The whole trilogy is enjoyably gritty and showcases Cornwell’s magnificent talent for storytelling, but for our money, this novel is the strongest in the series. The first novel in Cornwell’s Grail Quest trilogy, Harlequin (2003) focuses on Thomas of Hookton, a strong young archer who ends up fighting in the battle of Crécy while seeking his revenge against his father’s French killers. Recommended edition: The Name Of The Rose (Vintage Classics)

The main character is a monk named William of Baskerville, whose name summons The Hound of the Baskervilles – and with good reason, since Eco’s character clearly pays tribute to Sherlock Holmes. Recommended edition: The Daughter Of TimeĮco was a semiotician (a philosopher of signs) as well as a novelist, and this 1980 novel, his most famous work of fiction, draws on his interest in semiotics. Upon its publication it was acclaimed an instant classic of detective fiction, and the way Tey’s character Inspector Grant examines the case for Richard’s guilt (or innocence, in fact) is deftly handled with recourse to historical documents.

The whole novel is a kind of investigation of the alleged crimes that King Richard III has been accused of, ever since the Tudor smear-campaign against him. This novel is set at the time of the Third Crusade of the 1190s, and like Ivanhoe features Richard the Lionheart (as well as Saladin, the Muslim leader in the Holy Land).Īlthough it’s set in the twentieth century, this classic novel from the 1950s is a masterpiece of modern detective fiction which takes a ‘cold case’ from the Middle Ages as its cue. Published in 1904, The Brethren is one of Rider Haggard’s historical novels, but it displays the same flair for storytelling and exciting adventure as we find in his novels set in contemporary Africa, such as She and King Solomon’s Mines.

Ken follett trilogy