Book 3), Heretic (The Grail Quest

This is an excellent historical novel. Do not start with this book. Read the first two in the series. This exciting novel by Bernard Cornwell gives the reader an excellent impression as to what life was like during this time period. The pace was excellent the characters were well-developedand the battle scenes were captivating

Favorites are The Grail series and the Saxon Tales. Main characters are flawed but strong enough to overcome internal and external challenges. Cornwell ends each book with references to actual battlefield locations, rulers in power during the years of the book etc

Fun read the end of the grail search ends in a way that makes sense filled with battle and intrigue of the time definitely recommend to anyone who likes a grail themed story without the religious ferver

Fascinating book. B. Cornwell is the master of this genre!Nobody Beats Hiaasen for stories about Florida's overpopulation and endangered wildlife!Nobody Beats Hiaasen for stories about Florida's overpopulation and endangered wildlife!

Just like the author's other novels, this book keeps your attention until the very end. The realism of his writing allows the reader to believe you are there. I would recommend this and the other books in the grail series to anyone in search of a great book.

An excellent ending to a great story. Bernard Cornwell does it again. I highly recommend not just this series but all of his books. Not only are they entertaining, but you actually learn a little history in the process.

A fantastic continuation of the Grail Quest. Intense battle scenes, vivid characters, and a captivating plot leave you feeling the emotions of those in the story. Anger, passion, despair and joy are just a taste of what you'll feel following the adventures of Thomas of Hookton.

Through The Grail Quest series, there were segments where all my previous research on the historical Catholic church was justified and repeated. The actions of the so-called sacred representatives of the Church were anything but.

Bernard Corn well doesn't let his readers down. Thomas predictably prevails but the book is well researched. It'sunlikely that an English archer got his hands on the Grail if it ever existed but I was pleased with the the ending. The battle scenes takes the reader into the thick of things and leaves nothing to the imagination! Nice to see the bad guys getting their just deserts.... Now on to 1365 the next of (Sir) Thomas adventures

Bernard Cornwell is by far the best historical fiction author of our time. I have read 10 or 12 of his books and have had a hard time putting them down after starting them. the store got the book to me in two days and I was done with the book two days later. Great book!!

Like Cornwell's Starbuck series, you must read THE ARCHER'S TALE and VAGABOND before reading HERETIC. And of the three, this is the worst.
I read with relish THE ARCHER'S TALE. Likewise, VAGABOND, though at times a little gruesome, had all the ingredients of an interesting historical novel: great battles, interesting characters, betrayal, redemption, evil churchmen, a quest, etc.
However, the first thing I noticed about HERETIC was that the visualizations were gone. With scant detail, I couldn't visualize the castle in and around which much of the action takes place, the face of the "most beautiful woman" they ever saw, nor any of the other people and places of the book. Cornwell gives one of the least visual descriptions of Yersinia Pestis ever.
And even though there was Thomas' usual love interest present (a different woman each time), no endearments passed between them.
What I most missed were the battle scenes. Oh, there were some but neither a satisfying number nor of the scope and pagentry that characterized those in the earlier two books.
Finally, you will have to read the first 2 novels in this series to understand who is who and why they are doing what they're doing in this one. In fact, I think a better course may be to read those two, and to wait until this one can be found in a used book store.

Like Cornwell's Starbuck series, you must read THE ARCHER'S TALE and VAGABOND before reading HERETIC. And of the three, this is the worst.
I read with relish THE ARCHER'S TALE. Likewise, VAGABOND, though at times a little gruesome, had all the ingredients of an interesting historical novel: great battles, interesting characters, betrayal, redemption, evil churchmen, a quest, etc.
However, the first thing I noticed about HERETIC was that the visualizations were gone. With scant detail, I couldn't visualize the castle in and around which much of the action takes place, the face of the "most beautiful woman" they ever saw, nor any of the other people and places of the book. Cornwell gives one of the least visual descriptions of Yersinia Pestis ever.
And even though there was Thomas' usual love interest present (a different woman each time), no endearments passed between them.
What I most missed were the battle scenes. Oh, there were some but neither a satisfying number nor of the scope and pagentry that characterized those in the earlier two books.
Finally, you will have to read the first 2 novels in this series to understand who is who and why they are doing what they're doing in this one. In fact, I think a better course may be to read those two, and to wait until this one can be found in a used book store.

Another Cornwell tale worth the time. Armchair adventure of the first order. Hint: 1356 must follow in reading. I was introduced to the author by the Sharpe's series. When it comes to creating a milieu in the context of the story, Cornwell is among the best.

I have all the Cornwell novels and have read and reread to the point of having to purchase new copies because of wear and tear.
If you like historical novels, read Cornwell. His stories are riveting and an engrossing window to the past.

With the very fine "The Last Kingdom" and "The Arthurian" Series it was too much to hope for the same quality of story telling in "The Grail" series. While I dragged myself through the first two books,"The Archers Tale" and "The Vagabond", the "Heretic" was a welcome relief. Thomas finally revealed some character strength ( I loved the final pages with Guy)and the story came alive where the first two books didn't.

Cornwell is the master is historic fiction. He excels in his ability to combine history with a tie to fictional relevance. If you enjoy this period of history, you will find "The Grail Quest" series as a must read.

I am not quite finished with this book yet. I am having a much harder time reading this series compared to the Saxon Chronicles.
It is a good historical story to an extent. There is a lot of battle and little less character play or building in this book and the prior one as well.
Not been one of my favorite reads lately.

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I have just finished this last entry of The Grail Quest and I have to say that for the series as a whole, my feelings are greatly mixed. There is a lot to like in the series, especially in the descriptions of the battles and the details of the people, the places and the things. Unfortunately the series also has weaknesses, the greatest of which being the characters. In Archer’s Tale, the story was so fun and the descriptions of the battles so detailed that I really didn’t care too much that the characters were fairly shallow. I was learning a bit of history, I was having fun and the fate and motivations of the characters seemed more of an afterthought. However, with each subsequent book I found myself less interested in the story and so I was forced to noticed the flaws and lack of consistency in the characters. I also realized after finishing Heretic, that I was much more interested in reading about the Hundred Years War than I was about Thomas’ hunt for the Grail.

While Vagabond still focused a bit on the war between England and France (and even some of the conflict between England and Scotland), Heretic starts with with an actual historical battle (the siege of Calais) but soon after forgets about it as England and France go into a truce. And so the rest of the story focuses on Thomas’ hunt to find the Holy Grail before his evil counterpart, his cousin Guy Vexille. To start, the author says at the end of the book that most of this section was pulled from his imagination, and the places where the action takes place is not real. To me, this makes me incredibly less interested and makes me feel that the book has entered the fantasy territory and strayed from historical fiction. As Thomas and his companions find themselves victorious after the siege of Calais, a treaty is being signed between England and France. And yet the Earl of Northampton, bewitched by Thomas’ quest to find the Grail, gives Thomas a force of men (two of which being Robbie and Sir Guillaume of course) and orders them to sneak into French territory near the fictional town of Astarac and capture a castle. The purpose of this, to draw Guy Vexille to them, capture him and force him to tell them where the Grail is. Um, what? Did the earl miss the part where there was a truce? This decision isn’t even questioned. The characters acknowledge the fact that they are breaking this truce but apparently don’t care. The earl of Northampton has now lost all credibility as a character, willing to risk the diplomacy of his country on the chance that a fairy tale is real.
I wish I could say that the earl was the only character to become nonsensical since the previous books, but it’s just not so. Robbie, the lovable Scottish oaf that we met in Vagabond who was fairly entertaining to read in that book was wildly inconsistent in Heretic and borderline insane. He is suddenly struck with the fear of God and deciding to make things right to save his soul due to the evil deeds done in book two. Now, if the author had left it at this, I would have been fine with it. Characters can have a change of heart and Robbie had a good reason. Except he kept changing his mind about what he wanted and by the end his character was just zig-zagging from one motivation to another until I didn’t care if he fell into a spiked pit or was catapulted through time to fight Napoleon Bonaparte. We also have a new (sigh) love interest for Thomas, a condemned heretic named Genevieve, because apparently Thomas is James Bond and must have a new woman in every entry of the series. The result of this being that each woman is an under-developed, shallow character that we could care less about. Jeanette was an interesting character in Archer’s Tale until we found out that even after all her and Thomas had been through and all he did for her, a shiny set of armor and the promise of wealth was all she needed to turn her tail on him and forget he ever existed. And yet he still bends over backwards for her again in Vagabond? What the hell, Thomas? Then there was Elenor, who was pretty and definitely more loyal, but lacked any other motivation at all. She was essentially a pair of occupied clothing that followed Thomas around. Genevieve’s only traits is that she was tortured by a Dominican priest, like Thomas, and so is fueled with hatred for the church and set on revenge. Other than that, she can handle her weapons and Thomas loves her for no real reason other than that they were both tortured. Ah, young love.

