Review by Roy Boyd

It’d be useful if Cinebook provided some sort of ‘previously on…’, but perhaps the assumption is all readers are continuing from Nottingham 2: The Hunt. In a nutshell, Nottingham concerns the activities of William de Wendeval and a band of outlaws, the Merry Men, operating from Sherwood Forest. The twist in this iteration of the tale is that our hero is also the Sheriff of Nottingham, the man who’s usually the villain in the Robin Hood legend.

Robin begins with one of those narrative cheats worthy of a 1940s cinema serial like Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon. William and Marian are clearly speaking again, after their ‘obviously not quite as serious as it appeared at the time’ bust-up at the end of the last book.

In the previous volume they also summarily dealt with Sir Hugh de Morville, Prince John’s lackey and the man filling the protagonist role usually occupied by the Sheriff of Nottingham in tales of Robin Hood. This book introduces new villains in Trogg and the Troglodytes, which sounds like a 1960’s pop combo, but is actually another band of brigands. They occupy the network of caves beneath Nottingham Castle, hence the colourful name.

Scarlett, the old crone who acts as mother hen to the Merry Men, is kidnapped by the Troglodytes, who want the gold the Sherwood mob stole from Prince John. They attempt to trade her for the gold, but their plan – like most of their plans to date – soon turns pear shaped, and another Merry Man is captured.

This book is the first to refer to the Hood, and it transpires the captured Merry Man is called Robin. And she’s a woman! Things threaten to become confusing in a ‘but I thought William was Robin Hood’ way, but writers Vincent Brugeas and Emmanuel Herzet manage to both clear things up and surprise the reader with developments that are unpredictable, hard-hitting, and very satisfying dramatically.

Benoit Dellac’s art still features confusing fight scenes where it’s hard to see who’s doing what to whom, and why, but the long periods between are richly detailed with easily distinguished characters.

After a slow start, Nottingham is finally taking some interesting turns, and actually seems to be trying something different and worthwhile with this most English of legends.