It is the time of Arthur, but this is not his storied epic. Arthur is a young and powerful warrior who some would say stands on the brink of legend. Britain’s leaders have come to elect a new supreme king, and Arthur is favored. But when a young woman is brutally murdered and the blame is placed at Merlin’s feet, Arthur’s reputation is at stake and his enemies are poised to strike. Arthur turns to Malgwyn ap Cuneglas, a man whose knowledge of battle and keen insight into how the human mind works has helped Arthur come to the brink of kingship.
Malgwyn is also the man who hates Arthur most in the world.
After the death of Malgwyn's wife by Saxon hands, he became Mad Malgwyn, killer of Saxons and right-hand lieutenant to the warrior Arthur. Right hand, that is, until a Saxon cut his sword arm off and left him to die on the battlefield. Arthur rescued him. Now a one-armed scribe and a heavy drinker, Malgwyn rejects the half-life that his liege gave him. But loyalty is sometimes stronger than loathing…and Malgwyn is pulled toward a puzzle that he can’t walk away from.
Think CSI:Medieval: gritty, powerful, and with the true ring of historical perspective and a character who sees more than those around him. The Killing Way is the first in a mystery series that is sure to be a hit with both mystery readers and historical fans alike.
The Killing Way is not the story of knights and chivalry one might expect in a novel about King Arthur's time. Hays focuses on the historical Arthur and his environs. He strips away the legends and myths surrounding the well-known hero of the romantic age, portraying instead a warrior and leader who may have existed around 500 CE. Indeed, the book is more historical fiction than mystery; one of its major strengths being Hays's ability to convey a realistic sense of time and place. The reader is transported to what amounts to a garrison town in medieval Britain; there are no fine castles in this story..... (Reviewed by Kim Kovacs).
Booklist
The popularity of both historical mysteries and new twists on the Arthurian tales will provide a tailor-made audience for this promising new series
Publishers Weekly.
Starred Review. History buffs as well as mystery fans will be amply rewarded.
Library Journal
Starred Review. This fascinating blend of history and fiction by the author of Murder in the Latin Quarter is sure to engage fans of both Bernard Cornwell and Ellis Peters. Highly recommended.
Kirkus Reviews
Earthy, densely plotted and likely to have readers eagerly awaiting the next installment.
Geoffrey Ashe, leading Arthurian scholar and author of Merlin: The Prophet & His History
A vivid and original detective story, The Killing Way is an unusual Arthurian murder mystery set against an evocative fifth century
background that is more genuine than the usual Arthurian fare. Yes, it might actually have been like that.
King Arthur - history or myth? No one is sure if there was truly a person named Arthur who was a ruler of
the Britons. Evidence for his existence is scant at best.
The first complete account of the life of King Arthur appeared in Historia
Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain), written in 1137 -
1138 CE by Geoffrey of Monmouth. Geoffrey surely used historic accounts, but
modern scholars believe that he fabricated much of his text, and that other
parts were a combination of traditions relating to multiple rulers. Regardless
of its inaccuracy, it was very popular and influential. Many manuscript copies
of this document have survived into the 21st century.
The legends surrounding King Arthur are generally divided into those written
before Geoffrey's Historia, which are referred to as pre-Galfridian (from
the Latin for Geoffrey, "Galfrius"), and post-Galfridian. The later stories added Lancelot and the quest for the Holy Grail, and focus less on Arthur. Scholarly opinion is that they are...
An ingenious tour de force: an utterly compelling historical mystery with a plot that twists and turns and keeps the reader guessing until the very last page.
Filled with evocative descriptions of Cambridge, past and present, of seventeenth-century glassmaking, alchemy, the Great Plague, and Newton’s scientific innovations, Ghostwalk centers around a real historical mystery that Rebecca Stott has uncovered involving Newton’s alchemy.
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(1091 words).
Geoffrey Ashe, leading Arthurian scholar and author of Merlin: The Prophet & His History
