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AudibleInk - Mistress of the Art of Death
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List Price: $15.00
Our Price: $3.88
Your Save: $ 11.12 ( 74% )
Availability: N/A
Manufacturer: Berkley Trade
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Currently OUT OF STOCK
Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
Format: Bargain Price
Label: Berkley Trade
Manufacturer: Berkley Trade
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 432
Publication Date: 2008-01-29
Publisher: Berkley Trade
Studio: Berkley Trade
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Editorial Reviews:
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The national bestselling hit hailed by the New York Times as a "vibrant medieval mystery...[it] outdoes the competition."
In medieval Cambridge, England, Adelia, a female forensics expert, is summoned by King Henry II to investigate a series of gruesome murders that has wrongly implicated the Jewish population, yielding even more tragic results. As Adelia's investigation takes her behind the closed doors of the country's churches, the killer prepares to strike again.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Didn't care for it
Comment: This happens to be one of the few books I have not been able to finish. I can't speak for the historical accuracy of the book, but I just couldn't relate to the protagonist. The book, in my opinion (perhaps only my opinion), seems to take a rather negative look at people in twelfth century Europe. I suppose, looking back at something from eight or nine centuries on, this will tend to happen, but I feel the attitude of the book is somewhat unnecessary. I feel the protagonist is too modern in thought and this, added to the character's abrupt, even rude demeanor, turns me off of the book completely.
It is well written, and if the issues I have with the book don't offend you, pick it up.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Interesting period mystery
Comment: I liked the fact that the main character is a female forensic scientist from the middle ages. BUT, be forwarned the villian in this story is sexually torturing and murdering small children, and there were sections I found sickening. Hence the low star rating.
Customer Rating:
Summary: If you feel this way, write an autobiography...
Comment: Should I review this novel or not, I wonder? I didn't read nearly all of it, enjoyed the first few pages, got quickly exasperated, skimmed for a bit, jumped ahead a hundred pages or so at a bound, finally skipped to the end--ah, there's the solution. There seems some utility to chronicling why I wasn't inclined to read the book from cover to cover, though. I've no quarrel with the storytelling or linguistic powers of the author. Far from it. She can write, and from what I could tell, the plot was gripping.
No, it's that this story is about the medieval time period, and that all the blurbs and puffs and teasers promised accuracy of period detail. The external period detail of the story was solid, it seemed to me, although I wouldn't be able to correct the author on diet. She cares about getting the place names right, and bases some of the plot points on actual events. But the internal makeup of the characters seems all wrong for the medieval period. The story is filtered through the sensibility of a character who is for all practical purposes modern in her ethics and in her high, almost exclusive, valuation of science. We had to go pretty far to find her, too--all the way to Sicily, & drag her back to 12th-century England, where she wasn't. In nearly every case I found where the medieval period clashes with a kind of proto-modern sensibility or value system, the medieval period is either exoticised, compared unfavourably, or both. Why tell a medieval story if you want to diminish it in favour of the modern, I wonder? To give modern values a slap on the back, to make them feel better? It all feels irresponsibly self-congratulatory. As a period piece, Mistress of the Arts of Death is disingenuous: a medieval façade over an uninterestingly unoriginal modern heart.
Perhaps I'm all wrong--I'd love to be corrected. But I can only plead with the author to convince me much sooner in the book that I'm wrong. I don't have time to read two hundred pages into a book to figure out if it is worthwhile, if it treats its subject matter responsibly and charitably.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Historical Intrigue With Little Mystery.
Comment: Ariana Franklin (a pseudonymn) starts off her Adelia Aguilar mystery series with "Mistress Of the Art Of Death".
Taking place in 12th Century Britain, we find ourselves thrust into a dark period of history filled with religious intolerance. Described as "CSI meets the Cantebury Tales", Adleia is the expert medical practitioner specializing in determining cause of death and her expertise is now being used in the case of three children who were crucified to death.
While being very interesting and full of historical references, this tale has little to no mystery about it (I found the killer to be quite obvious) and there is hardly any tension. It is a good story on its own merit and worthy of a read. I only hope the suceeding books in this series have a little more thrill to them.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The title is better than the book
Comment: A book with a title such as this one, about a female doctor from Salerno solving mysteries in Britain during the reign of Henry II, certainly tantalizes the imagination. I didn't think it could fail to entertain.
And yet it did. The plot, by turns a history lesson and a mysterious reveal, was erratic and short of compelling. Adelia, the doctor/sleuth masquerading as a the doctor's helper, suspects everyone and her internal dialogue cues the reader to plot developments that consistently fall short of their promise.
I read this book on a plane, and usually, anything to read is better than nothing. Yet time after time, I drowsed off--the narrative would capture my interest momentarily and then meander off on some obscure tangent about primitive medical science or geographic analysis of chalk. (This book mentions chalk more than an essay on the art of teaching with a chalkboard). Despite my good intentions, Ariana Franklin's tale failed to keep my attention. Many of the characters and events seemed to serve as opportunities for Franklin to dazzle us with her historical knowledge or attention to medieval medical detail, rather than to create a tight, well-crafted mystery tale.
Perhaps the biggest disappointment was the 'reveal', where our heroine catches the bad guy. The scene itself, told in an odd combination of clinical and unnecessarily graphic brush strokes, offends without terrifying.
Save your time and money.
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