The Crown in Darkness
is a satisfying follow-up to P.C. Doherty’s first Hugh Corbett novel, Satan in St. Mary’s. Where the first one was more of intrigue and
action, the second was whodunit and action.
In The Crown in Darkness,
Corbett is sent by the Royal Chancellor Robert Burrell to the Scottish capitol
Edinburgh. The Scottish king Alexander
III has just died under mysterious circumstances and Burrell wants to know what
exactly happened. Was the king murdered
or did he die in an unfortunate accident?
With Alexander dead and no heir, the throne appears to be up for grabs
and powerful families are beginning to jockey for position.
Corbett is sent to find out what will all of this mean for
England and King Edward I. He starts
asking questions as soon as he arrives and subsequently, attempts are made to
kill him. In the previous novel, Doherty
gives Corbett a sensitivity and vulnerability by falling in love with a femme
fatale, but there is no such depth in this one.
Corbett is all business and realizes there is more to his
mission than Burrell has let on.
I enjoyed this story much more than the first one, but the
formatting in my hardback version of The
Crown in Darkness was non-existent.
Usually, there is a new paragraph each time the speaker changes but in
this version, the publishers or whoever did not believe in hitting the ’return’
button. I had to re-read many passages
to realize who was talking.
The story was great but the formatting took away from the enjoyment.
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