The King’s Grave: The Discovery of Richard III’s Lost Burial Place and the Clues It Holds by Michael K. Jones
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I really wanted to like this book more than I actually did. Certainly I don’t regret reading it and it was interesting, but it’s just not a well-constructed telling of the story. Basically it combines a biography of Richard III of England with the story of the excavation of his burial place beneath a parking lot in Leicester. The narrative device of alternating between the two stories works at first, but becomes increasingly irritating. Richard III is a very polarizing figure in late medieval English history and both authors are Richard III partisans, yet they do not whitewash his story. Both sides are presented. It’s an interesting book and I’m glad I read it, but the structure of the narrative is a problem.