This one optimistically says on the cover: “First in a Brand New Series.” Alas, I don’t think I’ll be following along for any more of them.
The concept is cool: Merlin solves crime with his newfangled ways of reason and analysis, while the rest of Camelot drinks heavily and talks of sorcery. Unfortunately, the writing does not live up to the idea’s promise. The first several chapters are all one big lump of exposition, and it only gets marginally better from there.
King Arthur’s knights have found the Stone of Bran, an artifact of supposedly great magical powers. He wants to use it to bring peace to all the land, but Merlin tries to use his book-learnin’ to convince Arthur there’s no such thing as magic, and there is no easy solution to peace. They don’t get a chance to test it though, because as soon as the Stone arrives in Camelot, it’s stolen along with Excalibur, and one of Arthur’s twin squires is murdered. Merlin is assigned the case, along with a handful of helpers/exposition receivers.
It’s a fine A to B to C mystery, I suppose, but there’s not much suspense, and a lot of it reads like Blair trying to show off Arthurian knowledge. “Look! Morgan is a suspect! And so is Mordred! You’ve heard those names, right? They’re bad guys!” Of course it isn’t Morgan – that’s too obvious even for this author.
Here’s an example of the stellar dialogue. Keep in mind that they’re investigating a murder, here, so it’s just possible that people might be lying when asked their whereabouts on a certain night.
Merlin: “With thought and reason and careful analysis we can unmask the truth.”
Exposition Fairy: “Does truth need unmasking?”
Merlin: “It rarely needs anything else.”
Uh-huh. Okay then. That’s the scene break, and the next chapter is titled “The Investigation Begins in Earnest.” That’s on page 111. What have you been doing for the last 110 pages, Merlin? Plus, by this point, the other squire twin is murdered as well. Maybe some investigation is indeed in order.
Mostly Merlin travels around the castle and the countryside with a list of suspects and questions. Arthur and the general populace are all portrayed as pretty dense, and Merlin’s helpers are only slightly less dense. They have to be dimmer than Merlin, though, so he can explain stuff to them. The culprit’s pretty obvious pretty early on, although one thing I thought was a clue turned out to be a red herring. That scamp Merlin and his reason and careful analysis! But then, the clue did point out the right killer, even though it didn’t mean anything. So maybe an orangish herring?
It was a fairly nifty concept, but pretty terrible writing. “Slowly, venomously, Guenevere intoned, ‘That will not be agreeable.’” Well, all righty then. You go on intoning stuff, Gueny.
P.S. However, my inner Beavis and Butthead really enjoyed this best typo ever, when Merlin says, “I’ve never followed the knights’ dongs all that closely.” Your kingdom (or Arthur’s) for an i, perhaps, Merlin?
Orangish herring? Now there’s a name for a garage band! This sounds like all the Do Not Do rules to writing (of which I know a great deal, having violated them all myself). I wonder who the publisher/editor are. With so much good stuff out there, who thought Merlin as a non-magical detective was a good idea? Especially if it’s a standard CSI procedural. Good grief. Maybe they slipped the typo in to keep the reader awake. Slowly and venomously? My crit group would be all over that!