William Rufus, son of the Conqueror, is killed in a hunting accident - but is it an accident? Hilary the Englishman has just lost his position as a tutor when his ward dies, he falls in with a traveller, John of Muchelney, who entrusts him with a task and is promptly murdered. Hilary engages his old teacher Peter Abelard to help him and their quest to find the true Saxon heir to the English throne takes them as far as Jerusalem, enemies on their tail.
There is much to like about this book. The setting is interesting and the plot could have been great but there is just too much trying to cram into a readable and entertaining novel. Why Peter Abelard? A man with an infamous history but as a learned scholar, not an 11th century man of action! Yet the scholarly debates about religion are really interesting, even though they are not intrinsic to the plot. The 'hunting accident' that killed William Rufus has long been thought to be an assassination, and the tension between Saxons and Normans went on for well over a century after the conquest. The significance of the Alfred Jewel is played up here and I like its use as a device. Stripped away there is a nice little historical fiction here but Boyle has layered on too many subplots and too many twists and turns. ( )