A review of "The Virgin of the Wind Rose; a novel of the End of Times

An adventure/thriller.  No, an historical adventure.  No again, perhaps a double adventure with each story explaining the other.  Even that doesn’t quite capture this book. One tale, set in the late 1400's in Portugal with Henry the Navigator and the Order of Christ at the forefront.  The other set in present day with Jaqueline Quartermane, a strongly religious lawyer. Using facts, both well known and obscure, Author Craney weaves all together albeit not perhaps as seamlessly as one could want.

Starting with the Order of Christ attempting to prevent the Apocalypse the story envisages the melding in of the Knights Templar remnants and their sailing skills.  History tells us that Henry and the Order of Christ trained and sent out into the world, highly trained navigators with mission to find a way to the India by sailing East which required the faith that the tip of Africa could be turned, thus preventing the hated Spaniards from discovering the possibility.  The upshot of this mission, in the book, produces Christopher Columbus who persuades Queen Isabella that the West route would be successful.  Does this religious order know the whereabouts of the thirteen holy instruments taken from the ruins of King Solomon’s Temple and why do they want to bring them together?  In this activity a palindromic square is brought into play as a method of sending messages.

Jaqueline in the present day, goes to Africa to find out why her fiancee was not responding to her calls and emails.  Arriving in Lalibela and descending into the ground to visit the churches dug out there centuries ago, her adventures begin as she unknowingly follows the traces of the Portugese navigators and attempts to solve the cryptography of the 5 x 5 letter square.

A good romp through history and the bringing together of various discoveries that can be explained in several ways or perhaps unexplainable.  But then, that is what these type of novels are supposed to do: reveal hidden truths and provide the discovery of secret mysteries..  And the well written ones leave you with that question in your mind: Could it have been?  An excellent bibliography closes the book.

From conquerors to kings

We are all aware of the great Norman invasion of England and the resulting massive displacement of the Anglo-Saxon culture.  Also there is Robin Hood that valiant defender of the weak and the poor.  Outside of this I doubt that many really know from where the Normans came and what else these powerful men accomplished.  The Normans; from Raiders to Kings by Lars Brownworth is a well written account of how their daring and energy transformed Europe.” It is the kind of book that makes you wish our textbooks were as good when we were studying history. Names and dates there are indeed but connected to real humans with all their faults, foibles and strengths.

It was those men we call the Vikings who started it all, sweeping down out of Denmark, Norway and Sweden in their graceful seagoing longboats, raiding the coasts of England, Ireland, Scotland and France.  Some were asked by a French king to settle on a vulnerable coast and for a price protect France from further depredations.  These “Northmen” built what we now call Normandy and from there conquered England as Normans.

But of greater interest is how far afield they continued in their insatiable quest for plunder and lands.  It came as a surprise to me to read of the great kingdom they developed in the southern part of Italy, the magnificent capitol of which was Palermo on the island of Sicily. The last Norman king of Sicily was Frederick II. Quoting from the book:   “Like his grandfather, Roger II, he was a great patron of the arts, filling the palaces (that he designed) with mosaics, marbles, paintings, and sculptures.  His court in Palermo became the celebrated intellectual center of Europe, a Renaissance court two centuries before the Renaissance. No wonder his contemporaries referred to him as “Stupor Mundi” - the ‘Wonder of the World.’ ”

William the Conquerer, took England, Robert Guiscard, took a large part of France and the great Count Roger, who took Sicily, were all contemporaries .  To quote the book again: “A hundred years later their descendants ruled over the two most powerful and glittering courts of Europe and the greatest of the Crusader states. The Normans (were) at the great tipping point of European history.  It was their daring and energy that transformed Europe.”

Here is a book to read and re-read. Mr Brownworth has done an excellent job in explaining what happened and why in those years.