A Play of Dux Moraud, A Play of Knaves, The Prioress's Tale, all by Margaret Frazier

When I was a kid, my dad had hundreds of paperback books lying around, and all I had to do was find one that was interesting and there would be five or six others in the series to go through. I fell in love with a lot of protagonists that way, and never had to wait for sequels, because most of them had been written in the 70's. Since late high school or so, books have been less engrossing, and fantasy worlds have lost their ability to eat up whole days of my time, and I miss that feeling of immersion in someone else's life.

I've stormed through five books in these two (related) series because I really like one of the characters, and it's been forever since I've found a protagonist I really enjoyed. Joliffe is a player and the main character in the A Play of... series; he's also a recurring character in the Dame Frevisse mysteries, apparently, although those take place over a longer period of time, and his life seems to have changed a bit. (I admit to rewriting that in my head so that he's an unreliable narrator there; I don't want him not to be a player anymore, so I've decided he's lying. It works, because he does lie a lot, in all the books.) 

I think you'd be hard-pressed to really consider any of these books murder mysteries; there is almost never a murder until page 150, and the books only run about 200 pages long. Dux Moraud didn't feature any murders at all, actually, except one that had happened years before. There is also usually only one or two possible suspects, and never much buildup or reveal to who actually did the murder, which is almost never pre-planned. The books are more about spending time with the characters -- all of whom are well-rounded, but about whom we don't know much, actually -- and the time period, which is late medieval. I've said it before, but the tone and writing are just lovely, and I tend not to like books with lots of description of the countryside.

I also note that the Dame Frevisse books seem more bleak and despairing; it's partially because life in a convent would have been bleak and despairing, but it also seems more populated by terrible people, and therefore slightly less charming. 

Grade: Dux Moraud, A , Knaves, B , Prioress's Tale, B

originally posted 2006