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MISTRESS OF THE ART OF DEATH
by Ariana Franklin
Putnam, February 2007
400 pages
$25.95
ISBN: 0399154140


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

King Henry II, his grip on his kingdom already wobbling due to the martyrdom of Thomas Becket, finds his tax revenue falling far short as the richest Jews have been driven to take sanctuary in Cambridge castle, away from the mob that accuses them of crucifying a Christian child. Henry appeals to his friend, the King of Sicily, to send a "doctor of death" to investigate the body and find out what really happened.

What the king doesn't realize is that the medical school at Salerno trains doctors regardless of gender. Thus, Henry's doctor is the titular MISTRESS OF THE ART OF DEATH.

Adelia and her cohorts, Simon (a Jewish ambassador) and Mansur (a Moorish bodyguard), are hardly the types that an insular, xenophobic English population will take into its confidences. Constantly at risk of being considered either whore or witch, unable to convince anyone that she and not Mansur is the medic, Adelia has an uphill climb to get her job done. The Church stands against her, especially since the convent of St. Radegund hopes to remake itself and make a fortune by sanctifying the boy as Little Saint Peter of Trumpington, with the convent as his place of pilgrimage.

In the meantime, two Jews are killed in the first mob attack. The rest of them, trapped in the castle, are in mortal peril when the mutilated bodies of three more missing children are found.

Medieval life as depicted in this book is particularly nasty, brutish, and overly short. As a nonbeliever, I didn't realize what a leavening influence the quiet faith of Sister Frevisse or Brother Cadfael was against their harsh settings. Adelia is agnostic on a good day, and she doesn't have a lot of those.

MISTRESS OF THE ART OF DEATH may be very bleak, but it is fast-paced; the plot clips along with enough excitement that it wasn't until I started framing this review that I thought of many of the flaws. The biggest is that Franklin doesn't develop many of the suspects, spending so much time making sure that the reader couldn't possibly believe one of them is the killer that it's no surprise to have that person revealed.

Another flaw is how long it takes for that reveal to take place; at the end of the book Franklin develops a very bad habit of letting the reader see that a character has made a discovery (for instance, Adelia sees the killer's face), but not actually telling the reader what that clue is until several pages later. I've always considered that a cheat.

Nevertheless, if you have the patience for that sort of thing, getting there can be quite the ride for someone who likes their historicals not to be cozy.

Reviewed by Linnea Dodson, February 2007

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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