TBR Challenge - Book #3 Done!

[niko]

Book #3: The Idylls of the Queen - Phyllis Ann Karr

As far as Arthurian legends go, I'm usually of the opinion that a little goes a long way.  The whole Arthur mythos has never really caught my fancy, and the books written around it tend to take themselves a bit too seriously for my tastes, always seeming to be these large-scale epics of high tragedy.  If more authors wrote Arthurian stories like "Idylls of the Queen", I think I could become a fan of the genre.

Phyllis Ann Karr tells a story here that is quite far removed from the usual Arthurian highlights, going instead with a more intimate murder mystery.  When a private dinner hosted by Queen Guenevere results in one of the attendees dead of poison and Guenevere herself accused of the murder,  Sir Kay and Sir Mordred end up working together to discover the true murderer on a quest that will solve more than one mystery amidst the complicated rivalries and family loyalties of the court at Camelot.

I absolutely loved the focus here, giving a great spotlight to Kay and Mordred.  Both are outsiders due to their lack of care for courtly manners, both have their own private bitterness that the situation brings out, and both are sharp-witted and sharp-tongued and have their own angles that they're working on who might be responsible for the murder.  It leads to some great sparring between them, which is a weakness of mine - intelligent men matching wits.  Add to that the fact that Mordred is at a bit of a vulnerable point in this - aware of the prophecy that he'll be Arthur's downfall and still being close enough to everyone involved for that to *bother* him.  Overall, just the byplay between these two made for a great read from a fannish perspective.  Made me wonder what sort of market there is out there for Round-Table slash. ;)

Aside from pushing my buddy-buttons, though, the mystery itself is quite well done, with plenty of valid suspects and muddied further by some confusion as to who the intended victim was.  It leads to an interesting subplot in which Kay forms his own mini-investigation into the mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of Mordred's mother and her paramour, which leads to some real fleshing out of Mordred's four brothers (Gawaine, et.al.)  The whole thing made me actually *care* about these guys and see them as something so much more interesting than just the playing pieces in the overall tale of Arthur.  I'd love to find more books with this sort of narrow focus.