Former popstar turned novelist Giles Kristian really hit the spot with his debut, Raven: Blood Eye, and now the Norseman with the mysterious past is back for another outing – with added guts and gore. In his first book, Kristian out-Cornwelled the master of this kind of writing, but the challenge for any pretender to the throne is how to sustain the quality and plausibility of their characters’ adventures over the course of multiple volumes. Each new volume must have something new and interesting to sustain it, the backstory must build but never at the expense of the action, and there must be a sense of progression toward an ultimate goal. Well, watch out Bernard, watch out Conn, because Giles Kristian has covered all of these bases, and produced a novel that’s just a little more raw and energetic, somehow, than what has come before.

The storyline is a clear continuation from Raven: Blood Eye – our hero, part of the band of Vikings known as the Wolfpack, starts the second book in pursuit of the English noble, Earldred, who cheated him and his comrades out of promised loot, and who brought about the death of his own son. Accompanying the Vikings are an English monk, Egfrith, and Cynethryth, Earldred’s daughter, out for revenge on her father. What breathes fresh wind in to the sails of this Viking adventure is the author’s decision to send his protagonists in to the land of the Franks. After capturing Earldred and securing the holy relic he tried to keep from them, they decide to sell it to the King of the Franks, Karolus, better known to history as Charlemagne, who by this point was ruler of much of Western Europe, protector of the Pope and committed to furthering the spread of Christianity as part of his foreign policy. In short, not someone likely to offer a warm welcome to two shiploads of pagan warriors.

Still, influenced by Raven’s suggestion, Sigurd, leader of the Wolfpack, takes his ships deep in to Frankish territory, rowing down the Seine to Paris and then further, eventually portaging the great longboats from the headwaters of the Seine to the river Mass on the way to Aix-la-Chapelle, site of Charlemagene’s favourite palace. The tension derived from having the Vikings journey inland, surrounded on all sides by Christians and having to suppress their essential nature to survive, lends a frisson of fear to the voyage, and when the Wolfpack arrive at their destination, it’s no great surprise that things don’t go according to plan, leading to a frantic and exciting dash for the sea.

There’s a life and an energy to Kristian’s writing, and some lovely deft touches of characterisation: the gradual evolution of the monk Egfrith as he learns to co-operate with and understand the Vikings, is a subtle pleasure, while Raven changes from an outsider to an integral part of the crew, in a group that becomes more diverse and less obviously Norse as the story progresses. As for Raven’s origins, the story of his blood eye, of those we learn little, but as the Wolfpack turns for their home country, and Raven anticipates his first visit to the lands of the Norse, we can only hope his story has much further to take us.

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