Candace M. Robb
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7
Average rating: 4.5 of 5
Fascinating Mystery 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 7 people found this review helpful.
Wow! Candace Robb is a marvel. Many compare her to Ellis Peters (the Brother Cadfael series), but I'd put her well before Ms Peters. Although I thoroughly enjoy Brother Cadfael and feel comfortable with his author's competence, Ms Robb is not only formally trained in historical studies/research, she's also an excellent teller of tales and a wonderful teacher as well. Ms Robb is apparently just shy by a dissertation of her PhD, and one can see by the quality of the historical detail in the Lady Chapel and her other books, that she probably had gotten well into her paper before abandoning the project. (I've worked through MA level and know exactly how much work goes into completing the coursework, let alone the research for papers.)
She also has, if not formal training in writing, at least a very clearly defined concept of what it takes. In her "Author's Notes" at the back of Lady Chapel, she writes an excellent exposition on what it means to be an author, especially an author of historical fiction. THOSE OF YOU WRITING PAPERS for English lit, journalism, history, etc. or for those writing historical fiction themselves, TAKE NOTE: She makes some eminently quotable statements about these subjects in that chapter. For instance on the subject of character: "Many people think of history as mighty figures, epic events, and statistics. But at their best, historians bring the past to life by suggesting the motivations of the mighty....Historical novelists or dramatists go further by reducing the mighty to human scale. Shakespeare put a human face on Richard III in his fatal battle by using the fact noted by one historian, that the turning point for Richard was when he was unhorsed. The Bard lets us witness Richard's tragic awareness as he cries, 'A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse (p. 283)!'" She notes too, that it is the simple, every day character and his/her believability that brings a story to life (p. 283). Later, on the subject of motive and event, she writes, "A key element in any study in character is motive. Motive traces the trajectory of an action....What fascinates both the historian and the novelist is that any one event seen through the eyes of different participants suggests completely different motives, and it's the sum of the motives that culminates in the epic events. For a mystery writer, there is an additional fascination in how many people have motives for any crime, innocence being at times little more than a lack of opportunity (p 283)."
The engaging tales the author creates by using historical characters and detail are an artful way of encouraging the reader to find out more. Although my area of historical interest has always been the ancient world, particularly the Near East, I found myself browsing lists for books on the age of Edward III and of the so-called Black Prince Edward of Woodstock, his son. I wanted to find out more information about the period. Now that's a teacher!
The Lady Chapel is a very complex tale of murder, court intrigue, passion and deceit in the city of York. The author's descriptions of the environment create a vivid picture of life in the 14th Century. Well worth it.
Editorial Review:
Owen Archer, the intriguing Welsch archer-turned-sleuth, is back-in another riveting challenge to Ellis Peters!
High summer, 1365-and York is glorious with pageantry for the Feast of Corpus Christi. But wool merchant Will Crounce, who acts in "The Last Judgement," meets his maker all too soon, his throat slit in the shadow of the great cathedral. When Crounce's severed hand is found in fellow-merchant Gilbert Ridley's tavern lodging, the Archbishop calls in Own Archer.
To unravel a second murder, and the grisly warning of another severed hand, Owen will need his sharp mind, his bow and arrows, and even his wife Lucie's apothecary skills. For soon he will be drawn into a tangle of greed, treachery, and passion that runs from Ridley and the wool trade all the way to the royal court.
