Heretic (The Grail Quest, Book 3)
by Bernard Cornwell
List Price:
Our Price: $6.54
You Save: $7.45 (53%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $2.14 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Bernard CornwellEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-09-25
ISBN: 0060748281
Number of pages: 368
Publisher: HarperCollins
Book Reviews of Heretic (The Grail Quest, Book 3)
Book Review: Decent wrap-up to the series, which overall dragged a bit
Summary: 4 Stars
I ended up liking this one - Cornwell had a good plot resolution albeit one that I saw coming. But overall, I'm glad this trilogy is done.
Arriving back in France in time to help the English fend off French efforts to retake Calais, Thomas of Hookton is sent by the Earl of Northampton to retake his onetime fief deep inside France. And, as it happens, it's not far from the ancestral home of the Vexilles - Thomas' ancestors, tied to the Cathar heresy and rumored to have at one time owned the Holy Grail.
Thomas and his men retake Northampton's castle. Meanwhile, the Cardinal of Bessieres also schemes to find it, thinking it can make him the next Pope. And if he can't find it, Plan B is to create a counterfeit, aided by his rotten ruffian brother Charles. Also getting into the act is the Count of Berat, a local noble, religious and erudite, who thinks finding the Grail would be the miracle that would help him, late in life, father an heir. Berat's nephew Joscelyn, a powerful, boorish knight, meanwhile angles to inherit the estate for himself. In the background is Thomas' nemesis and ruthless cousin Guy Vexille, searching, too, for the Grail.
As they take the castle, Thomas and his men stumble upon a girl - beautiful, of course - who is about to be burned as a heretic. Thomas predictably (in no Cornwell novel has this ever not happened) falls for Genevieve and saves her, but his Scots pal Robbie Douglas wants her too, and the girl's presence not only drives a wedge between the pals but starts to split the company. Protecting her costs Thomas dearly, as churchmen in league with his opponents excommunicate him. Meanwhile everyone wants to poke around the ruins at Astarac, now occupied by not much more than a little monastery run by the saintly Abbot Planchard.
I'm a big Cornwell fan, but tired of this trilogy a bit. I think the Grail story and the cat-and-mouse game between Thomas and Guy Vexille was extended too long, like a soap opera plot getting endless twists and turns just to keep it going.
Cornwell does everything possible to elaborate the warfare angle - archery's advent tilting the medieval balance of power in combat - but he doesn't really have enough there to keep it interesting over three books. Yep, the bowmen's arrows could punch through armor. Yep, they come in sheaves of 24. Yep, rain ruins the bowstrings. Yep, this arrowhead for this, that one for that. And lots of details about armor, powerful war horses, newfangled cannons and crossbows. After a while, though, we feel we've heard it all, and the battle scenes are inevitably made dramatic when the archers with their long-distance killing power turn the tables on the annoying French knights in shining armor. (Ni!) In Cornwell's other series, he is more inventive in his battle sequences.
Warfare is Cornwell's strong suit, but in the Grail Quest series the religious angles trump it. Thomas' religious agonies don't hang together well. Cornwell's main characters are usually religious skeptics. In Thomas he has to blend that side - Thomas doubting the Grail's existence, meanwhile witnessing awful acts including torture committed by churchmen - with a side of him that does believe, that frets religiously when he is excommunicated. All his internal rumination gets tedious. He's suspicious of Genevieve's free-thinking ways: she's not the heretic that the church says she is, but meanwhile she's sort of a pantheist, the type that dances naked during thunderstorms. (Bernard, do you have her phone number? Just kidding.) Religion has a role in all of Cornwell's series, but in this one, what with the medieval setting and the Grail legend and all, it's overwhelming. It also keeps our hero from having the sort of devil-may-care side to him that make Starbuck, Uhtred and, most of all, Sharpe, so appealing.
On the positive side, the Abbot Planchard is the finest of all Cornwell's religious characters - a clergyman sympathetic not because he's one of the boys, a hearty warrior, or humanized by his appetites (we see all of those in the also-medieval Saxon Chronicles) - but because of his wisdom, and a courage to do the right thing regardless of Church dogma or material consequence.
