mystery featuring accomplished thief and reluctant assassin Jack Blackjack (after 2017’s A Murder Too Soon), the looming birth of a child to Queen Mary and her Spanish husband, Prince Philip, seems to promise stability...
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Michael Jecks. Crème de la Crime, $28.99 (256p) ISBN 978-1-78029-120-8
Jecks’s fourth mystery featuring Jack Blackjack (after 2018’s A Missed Murder) takes the reader on an enjoyable jaunt through mid-16th-century England. As always, Jack’s priorities are womanizing, drinking, and gambling, until a coroner shows up on...
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Michael Jecks. Crème de la Crime, $28.99 (256p) ISBN 978-1-78029-131-4
At the start of Jecks’s diverting fifth outing for Jack Blackjack (after 2019’s The Dead Don’t Wait), Jack, a cutpurse and rogue in 16th-century London, tries unsuccessfully to evade an unwelcome visitor, inept public executioner Hal Westmecott, who
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Michael Jecks. Severn, $28.99 (240p) ISBN 978-1-78029-122-2
Set in 1556, Jecks’s middling sixth mystery featuring assassin Jack Blackjack (after 2020’s Death Comes Hot) opens at an inn in Okehampton, Devon, where Blackjack has just beaten Daniell Vowell, the master of most of the miners in the region,...
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Michael Jecks. Severn, $29.99 (240p) ISBN 978-0-7278-5092-8
In Jecks’s superb seventh Tudor mystery starring Jack Blackjack, a roguish assassin in the employ of Queen Mary’s sister, Lady Elizabeth (after 2021’s The Moorland Murderers), Jack has fled London, fearing arrest, following suspicions that his lady...
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Michael Jecks. Severn, $31.99 (256p) ISBN 978-1-4483-1037-1
This promising series launch from Jecks (the Bloody Mary Tudor series) introduces a particularly unlikely amateur gumshoe: British portrait painter Nick Morris. After an opening tease in which Morris is stunned to find a man with his head blown off...
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