David Pilling

This short novel is the first in a series of light touch historical novels based around the legend of Robin Hood. In this one, he is Robert Hode of Barnsdale in Yorkshire, who is not an outlaw at this stage, but has had some brushes with the harshness of forest law in Medieval England. Many of the early legends of Robin Hood that were first collated and written down in the mid 15th century (over two centuries after the time when this novel is set early in the reign of the boy king Henry III), feature in the narrative here. It is quite bloody and violent and Robert/Robin is not always the gentlemanly rogue of popular literature and film. I enjoyed it, though I didn't particularly warm to the central character. I will pursue the series though.… (mere)