A relic from the Holy Land is cursed when its protector is foully murdered. This book follows the relic from the time of the Crusades up through modern day using the protagonists from mystery authors Simon Beaufort, Micahel Jecks, Bernard Knight, Susanne Gregory, Ian Morson, and Philip Gooden. ( )

The Medieval Murderers are a group of historical fiction crime writers who have banded together to talk about their work, and later write books. This book is written by Bernard Knight (with his character of Crowner John in the 12th century), Ian Morson (with his character of William Falconer in 13th century Oxford), Michael Jecks (with his character of Sir Baldwin Furnshill in 14th century Exeter), Susanna Gregory (with her characters of Michael and Bartholomew in 14th century Cambridge) and Philip Gooden (with his character of Nick Revell in 16th century London).
The stories of all these writers are tied together by one common theme, the tainted relic. The relic in this story is a piece of the true cross, in a glass vial in a wooden box. In the 12th century a knight is handed the relic in Jerusalem during the First Crusade. It is a cursed relic, meaning that anyone who touches the piece and lets it out of his possession dies. This leads to interesting cases for all investigators through the ages.
The writing styles of all writers can be pretty different (changing point of view, third person or first person, main investigator or friend), and I liked some more than others. The same goes for the time period, locale, and people in the story. The only two writers I have read outside of The Medieval Murderers’ books are Susanna Gregory and Michael Jecks. The other three appeal a bit less to me because of that, because I don’t know more about the characters and they don’t have room to give more of a back story. The stories all flowed together really well, and all stayed true to the main story line. I liked the epilogue in our time, to pull the story out of the middle ages/Elizabethan times and show that it still has power, even though we don’t know it. All in all three out of five stars. ( )

I so wanted to like this book, but just couldn't. Reading each of the individual authors...love them...put them together and I just could not get into it. Slow, plodding, monotonous. ( )

I listened to this at work and that might have been part of my not digging it as much as I could have. It took me a little while to get into the story and then to understand everything that was going on. I got that the relic was supposedly cursed and death followed in its wake. My issue was not following who was dying and it seemed like there were a lot of victims with each story. They died before I had a chance to know them or the people solving the crimes or the people doing the killing or even why the killing was occurring, except part of it was to get the relic back from whoever had it.
The only time I could truly understand the story was when it moved up to William Shakespeare's time. The story made me laugh and care about the characters.
All that said, I will be getting more of this series of books, especially KING ARTHUR'S BONES, the reason I started looking for this team of authors. I have a collection of Arthurian legend, saw this book in a review, put it on the WWBL and then found out there's a series of books by this team who call themselves Medieval Murderers. Very cool premise and still intriguing. I know not all books are for all people and I will likely get this as a handheld book to read and pay closer attention....and read it someplace without distractions..like work can be....silly work....
Three need fewer distractions beans.... ( )

Uneven. ( )