Cornwell ends his grail trail

Heretic is the third, and apparently final episode of Bernard Cornwell's Grail quest series of novels with English archer Thomas of Hookton as hero.

It opens with the capture of Calais in 1347; from there Thomas, at the head of a small band of archers, makes his way south to Gascony, rescuing Genevieve, a beautiful blonde heretic, from the stake, and finally confronting his arch enemy and chief rival in the Grail quest, his cousin, the evil Guy Vexille.

As always with Cornwell, the battle descriptions are brilliantly done, and the hand-to-hand fighting vividly evoked, but Heretic is more ruminative than its predecessors, with unexpected meditations on religion and faith; it has, too, more Latin than is usual in the genre.

But it is still a stirring conclusion to the series.