Then we have Thomas... sigh. If anyone asked me now what was noteworthy about Thomas, the main character of the series, I would tell them, “well, he was a very good archer.” That’s it? “Well, he wanted revenge for his dead father and his dead woman.” But that doesn’t really describe his character does it? “Well, he wants to find the Holy Grail.” Why? “Well... because his dad wrote a bunch of crazy ramblings in a book and his evil cousin wants it.” But why does HE want it? And that’s the question. In fact, in every book, at least a couple of times, Thomas claims he doesn’t know if the Grail exists and always seems ready to abandon the search without so much as a care about all of the wasted time he spent searching for it. All he wants is to fight and shoot his bow, and that’s what he’s made for. And so my question is, why is HE the one searching for the Grail? Why does he care? I personally think the author would have done much better to make the Grail hunter a completely separate character with their own motivations for wanting the Grail, and then tying Thomas to that character. This other character would be the historian, or the religious person, or a disgraced royal looking for something to bring back wealth and fortune to his family. Thomas just wants to fight, and so the two of them team up, the other using Thomas’ historical ties to the Grail and Thomas using the quest as an excuse to continue fighting something. But, I spend too much time fixing stories and I digress.

Overall, while I did enjoy the series as a whole fairly well, the glaring problems with Heretic really took things down a peg for me. I think that there is enough rich history in the time period of the Hundred Years War that the author didn’t have to invent three quarters of a story to propel the hunt the an object that’s mythical to begin with. If I’m going to be invested in this quest, give me a rich historical backdrop to throw the Grail into and make me believe it could have really existed there. Also, give a reason to actually care about whether or not the characters find it. The only ones who seem to actually want it in this story are power Hungry religious or political figures who only want it for fame or wealth. The good guys just want it because it’s there and don’t seem to offer any justification that goes against the antagonist’s motivations. My advice if you’re planning to read this series: read Archer’s Tale. If you enjoyed the story about the battles leading up to Crecy but weren’t compelled by the side story of Thomas’ revenge or his half-hearted hunt for the Grail, just stop there and leave it with a good taste in your mouth. But if the real reason you’re reading is to find out what happens to the Grail and see if anyone finds it, by all means, keep reading. I won’t say that that plot thread is unresolved, but I can’t guarantee you’ll care by the time you get there.

As unsatisfied as I was by the end of this series, I am still as eager to read The Last Kingdom as I was to read Archer’s Tale, though perhaps a little bit of that is due to the fact that the show is coming out soon. I’m hoping that these problems I found with this series are specific to The Grail Quest and I won’t have the same problems with the Saxon tales. I’m not ready to quit you yet, Cornwell. Vikings, here I come.

After the somewhat less engaging second book in the "Grail Series", this finale brings the tale to a fitting bloody close in our hero's ancestral lands of Gascony (on the Atlantic coast, near the border with Spain). Thomas of Hookton is pledged to the Earl of Northampton, but has been allowed follow some obscure clues as to the whereabouts of the Holy Grial and take his band of men to raid into French territory. Along for the ride are a French knight, a Scottish nobleman, and a band of mostly nameless archers and men-at-arms.

The story gets rolling quickly, as Thomas and his men seize the poorly defended castle at Astarac, and set about raiding the countryside. Soon enough, they draw the attention of both venal churchmen and his evil cousin who seeks the Grail. And as in so many of Cornwell's stories, there's a sexy lady for the hero to save. Fortunes ebb and flow, various parties switch allegiances, mercenary Genoese artillery are brought it, and the Black Plague rears its head, but it all boils down to a mano-a-mano between the hero and his cousin. On the whole, a very satisfying end to the series.

The final book in the Grail Quest trilogy with Thomas of Hookton. Thomas is now a seasoned archer leading a small band of soldiers to capture the castle of Astarac. Among his fighters are Sir Guillaume, a fierce warrior seeking to regain his fortune after being dispossessed of his lands, and Robbie Douglas, a Scottish soldier loyal to Thomas. The castle is in Gastony, home of Thomas' cousin, Guy de Vexille, the black knight who murdered Thomas' father and who continues to seek the Grail with indiscriminate violence. While capturing Astarac, Thomas saves a young woman, Genevieve, from being burned as a heretic. Thomas is then excommunicated and must flee with Genevieve. Hiding in a monastery, Thomas learns of an imitation Grail that will be used to acquire power if the real Grail cannot be found. He witnesses the murder of a trusted priest at the hand of Guy de Vexille. Thomas and Genevieve must return to the castle of Astarac in time to prevent its recapture and to exact vengeance on the man who murdered his father. A great finish to a great trilogy!

In The Heretic, Thomas of Hookton is searching for the Holy Grail using mysterious links between his family and the Grail. This leads him to the French country side where he and his men take a castle in Gascony. As he raids the countryside, he attracts the attention of his hated cousin Guy Vexille, who murdered Thomas’s father. He must now defend the castle against Vexille and the army of a local lord. On another front a bishop has sent his brother to find the secrets of the Grail.

Cornwell has an enjoyable style and puts in a great detail of detail into the historical aspects of the novel. There is good action and fighting sequences as well as a good pace to the novel. Having said that, the plot itself doesn’t hold up to some of the other Cornwell novels that I have read before. It’s a solid novel and an enjoyable read, but not a great novel.

Carl Alves – author of Blood Street

Heretic is a lively and generally well-done conclusion to the The Grail Quest Series diminished only by Cornwell's penchant for characters with 21st century attitudes about innocence and independent thinking. The title is derived from Thomas of Hookton's encounter with Genevieve, a woman condemned (unfairly so by any modern standard) of heresy. And it is the very premise of her guilt or innocence that I found least convincing.

The notion that any ordinary soldier would take it upon himself to challenge the church, including a Cardinal and his surrogates on the interpretation of heresy is preposterous. Particularly, one who is the bastard son of a priest. True he is better educated than nearly everyone around him but education in the 14th century was a tool to enforce uniformity not to instill independent thinking. The notion that an archer would defy a Bishop beggar's belief. Eternal damnation was believed to be precisely that and was the unequivocal domain of the Church. People didn't jeopardize their souls over disagreements with a Bishop so a "love at first sight' story line is concocted to bolster a dubious story line.

It's no small drawback in my estimation but Cornwall is a superb story teller and Heretic offers ample opportunities for him to display his talents. Like others I expected Cornwall to wrap up the story line of a character like Jeanette who played a significant role in parts one and two. That he didn't is disappointing. But if you can get past such oddities and some misplaced modernism,. Heretic is definitely worth a read. Even when Cornwall isn't at his best, he is better than most.

"Heretic" moves away from the “buddy” format that I enjoyed in "Vagabond," and returns to the expected, rather formulaic love interest, in this case a condemned heretic whom Thomas saves from burning (of course). The search for missing religious objects (the holy grail, lance of St. David, St. Peter's sword) wears a little thin in this series, I thought, but hey, people believed in this stuff back then, and it does give motivation to our arrow-chunking protagonist.

While "Heretic" is not quite as good as "Vagabond," I don't think it's fair to judge a novel simply by comparing it unfavorably to others by the same author – and I've read 25 or 30 of Cornwell's books, some excellent, some not quite as absorbing, but they're all rollicking good stories and worthwhile reads, with plenty of action, interesting bad guys, and historically significant settings.

Unlike most of Cornwell's works, except the first and last scenes, the entire plot of "Heretic" was made up out of whole cloth, including the setting. Nevertheless, it was a well written, fun read, and I enjoyed it a lot.

I ended up liking this one - Cornwell had a good plot resolution albeit one that I saw coming. But overall, I'm glad this trilogy is done.

Arriving back in France in time to help the English fend off French efforts to retake Calais, Thomas of Hookton is sent by the Earl of Northampton to retake his onetime fief deep inside France. And, as it happens, it's not far from the ancestral home of the Vexilles - Thomas' ancestors, tied to the Cathar heresy and rumored to have at one time owned the Holy Grail.

Thomas and his men retake Northampton's castle. Meanwhile, the Cardinal of Bessieres also schemes to find it, thinking it can make him the next Pope. And if he can't find it, Plan B is to create a counterfeit, aided by his rotten ruffian brother Charles. Also getting into the act is the Count of Berat, a local noble, religious and erudite, who thinks finding the Grail would be the miracle that would help him, late in life, father an heir. Berat's nephew Joscelyn, a powerful, boorish knight, meanwhile angles to inherit the estate for himself. In the background is Thomas' nemesis and ruthless cousin Guy Vexille, searching, too, for the Grail.

As they take the castle, Thomas and his men stumble upon a girl - beautiful, of course - who is about to be burned as a heretic. Thomas predictably (in no Cornwell novel has this ever not happened) falls for Genevieve and saves her, but his Scots pal Robbie Douglas wants her too, and the girl's presence not only drives a wedge between the pals but starts to split the company. Protecting her costs Thomas dearly, as churchmen in league with his opponents excommunicate him. Meanwhile everyone wants to poke around the ruins at Astarac, now occupied by not much more than a little monastery run by the saintly Abbot Planchard.

I'm a big Cornwell fan, but tired of this trilogy a bit. I think the Grail story and the cat-and-mouse game between Thomas and Guy Vexille was extended too long, like a soap opera plot getting endless twists and turns just to keep it going.

