Books: The Serpent in the Thorns
A fallen knight solves a mystery to save King Richard III **** 4 Stars
By Gabrielle Pantera
The Serpent in the Thorns, A Medieval Noir
HOLLYWOOD, CA (Gosh!TV) 12/19/2009 - “So there I am, climbing in my bathrobe because I haven’t tidied up for the day yet, and the bathrobe gets caught,” says The Serpent and the Thorn author Jeri Westerson. “ I slip and end up wedged between ladder and bookshelf in my office…with bare legs and bare arse below, bathrobe above, hanging in my window like a side of beef…a naked side of beef.”
“Then I hear the Corky’s Pest Control guy coming into the backyard to do his monthly spraying,” says Westerson. “I struggle a bit more, using my sword [the author keeps a medieval broadsword handy] to work the caught bathrobe off the ladder until I crash down on the floor just as Mr. Corky passes by my office window.”
Westerson likes to act out the physical action of her stories, just to make sure it works. “There’s a lot of me scrambling around up ladders and such, swinging weapons around,” says Westerson. “Imagine, if you will, a fairly round, middle-aged, Jewish mother type, swinging from the rafters.”
The Serpent in the Thorns is the second novel in the Crispin Guest series. Former English knight Crispin Guest is known as the tracker now. He was dishonored when he was implicated in a plot against King Richard II. Guest lives on the mean streets of London tracing missing persons, objects and murders. Guest is hired by Grayce, a simple-minded tavern servant who claims she killed a man in her room. It’s a French courier carrying the Crown of Thorns, a gift for King Richard II from the King of France. Guest must solve the mystery to save the king.
“After struggling to get many years’ worth of historical fiction published, and getting nowhere, I warmed to the idea of writing historical mystery,” says Westerson. “It seemed like a wider market. I’m so entrenched in the medieval era with my writing and research. But, I didn’t want to add to the monk and nun detective genre. I wanted something grittier, with a dark and brooding protagonist who could be an action hero and still be true to his time period.”
“I started kicking around the idea of a hard-boiled detective along the lines of a Philip Marlowe or Sam Spade and placing him in the Middle Ages, blending my two favorite mystery genres,” says Westerson. “To really make it work, the protagonist had to fit into the mold of those pulp detectives…the lone wolf, the knight errant. To give him the skills he would need…fighting skills, a facility with languages, the ability to move in any circles…I made him a real knight. To add that all-important conflict and drama, he became an ex-knight, forbidden from the society in which he was raised.”
Westerson says the fallen knight character offers not only the masculine perspective on the world but also his prejudices of class and his own journey to fit into the lowest dregs of society, a place he now calls home.
For the historical details needed for each book, like archery, certain laws that fit into the plot, medieval medicine, and the life of public figures, Westerson researches at libraries and online. “I find that archivists in England are some of the friendliest people and so very generous with their time,” says Westerson. “I suppose they’re just so happy to connect with someone who appreciates their area of expertise.”
Westerson’s agent is Joshua Bilmes of JABberwocky Literary in New York. “My first agent was great and after some years of unsuccessfully trying to place my novels, we parted company amicably,” says Westerson. “But agents two and three are best forgotten. I was going to go it alone when I discovered the agent for Charlaine Harris who writes the Sookies Stackhouse Southern Vampire series, which is quite popular now with the True Blood series on HBO based on her books. I’d been reading and enjoying her books, came across her agent, and observed what he had done for her, building her career over a number of years.”
“Jeri had written a really good book, which is really the single most important thing that we ever and always look for in a new writer,” says agent Joshua Bilmes. That book, called Cup of Blood, is a Crispin Guest mystery that’s yet to be published. “We kept on having editors tell us “Too Dan Brown, too Dan Brown,” says Bilmes, referring to the author of The Da Vinci Code But, something about Crispin and Jeri dug its nails into Keith Kahla at St. Martin’s. Eventually, Westerson’s second Guest mystery, Veil of Lies became the first book in the series.
“As soon as Veil of Lies was written, I sat down to write Serpent in the Thorns,” says Westerson. “In each book there’s a religious relic, whether it’s something everyone is trying to get their hands on or can’t wait to get rid of. Sometimes these McGuffins propel the plot and sometimes they are only periphery.”
“The idea for Serpent simply sprang from the next relic I wanted to write about, as well as the idea of getting Crispin into terrible trouble,” says Westerson. “It’s a bit of a suspense novel, what I like to call my ‘ticking sundial’ plot. It’s also got a lot of Errol Flynn moments, so I also tend to think of it as an adventure novel. They say you write the kind of book you can’t find out there to read, hence Medieval Noir.”
Serpent in the Thorns is an enjoyable read with swashbuckling adventure and a fast pace to the writing. It’s a historical mystery suspense that guys will enjoy reading, too.
Jeri Westerson is working on the fifth book in the Crispin Guest series. Guest book number three, A Conspiracy of Parchment, and book number four, Troubled Bones, will be published soon. Westerson is from the heart of South Central Los Angeles and currently lives in the Inland Empire area.
Serpent in the Thorns: A Medieval Noir
- Hardcover, 288 pages, Publisher: Minotaur Books; 1 edition (September 29, 2009)
- Language: English, ISBN: 9780312534981 $24.99
- www.JeriWesterson.com
- www.Getting-Medieval.com
- www.CrispinGuest.com