The Fourth Crow

from my goodreads review: I did buy these final two books in kindle format from Amazon. It may be that I feel differently about reading them in this format, or I simply liked this book less than those that came before. I shall know soon as I will continue reading the next and last one that I know of to date. With Gil\’s household growing in number and the number of characters in this book, it had potential for being a most interesting book – but it was not satisfying for me. Dropped threads and lack of closure in several plot lines. I can say now after reading the next book in the lineup I enjoyed it far more.

Pat McIntosh writes well and has created a husband and wife team of Scottish sleuths that I always enjoy meeting again. The sense of time and place is well drawn, the dialect adds interest to the characters and I haven\’t been disappointed yet. For me, a conservative reader, the intelligence of the highly principled protagonists is important. Sometimes, one gets the feeling that the modern writer has only to rack up a huge body count and throw in enough sex and their books get five star ratings. Ms. McIntosh is talented enough to create a good book without the use of those gimmicks. I admire that and hope she keeps it up, for I am looking forward to my next encounter with Gil and his wife.

McIntosh clearly knows her material well, and the characters are fully developed. I like her use of dialect–it is consistent to the individual characters being portrayed—i.e. Alys\’ father doesn\’t have it, the uneducated characters always do, while Gil and his peers use it or speak more formally, depending on the circumstances. The storyline is intriguing and provides interesting twists and turns. It\’s an excellent series.

Each succeeding volume in this series gives us a better understanding of the key characters, and also a better view of the tensions that thread through the lives of late medieval Scotish aristocracy and mercantile classes. Good story combined with good historical description of the period.

I\’m really enjoying this whole series. You do have to aquaint yourself with the scots vernacular to understand it though

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