Grave Goods — Review by Chris

Spoiler alert: this is the third book in a series. This review might provide information about a storyline you have not yet finished in a previous book. Please be warned.

With the third installation of the Mistress of the Art of Death stories, you know you're going to get a good story. You know you'll see a few of the usual suspects.

But what you have no idea what Adelia will face this time.

Each of Ariana Franklin's Mistress books have been different. The rhythm and language is the same, the characters don't betray you — but the story, the "meat and potatoes" of the book, is different.

In Grave Goods, we start out in Glastonbury, the mystical abbey also known as Avalon. Yes, that Avalon. Someone is being buried, only we don't know who — or, really, when. The world has opened up with a terrible earthquake and no one can trust their senses, let alone the earth under their feet.

A couple of decades later, Glastonbury is still trying to put itself back together. So is Henry II, the monarch trying to quell a Welsh uprising. He finds himself in need of Adelia again. The Brits are a superstitious lot, especially the Welsh who believe in the mystical and can weave a tale that makes it all seem true. Henry, however, needs the truth, rather than the fantastic tapestry the Welsh are weaving). The king seeks it from the only person who will give it to him.

In the meantime, Adelia is busy trying to find a way to save the people of the fen — but avoid being called a witch. As strange as it seems, even after two novels, but as we noted before, the Brits are a superstitious lot — and not one to cotton to anything that isn't literally translated from the New Testament. Women as doctors? Women as people? Pshaw. She is surrounded by people she loves and trusts, but it's not enough. Rowley, however, could make it enough, and yet this bishop is as impossible to move as the doctor.

Thus Henry beckons.

As much as she would like to refuse him, she can't. In the end, she wouldn't, anyway — her obligation is to the dead, and helping them speak.

This time it takes her into the path of someone from her past: Emma, whom we met in The Serpent's Tale. Only it's not just Emma anymore, and the young girl whose live was changed forever has yet more change in store. She is taking care of what is hers, and if it means facing a daunting woman she has never cast eyes upon, then so be it. Some things are more important than a wild, frightened girl.

But in Henry's England, nothing is that easy.

This is a wild England, full of cut-throats and thieves. It is a land in transition, where ancient rites and challenges are beginning to give way to more modern ideas and speculation — but not too quickly or easily in the lands far from London, and certainly not in the mystical land of Glastonbury. (And even less so in within the walls of the Church.)

The strength of the story is not the storyline, though that is compelling and fascinating. What carries the story, as always, are the characters. Adelia cannot be other than what she is, and her true nature always shines through. She is faced by the intelligent and the ignorant people, and those people don't line up the way one expects.

In the end, Franklin again created a wonderful world with incredible people and a great story. Run, don't walk, to the bookstore and pick up all three novels. Read them in order, if you can. And enjoy.

Books Coming Out in March — Great Expectations!

I have such a towering stack of books I am not sure where there's room for new material — yet I must make room because there's some great-sounding stuff coming out this month.

First of all, I can't wait for Ariana Franklin's newest novel, Grave Goods. I have enjoyed both Mistress of the Art of Death and The Serpent's Tale, and I doubt that I will be disappointed with this new book.

Then there's the new book by the gifted novelist Keith Donohue. I read The Stolen Child when it first came out and even now, when I think about it years later, I still find it unsettling, imaginative and very satisfactory. His latest novel, Angels of Destruction, hearkens the same great potential, and I must pick it up soon. (Definitely before his local reading.)

I'm frightfully behind on my February novels, with Drood sitting heavily in the wings — but Carole is a few pages in front of me, and I have to catch up so we can discuss it. I know Carole is eyeing Fool with great interest, and I can't wait for her to read it so she can tell me how much she enjoyed it. (I have a non-fiction book in the wings titled Traffic; maybe as the month progresses, we can graduate to titles with more than one word....)

What do you have on your nightstand?

The Serpent's Tale — Review by Chris

She's back, that feisty, clever, relentless coroner of the 12th century. In The Serpent's Tale, readers encounter Vesuvia Adelia Rachel Ortiz Aguilar nearly two years after her first experience with the English crown and has settled in the fens with a couple of familiar faces (Glytha, Mansur) and one very special one we've yet to meet.

Alas, her idyllic life in Oxfordshire as the local doctor is short-lived. Henry — King Henry II of England, to be precise — has a problem only Adelia can solve: someone has killed Rosamund, Henry's beloved mistress. Adelia needs to find out who.

Oh, if only it was that simple.

First of all, she is a woman in primitive England, little more than chattel and certainly not all that valuable, except to a couple of men (and thank heavens one is a monarch). Second of all, she's educated, which was singular enough in her hometown of Salerno — but in the backwaters of England, it's unheard-of. Third of all, she is on the king's business. And anyone who's anyone knows that heavy is the head that wears the crown — and all the easier to topple said crown, or even said head.

So, she again teams up with Mansur — er, Doctor Mansur — to examine Rosamund and investigate the murder. For it is murder, complete with a mysterious hag in the forest providing delectible morsels for the king's "pretty." Rowley, the king's man to the end, heads the traveling party and again proves invaluable.

