REVIEW: Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin

Mistress of the Art of Death by Ari­ana Franklin, pub­lished Feb 2007, is a medieval mys­tery and the start of a new series, fea­tur­ing medieval foren­sic inves­ti­ga­tor, Dr. Vesu­via Adelia Rachel Ortese Aguilar of Salerno.

The story is told in third per­son and is set in 12^th Cen­tury Eng­land. It is a time of unrest and evil has some­how made it’s home in Cam­bridgeshire. The King of Sicily has sent two detec­tives from Salerno to Cam­bridge to inves­ti­gate the mur­ders of 4 children.

Since the death of the first child, Roger of Acton, a cleric new to town, accuses the Jews of rit­u­al­is­tic mur­der of their chil­dren and sparks a riot. All hell breaks loose and the local law enforce­ment can barely main­tain order. Meanwhile, King Henry II is sent a peti­tion to expel the Jews from his realm but he is not will­ing to let them go so easily.

But then the King is in a rather vul­ner­a­ble posi­tion to make a stand against the Church in this mat­ter. After his scream­ing rage that led to a bishop’s mur­der, King Henry II is at the mercy of the Church. How to solve this dilemma espe­cially since the Jews make up a sub­stan­tial por­tion of his Royal treasury?

Upon royal request, Salerno sends it’s top inves­ti­ga­tor, Simon of Naples and his com­pan­ion in the study of death, a woman, Dr. Adelia Aguilar and her eunuch manser­vant, Mansur, to Cam­bridge to inves­ti­gate the deaths of the four chil­dren and to exon­er­ate the Jews of these ter­ri­ble crimes and restore order.

While trav­el­ing, they meet up with the Pil­grims from Can­ter­bury and man­age to gain an influ­en­tial ally in Prior Geof­frey of St. Augus­tine. Suf­fer­ing from uri­nary reten­tion, Prior Geof­frey is for­ever in debt to Adelia for sav­ing his life. Like many peo­ple out­side Salerno, the prior is shocked to learn that Adelia is a med­ical doc­tor and fear­ful of that knowl­edge get­ting out since there are hardly any women doc­tors in England.

How­ever, Salerno has a rep­u­ta­tion of allow­ing women to prac­tice med­i­cine and is revered and respected as a place of heal­ing for many of the sick and dying. Adelia with no chap­eron (her child­hood nurse died dur­ing the jour­ney), must hide the fact that she is a doc­tor in order to avoid being hung for witch­craft or worse. So, she is forced to work under less than ideal con­di­tions with­out the proper equip­ment to deci­pher what the dead is telling her.

Arriv­ing at Cam­bridge, Prior Geof­frey finds shel­ter for Adelia and her team on the out­skirts of Cam­bridge with Gyltha and her grand­son, Ulf. It affords them some pri­vacy while they inves­ti­gate the mur­ders and try to locate a killer who is still at large. Prior Geof­frey fills them in on the state of affairs for the Jews in Cam­bridge, who are now locked up in the tower and who are always heck­led by Roger of Acton. No sooner do they arrive in Cam­bridge that word spreads that a doc­tor from Salerno is in the city. The sick line up in droves thereby dis­tract­ing them a bit from the investigation.

Adelia’s job won’t be an easy one. Besides being fear­ful of being seen as a witch, the dead are not allowed to be dis­sected. It is viewed with “revulsion”  by the Church. It is against the teach­ing of the Church to “invade the sanc­tity of the body.” Adelia even­tu­ally meets up with Sir Row­ley Picot, the tax col­lec­tor and King Henry’s “fix it” man, as she is doing an autopsy. He has jour­neyed to Cam­bridge to inves­ti­gate the death of the chil­dren as well. An inves­ti­ga­tion for him that started back on Cru­sade. The two reluc­tantly end up work­ing together to find out who is incrim­i­nat­ing the Jews for these hideous crimes.

Here are my thoughts: The author has a firm grasp of her char­ac­ters and setting- as she always does. One of Ms. Franklin’s skills as an author is that she allows the reader to travel to 12^th Cen­tury Eng­land with­out it feel­ing like a his­tory les­son. The story has great atmos­phere that some­times gave me chills. The rev­e­la­tion of the vil­lain in this story was some­what of a sur­prise for me because there really wasn’t very many clues to fig­ure it out. The sin­is­ter feel­ing that some­thing evil is out and about in Cam­bridge was not wasted because the vil­lain in this book does not dis­ap­point. Truly the devil incar­nate. I liked the fact that the story was some­what unpre­dictable (at least for me) and very edge of your seat suspenseful.

As for the most impor­tant part of the story — the romance (she said jok­ingly), it was nice and straight for­ward. Ms. Franklin/Norman doesn’t write explicit love scenes in her books but there are love scenes and they are nicely done.

The author plans to make this a series so the roman­tic sub­plot will be an ongo­ing one.  While the roman­tic sub­plot was not the focus, it was well devel­oped and one of the most enjoy­able parts of the book. Just think of it as an added bonus. Moving on, I really enjoyed all the char­ac­ters in the story and even the not so nice ones like Roger of Acton, because they def­i­nitely kept the story interesting.

Another big rea­son why I enjoy Ms. Franklin/Norman is that she cre­ates really strong hero­ines who push against the restraints of their time. I liked Adelia. She is head­strong and smart. Flu­ent in many lan­guages. Her heart is in her work: speak­ing for the dead. Then there’s King Henry II him­self who is one of the most mem­o­rable char­ac­ters in the story despite the fact that he had very few scenes in the book. He is charm­ing and clever and refuses to let Adelia go back to Sicily (and I am glad for it, too).

As for the plot­ting of the story — well done. The dénoue­ment was excel­lent and kept me on the edge of my seat. I enjoyed the story so much that if there were flaws I didn’t notice them. Be aware how­ever, that the story does develop slowly so I guess that would be deemed a prob­lem for some read­ers. I’d say after the first five or so chap­ters that if you are not hooked into the story after a cer­tain plot twist, don’t go any fur­ther. I was hooked from the first page but then I’ve read this author before and I know what to expect from her. My grade, A. I already have the sequel, The Serpent’s Tale, sit­ting on my nightstand.

This book is avail­able as ebook, hard­cover and the trade paper­back edi­tion will be released Jan 29, 2008.

Tech­no­rati Tags: Ari­ana Franklin, Reviews, Diana Nor­man, 12^th Cen­tury Eng­land, Medieval Mys­tery, Foren­sic Mystery