The Sacred Stone
Six authors compose the Medieval Murderers: Susanna Gregory, Simon Beaufort, Bernard Knight, Karen Maitland, Ian Morson, and Philip Gooden. I’ve read books by several of these authors, and was interested in trying out the others, and seeing how they were able to fit their tales together. Because of the structure of the book, they didn’t need to spend a lot of time piecing them together—a connecting circumstance was really all that was needed. But I get ahead of myself.
In the prologue, a mysterious and powerful sky-stone is found in Brattahlid, Greenland in 1067. This sky-stone seems to have the power both to heal, and to cause destruction. It does both after its initial discovery. The sky-stone then, in subsequent chapters, reappears in England, in 1101, in 1236, in 1241, in 1272, and in London in 1606. In the epilogue, it is again in London, but the time is the present. This last section neatly ties in with the prologue. Each of the historic sections is followed by a “historical note,” which I much appreciated.
The chapter authorships are not attributed, but knowing the previous work of the writers leads me to believe that the order of the authors on the title page matches that of the chapters, with one person writing the prologue and epilogue. However, this is just a guess. Some chapters were more engaging than others, which is only to be expected. Fans of some of the included authors may want to give this book a try.