Cornwell does everything possible to elaborate the warfare angle - archery's advent tilting the medieval balance of power in combat - but he doesn't really have enough there to keep it interesting over three books. Yep, the bowmen's arrows could punch through armor. Yep, they come in sheaves of 24. Yep, rain ruins the bowstrings. Yep, this arrowhead for this, that one for that. And lots of details about armor, powerful war horses, newfangled cannons and crossbows. After a while, though, we feel we've heard it all, and the battle scenes are inevitably made dramatic when the archers with their long-distance killing power turn the tables on the annoying French knights in shining armor. (Ni!) In Cornwell's other series, he is more inventive in his battle sequences.

Warfare is Cornwell's strong suit, but in the Grail Quest series the religious angles trump it. Thomas' religious agonies don't hang together well. Cornwell's main characters are usually religious skeptics. In Thomas he has to blend that side - Thomas doubting the Grail's existence, meanwhile witnessing awful acts including torture committed by churchmen - with a side of him that does believe, that frets religiously when he is excommunicated. All his internal rumination gets tedious. He's suspicious of Genevieve's free-thinking ways: she's not the heretic that the church says she is, but meanwhile she's sort of a pantheist, the type that dances naked during thunderstorms. (Bernard, do you have her phone number? Just kidding.) Religion has a role in all of Cornwell's series, but in this one, what with the medieval setting and the Grail legend and all, it's overwhelming. It also keeps our hero from having the sort of devil-may-care side to him that make Starbuck, Uhtred and, most of all, Sharpe, so appealing.

On the positive side, the Abbot Planchard is the finest of all Cornwell's religious characters - a clergyman sympathetic not because he's one of the boys, a hearty warrior, or humanized by his appetites (we see all of those in the also-medieval Saxon Chronicles) - but because of his wisdom, and a courage to do the right thing regardless of Church dogma or material consequence.

There were other things I liked here. Cornwell hints throughout the series at the Black Plague, which you know is coming from the 1340s dates. Periodically a character sneezes and you think, "Here it is," but then it isn't. Yet. He saves it for this one and weaves it well into the plot.

But all in all, I had to push myself through these books, a first for me with a Cornwell series. Still worth reading, but Cornwell has set impossibly high standards for himself with his other series - even Patrick O'Brian only had one major series with Aubrey and Maturin - and this one falls short of what we've come to expect.

Bernard Cornwell's Grail Quest trilogy concludes with "Heretic," and a bloody conclusion it is, too.

Thomas of Hookton lives in violent times. In "The Archer's Tale," Thomas's father was butchered by Thomas's cousin, Guy Vexille, and Thomas's woman, Eleanor, was also murdered by Guy in "Vagabond." Thomas has survived several vicious battles and an even more vicious round of torture at the hands of a Dominican priest. And through it all, Thomas has sought the holiest of holy relics, the Grail . . . although Thomas has not always pursued his quest with vigor.

Now, in "Heretic," Thomas at last closes in on the object of his quest by returning to his ancestral home of Astarac. By pursuing the Grail here, Thomas also hopes to draw out his cousin so Thomas can avenge his father and Eleanor.

Cornwell, as usual, keeps Thomas the Archer occupied, wielding a new, mightier bow with the same lethal efficiency. For those who have not yet read this series, the archer was not the little guy standing in the rear picking off foes with little pinpricks. The archer was king of the battlefield, using a variety of arrows to slaughter men and horses, perforating even the strongest armor with cannon-like shots. The arrival of primitive cannon technology in this series does not alter the balance of power.

Thomas, being Thomas, gets sidetracked with romance by falling in love with a beautiful woman (who always seem to turn up for Thomas . . . oh, well -- it pays not to overthink such things). This woman was falsely accused of being a heretic and has been tortured at the hands of an evil priest, much like Thomas. For his chivalry, Thomas is excommunicated. Cast out, he nevertheless pursues his twin goals of revenge and salvation.

Cornwell vividly describes the world of the Hundred Years War. Not only does Thomas have to contend with dastardly kin and mighty men-at-arms, the Black Death is screaming across the land, with horrifying results. Cornwell describes it all with his usual straightforward yet captivating style.

"Heretic" is not a great departure from the earlier two novels in the series. Sharp-eyed readers will have spotted clues in earlier books regarding the Grail and its location, but the mystery is still captivating, and the conclusion is unexpected.

While not exactly a "feel good" book, the Grail Quest series is a fun read, and a rollicking ride across the battlefields of Britain and France. Check it out!

Cornwell has completed the Grail quest trilogy, Harlequin (The Archer's Tale in the U.S.) Vagabond and Heretic, with a wonderful climax that leaves every loose end tied up and every person, evil or good, dealt their final hand in life.
The story continues to follow Thomas of Hookton as he endures the weight of the family burden (protectors of the grail), and his position as an archer in the English army; now commanding a garrison of men that are charged with taking a castle for the Earl of Northampton.
The battles are, as with both of the first 2 books, well described and equally explained from both sides of the battle-line. Cornwell has presented a far more fictional book than the first two, which were described as historical fiction. This book, according to Cornwell's historical notes at the end of the book, presents some fictional towns and fictional battles that were used to bring the book to a close. As much as I enjoyed the historical portions of the first 2 books, I was not disappointed by the liberty that Cornwell took with the final chapter of the trilogy. Cornwell created places, people and battles that could be used to reach the necessary climax.
The story, despite the lack of historical fact from the time period (the hundred years war), still manages to grab ahold of the reader's attention and hold it until the epilogue is complete.
I was definitely disappointed when I reached the end of the book. I wanted more of the story but, alas, it would seem that the grail quest is complete and I must move on to other Cornwell novels.
The entire trilogy is excellent and is highly recommended for anyone that enjoys history, grail stories, medieval mythology, early catholic history or plain, old good story writing.

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I have just finished this last entry of The Grail Quest and I have to say that for the series as a whole, my feelings are greatly mixed. There is a lot to like in the series, especially in the descriptions of the battles and the details of the people, the places and the things. Unfortunately the series also has weaknesses, the greatest of which being the characters. In Archer’s Tale, the story was so fun and the descriptions of the battles so detailed that I really didn’t care too much that the characters were fairly shallow. I was learning a bit of history, I was having fun and the fate and motivations of the characters seemed more of an afterthought. However, with each subsequent book I found myself less interested in the story and so I was forced to noticed the flaws and lack of consistency in the characters. I also realized after finishing Heretic, that I was much more interested in reading about the Hundred Years War than I was about Thomas’ hunt for the Grail.

While Vagabond still focused a bit on the war between England and France (and even some of the conflict between England and Scotland), Heretic starts with with an actual historical battle (the siege of Calais) but soon after forgets about it as England and France go into a truce. And so the rest of the story focuses on Thomas’ hunt to find the Holy Grail before his evil counterpart, his cousin Guy Vexille. To start, the author says at the end of the book that most of this section was pulled from his imagination, and the places where the action takes place is not real. To me, this makes me incredibly less interested and makes me feel that the book has entered the fantasy territory and strayed from historical fiction. As Thomas and his companions find themselves victorious after the siege of Calais, a treaty is being signed between England and France. And yet the Earl of Northampton, bewitched by Thomas’ quest to find the Grail, gives Thomas a force of men (two of which being Robbie and Sir Guillaume of course) and orders them to sneak into French territory near the fictional town of Astarac and capture a castle. The purpose of this, to draw Guy Vexille to them, capture him and force him to tell them where the Grail is. Um, what? Did the earl miss the part where there was a truce? This decision isn’t even questioned. The characters acknowledge the fact that they are breaking this truce but apparently don’t care. The earl of Northampton has now lost all credibility as a character, willing to risk the diplomacy of his country on the chance that a fairy tale is real.
I wish I could say that the earl was the only character to become nonsensical since the previous books, but it’s just not so. Robbie, the lovable Scottish oaf that we met in Vagabond who was fairly entertaining to read in that book was wildly inconsistent in Heretic and borderline insane. He is suddenly struck with the fear of God and deciding to make things right to save his soul due to the evil deeds done in book two. Now, if the author had left it at this, I would have been fine with it. Characters can have a change of heart and Robbie had a good reason. Except he kept changing his mind about what he wanted and by the end his character was just zig-zagging from one motivation to another until I didn’t care if he fell into a spiked pit or was catapulted through time to fight Napoleon Bonaparte. We also have a new (sigh) love interest for Thomas, a condemned heretic named Genevieve, because apparently Thomas is James Bond and must have a new woman in every entry of the series. The result of this being that each woman is an under-developed, shallow character that we could care less about. Jeanette was an interesting character in Archer’s Tale until we found out that even after all her and Thomas had been through and all he did for her, a shiny set of armor and the promise of wealth was all she needed to turn her tail on him and forget he ever existed. And yet he still bends over backwards for her again in Vagabond? What the hell, Thomas? Then there was Elenor, who was pretty and definitely more loyal, but lacked any other motivation at all. She was essentially a pair of occupied clothing that followed Thomas around. Genevieve’s only traits is that she was tortured by a Dominican priest, like Thomas, and so is fueled with hatred for the church and set on revenge. Other than that, she can handle her weapons and Thomas loves her for no real reason other than that they were both tortured. Ah, young love.

