Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I read a lot of mysteries, and devour historical mysteries as fast as they come out. I have a lot of tolerance for even mediocre examples of the genre, simply because the combination of two my favorite forms of reading -- history and mystery -- makes it irresistible. The idea of a "degraded" knight as the protagonist was also intriguing (although in England, as of 1793, there had only been three of these extremely rare creatures). But -- the first chapter of this book was so bad and so badly written that I could barely battle my way through to subsequent ones. And I eventually gave up halfway through because I found that I didn't particularly care about Crispin or his fate. For starters, there is the bad writing. As one reviewer noted, the opening sentence sets the tone for the book - the London rain that is thicker and harsher than country rain. Then we have our protagonist feeling at "little trill in his belly". (Does the author mean thrill? chill? A trill is a musical term, most often used to refer to the sound made by a bird; never used to describe a sensation -- although perhaps Crispin's belly was singing?) Then there are the lengths she goes to in order to avoid ordinary words like "walked" -- someeone "trudged out", someone else "strode" to the door. Any word except the ordinary one -- a hallmark of overly-florid writing. The mood shifts of the wealthy merchant who has summoned Crispin to help him discover whether his wife is cheating on him are astounding -- he is agitated, then his face hardens -- and suddenly he is in tears. Then he starts to hiss angrily. Finally he smiles apologetically. It would be one thing if we had Crispin noting these mood shifts as being unconvincing -- it would pique the reader's curiosity, at least. Finally comes the clincher: the merchant (who oddly, after summoning Crispin, has to introduce himself to the former knight), presents him with a miniature of his wife. Miniatures in the form the author describes didn't exist for another century or so in Europe (and even in Persia, they took different forms.) The only miniatures that were readily available were those inscribed within the capital letters of manuscripts by the monks who crafted them, and sometimes would use the face of a patron as the basis for a saint's image, or simply include the image to honor them. This is a complete anachronism. This is only the first chapter. By then, I had lost a lot of interest in the book, I confess, and my irritation with it had grown significantly with each page I turned. Any single flaw -- the self-conscious & uneven writing, the problems with character, the anachronisms -- could have been overcome. But chapter after chapter, all three persisted until I ended up flinging the book against a wall and consigning it to perdition. There are still enough good medieval mysteries out there that I don't have to put up with something third-rate. Yes, this may sound harsh, but I'm not being particularly picky here. I will give an author a free pass on awkward writing and or plot wobbliness if he or she is able to grab my attention and hold it. It's not a high threshold, but the author didn't meet it. The writing felt strained, the plot was paper thin, and everywhere her efforts to craft a story showed through. I hate writing a negative review, but when I have spent several hours trying to read something that I dislike so much, when I could have devoted that time to something better...