Paul Doherty’s latest effort is a return to his Canterbury
Tales series, which is my personal favourite. The premise of this series is
that the pilgrims of Chaucer’s Canterbury
Tales have made an agreement that, at night, each of them should tell a
story about the night-time, a story to chill the blood. (This time, it’s the
physician’s turn, although there isn’t a physician appearing anywhere in the
story.) And so, in these stories, the supernatural goes without question. God
exists, and just as importantly, so does Satan—but their inclusion doesn’t mean
that you can’t have a fairly clued mystery thrown into the works!
That’s just what Doherty gives his readers, along with one
of the creepier entries in the Canterbury
Tales. While it doesn’t reach the level of horror that An Ancient Evil did, it’s still deliciously sinister and eerie. The
entire story is really steeped in the Gothic, what with the haunted church and
the shadowy figures in cowls who pose a threat to our main characters. The
Midnight Man is never seen at work until he is unmaksed, and this is doubly
effective— we have no idea what to expect. Some demon or phantasm? A deformed
monster from Hell? With no description to go on, we cannot narrow down the list
of suspects…
I’m very biased, because I absolutely love this series. This
seems to be Doherty having the most fun. He seems to really love the Gothic
ghost story he’s come up with, and he carefully crafts it page by page. Every
atmospheric touch is effective, and Doherty can let his imagination run wild
because the supernatural is allowed. Anything and everything can happen in
these stories, and so it’s a doubly impressive feat that there is a rational
explanation at the end into which the supernatural is incorporated. To be fair,
it isn’t a mind-blowing quadruple-twist; if the reader thinks really hard about
it, they’ll be able to spot the Midnight Man.
But that’s the sheer beauty of it: nine out of ten readers won’t think really hard about it. And
why should they? This is a fine story told with all the skill of a grandmaster
of crime. The fact that it’s a fair-play mystery is in itself astounding. I
seized on the completely wrong person as the Midnight Man early on, and was dumbfounded
when that person was unequivocally exonerated near the end of the book. And the locked church trick was pretty good, too. (Ha! Thought I'd forget to comment on that, did you?) That
speaks volumes for either my stupidity or Doherty’s skill—and I think both the
author and I would prefer to think the latter is the more correct explanation.
Once again, Mr. Doherty, a big thank you for returning to
this brilliant series. Your imagination has run wild once again and has given
me a few hours of tremendous reading pleasure. As a humble reader, I can ask
for no more than that.
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| The term "fangasm" was made for stuff like this! |
Note: Why am I
reading this series out of order? Didn’t I vow to do so after reading Ghostly Murders? Well, there are two
reasons: I love this series but Steve of In
Search of the Classic Mystery did the chronological thing first, plus he said
there were no serious spoilers to previous entries. (This seems quite true, by
the way.) But more important than that, I ordered a signed copy of the book,
and simply couldn’t wait long to get my greedy little hands on it to read it.
To be fair, it does spoil An Ancient Evil a bit, as do all of the other books in the series, but even then, it doesn't spoil the main plot - just the "who among the pilgrims is involved in the story". And even then, the only book with a genuine surprise in this sense is A Tournament of Murders, which, I don't think, is spoiled by any subsequent books.
ReplyDeleteGlad you enjoyed this one - it's one of my favourites of the series as well, despite us not agreeing completely on An Ancient Evil and not agreeing at all on Ghostly Murders. In terms of the locked room, I'm impressed that you were impressed. I liked it too, but assumed that it was a fairly standard piece of trickery that I simply hadn't read before - obviously not.
If anyone wants a shortcut to the complete set of reviews, then try here. I think that'll work, but if it doesn't, Patrick, can you edit the post to get rid of the link? Ta!
Well, to be fair, the locked room trick isn't *brilliant*, but it was good in terms of this particular story. If this wasn't the kind of book that it was, I might easily have been upset by the revelation.
DeleteI've only dipped in and out of the various Doherty books over the years but all the love that is being expended by you and Steve and TomCat does definitely want to make me pick this one up as this is a series I never tried. And the signature is very, very nice Patrick. I've only ever gone to a few book signings in my life but doe treasure those that I do (especially one from Anthony Burgess which he signed and dedicated in Italian).
ReplyDeleteSergio,
DeleteThe love we dispense is (usually) well-deserved, and the cocktails Doherty serves of locked room mysteries, tales of ghosts and hobgoblins, court intrigues and conspiracies set in ancient times are very addictive – and thus highly recommended. ;)
Good review, by the way, Patrick and congrats with your signed copy. It looks great! Considering that I both love detective and ghost stories, I really should give this series a shot one of these days.
I have read a fair amount of Doherty over the years, just not this particular series. But it is always nice to experience so much enthusiasm, even second hand!
Delete