Then we have Thomas... sigh. If anyone asked me now what was noteworthy about Thomas, the main character of the series, I would tell them, “well, he was a very good archer.” That’s it? “Well, he wanted revenge for his dead father and his dead woman.” But that doesn’t really describe his character does it? “Well, he wants to find the Holy Grail.” Why? “Well... because his dad wrote a bunch of crazy ramblings in a book and his evil cousin wants it.” But why does HE want it? And that’s the question. In fact, in every book, at least a couple of times, Thomas claims he doesn’t know if the Grail exists and always seems ready to abandon the search without so much as a care about all of the wasted time he spent searching for it. All he wants is to fight and shoot his bow, and that’s what he’s made for. And so my question is, why is HE the one searching for the Grail? Why does he care? I personally think the author would have done much better to make the Grail hunter a completely separate character with their own motivations for wanting the Grail, and then tying Thomas to that character. This other character would be the historian, or the religious person, or a disgraced royal looking for something to bring back wealth and fortune to his family. Thomas just wants to fight, and so the two of them team up, the other using Thomas’ historical ties to the Grail and Thomas using the quest as an excuse to continue fighting something. But, I spend too much time fixing stories and I digress.

Overall, while I did enjoy the series as a whole fairly well, the glaring problems with Heretic really took things down a peg for me. I think that there is enough rich history in the time period of the Hundred Years War that the author didn’t have to invent three quarters of a story to propel the hunt the an object that’s mythical to begin with. If I’m going to be invested in this quest, give me a rich historical backdrop to throw the Grail into and make me believe it could have really existed there. Also, give a reason to actually care about whether or not the characters find it. The only ones who seem to actually want it in this story are power Hungry religious or political figures who only want it for fame or wealth. The good guys just want it because it’s there and don’t seem to offer any justification that goes against the antagonist’s motivations. My advice if you’re planning to read this series: read Archer’s Tale. If you enjoyed the story about the battles leading up to Crecy but weren’t compelled by the side story of Thomas’ revenge or his half-hearted hunt for the Grail, just stop there and leave it with a good taste in your mouth. But if the real reason you’re reading is to find out what happens to the Grail and see if anyone finds it, by all means, keep reading. I won’t say that that plot thread is unresolved, but I can’t guarantee you’ll care by the time you get there.

As unsatisfied as I was by the end of this series, I am still as eager to read The Last Kingdom as I was to read Archer’s Tale, though perhaps a little bit of that is due to the fact that the show is coming out soon. I’m hoping that these problems I found with this series are specific to The Grail Quest and I won’t have the same problems with the Saxon tales. I’m not ready to quit you yet, Cornwell. Vikings, here I come.

After the somewhat less engaging second book in the "Grail Series", this finale brings the tale to a fitting bloody close in our hero's ancestral lands of Gascony (on the Atlantic coast, near the border with Spain). Thomas of Hookton is pledged to the Earl of Northampton, but has been allowed follow some obscure clues as to the whereabouts of the Holy Grial and take his band of men to raid into French territory. Along for the ride are a French knight, a Scottish nobleman, and a band of mostly nameless archers and men-at-arms.

The story gets rolling quickly, as Thomas and his men seize the poorly defended castle at Astarac, and set about raiding the countryside. Soon enough, they draw the attention of both venal churchmen and his evil cousin who seeks the Grail. And as in so many of Cornwell's stories, there's a sexy lady for the hero to save. Fortunes ebb and flow, various parties switch allegiances, mercenary Genoese artillery are brought it, and the Black Plague rears its head, but it all boils down to a mano-a-mano between the hero and his cousin. On the whole, a very satisfying end to the series.

The final book in the Grail Quest trilogy with Thomas of Hookton. Thomas is now a seasoned archer leading a small band of soldiers to capture the castle of Astarac. Among his fighters are Sir Guillaume, a fierce warrior seeking to regain his fortune after being dispossessed of his lands, and Robbie Douglas, a Scottish soldier loyal to Thomas. The castle is in Gastony, home of Thomas' cousin, Guy de Vexille, the black knight who murdered Thomas' father and who continues to seek the Grail with indiscriminate violence. While capturing Astarac, Thomas saves a young woman, Genevieve, from being burned as a heretic. Thomas is then excommunicated and must flee with Genevieve. Hiding in a monastery, Thomas learns of an imitation Grail that will be used to acquire power if the real Grail cannot be found. He witnesses the murder of a trusted priest at the hand of Guy de Vexille. Thomas and Genevieve must return to the castle of Astarac in time to prevent its recapture and to exact vengeance on the man who murdered his father. A great finish to a great trilogy!

In The Heretic, Thomas of Hookton is searching for the Holy Grail using mysterious links between his family and the Grail. This leads him to the French country side where he and his men take a castle in Gascony. As he raids the countryside, he attracts the attention of his hated cousin Guy Vexille, who murdered Thomas’s father. He must now defend the castle against Vexille and the army of a local lord. On another front a bishop has sent his brother to find the secrets of the Grail.

Cornwell has an enjoyable style and puts in a great detail of detail into the historical aspects of the novel. There is good action and fighting sequences as well as a good pace to the novel. Having said that, the plot itself doesn’t hold up to some of the other Cornwell novels that I have read before. It’s a solid novel and an enjoyable read, but not a great novel.

Carl Alves – author of Blood Street

Heretic is a lively and generally well-done conclusion to the The Grail Quest Series diminished only by Cornwell's penchant for characters with 21st century attitudes about innocence and independent thinking. The title is derived from Thomas of Hookton's encounter with Genevieve, a woman condemned (unfairly so by any modern standard) of heresy. And it is the very premise of her guilt or innocence that I found least convincing.

The notion that any ordinary soldier would take it upon himself to challenge the church, including a Cardinal and his surrogates on the interpretation of heresy is preposterous. Particularly, one who is the bastard son of a priest. True he is better educated than nearly everyone around him but education in the 14th century was a tool to enforce uniformity not to instill independent thinking. The notion that an archer would defy a Bishop beggar's belief. Eternal damnation was believed to be precisely that and was the unequivocal domain of the Church. People didn't jeopardize their souls over disagreements with a Bishop so a "love at first sight' story line is concocted to bolster a dubious story line.

It's no small drawback in my estimation but Cornwall is a superb story teller and Heretic offers ample opportunities for him to display his talents. Like others I expected Cornwall to wrap up the story line of a character like Jeanette who played a significant role in parts one and two. That he didn't is disappointing. But if you can get past such oddities and some misplaced modernism,. Heretic is definitely worth a read. Even when Cornwall isn't at his best, he is better than most.

"Heretic" moves away from the “buddy” format that I enjoyed in "Vagabond," and returns to the expected, rather formulaic love interest, in this case a condemned heretic whom Thomas saves from burning (of course). The search for missing religious objects (the holy grail, lance of St. David, St. Peter's sword) wears a little thin in this series, I thought, but hey, people believed in this stuff back then, and it does give motivation to our arrow-chunking protagonist.

While "Heretic" is not quite as good as "Vagabond," I don't think it's fair to judge a novel simply by comparing it unfavorably to others by the same author – and I've read 25 or 30 of Cornwell's books, some excellent, some not quite as absorbing, but they're all rollicking good stories and worthwhile reads, with plenty of action, interesting bad guys, and historically significant settings.

Unlike most of Cornwell's works, except the first and last scenes, the entire plot of "Heretic" was made up out of whole cloth, including the setting. Nevertheless, it was a well written, fun read, and I enjoyed it a lot.

I ended up liking this one - Cornwell had a good plot resolution albeit one that I saw coming. But overall, I'm glad this trilogy is done.

Arriving back in France in time to help the English fend off French efforts to retake Calais, Thomas of Hookton is sent by the Earl of Northampton to retake his onetime fief deep inside France. And, as it happens, it's not far from the ancestral home of the Vexilles - Thomas' ancestors, tied to the Cathar heresy and rumored to have at one time owned the Holy Grail.

Thomas and his men retake Northampton's castle. Meanwhile, the Cardinal of Bessieres also schemes to find it, thinking it can make him the next Pope. And if he can't find it, Plan B is to create a counterfeit, aided by his rotten ruffian brother Charles. Also getting into the act is the Count of Berat, a local noble, religious and erudite, who thinks finding the Grail would be the miracle that would help him, late in life, father an heir. Berat's nephew Joscelyn, a powerful, boorish knight, meanwhile angles to inherit the estate for himself. In the background is Thomas' nemesis and ruthless cousin Guy Vexille, searching, too, for the Grail.

As they take the castle, Thomas and his men stumble upon a girl - beautiful, of course - who is about to be burned as a heretic. Thomas predictably (in no Cornwell novel has this ever not happened) falls for Genevieve and saves her, but his Scots pal Robbie Douglas wants her too, and the girl's presence not only drives a wedge between the pals but starts to split the company. Protecting her costs Thomas dearly, as churchmen in league with his opponents excommunicate him. Meanwhile everyone wants to poke around the ruins at Astarac, now occupied by not much more than a little monastery run by the saintly Abbot Planchard.

