Bland. Characters are pleasant-enough cardboard, with checklists of personality traits, rather than anything like rounded personalities.
The excerpts from a completely unrealistic 17th Century diary, which lead each chapter, are written in a clunky, cod-medieval "odds-bodkins" diction that is like fingernails drawn over chalkboard.
Much of the tension depends on the investigating officers not sharing information. and not making the simplest of connections until nearly clobbered over the head with them. Solution of historical mystery also depends on the survival of original documents that is beyond fantastic.
The the solutions to the mysteries, both ancient and modern, are clunkingly obvious, if you have ever read a mild, unchallenging mystery, or watched an episode of "Midsomer Murders." "Midsomer Murders" has better jokes.
From other reviews, I understand that this series (which had reached volume 19) gets better. I think I would need convincing (or being trapped on a desert island, with no books except those by Ms. Ellis) before I would test that theory.
The excerpts from a completely unrealistic 17th Century diary, which lead each chapter, are written in a clunky, cod-medieval "odds-bodkins" diction that is like fingernails drawn over chalkboard.
Much of the tension depends on the investigating officers not sharing information. and not making the simplest of connections until nearly clobbered over the head with them. Solution of historical mystery also depends on the survival of original documents that is beyond fantastic.
The the solutions to the mysteries, both ancient and modern, are clunkingly obvious, if you have ever read a mild, unchallenging mystery, or watched an episode of "Midsomer Murders." "Midsomer Murders" has better jokes.
From other reviews, I understand that this series (which had reached volume 19) gets better. I think I would need convincing (or being trapped on a desert island, with no books except those by Ms. Ellis) before I would test that theory.
