Phil Rickman - The Bones of Avalon

Audiobook - Fiction - Historical Mystery



Listening Time: 13 hours, 57 minutes
Published by Audible.com in 2011

Review by Amazon.com
It is 1560, and Elizabeth Tudor has been on the throne for a year. Dr John Dee is her astrologer and consultant in the hidden arts...a controversial appointment in these days of superstition. Now the bookish Dee has been sent to Glastonbury to find the missing bones of King Arthur. With him is his Robert Dudley, a wild card...and possibly the Queen's secret lover. The town is still mourning the gruesome execution of its abbot, Richard Whiting. But why was he killed?

What is the secret held by the monks since the abbey was founded? The mission takes Dee to the tangled roots of English magic, into unexpected violence, necromantic darkness...and the cold heart of a complex plot against Elizabeth.

©2010 Phil Rickman; (P)2010 Isis Publishing Ltd

Review by Foxtara, a Reader, at Amazon.com
Phil Rickman's Fabulously Daring Dr. Dee
It is an absolute delight to be able to walk through the medieval streets via Phil Rickman's graphic narratives and share the adventures of his characters. Who could forget the opening scene, with its undercurrent of shock, as Dee witnesses the unfolding of the wrapped object, after its removal from the coffin on the quayside.

Rickman's Dr. Dee is a truth seeker, a keen observer and an analyst, and once he is on the trail of a mystery, he means to see it though to its conclusion, and oh my, what adventures he has along the way. The Bones of Avalon is a tremendously satisfying read on many different levels; social, political, historical, murder, intrigue, suspense, folklore and so on. Various aspects reflect everyday life - where there are many different onion-layers of complexity. The novel is a living, albeit fictional, tribute to Dee. The characters are well-rounded, they live and breathe and you want to spend time with them.

Their environment is also well described; you might find you are picking your steps through the street for a while after reading this book. Or looking at well known houses with the realisation that certain events are based on the truth, and you now feel privy to it - even if this is a pun on the preceding sentence.