There were other things I liked here. Cornwell hints throughout the series at the Black Plague, which you know is coming from the 1340s dates. Periodically a character sneezes and you think, "Here it is," but then it isn't. Yet. He saves it for this one and weaves it well into the plot.
But all in all, I had to push myself through these books, a first for me with a Cornwell series. Still worth reading, but Cornwell has set impossibly high standards for himself with his other series - even Patrick O'Brian only had one major series with Aubrey and Maturin - and this one falls short of what we've come to expect.
Summary of Heretic (The Grail Quest, Book 3)
Already a seasoned veteran of King Edward's army, young Thomas of Hookton possesses the fearlessness of a born leader and an uncanny prowess with the longbow. Now, at the head of a small but able band of soldiers, he has been dispatched to capture the castle of Astarac. But more than duty to his liege has brought him to Gascony, home of his forebears and the hated black knight who brutally slew Thomas's father. It is also the last place where the Holy Grail was reported seen. Here, also, a beautiful and innocent, if not pious, woman is to be burned as a heretic. Saving the lady, Genevieve, from her dread fate will brand Thomas an infidel, forcing them to flee together across a landscape of blood and fire. And what looms ahead is a battle to the death that could ultimately shape the future of Christendom.
Action & Adventure Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Action & Adventure Books
Polar Shiftby Paul Cussler Clive & Kemprecos
Penguin; Published: 2007; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.30
The Call of the Wild (Children's Classics)by Jack London
Penguin Audio; Published: 1997-08-01; Audio Cassette; Book
Best price: $11.00
Pelican Briefby John Grisham
Trafalgar Square; Published: 1993-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.19
Price in other shops:
Stardustby Neil Gaiman
HarperCollins; Published: 2008-12-23; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.30
Price in other shops:
Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 1)by Neal Stephenson
William Morrow Paperbacks; Published: 2004-09-21; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.50
Price in other shops:
Sandstormby James Rollins
Harper; Published: 2005-04-26; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.50
Price in other shops:
No Man's Landby G.M. Ford
William Morrow; Published: 2005-06-28; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $0.50
Price in other shops:
Forever Odd - Signed Proofby Dean Koontz
Bantam; Published: 2005; Paperback; Book
Preyby Michael Crichton
Harper Collins Pb; Published: 2003-08-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.95
Sharpe's Waterloo (Richard Sharpe's Adventure Series #20)by Bernard Cornwell
Harpercollins; Published: 1998-01-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.00
Similar Books and other products
Stonehenge: A Novelby Bernard Cornwell
Harper Perennial; Published: 2004-12-14; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.11
Price in other shops:
The Last Kingdom (The Saxon Chronicles Series #1)by Bernard Cornwell
HarperCollins; Published: 2006-01-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.91
Price in other shops:
The Pale Horseman (The Saxon Chronicles Series #2)by Bernard Cornwell
HarperCollins; Published: 2006-12-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.10
Price in other shops:
Sword Song: The Battle for Londonby Bernard Cornwell
Harper Perennial; Published: 2008-12-23; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.99
Price in other shops:
Lords of the North: A Novel (Saxon Chronicles #3)by Bernard Cornwell
Harper Perennial; Published: 2008-01-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.17
Price in other shops:
Enemy of God (The Arthur Books #2)by Bernard Cornwell
St. Martin's Griffin; Published: 1998-03-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.62
Price in other shops:
The Archer's Tale (The Grail Quest, Book 1)by Bernard Cornwell
HarperCollins; Published: 2005-11-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.29
Price in other shops:
Excalibur, A Novel of Arthur (The Arthur Books #3)by Bernard Cornwell
St. Martin's Griffin; Published: 1999-07-16; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.16
Price in other shops:
The Winter King (The Arthur Books #1)by Bernard Cornwell
St. Martin's Griffin; Published: 1997-04-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.93
Price in other shops:
Vagabond (The Grail Quest, Book 2)by Bernard Cornwell
HarperCollins; Published: 2006-01-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.57
Price in other shops: