The Sacred Stone
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
1067. In the desolate wastes of Greenland, a band of hunters discover a strangely-shaped meteor which has fallen from the sky. At first, the mysterious 'sky-stone' seems to bring good luck, healing a lame boy and guaranteeing a good catch of furs. But violence and murder soon follow in fortune's wake as the villagers fight and struggle among themselves to get control of the precious stone.
Over the next six hundred years, the Sky-Stone falls into the hands of crusading knights, the wicked Sheriff of Devon, a group of radical young kabalists, the dying King Henry III and a band of travelling players. Each time, the stone brings treachery, discord and violent death to those who seek to possess it.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A meteorite that lands in an isolated Greenland settlement in 1067 propels the so-so sixth collaborative mystery (after 2009's King Arthur's Bones) from the Medieval Murderers (Susanna Gregory, Simon Beaufort, Bernard Knight, Karen Maitland, Ian Morson, Philip Gooden). At the end of the prologue, men transport "the sky-stone" east across the seas. Over the next few centuries, Welsh monks, oppressed English peasants, persecuted Jewish merchants and scholars, the ailing Henry III, and a secret agent in Shakespeare's day successively possess the stone, which appears both blessed with the power to cure the sick and injured and cursed to trigger murderous greed or lethal accidents. While fans of the individual authors will enjoy seeing old friends, the ambiguity surrounding the stone's true nature, which persists up to the epilogue set in present-day London, may frustrate more casual readers.
