The Princes in the Tower - Alison Weir > Reviews (2)

Just thought I'd get the confession out of the way first - I really enjoy reading about medieval history. I know, I know, but it's really interesting, and... Okay, so I'm not going to convince you if you're not at all interested, but everyone knows that one of the longest-running mysteries in British history is: who actually killed the Princes in the Tower. Everybody ALSO knows that Richard did it (or did he??), but this book by Alison Weir is one fo the most readable I've come across on this subject. She has collected together an enormous amount of information and still managed to make it as far removed from a dry, dusty textbook as it could possibly be. That's not to say there's any dumbing-down here - the facts are presented clearly, not so simply that there's no challenge in reading it - but the style and organisation of the whole book is excellent. The evidence for (and against) the various theories (and, boy, are some wild!) that have been circulated in the intervening 500 or so years is presented, examined and then (if appropriate) debunked. I know that some of the revisionists (you know, the "Richard III wasn't all THAT bad..." group) won't like this book much, but they can't argue with the facts as presented.
Although this book was published a few years ago, it's still one of the most interesting books on the whole "Richard III/murder of the Princes" thing that I've come across. I'd recommend it to anyone wanting to dip a toe into Britain's murky medieval past...