Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Book Review of Mistress of the Art of Death (Mistress of the Art of Death, Bk 1)

Mistress of the Art of Death (Mistress of the Art of Death, Bk 1)
moondance120 avatar reviewed on + 422 more book reviews


Here they come.>/b>

Four children have been murdered in Cambridge in 1171. The population is blaming it on the Jewish community. King Henry I requests help from his cousin the King of Sicily. The help arrives from Salerno and is not quite what Henry was expecting. Adelia is more forensic pathologist/coroner than physician but she is capable at both. Her companions are Simon, a Jew, and Mansur, a Moor.

Adelia is a little difficult to accept at first. She is more straight forward than the people are used to. I'm sure that Ms. Franklin wrote her to be off setting to show how much of a foreigner she is to the townspeople. Adelia's romance with Rowley, the local tax collector was an interesting surprise. The book is well written and poetic license is easily dismissed in regard to true facts from the time period. Overall a good read.