Lucrezia : the return

Lucrezia Borgia

Michael White's The Borgia ring is a pretty good thriler of its kind. At one level it's a straightforward serial killer murder mystery with a few Dan Brownish elements to it too. And then there's also a parallel historical thriller.

When an ancient skeleton is found on a building site, the builders are more concerned with working to their deadline than to report the find to the local police. But when an impressive ring (it turns out to have belonged to Lucrezia Borgia) is spotted on the skeleton, the contractors decide to guard the body overnight and make a decision the following morning. By the following morning the guy guarding the body is dead, and the skeleton has disappeared but that's just the start...

This was a pretty fun read, it's far-fetched and at times rather silly. But the central police characters are great - I'd love to know more about DCI Pendragon, and would hope that he would make a come-back elsewhere, and the bits set in the England of Elizabeth I are also pretty well written although there is the odd anachronism, and White's love of cameo appearances by famous people does get a bit irritating.

Still it's a fun lightweight read - no real brain power required. And the murderer manages to hide him/herself quite convincingly from the reader until the final denouement. White has written several other thrillers with historical sub-plots (as well as a well reviewed life of Sir Isaac Newton), and I'd certainly be interested in reading some more by him. Well worth reading if you're stuck in bed with a nasty case of the autumn blues...