I'm a big Cornwell fan, but tired of this trilogy a bit. I think the Grail story and the cat-and-mouse game between Thomas and Guy Vexille was extended too long, like a soap opera plot getting endless twists and turns just to keep it going.

Cornwell does everything possible to elaborate the warfare angle - archery's advent tilting the medieval balance of power in combat - but he doesn't really have enough there to keep it interesting over three books. Yep, the bowmen's arrows could punch through armor. Yep, they come in sheaves of 24. Yep, rain ruins the bowstrings. Yep, this arrowhead for this, that one for that. And lots of details about armor, powerful war horses, newfangled cannons and crossbows. After a while, though, we feel we've heard it all, and the battle scenes are inevitably made dramatic when the archers with their long-distance killing power turn the tables on the annoying French knights in shining armor. (Ni!) In Cornwell's other series, he is more inventive in his battle sequences.

Warfare is Cornwell's strong suit, but in the Grail Quest series the religious angles trump it. Thomas' religious agonies don't hang together well. Cornwell's main characters are usually religious skeptics. In Thomas he has to blend that side - Thomas doubting the Grail's existence, meanwhile witnessing awful acts including torture committed by churchmen - with a side of him that does believe, that frets religiously when he is excommunicated. All his internal rumination gets tedious. He's suspicious of Genevieve's free-thinking ways: she's not the heretic that the church says she is, but meanwhile she's sort of a pantheist, the type that dances naked during thunderstorms. (Bernard, do you have her phone number? Just kidding.) Religion has a role in all of Cornwell's series, but in this one, what with the medieval setting and the Grail legend and all, it's overwhelming. It also keeps our hero from having the sort of devil-may-care side to him that make Starbuck, Uhtred and, most of all, Sharpe, so appealing.

On the positive side, the Abbot Planchard is the finest of all Cornwell's religious characters - a clergyman sympathetic not because he's one of the boys, a hearty warrior, or humanized by his appetites (we see all of those in the also-medieval Saxon Chronicles) - but because of his wisdom, and a courage to do the right thing regardless of Church dogma or material consequence.

There were other things I liked here. Cornwell hints throughout the series at the Black Plague, which you know is coming from the 1340s dates. Periodically a character sneezes and you think, "Here it is," but then it isn't. Yet. He saves it for this one and weaves it well into the plot.

But all in all, I had to push myself through these books, a first for me with a Cornwell series. Still worth reading, but Cornwell has set impossibly high standards for himself with his other series - even Patrick O'Brian only had one major series with Aubrey and Maturin - and this one falls short of what we've come to expect.

Bernard Cornwell's Grail Quest trilogy concludes with "Heretic," and a bloody conclusion it is, too.

Thomas of Hookton lives in violent times. In "The Archer's Tale," Thomas's father was butchered by Thomas's cousin, Guy Vexille, and Thomas's woman, Eleanor, was also murdered by Guy in "Vagabond." Thomas has survived several vicious battles and an even more vicious round of torture at the hands of a Dominican priest. And through it all, Thomas has sought the holiest of holy relics, the Grail . . . although Thomas has not always pursued his quest with vigor.

Now, in "Heretic," Thomas at last closes in on the object of his quest by returning to his ancestral home of Astarac. By pursuing the Grail here, Thomas also hopes to draw out his cousin so Thomas can avenge his father and Eleanor.

Cornwell, as usual, keeps Thomas the Archer occupied, wielding a new, mightier bow with the same lethal efficiency. For those who have not yet read this series, the archer was not the little guy standing in the rear picking off foes with little pinpricks. The archer was king of the battlefield, using a variety of arrows to slaughter men and horses, perforating even the strongest armor with cannon-like shots. The arrival of primitive cannon technology in this series does not alter the balance of power.

Thomas, being Thomas, gets sidetracked with romance by falling in love with a beautiful woman (who always seem to turn up for Thomas . . . oh, well -- it pays not to overthink such things). This woman was falsely accused of being a heretic and has been tortured at the hands of an evil priest, much like Thomas. For his chivalry, Thomas is excommunicated. Cast out, he nevertheless pursues his twin goals of revenge and salvation.

Cornwell vividly describes the world of the Hundred Years War. Not only does Thomas have to contend with dastardly kin and mighty men-at-arms, the Black Death is screaming across the land, with horrifying results. Cornwell describes it all with his usual straightforward yet captivating style.

"Heretic" is not a great departure from the earlier two novels in the series. Sharp-eyed readers will have spotted clues in earlier books regarding the Grail and its location, but the mystery is still captivating, and the conclusion is unexpected.

While not exactly a "feel good" book, the Grail Quest series is a fun read, and a rollicking ride across the battlefields of Britain and France. Check it out!

Cornwell has completed the Grail quest trilogy, Harlequin (The Archer's Tale in the U.S.) Vagabond and Heretic, with a wonderful climax that leaves every loose end tied up and every person, evil or good, dealt their final hand in life.
The story continues to follow Thomas of Hookton as he endures the weight of the family burden (protectors of the grail), and his position as an archer in the English army; now commanding a garrison of men that are charged with taking a castle for the Earl of Northampton.
The battles are, as with both of the first 2 books, well described and equally explained from both sides of the battle-line. Cornwell has presented a far more fictional book than the first two, which were described as historical fiction. This book, according to Cornwell's historical notes at the end of the book, presents some fictional towns and fictional battles that were used to bring the book to a close. As much as I enjoyed the historical portions of the first 2 books, I was not disappointed by the liberty that Cornwell took with the final chapter of the trilogy. Cornwell created places, people and battles that could be used to reach the necessary climax.
The story, despite the lack of historical fact from the time period (the hundred years war), still manages to grab ahold of the reader's attention and hold it until the epilogue is complete.
I was definitely disappointed when I reached the end of the book. I wanted more of the story but, alas, it would seem that the grail quest is complete and I must move on to other Cornwell novels.
The entire trilogy is excellent and is highly recommended for anyone that enjoys history, grail stories, medieval mythology, early catholic history or plain, old good story writing.

HERETIC is a tale of adventure, romantic notions, warriors in battle for truths they hold dear, and the search for the elusive Holy Grail of Christendom in the fourteenth century A.D. Bernard Cornwell, the author of numerous historical chronicles, extends his stories from THE ARCHER'S TALE and VAGABOND to a further quest for the Grail in HERETIC. Thomas of Hookton, the bastard son of a noble family, is the archer who leads the Earl of Northampton's archers to the shores of France.
Thomas distinguishes himself in battle for his lord and is given a new challenge. He is to take a small force deep into southern French territory, capture a fortress, defend it and hope to capture his evil cousin, Guy de Vexille. He seeks Astarac in the county of Berat to explore and find the Grail for Northampton. The ransomed Scot leader, Robbie Douglas and Sir Guillaume, an English nobleman, accompany Thomas to France.
Thomas's father was a priest who had kept secret the location of the Grail, if it had existed. The clue to its whereabouts lay in the Latin words he had inscribed on papers left behind before his murder. Thomas doubted its existence. His father had rambled and been considered a lunatic.
The journey becomes complicated when the archers conquer Castillion D'Arbizon and become involved in local politics. To administer justice in the enclave, the conquerors must carry out orders from the Church's governing bishops. A heretic, a young vagabond girl, has been judged and sentenced to death by fire. Thomas, as civil authority, hears the facts and decides that she should live. Local priests disagree with his judgment and excommunicate him from the Church.
Cornwell's vivid imagery of the time and setting in HERETIC places the reader directly in the action. Each pull of the powerful bowstring follows with an adrenaline rush inherent with victory. His description of the warmongering mechanisms are graphic pictures of their times. The book is fiction based on general facts, but is a believable panoramic view of real events.
Priests ruled their local abbeys with ironclad domination and were not to be disobeyed. HERETIC shows the majority as self-serving and mean-spirited. Father Planchard is an exception --- he befriends Thomas. Planchard produces a wooden box, inscribed with the Latin words Thomas's father had ingrained in him, "Calix meus inebrians." The interchange between him and Planchard is coy wordplay at its best.
The accused heretic, Genevieve, is the pivotal figure in the story. Thomas discovers through her that his quest for revenge and reinstatement in the Church he knows diminishes in importance. He learns that peace can be found without the discovery of the Grail. One hopes that future books will expand this fascinating Grail Quest series. HERETIC defines the men of the era and thirsts for more.
--- Reviewed by Judy Gigstad

The Holy Grail was the most sacred of all treasures in medieval times, sending armies on quests for the fabled cup all over Europe. Thomas of Hookton, a young English archer of some considerable skill, finds himself in France searching for the grail, but instead finds himself a bundle of trouble.
Thomas saves a girl from being burned at the stake for witchcraft and suddenly finds himself excommunicated from the church, and an enemy of his friends. To make matters worse, English archers in France were popular amongst bandits- because of the high price on their heads. Thomas and his newfound love soon find shelter in a monastery, which holds further clues to the whereabouts of the mythical grail.
The monastery proves to be an unsafe hideout, as Thomas' ambitious and ruthless cousin also seeks the grail, and would quite like to see Thomas and his heretic girlfriend dead. Things come to a head when Thomas is reunited with his former friends, but ends up besieged in a castle. While the English longbow was the most deadly infantry weapon of the era, it was no match for the early cannon, subtly named Hell Spitter, dragged in from Italy to knock down the castle. The Italian gunners however bring something far more deadly with them in the form of the Black Death.
Bernard Cornwell brings to life a number of aspects of the medieval age, like the deep reaching influence of the church, and how allegiances among soldiers were made and broken. He also offers a view into the harsh realities of medieval life, like the desperate poverty of peasants, who were an easy target for both soldiers and bandits alike. Cornwell pulls no punches when it comes to graphic descriptions of violence and war, and how something as simple as a broken limb could prove fatal.
While Robin Hood may have been noble enough to steal from the rich and give to the poor, Thomas of Hookton stole from the poor when he had to, and killed the rich when they deserved it. This is a fast moving and historically accurate story with characters flawed enough to be real people, tangled in one of the most futile but enduring treasure hunts of all time.

