One of Kurtz's gifts as a writer is her ability to people her novels with attractive, believable characters. In Camber of Culdi, for example, she sketches Camber's son Joram brilliantly in a neat, precise paragraph, and thereafter is faithful and consistent in her depiction of him. There are few, if any, inconsistencies in her characters. They are as firmly themselves as any "real" person.

Kurtz then turns this ability to the creation of tension by not guaranteeing the lives of these characters. Camber's eldest son Cathan is murdered in Camber of Culdi. The gruff, wise Alister Cullen is killed early in Saint Camber (1978). And Rhys Thuryn, one of the series' most sympathetic characters, dies in Camber the Heretic (1981). Although each death is essential to the plot, the reader is nevertheless shocked and grieved by them.

It is also of interest to note the steady maturation of Kurtz's style...