From School Library Journal
Grade 7-9–Life in a medieval monastery is rife with venomous characters and underhanded dealings in this unfocused series offering set in 1188. Squire Pagan Kidrouk and his master, Lord Roland, have entered the Abbey of St. Martin to train as monks. Life consists of memorizing Latin passages, praying, and staying out of trouble. Pagan begins to hear whispers of a bribery scheme involving the cover-up of a church official's pedophilia, and when he begins to unravel the threads of the scandal, he changes the course of not only his own life, but also the lives of several others. It's important to have read the two earlier books in order to put these characters into context and understand their actions. The story rambles for quite awhile until it becomes more cohesive and eventful. The prose is somewhat choppy due to the use of short fragments rather than complete sentences. Also, Pagan's sarcastic thoughts are often placed in parentheses within these fragments, further interrupting the flow. The characters sometimes change their behaviors without explanation and some loose ends remain unresolved. Avi's
Crispin (Hyperion, 2002) or Nancy Springer's
I Am Mordred (Philomel, 1998) are better choices.
–Kristen Oravec, Cuyahoga County Public Library, Strongsville, OH Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Gr. 8-10. Two twelfth-century crusaders from the Holy Land, Lord Roland and his 17-year-old squire, Pagan, become novices at the Abbey of St. Martin in France. With his ready tongue, quick wits, and earthy vocabulary, the irrepressible Pagan seems an unlikely candidate for monastic life. Out of devotion to his master, he tries to conform to the order's many rules, but when he unearths a deception in the monastery, he cannot ignore it. Before the end, his investigation has uncovered blackmail, led to a murder, and revealed that one of the monks has sexually abused children at the monastery. Pagan makes a lively protagonist--ill suited to his new role, yet bound by love, loyalty, and determination to stay with Roland. Jinks succeeds in creating a medieval setting that feels distinctly different from the modern world in spirit as well as in period details. This quirky, witty medieval novel, originally published in Australia, is the third in a series of four, but it stands on its own.
Carolyn PhelanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
