The Eleventh Hour: 3 (The King's Watch)

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Authors, if you are a member of the Goodreads Author Program, you can edit information about your own books. Find out how in this guide. Conrad Clarke is about to get married. Could life get any better for the Lord Guardian of the North? The Codex Defanatus is sealed away, peace has been cemented in the Lakeland Particular and as far as he knows, no one is out to get him. Time to relax…

The first novel that Adrian Attwood would write under his Mark Hayden pen-name was titled ‘A Piece of Blue Sky,’ coming out in 2014. This would also be the first in his ‘Operation Jigsaw Trilogy,’ paving the way for more still to follow in the future. Various other series that he’d write were the ‘Tom Morton’ series, along with the ‘King’s Watch’ urban fantasy series of novels. Believe that a middle-aged, balding, criminal, with no particular talents other than faking his way through everything, is an attractive protagonist. The writing in Eight Kings felt clunky. I think much of it had to do with passing the POV character around, and since this is written from 1st person, it made for some really awkward transitions. For example, at the end of the chapter, the Conrad voice would flat out tell the reader, "And now I'm going to let Mina tell you what happened next" or something along those lines. And there were places in the story where the current narrator just flat out wouldn't tell you what was happening because 'So-and-so is going to tell you all about it in the next chapter', or 'you need to read all about what happened in this short story' or (and this one irked me the most) 'it doesn't bear repeating here.' The last time this type of writing was featured so heavily was in the first book, and the author used it less and less after even the first half of that novel. It just made for some really clunky storytelling.FWIW, It's not the first time this has happened - book 8 suffered from similar problems as I covered in my review of that.

In essence this is a short story that keeps us on the journey to find out who created (fathered) Raven mixed in with a whole series of character updates that are sprinkled around the wedding, a recap from the last installment, a stag party, and a few other items tied to Conrad's reinstatement into The King's Watch. Don't mind that the central love story is between two sadly desperate losers, one of whom is in jail, and seems clearly destined to fail. And then one night, strange lights drift across the lawn, and suddenly Don is a man with a mission. A mission to be rescued, if only he can find a way to send a letter…

The only reason I have that part of the book at 2 stars instead of 1 star is that some of it was interesting, given we're now invested in (some) of these characters - but there are large portions of it that just did not need to be in the book. On their own they may have some value, but not when that's all there is for so much of the book! And there are just too many characters to fit in a book like this. Some of them are great, others not quite so much - but even if you love all of them (AND you can remember all of them), having them all in the book just bogs the story down so, so much. The British writer Adrian Attwood is well-known for his incisive and intelligently written crime and thriller novels, along with his fantasy. Over the years he created numerous works of fiction that have been appreciated by readers the world over, expertly crafting his narratives. Hugely influential within his field, he’s a massively gifted author and novelist with a lot to say and author, all while keeping his huge audience entertained. Primarily writing under his pen-name Mark Hayden, he’s become a worldwide publishing sensation with a lot to say and offer. It seems, after the explosive ending to the prior volume; that the author hasn’t a clue what to do with all these people. Much like the film “The Man Who Invented Christmas”; the key characters sit around, waiting for a plot.

If you felt it was important enough to publish a short story about it, than it must have been important enough to be included in the book to begin with. Of all the flavours of fantasy novels, I only really enjoy those set in the real world (often described as urban fantasy, although some, as is the case here, are mostly rural) - whether it's the intricate cleverness of something like Gene Wolfe's Castleview, or when it's mixed with the police procedural, as in Ben Aaronovich's Rivers of London, Sarah Painter's Crow Investigations or Paul Cornell's Shadow Police. That meant I was delighted to discover Mark Hayden's King's Watch series. In many ways it's great, though it has proved to be something of a curate's egg. But, as Clarke and Co. soon find out, the politics of family are much more dynamic and cutthroat than any simple election to invest a new Staff King of the 7 Kingdoms. I don't like clerical errors and I think this book has more than the rest of the other books in this series thus far.Mixed in is a story about a cook and caregiver at a posh treatment center for addicts and eventually this becomes the mystery/crime that Conrad has to solve. It's probably less than 1/4 of the overall book though. Once we get to the actual crime the book has all the great redeeming qualities of the other installments of The King's Watch. Only thing that got the book from the second star to the third.