Hood, the first book in this imaginative retelling of the Robin Hood legend, was an enjoyable read and although I wasn't immediately compelled to pick up this book, the next in the series, I enjoyed this one as well. Stephen Lawhead shifts the action to eleventh century Wales where Rhi Bran, a king dispossessed of his lands by the invading Normans, becomes an outlaw. All of the rest of the gang are here as well in various guises, including Will Scarlet, or Scatlocke as he has been renamed. Much of the book is told in the first person as Will, languishing in jail for a crime he did not commit, tells his story to Odo, a young Norman priest.
Stephen Lawhead writes well, with the occasional lapse into Celtic romanticism, and he obviously knows his stuff as I got a clear sense of the harshness and brutality of everyday life in the Middle Ages. Will is a great, well-rounded character and I liked that most of the story was told in his voice. What was less well done was the larger historical context. I don't know if the author assumed his readers would be familiar with the political situation in eleventh century Britain (I'm not) but I didn't really follow what was a convoluted story thread about two popes and the king's rebellious younger brother.
So, an enjoyable read but not a compelling one.
Read On: Tuck is the next in the series and I'll probably get around to reading it at some point.
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