This second investigation takes Adelia and her entourage to Godstow Abbey, a cloister of smart, educated women (nuns and pensioners) who are as rare a treat as Adelia. With Adelia's keen eye and clever mind, we meet Mother Edyeve, whom author Ariana Franklin describes as having "the disinterested calm of elderly people who had seen everything and were now watching it come around for the second time." She is surrounded by interesting people, as the abbey is its own village with two churches and many villagers.

So much happens, from the moment Adelia assures Rowley of Rosamund's fate, to the arrival at Wormhold Tower with its labyrinth (and innuendos that are worth a chuckle or two), to the surprising arrival of an unexpected visitor and the aftermath.

More than fair Rosamund fall prey to the brutality of murder, and Adelia sees the series of unnatural deaths as a progression. Why are they being killed? What is the connection?

Who is foul enough to take another's life: Queen Eleanor, on the cusp of a civil war with a country less than a generation past its last such internal battle? Was it Lord Wolvercote, who hungrily eyed the abbey for its land and cursed the women who ran it (and who protected the young woman whose parents promised her to be his dowery, er, wife)? Was it Master Warin, whose young cousin befell his own treacherous (and suspicious) end? Could it be the Abbot of Eynsham, whose ambition was as bright as his cruelty?

Woven into this tale is a new perspective: the life of royalty and its court. From the moment members of the royal court sweeps in with too many people and an incredible amount of expectation, the world changes for everyone.  Not only are the king and queen's sycophants swept along in the wake, but also the innocents who become temporary toys. One learns that the only thing worse than being ignored by the rulers of the land is being noticed by them. Adelia does not escape Eleanor or Henry's attention, and she pays dearly for every moment in which she draws their eyes. However, Franklin shows the distinct difference in personality and expectation between the monarchs locked in their dance of power, intrigue and love — and the people who surround them.

The book sweeps along at a quick pace, but it never loses its readers. I personally fell very much in love with Henry, a man Adelia rightly sees as too far ahead of his time and his people — but in the right place for a monarch. Adelia herself admires and appreciates him, and I share her sentiment. The final scene of the book is revealing and delightful, and leaves me hungry for the next tale of our Mistress of the Art of Death.

One last thought: while you needn't read the first book to understand this one. However, you may choose to, if only to revel in the characters — and you won't be disappointed. Just don't let it hold you back from this delightful volume.

Mistress of the Art of Death — Review by Chris

With Mistress of the Art of Death, transport yourself back to 12th century England. Henry II is losing money in his kingdom because the Jews of Cambridge are holed up in a castle to save their lives. Children are being murdered and someone has accused the Jews.

This gruesome action against defenseless children cannot continue — but not for the reasons we might first consider. In this gripping novel, Ariana Franklin appoints an amazing and unlikely observer who, with an incredible cast of characters, weaves a tale that holds readers from the start.

To help his fellow regent, the King of Sicily sends two of his greatest minds to Cambridge. Simon of Naples, also Jewish, is a keen thinker who, as a man, can go anywhere and do anything. Adelia is a doctor and teacher in Italy — and a woman who looks on the dead for clues on how they died. Accompanied by a huge Arabian eunich for protection and Adelia's former nursemaid for propriety, they travel across the English channel — and, quite frankly, back in time.

Not all of Europe is created equal, then or now. In Italy, women were not full members of society, but a brilliant mind was less likely to be quashed (especially those adopted by physician-teachers already respected in society). Adelia is accepted, perhaps grudgingly, in her hometown.

But they're not in Salerno anymore. Adelia pretends Mansur, the eunuch who speaks no English, is the doctor; she guides him in Arabic and "translates" the doctor's findings. The nursemaid, an old woman, died on the journey over, and Adelia still mourns her — plus, Adelia discovers, she is missing a chaperone, which limits Adelia's ability to simply walk to the market. Simon is a man, which buys him some freedom, but as a Jew he is aware of his precarious situation.

England is medieval, lacks hygiene and open minds. Thankfully, Adelia's crew encounter Prior Geoffrey early in their travels. After providing him with emergency medical care (and his awareness through the procedure), he enables their investigation, all the while keeping Adelia's secret.

In this novel, readers are captured from the first by the interesting characters and amazing situations. I call them "amazing," but perhaps I need to call them "barbaric" or "antiquated." I hate cold and dirty places, and Franklin captures Cambridge with an accuracy and richness that transports readers to Adelia's side. We join her on the hillside with pilgrims, in the castle with frightened people, standing next to the aggrieved mother who taunts the "murderers" behind castle doors, in the convent where she slowly realizes what makes the "buzzing" sound she hears.

Humans always look for the enemy in "other," and through Adelia, Franklin introduces us to a fascinating array of "others." Ariana herself is "other." As an unbiased observer, she examines Cambridge society to find the killer. Are the disadvantaged — those easily hated and despised — apt to commit these heinous crimes because they are outcasts? Or is the killer someone of position? Do the people of Cambridge point to "other" because it is too horrible to think one of their own killed them?

Through Franklin, we see how little times change. We see brilliant minds, the end of friendships, the beginning of others, love among the least likely, "cleverness" that trumps "smarts," and the horror of horrors: murder.

I found this book hard to put down. Many were the night when I stayed up late to finish "just one more section." The story careened to an incredible crescendo, and the last 40 pages are simply astonishing. I recommend this book to those who like good stories, strong characters, true love, cleverness and English society.