This book is great. What's not to like?I fully admit that this is the only one of Jecks' Knights Templars mysteries that I've read, but I somehow suspect I'm not being unfair in claiming that this is, essentially, a series about a man who solves crimes by looking at people WITH HIS EYES and liking dogs.I was particularly touched by the fact that Jecks had clearly read a book about the period he was writing in, and Really Wanted You To Know about it. His sensational critique of the feudal system would have been even more damning had he not tied himself up in knots trying to indicate how a man at the centre of it (a king's man and knight, no less) really had lots of kindly feelings towards the humble serfs he encountered on a daily basis. Obviously benevolent feudalism is, in Jecks' eyes, a bit of of an oxymoron, but I like the way he really tried to convince himself for a bit back there.I was also impressed by the fact that Jecks had so obviously attended some kind of creative writing course. Unfortunately it is evident that he never got beyond the first day of said course ('writing a dramatic introduction: a day-long seminar'), as a good three-quarters of this book consists of two-paragraph individual introductions to two whole village-fulls of characters, each beginning with phrases like 'X stared out at the frosty morn of the harsh midwinter' and 'It was a chill morning in early March' and 'Baldwin awoke to find the morning overcast and grim'.I learned lots about the weather and even more about how to use my eyes to elicit confessions from the foolish masses. Will definitely be reading more of these.