Bernard Cornwell is the author of the acclaimed Richard Sharpe series, set during the Napoleonic Wars To my shame I have not read any of these. The books about Arthurian England are much more my cup of tea and I read those avidly. He has also written among others, Stonehenge 2000 B.C. Bernard Cornwell lives with his wife on Cape Cod.

This is the third instalment of the Grail Quest series and it picks up the story in 1347. The war with France has been suspended by an uneasy truce. The English have captured the port of Calais and now there is a lull in the proceedings. Although this gives a respite the armies of both nations, there is no break in the fighting for Thomas of Hookton. He is still pursuing the grail, the most sacred relic known to a Christian.

Thomas is in his homeland of Gascony, seeking out his long-time enemy Guy Vexille. Thomas is playing a dangerous game, leading his group of archers on daring raids that will draw out the enemy, but soon there is a change in fortune and Thomas becomes the hunted rather than the hunter.. Even worse is to come. Worse than his enemy Guy Vexille, worse than the might of the whole of the Fremch army. The deadliest plague know to mankind arrives in Europe. Is this a sign of anger from God himself . . .

I'm feeling heretical as I write a negative review of a book by one of my all-star favorite historical fiction authors, but this reads like Cornwell mailed it in. The plot was unimaginative and the characters wooden. The Archer/Grail series was written on a slide. The 3d hit bottom. Other reviewers provide details. I'm not going to spend anymore time on it, and want to rejoin my friend Utred, who is Cornwell's most delightfully developed character.Godless -- Living a Valuable Life beyond Beliefs (Memoirs of a Thoughtful Traveler Book 6)

HERETIC is the third(and perhaps last)novel chronicling the adventures of English longbowman, Thomas of Hookton, during the early years of the Hundred Years' War. It will be more enjoyable if one first reads ARCHER and NOMAD. The siege and capture of Calais is glimpsed briefly at the beginning, but most of the story involves the capture and defense of Castillon d'Arbizon by Thomas and some of his comrades from NOMAD. There Thomas and his evil cousin Guy Vexille have their final confrontation. It is the search for the Holy Grail that drives the central characters in HERETIC.
As usual, Cornwell gives the reader a trove of detail about the way war was waged and life was lived in the mid-14th century. We learn about the wearing of plate armor, about special-purpose arrow points, the fortification of medieval castles, and the loading and firing of primitive cannon. We watch a craftsman doing wax-replacement casting. What is missing, for this reader, is Cornwell's usually brilliant evocation of landscape. Gascony does not come alive the way Normandy and Durham did in the earlier books.
HERETIC also gets bogged down by too many grails, counterfeit and (perhaps) otherwise. Cornwell explains how the grail came to a remote fortress in Gascony by quoting a legend that connects it to the heretic Cathars, but fails to trace its whereabouts during the first Christian millennium. Nor does the "true" grail, once found, exhibit any special properties to verify it authenticity. Why let it be found at all, if you aren't going to provide some supernatural fireworks a la Tolkien or Indiana Jones? Cornwell's message seems to be that the grail's only power was its hold on men's imaginations. When Thomas takes the predictably high-minded course, one is likely to wonder, like Peggy Lee, "Is that all there is?"
Earlier the store reviewers assume that HERETIC concludes the Thomas of Hookton series. This is reasonable if you think the story of the grail was the real heart of the story. If, however, one believes that the real subject of Cornwell's series is the apogee of the English longbow as a weapon of war then we might expect to follow Thomas at least through the Battle of Poitiers. He certainly deserves a more rousing send-off than HERETIC.

This is actually my first Bernard Cornwell novel. It is amazingly, and sometimes gruesome, detailed. His thorough research on historical issues are indeed extremely well. That is why, after finishing reading this novel, I became one of Cornwell's huge fan.

Heretic is actually the last novel of the Grail Quest series, with a total of three installments. I have never actually read the first two installments, which did not make a big differrence, since parts of the previous plots were being told sporadically in Heretic.

Thomas Hookton, the main protagonist, met a heretic girl who is bound for burning for being claimed heretic. The story revolves around Thomas' search for the holy grail, the cup, to be more precise. His adventures with the other competing knight, being a paid mercenary for several kings, his love interests, etc. All of these interesting stories were woven into a nice fictional novel.

The outcome of this book is astonishing. If I wrote the ending in this review, it will shatter the element of excitement prepared by Bernard Cornwell.

Get this book, a five-star read.

The author does a great job describing battles. The reader cares about each character. This series is just as good as the Saxon series. The mixture of real history mixed in the storyline is incredible, and it is clear the the book is written by a true historian. Bernard Cornwell has become one of my favorite authors.

In this the final book of the series, Thomas of Hookton is still in France, searching for the Holy Grail. He is also seeking out his sworn enemy Guy Vexille, who he believes may lead him to the Grail.

I found this book just as enjoyable as the previous two in the series, perhaps, even more so. I was worried that this book might be too similar to Vagabond, as Thomas was still in France searching for the Grail. However, the introduction of new characters, such as Genevieve, Abbot Planchard, and the Count of Berat, meant that this was not the case.

As for the battle scenes in the novel, they were excellent, as usual. The descriptions of the weapons, tactics and armoury of the day were well explained, also.

Tim Pigott-Smith performed a brilliant narration of the abridged audiobook version of Heretic by Bernard Cornwell. I don't usually enjoy audiobook abridgements of favorite books, because so much action is lost. Pigott-Smith, however, managed to portray all of the characters in this audiobook in many distinct accents, whether giving voices to men or women, or to French, Italian or English characters who were holy, fanatical, brave, cowardly, or evil. True, seiges which took days in the book seemed to take a day or two in the audiobook. Marches that took weeks in the book seemed to take a week in the abridged version. The people in the book, however, glowed, and the action scenes were rousing. Great!Heretic (The Grail Quest #3).

Let me preface this by saying that Bernard Cornwell is probably my favorite living author. I am a huge fan of the Sharpe series, his Warlords trilogy, and his new Viking/Alfred the Great series promises to be his best yet. However, his trilogy about Thomas of Hookton and his adventures in the Grail Quest series have left me unsatisfied. This series started out well enough with the Archer's Tale, which was a riveting account of the English armies in France during the Hundred Years war. Cornwell's usual incredible attention to detail transported the reader back in time (like he always does) and really explains to you why things happened in the historical context. In this case, why the longbow was king of the battlefield. Thomas was your typical Cornwell hero, young and inexperienced but quickly a veteran in the arts of war. He was surrounded by the usual cast of battle hardened but friendly (to Thomas) veterans along with the usual well born foes looking to foil our heroes dreams. Hey, its a formula that works and I have no problem with Cornwell recycling this in different historical eras. He even added a very interesting female character in Jeannette and Thomas was caught up in the events leading up to the Battle of Crecy. Great stuff.

The second book, Vagabond, continued a good story, but started to really delve into the quest for the Grail and the historical events in France, while still relevant, were starting to take a back seat to the Grail quest. My biggest problem with this book is that Thomas would have been crippled for life following a certain episode (an episode I really hope Cornwell doesn't start using on his protagonists - we have George Martin for that). So for me, the book starts to take on a bit of a unrealistic format.

Finally, we come to the final book Heretic, and in my opinion Cornwell loses control of the story. First, he almost completely ignores history. This is more or less a fantasy novel set in France about the Grail. England and France reach a truce, and Thomas' liege the Earl of Northhampton sends him on an improbable task to take a castle in southern France and look for the Holy Grail. Ummm...OK. A shaky start, but the story is engaging as Thomas has his first command and we have a great scene where a castle is stormed and several good episodes of raiding. Then Geneiveve comes in and the story falls apart. She's a heretic condemend by the church and set to burn. She falls into the hands of Thomas and he defies the church and won't burn her, eventually getting excommunicated and losing all his men in the process. Cornwell has never written women well so I give some leeway on his female characters. However this is just sloppy. Someone else pointed this out but it bears further mentioning, I don't think Geneiveve has more than 100 words of dialog in the book. Who is she and why would Thomas throw away his soul and the duty to his liege lord (something conviently overlooked in his decision process) for this girl? All we know is she is anorexic thin and beautiful. Empoverished girls who bathed maybe one a month in the 14th century were not beautiful and its surprising that someone normally so attuned to period detail just lets this pass.

