Much as I like the Owen Archer series, this was a poor start to the new series. For me its main fault was being very boring. I found all the characters unsympathetic and their actions unrealistic. The convoluted plot never did seem to get anywhere. Disappointing all round. ( )

Much as I like the Owen Archer series, this was a poor start to the new series. For me its main fault was being very boring. I found all the characters unsympathetic and their actions unrealistic. The convoluted plot never did seem to get anywhere. Disappointing all round. ( )

Thumbs up for effacina's review below. I would have given it 2 1/2 stars, but I'm not sure how one does halves using this interface. Robb doesn't rise above the level of competence as a writer on this one, which is in stark contrast to her brilliant writing of the Owen Archer series. There she makes us care about her characters and their fates, whereas in A Trust Betrayed one feels like one is just killing time in the company of not terribly interesting characters in a tense yet strangely unexciting environment. This author can do, and has done, much better. ( )

I enjoyed this novel and I am looking forward to the sequel. I found the setting to be very convincing. One of the criterion for a book being readable and engrossing is that I am surprised to look up from the page and find that it is not a wet, chilly spring outside, it's the middle of summer and in the 90s.

Robb notes that she has made a judicious use of Scots words, since lowland Scots actually sounded pretty much like the northern English. She does have a glossary in the back, which was very helpful once I found it. Also very useful are a series of maps zeroing in from a map of Britain to the neighborhood of Edinburgh where most of the action takes place.

These are not the most charming characters that I have ever met in fiction, although I became fond of some of them, but they are very real: complex, fallible and struggling with the dilemmas in their lives. I care very much what happens to them and I am anxious to read the next installment to find out.

The complexity of the Scottish political situation is made plain: there are two chief Scottish contenders for the throne, and unfortunately their adherents sometimes fight one another more than the English who are subjugating them.

I love the cover design and illustration by John Martinez. ( )

Good quick read with a decent plot. ( )