Blood Ties
By C C Humphreys 

     When I reviewed The French Executioner a year ago, I said that we needed more of this sort of thing and here it is. Eighteen years later, Jean Rombaud has two adult children, but it is only Anne who is still at his side, for his son Gianni has left home and become a religious fanatic who kills Jews and heretics. He is instrumental is bringing back the six-fingered hand of Anne Boleyn to England, where it is being used by the sinister Simon Renard to coerce Princess Elizabeth into giving up her right to inherit the throne from her dying sister Mary. Naturally, Jean and his doughty friends, The Fugger and Haakon (plus their children) have no intention of letting this happen, so they are all plunged into another bloody adventure involving a Native American called Tagay, a trip to Canada and a lot more besides.

     The French Executioner is an extremely hard act to follow, and this sequel delivers "more of the same" but somehow drama gets replaced with melodrama in many places and the magic isn't quite there despite a lot of action; maybe it is something to do with the lack of humor that gave the earlier book its engaging and swashbuckling charm. The older people are only sketched in and appear as mere ciphers, and it is up to the new generation to capture our hearts this time around. The second half of the book, which takes place in Canada, grows wings somewhat and takes off as the author demonstrates a good grasp of what the various native tribes were like and gives a full-blooded and fair picture of them, which makes for absorbing reading, with Tagay as the most interesting of the younger people and the flawed but very human-seeming Thomas Lawley as a scene-stealing character who, unless there is to be a sequel, never quite gets the big scene that appears to be around the corner. As it appears that the author's next book is going to be set during the War of Independence, it will be interesting to see if he ever returns to the world he has created here.