Tuck

This is the last in the King Raven trilogy by Stephen Lawhead. I talked about book two previously, and my impressions of the third part of the trilogy are much the same as the previous ones. They are nicely done, and written so that I'll enjoy them nearly as much as my nine-year-old son will.

This one is centered around Tuck, the anglo-saxon friar whose real name is Aethelfrith, but who gets given a nickname (appropriate to his stature) that is more palatable to the welsh tongue. Friar Tuck was important in the previous books, but is central to the plot of this third book. This third book has a wider scope than the previous ones, and Rhi Bran's band of outlaws become a rebellion and have to face battle with the full strength of English might.

It works well, and an afterword tells us (with quotes from Anglo-Saxon chronicles of the time) that several of the welsh kings involved in the story actually did fight the Ffreinc (Norman rulers of England), with some success - the author is defending his tale against readers who will doubt the likely possibility of the events in the trilogy. Tuck is a satisfying conclusion to the story, and is probably the best of the series.