A DEEPER LOOK, PURSUED: TEN KNIGHTS ON THE BARROOM FLOOR, Mel R. Jones

Talk about a page turner! I thought I’d just take a peek into the book midday but found myself halfway through it after having been unable to put it down. Ten Knights is a well-written, intriguing, compelling novel that held my attention hour after pleasurable hour, each new chapter a powerful magnet drawing me forward to an intricately developed mystery. I couldn’t wait to find out how all the complicated threads would tie together.

The characters are psychologically well-drawn and fully real, the plot is exciting and the detail—military, medical, historical, geographic—is so well researched and spot on with documents and actual history which demonstrate that a scholar created the story. I loved weaving seamlessly between time periods and places, between the World War II past and the 1970s with the history and sociology accurate and believable to the extent that I almost come to think that the story really happened, and I was reading some pretty exciting non-fiction.

The quality of this novel reveals a perfectionist, a philosopher, a genius at the craft. Every chapter from the very first held me unable to walk away. New clues to the unfolding mystery were offered when least expected, so I was constantly surprised and delighted. The characters’ feelings, motivations and back stories were compelling, fully real to me, all worth knowing, and I cared about them. I wouldn’t have wanted an editor to shorten a single page because I didn’t want their world and my reading pleasure to end.

I believe that Ten Knights will stand the test of time.  Beyond the sheer adventure of the read, the novel demands discussion. One wants to explore the intricacies of the mystery itself, the writer’s craft, the accurate history with its military, sociological, philosophic and psychological insight, the whole concept of war and peace, whether between opposing tribes on a remote island, or between the participating nations of World War II, or today. A central message is found in the story’s sundial, “One hour alone is in thy hands, the hour on which the shadow stands.” Every character can be studied from this point of view, and every reader will find this idea to be a truth worth exploring.

Finally, beyond plot and character, here and there an image stood out with a touch of beauty, such as this description of the mountains, “Their purple peaks appeared like amethyst crystals reaching for the last bit of sunlight of the day.” That image and others will stay with me the way a poem can tattoo itself upon one’s memory. Mel R. Jones writes like a painter and thinks like a sage. What a pleasure to have come upon his book!

HSK, August 16, 2018

[avatar]Marian[/avatar]