Review of Blood Lance by Jeri Westerson

If you’ve previously missed out (as I had) on Jeri Westerson’s Crispin Guest, a disgraced medieval knight, now The Tracker, a medieval version of a private detective, you will want to remedy this mistake. Westerson writes “medieval noir” with a sense of humor and a solid base of history. You will not see the betrayals coming as the plot twists and the characters delight.

Blood Lance, fifth in the Crispin series, opens with Crispin crossing London on a cold October night after curfew, sick with a bad cold and trying hard to avoid the Watch, who will demand bribes or worse. While he runs smack into the Watch and we get to see his skill as a fighter even without a sword and knightly armor (which Westerson has tried out first hand), that encounter serves as prelude to the real drama: a man falling into the Thames from one of the upper windows of one of the houses on the bridge. That Crispin unhesistantly plunges into the freezing river to try to save the victim is a measure of the man. That he refuses to believe the man was committing suicide and begins to investigate, a measure of his skill as The Tracker. But he isn’t prepared for the high level complicity in this murder—the sort of noblemen and royalty that view him as a traitor. There are some womanly complications in the mix also. Crispin’s lack of wisdom about women is something even his apprentice Jack can point out. And where does his old friend Geoffrey Chaucer fit in? (Yes, the same Chaucer who wrote The Canterbury Tales.) Crispin, despite his doubts about God, often has the knack of ending up protecting sacred relics, and there’s a particularly dangerous relic in this book also—if Crispin can find it. Crispin inspires fierce loyalty in his friends (a lucky thing with enemies like his). Pick up a copy of Blood Lance or an earlier Crispin adventure and join his fan club.

Other Crispin Guest titles by Jeri Westerson:
Veil of Lies
Serpent in the Thorns
The Demon’s Parchment
Troubled Bones