After Part One, the book moves in one confusing circle around the land of Astarac, the historical home of Thomas' ancestors and his cousin Guy Vexille, who I wish would have had a bigger role because he was actually the only interesting character in this book. Instead, we get chapter after chapter about a stereotypical and boring French Knight Joscelyn who we never for a moment suspect is a match for our hero. Vexille meanwhile is consumed by a religious quest and a warrior monk mentality that makes him dangerous (and ruthless). In the meantime, one of Thomas' best friends from the series goes completely insane and illogically turns against him and everyone he's fought with for the last several years. The conclusion isn't bad but it doesn't make up for the several hundred pages of aimless wandering it took to get there.

Lots of good history of course, as always. In particular I like how God and the belief in God is portrayed in the 14th century, even among vicious killers. But Geneiveve has to be one of Cornwell's worst main characters and Thomas slips several notches down the list of Cornwell heroes by the time this book is over. I can see myself rereading book one again, but I'll pass on the 2nd two books in this trilogy. Maybe Cornwell should pick up the war in the 15th century and try again.

The third and final volume of Cornwell's Grail Quest saga, our hero Thomas finds himself in southern France, near his ancestral home of Astarac. By happy coincidence, his nemesis, cousin Guy Vexile, arrives as well as some unexpected (and unwanted) guests: plague rats. A friend and companion turns on him (and is redeemed), an old friend dies, but the battles are won and the grail? Well, I won't spoil it.

The series is a great read for those looking for an adventure set in medieval times. The story takes place early in the Hundred Year's War between France and England, and does a good job illustrating how shifting loyalties meant it wasn't a simple war between two established nations. Cornwell's [i]Agincourt[/i], set later in the same war, is not part of the series but will be the next Cornwell book I read.

Bernard Cornwell continues to roll out reliably good historical fiction. I originally became a Cornwell fan through the great Sharpe series. Heretic is the third in the Grail Quest series, but can be read and enjoyed as a stand alone. Thomas of Hookton seeks the Holy Grail in 14th century Gascony and it's a bloody nasty business. Along the way he again encounters the evil black knight Guy de Vexille. And there's a castle to be seized and a beautiful young woman to save from being burned at the stake - not to mention avoiding the plague, the Inquisition, and leprosy!

Highly recommended for all Cornwell fans, or any reader with an interest in historical fiction, especially concerning the Middle Ages or the Holy Grail.

The concluding part of Cornwell's trilogy, Heretic, promised to provide a fabulously roaring end to the tale of Thomas Hookton, English Archer during the early years of the Hundred Years War. But, unfortunately, it went out with a tired whimper rather than the exciting bangs of the previous two novels.
It opens with Thomas' rescue of the overly adventurous Earl of Northampton at a skirmish at Calais and his subsequent orders to go to Astarac and locate the Grail, ensuring his cousin, Guy de Vexille, is aware of his presence.
So, Thomas takes his new band of archers south and captures the Castillon D'Arbizon in a nighttime raid and manages to avert the superstitious and fear induced heretical burning of the Church-condemned beghard, Genevieve, who is, luckily for Thomas, also very beautiful (inducing a fit of jealousy in the ever present Robbie). Meanwhile, the evil Dominician is back, this time in the guise of Louis Bessieres, Cardinal Archbishop of Livorno, with his brother, Charles and they are seeking, in a tower at Soissons, to create an artificial Grail. This they achieve and Thomas and Genevieve are evicted from D'Arbizon by a group of his own men, led by Robbie who's unrequited lust for Genevieve allows his religious fervour to flourish. Thomas is subsequently excommunicated, takes up with a band of corredors led by Phildin, and spends much of the time moving through the Berat countryside before returning to D'Arbizon.
Meanwhile, the Count of Berat is murderd by his nephew, Joscelyn, who turns out to be another Jekyll. Joscelyn promptly takes his cannon to D'Arbizon, aided by Charles Bessiers and Guy Vexille to both remove the English garrison under Sir Guillaume and capture the grail. As Thomas reenters D'Arbizon, killing Bessiere's on the way, they discover the false grail and destroy it before most of the protagnists die either from the ensuing battles or the Plague which has arrived in France. We also finally get to see Thomas, archer, in a final duel with his cousin, Guy, swordsman, with the inevitable result. At the end Thomas and his Genevieve ride into the English sunset, with Robbie reconciled to them and they locate the true Grail.
All in all, a good final part to the trilogy with the exception that Cornwell has taken the safe option that most modern Grail stories follow. In true Indiana Jones style, the baddies fall for the fabulously wealthy cup whilst the hero realises that it the Grail is liable to be a simply crafted vessel and then it ends up being removed for all time so that evil men can't kill more for it. A tad cliched and hence the earlier statement that it ends with a whimper.
Nevertheless, Harlequin and Vagabond provide an excellent foray into the Hundred Years War and Thomas of Hookton is a character well worth following and if Cornwell were to write more of him I'd eagerly wait for it to hit the shelves.

This was a great read either as the third in a series or as a stand alone.Heretic", the last book in the 3-book medieval Grail Quest series, is where Thomas Hookton finally confronts his cousin, Guy Vexille. Thomas, with his war-band, travels to Astarac, the former home of his infamous family, The Vexilles. Thomas then finds a lover, Genevieve, while at his stay in Astarac. She was a heretic and persecuted by the Church, and was going to be burned, but Thomas saves her. Subsequently, Thomas is also condemned by the Church during a siege in Astarac. He and Genevieve flee from Astarac, and take refuge with the bandits in the hills. Guy Vexille then hunts them down, but is unsuccessful in capturing them.

Heretic is the final installment of Cornwell's Grail Quest series that started with The Archer's Tale and continued with Vagabond. In Heretic Thomas continues his quest for the Holy Grail and his cousin the Harlequin. This time Thomas and his band head south to Gascony as the tale takes him back to his ancestral lands of Astarac searching for answers to the Grail mystery and for Guy Vexille. In this stunning conclusion to Thomas of Hookton's tale Cornwell does a magnificent job of tying up all the loose ends of the story for a very satisfying conclusion to the tale. The best book of the Grail Quest series, Heretic is a must read for any fan of Thomas.

I have just finished this brilliant novel. I think his work has to be judged more from its insightfulness than its plots. The world he writes of has very few of the crises that today's world has so the plotsa are limited. However, the real ability and fascination of this author is his study of the time. He relates the religion, the foul smells, and short stubby lives of the people with their pocked and scarred bodies. This is the complete briliance of Cornwell. May he write even more from his fertile brain to remind us how far we have come or how far we have not come. .

I don't like to drone on with reviews like some do so here it is.
What an incredible read.
I just finished the book and I was emotionally chocked up at the conclusion.
I don't want to give anything away but I will say that the first book has threads of things to come that unfold in book II and the Heretic wraps everything up quite nicely.
I'm not the fastest reader out there but I just couldn't put it down and finished it quickly.
There is never a dull moment. You can see a 2 1/2 hour movie that has 1/2 hour of fluff and could have been much better without it. That is not the case with Heretic. Action/action/action.
Finally, I really like the Historical facts at the end of the books. It's great info on how the author mixes fiction with non-fiction.
If you pick this up and enjoy it as much as I did.

With "Heretic", Cornwell concludes his Hundred Years War/Grail Quest trilogy. Although quite different in tone from the first two books in the series, this is still an exciting, page turning read. Thomas continues his quest, picks up a new love interest, gets excommunicated, escapes the plague, settles old scores, and comes to understand the true meaning of the grail. What is different from the previous two books in the series is that he does this outside the context of real historical battles and campaigns. For Cornwell fans there is no question, if you've followed the quest this far, pick up "Heretic" and finish it.

This is a great book and an enjoyable read. One point that should be made up front is that it is definetly part 3 of an on-going story and if you have not read the Archers Tale or Vagabond then you are not going to get the most from the story. The plot line is rather involved and Cornwell does not spend much verbiage on a recap. Also if you are a fan of the Sharpe novels (as I am) it is not long before you start seeing the similarities (ex: Sharpe with faithful Irish sidekick Sgt. Harper, Thomas with faithful Scots sidekick Robbie Douglas). This however is a minor quibble, Cornwell is a master at blending history and a good yarn into a seamless enjoyable package.

Unlike the some of the other reviewers this was my first Bernard Cornwell book and won't be my last!! However I wasn't aware, when I read it, that it was the last in a trilogy so it might be preferable to read the other two first.
I found myself getting gradually absorbed into the story, feeling compelled to follow the main characters through their quest for the Grail, honour and acceptance.
The battle scenes were very descriptive as was general life in mid fourteenth century France, all making this an excellent and persuasive read.

