Review of The Cross-legged Knight by Candace Robb

I enjoyed reading Candace Robb’s The Cross-legged Knight, the seventh in the Owen Archer series, more than the previous two novels, A Gift of Sanctuary and A Spy for the Redeemer. Both of those stories dealt with Owen traveling through his native Wales on a pilgrimage with his father-in-law Sir Robert. They were a bit confusing and I had to go back and re-read sections to be sure that I had read them correctly. This book seems to return to the intriguing and fast-paced mysteries that I have come to expect from Robb.


In The Cross-legged Knight, Owen has long returned to York but he and his wife Lucie are mourning the miscarriage of their baby, when Lucie fell from a stool while working in her apothecary. Their family is put under more stress when the Bishop of Winchester, William of Wykeham arrives in York, thinking that he is in mortal peril. A powerful family of a knight blames him for the knight’s death in a French prison, accusing him of dragging his feet in the negotiations with France and offering half the sum the family gathered to ransom him. While he is observing the building of the lady chapel, a piece of tile nearly smashes into his skull. Then his townhouse is burned to the ground by a suspicious fire. A servant is badly burned but a mysterious woman dies in the blaze. Thus, Wykeham assigns Owen to assure his safety.

Owen detests the man but Archbishop Thoresby manages to keep his feathers from getting too ruffled and Owen carries out his duties begrudgingly. The archbishop feels pulled in two different directions since his friend Wykeham is now enemies with the powerful Duke of Lancaster, with whom Thoresby is allies.

Owen continues his investigations, learning more about the woman who died in the fire and helped by Lucie, trying to move past her grieving and get back to health to take care of her family and business.

An underlying theme to The Cross-legged Knight could be aging. I don’t know whether Robb included it on purpose but several characters deal with the problems of growing old. Archbishop Thoresby reflects frequently that he is an old man and wonders what he has done with his life as a cleric. Lucie’s elderly aunt Phillipa, although is lucid much of the time, still has bouts of sleep-walking and dementia. A maid to the Dale family is losing her eyesight as she gets older. Lucie herself wonders at one point if her child-bearing days are over. The river woman Magda is elderly and people wonder how she manages at her advanced age. It is inevitable that characters age but in this book they seem to age before the readers’ eyes.

I suppose my preference to this novel over the past two is having Owen in York, working together with Lucie to investigate a mystery. While in Wales, he was tempted to rejoin the Welsh in their battle against the English, something Owen nearly gave into and Thoresby is well aware of. Maybe it’s because I don’t like seeing one my literary heroes being sorely tempted as he was.

Whatever the reason, The Cross-legged Knight is a return to the familiarity of fourteenth century York and the magic of the Robb novels.

Review of A Spy for the Redeemer by Candace Robb

The seventh novel in Candace Robb’s Owen Archer series, A Spy for the Redeemer, is an extension of the story in A Gift of Sanctuary. Owen is still in his home country of Wales after the death of his father-in-law after the conclusion of his pilgrimage.


His wife Lucie remains in York with little communication from him and left wondering when he will return. Brother Michaelo, who accompanied Sir Robert and Owen on their pilgrimage to St. David’s, has returned and given Lucie the sad news of her father’s passing. But she is reassured that Sir Robert completed his quest and died in peace.

Owen longs to return to his family but he has commissioned a tomb for Sir Robert. Before it can be completed, the mason dies of an apparent suicide. Owen soon discovers it was murder. The ambitious, unscrupulous bishop of St. David’s charges Owen to find out who murdered the mason, fearing a connection with a Welsh leader with sympathies with the French king, against Edward III.

Lucie is dealing with problems of her own. Since her father’s death, she is the heir of his substantial estate. A local busybody has accused Lucie of negligence that nearly cost her life. And York is rife with rumors that Owen may be tempted to stay in Wales forever. During a visit to her father’s home, the manor is attacked and Lucie suspects someone inside the estate may be in cahoots with the raiders. Without Owen and not knowing if he’ll ever return, she turns to good-looking and recently widowed Roger Moreton and his handsome, mysterious steward Harold Galfrey.

What made A Gift of Sanctuary an intriguing read is the amazing depiction of Owen’s internal conflict concerning his loyalty to his king and duke, and to his people, suffering at the hands of the English. In A Spy for the Redeemer, Owen still struggles with those questions, but his love for Lucie and missing her after all this time adds another element to the mix, muddling his thoughts even more.

Lucie is also conflicted in her faithfulness to Owen and the very present Roger Moreton and Harold Galfrey. Her adopted son jasper feels she is becoming too close to them and Lucie is shocked when she realizes he may be right.

At some points, both mysteries, the murder of the masoner and the conspirator inside Sir Robert’s estate, become muddled and confusing. It’s difficult to see who’s loyalties lie where as Owen seems to be watched and questioned by everyone including his own men.

I think I shall read this one again. The details are what bring the fourteenth century to life but for those of us not familiar with Welsh history, they can be confusing and cloud the story. Still I’d recommend this to any mystery fan.  It's certainly good enough to read a second time!

A Gift of Sanctuary by Candace Robb

One reason I read Candace Robb’s medieval mystery series feature Welshman Owen Archer is her ability to tell intriguing and enjoyable stories with twisted plots and surprise endings. However, A Gift of Sanctuary didn’t quite measure up to the previous five novels. This work was more confusing than its predecessors. Here Robb tells the story from the viewpoint of several different parties, all bouncing back and forth across southwest Wales, chasing each other, missing each other, avoiding each other.

Owen has returned to his native Wales under the guise of recruiting archers for the Duke of Lancaster. His main purpose is to discover if the Welsh are sympathetic to the French King Charles to the point of letting him get a foothold on the British Isle from which to attack England.

Accompanying him is his ailing father-in-law who is on a pilgrimage to St. David’s, in southwest Wales. Owen plans to complete his mission quickly and return to his wife Lucie and their children in York. Unfortunately, his first contact fails to show up at the appointed rendezvous so Own continues west.

At the next stop on their journey, the village is abuzz with the news of a body found outside the castle gates earlier. The dead man is the one Owen was to meet. The bishop of the castle asks him to take the corpse to St. David’s where the man’s father is. He tells Owen that a monk will be with them on their journey. The enigmatic Father Edern appears to know much of Owen’s true purpose into Wales.

Perhaps if one is familiar with Welsh language, culture and geography, the book might not seem as confusing as I found it. The politics of that region during Owen’s journey were also difficult to follow.

Usually Robb depicts Owen with depth, feeling and character. Maybe after five novels, she doesn’t need to expand on him any more but he came across as flat and two-dimensional in this work. She did more characterization of Owen’s father-in-law Sir Robert, Geoffrey Chaucer and a Welsh bard.

Nevertheless, for fans of Owen Archer, A Gift of Sanctuary is a must-read.