Another in the shared world series of Medieval mysteries by the "Medieval Murderers", a group of mystery writers each famous for their own Medieval mystery series. This one involves events in several time periods centered around a hill outside Bath, England. Treasures are lost and found there are murders, discovered and secret, occur. ( )

Pretty poor stuff, with a faux-Arthurian thread running through the story (stories, if you prefer).

Written by a group of authors, it's a bit like a horse designed by a committee - a camel.

You have to be pretty good to get a collaborative venture like this to 'work' - these guys are
simply not up to it.

These are just good fun. A group of historical detective fiction authors get together and write a set of short stories that are set in different priods of time and connect through an object or location. IN this book the connection is Solisbury Hill, outside Bath. The series starts with the prologue, and finds King Arthur about to fight the Battle of Baydon hill against the invading Danes in order to save Saxon England from obliteration. The series of stories then proceed in order. I think my favourite was that featuring the murders of monks at Bath Abbey, mainly because the wife was such a charatcer and she was certainly the brains of the operation. In her husband's defence, he knew it too and between them they made a formidable pair. Malinferno (the Georgian set pair) and his partner Doll Pocket are also great fun to follow.
I like the format of these and the way the stories refer back to the previous tales, as artefacts re-appear in different guises. ( )

Another entry in the series of related stories told by some of Britian's best-known historical mystery writers, Hill of Bones contains tales by Karen Maitland, Susanna Gregory, Bernard Knight, Philip Gooden and Ian Morson. The premise of these books is to take a particular item and follow it through time, specifically through the Middle Ages, with a preface setting up the article to be followed and a brief coda bringing the item into the 21st Century. Hill of Bones is slightly different in that it really explores a specific place (Solsbury Hill, not far from the ancient Roman city of Bath) rather than a single object; in this case, there are several objects that find their way to the hill. And, of course, there are several murders related to those objects - the group of authors do call themselves The Medieval Murderers, after all! It's not necessary to be familiar with earlier books in this series, or indeed to be familiar with the characters created by each of these authors and appearing in their own series of mysteries; I enjoy the medieval setting and the fact that each story tends to contain a fair amount of humour in addition to the mystery plot, and would recommend the book especially for lovers of historical mysteries. ( )