The greatest impediment to enjoying a novel (for me) is when characters act in ways that don't make sense, thus poisoning the rationale for the story line. Even given the notable lack of self-control of Cornwell heroes when it comes to women, in this case the major plot line was Thomas abandoning his course for the woman. The only motivation offered for Thomas's attraction is her beauty. But there is absolutely no indication of any character lurking beneath the body! I haven't counted, but I doubt she has more than 30 words of dialogue in the entire book. For the hero to make a 90-degree behavioral turn for a woman, one has to understand the woman to understand why he would do so. Because there is no credible explanation, the book from a story perspective has to fail. I hasten to add that the historical accuracy, battle scenes, etc. are Cornwell's normal high quality.

Unlike the some of the other reviewers this was my first Bernard Cornwell book and won't be my last!! However I wasn't aware, when I read it, that it was the last in a trilogy so it might be preferable to read the other two first.
I found myself getting gradually absorbed into the story, feeling compelled to follow the main characters through their quest for the Grail, honour and acceptance.
The battle scenes were very descriptive as was general life in mid fourteenth century France, all making this an excellent and persuasive read.

First, the positive: this book vividly portrays the superstition and gross spiritual darkness of people living in the 14th Century, and it does so better than anything I've ever read or seen. We see an innocent young girl condemned to be burned at the stake, after having been tortured by a sadistic Dominican monk. Our hero, Thomas of Hookton, rescues her from that fate, but soon his command is falling apart because the men are terrified to have a condemned heretic among them, thinking it is bad luck. Thomas cleverly calms their fears by touching a crucifix to the girl's forehead and showing that she is not burned or struck dead. Nevertheless, later on, after the girl has killed her Dominican torturer, and Thomas is excommunicated for harboring her and keeping the church from burning her, the problem arises again, with a vengeance. That much of the book (about the first half) was gripping reading. After that, the novel just kind of fell apart and lost all its direction.

Now the negative: There are major continuity problems between the second and third books of this "trilogy." Jeanette, "the blackbird," who was Thomas' love interest in the first two books, simply disappears and is never heard from or even mentioned in the third book. That was a major disappointment, because she was an interesting character who had been developed over the first two novels, and it seemed that she and Thomas were destined to be together. In the second book, "Vagabond," Sir Guillaume D'Evecque lost his estates but, in the battle of LeRoche-Derrien depicted at the end of "Vagabond", D'Evecque had captured his own landlord, the wealthy Count of Coutances, and was in a position to extract a large ransom and get his estates returned to him. His exact words were that Coutances' "wife and daughters will have to whore themselves to raise his ransom!" But at the beginning of "Heretic" there is no mention of this at all, and Guillaume is depicted as landless and only able to retain two men-at-arms. But by far the worst offense in this regard was Robbie Douglas, who turns out to have half a dozen severe character defects in "Heretic" that weren't even hinted at in "Vagabond." For example, he suddenly has a gambling problem, and loses his own ransom money not once but twice! His character is all over the map, doing crazy things that don't make any sense and have no consistent motivation. It is as if Cornwell hired someone else to write the final book of the trilogy, and that person read the cliff-notes of the first two books, and not the books themselves.

Another problem with this book, and a major reason why it is much weaker than the first two, is that there is no real history here after the first 26 pages. In the first two books, Cornwell skillfully wove his story around major engagements of the 100 years war, and very accurately depicted those engagments. This is just pure novel, with no redeeming history lesson about actual battles (although, as described above, it is probably an excellent depiction of the gross spiritual darkness prevailing at that time).

By the end of this volume, I found myself having a great deal of sympathy for the arch-villain, Guy Vexille, Thomas' cousin, and the man who killed both his father and his pregnant first wife. He's the only character in this mess who knows exactly what he is doing (trying to find the grail), is doing it for noble reasons (he genuinely believes it will make the world a better place), and is single-minded in his pursuit of his noble goal. Everyone else just wants to kill, plunder and rape, including Thomas, who just wants to sleep with pretty girls and kill people with his bow. Yet Thomas is the hero and Vexille the villain of this trilogy! Wow. What a disappointing end to this trilogy. Out with a whimper, indeed.

Excellent historical fiction. Full of arrows flying, beautiful women, swords cleaving and lances lancing. The evil priest continues to plaig Thomas I enjoy these well written books wish there were more. The Grail quest continues.

Deeply researched and beautifully told tale of that time in history. Little snatches of details one doesn't normally encounter in historical novels. These details are like little jewels sparking up the story and bringing the environment into a mental reality. I keep telling my friends to read it.

I'm a big fan of Bernard Cornwell, and found this series very satisfying. I count on his books for their historical detail, great characters, insights into human nature and page-turning action. Some thoughts on reading this book: No betrayals sting harder than when we're betrayed by our friends. No gift is greater than being forgiven when we least deserve it. No greater crimes are committed than those that are committed in God's name.

"Heretic", the last book in the 3-book medieval Grail Quest series, is where Thomas Hookton finally confronts his cousin, Guy Vexille. Thomas, with his war-band, travels to Astarac, the former home of his infamous family, The Vexilles. Thomas then finds a lover, Genevieve, while at his stay in Astarac. She was a heretic and persecuted by the Church, and was going to be burned, but Thomas saves her. Subsequently, Thomas is also condemned by the Church during a siege in Astarac. He and Genevieve flee from Astarac, and take refuge with the bandits in the hills. Guy Vexille then hunts them down, but is unsuccessful in capturing them. Compared to the others in the series, Heretic is more about betrayal, deceit and the greediness of the nobleman - while there are also exciting battle scenes. I recommend this book and the Grail Quest series whole heartedly - actually, you must read all three in order.

I've read all of Bernard Cornwell's 20 "Sharpe" series of books as well as his American revolusionary and civil war era books. I enjoy the authors style of writing, his historical research as well as his detail of actual life for each time period. After reading all these books, the "Heretic" became a bit predictable. I always enjoy the "historical notes" which the author always has at the end of each novel, but the historical notes for the "Heretic" were very limited in actual events which I've come accustomed to.

The "Heretic" was exciting and interesting. The characters were well done and added to the story. If one is into heroes and heroines, this is your book. Bernard Cornwell is one of my favorite authors.

First off: This is book 3 in the series. Go back and read the first two if you aren't starting here.

While you could jump into this book without the first two, you really lose the full effect without it.

Also, the first two books are better while the third wraps everything up, with a somewhat "standard" Grail story.

However a full review is probably silly, because either you read the first two -- and all you want to know if the 3rd one stinks -- and it is an OK book, so I wasn't disappointed reading it since it closed the series. As another review mentioned there is an interesting epilogue to the book.

And if you *haven't* read the first two, start there.

Violent and exciting 13th century historical that goes from France to England and ties together the past and present of Thomas of Hookton - hero of Cornwells earlier Archer's Tale and Vagabond. It wasn't as top notch as those two - but still it pulled you along.

I didn't realize that this was part of a series, but I was able to enjoy it none the less. In retrospect, there were times when relationships between several characters seemed lacking, but I imagine they were established in the previous two novels. I mostly enjoyed the description of combat tactics of the era and the leadership lessons taught throughout the novel. "Sir Guillaume would be waiting, but Sir Henri knew that nay caution would only incur Jscelyn's dismissive scorn and so he said nothing."

I've been a fan of Bernard Cornwell since the Sharpe series appeared in the States. As of late I've found the Sharpe series repetitious post-Waterloo. But this latest effort by Cornwell brings back the frailties and strengths of being a soldier using "quaint" weaponry. The battles scenes,as always, written with taut naration but full and richly detailed. This latest is one of the better ones yet I found Vagabond to be the better of the three so far.

The Grail Series (Archer's Tale, Vagabond and Heretic) were great fun to read.

Maybe comparisons to the Sharpe Series is unfair - in my opinion they and O'Brien's Aubrey/Maturin Series are the best historical fiction out there.

Having said that, these 3 books were up to Cornwell's standards and did the time period and characterization justice.

Best of the trilogy; could hardly put it down! The man can WRITE I loved the! Aurthurian books and Stonehenge, but this is great, I have no interest whatsoever in the Sharpe series; this is a guy thing.

I am a big fan of Bernard Cornwell's novels, however, the last of the Archer trilogy was a bit of a disappointment. The story seemed hurried and the characters are either undeveloped or out of character from the earlier two books (what's up with Robbie?) It is as if Mr. Cornwell rushed to finish the book too quickly. The entire series lacks the grit and intensity of the Sharpe novels and fails to match the sophisticated story telling of the Arthur (Winter King) trilogy. There is such a thing as being overly prolific. Hopefully, Mr. Cornwell will slow down next time out.

Cornwell's final book in the trilogy tied up all the ends but the series as a whole just didn't give me characters that I would want to go back and revisit. Still, a solid series but I don't think I will ever reread any of these books.

For fans of Bernard Cornwell this book will be more of what you expect. He has well developed characters, surrounds them with excellent historical detail and a plausable plot and ends up with an excellent read. I recommend it highly.

As I wrote in my review of The Archer's Tale, I was very disappointed in the way this series fizzled out in this, the third installment.Bernard Cornwell was one of my favorite

authors up until "Sharpe's Waterloo", but I feel he's again showing

symptoms of being too prolific.I just don't feel it.....