The Devil's Lair
Amazon.com The Devil's Lair
My review -
This
story is a Grail Quest and a journey which follows Dante's route into the
inferno. The group undertaking the quest
includes an epileptic girl, a friar, a poet and a knight who lost his memory
after a deep head wound. Their world is
devastated by the plague, the Black Death. Their quest is to acquire the lance of
Longinus, the soldier who pierced Christ's side, and take it into the
underworld, through the nine circles of hell.
There they will use the lance to gain possession of the Grail and bring
it back to earth to help to heal it. Not
all of them will return!
This
is an intriguing concept and the writing is scattered with antique words and
Latin phrases. Much of the Latin can be
understood by anyone with a smattering of church Latin – it’s biblical
quotations and pieces from the Mass for the Dead. Mostly it comes off, except
for odd times such as when the author apparently unwittingly used a bit of Cockney
rhyming slang. The mediaeval mind was
wonderfully conjured here and I very much enjoyed the read.
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