Caught Red-Handed

Servant of the Crown Mystery Series, Book 5

De: Denise Domning

Narrado por: Gildart Jackson

The dead walk!

It's the time of year when the immortal army of the ancient king rides Watling Street and the dead become uneasy in their graves. Indeed, in the far north of Warwickshire, the villagers insist that one dead man returned to kill his only son. Now it's up to Sir Faucon de Ramis, the shire's new Crowner, to run the walking corpse to ground and put him back where he belongs.

©2019 Denise Domning (P)2020 Tantor

A grounded series took an odd turn

The first four books felt consistent with the Keeper of the Pleas & co. traveling throughout the shire and unraveling mysteries. The plodding and descriptive pace allowed the reader ample time to absorb this well researched period.

”Walking Dead” stories are personally tiresome, but I was accepting of their 12th century beliefs that lead them down that well worn topic. It resolved in a way that made sense — albeit a belabored one.

But the overarching story about the child serial killer was just too ridiculous and ended in a silly & otherworldly fashion. I hope this doesn’t end up being the final book in the series, maybe a bizarre side story, because I want to know more about how the Crowner and Sheriff settle their feud.

Incredible narration as always in these titles.

Delightful to The End

Delightful story and telling to the end. Looking forward to more from this talented author.

Another excellent book on the series

Denise Domning not only crafts an excellent murder mystery but weaves it into a compelling view into 12th century England with many layers of detail of time & place

just can't get into it very slow and tedious

just a very slow and tedious start... I can't get past chapter 3. hoping it picks up somehow, but it just dosen't seem to.

Really disappointed in this one

I very much enjoyed the first four in the series, and saved this last one for a treat. But it was like driving pleasantly down a country road, only to have the car suddenly yank the steering out of my hands, swerve off the road, head down a hillside, and crash into a tree.

(Spoilers ahead)
One of the things I liked about the first four was that Faucon solved his mysteries by thinking things through. Rational thought and real-world evidence were to the fore. But in this one we have what amounts to a Halloween tale about a ghostly army from hell, and we’re supposed to take it seriously. Not my cup of tea at all, and not what I signed up for. So I skipped to the end, to see if that would carry through—if it hadn’t , might have stuck with the book and finished it. But sure enough, there the army from hell is and the religious fanatic serial killer we’ve seen throughout the series rides off with them, presumably joining them in hell. Yuck. DNF.
Worse, apparently that serial killer was intersexed, which comes way too close to condemning sexual abnormality as inherently evil or inevitably leading to serious psychological pathology for my taste.
I had been kinda hoping Domning would continue the series, but now I don’t trust her as an author and will be wary of trying anything else she has written.
Will try to get my credit back.