INTO THE MEDIEVAL AGE: MISTRESS OF THE ART OF DEATH

Ariana Franklin won the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Award 2007 for Mistress of the Art of Death.

It is Cambridge in 1171 and a child, Peter of Trumpington, has been murdered and the local Jews blamed for his alleged crucifixion. Chaim, the most prominent Jew in the city and his wife have been slaughtered by the mob and the remaining Jews have taken refuge in the castle. Now two more children are missing, and Henry II is not pleased.

'Am I not good to my Jews, Aaron?'

'You are, my lord. Indeed you are.'

'......The real point is that one-seventh  of my annual revenue comes from taxing you Jews. And the church wants me to get rid of you.'

From the Kingdom of  Sicily and Southern Italy, Simon Menahem of Naples, a renowned investigator, Adelia a woman doctor from the great school of Medicine in Salerno, her speciality the study of corpses, and Mansur, a Marsh Arab are sent 'to deal with some trouble the Jews are having there.'

The missing children are found dead, horribly mutilated, and the trio of investigators are faced with multiple suspects and great personal danger in a cold wet land where Adelia finds it difficult to distinguish between friend and foe, and find a salad.

One has only to look at excellent web sites such as Crime Thru Time and a recent review on Euro Crime of Bernard Knight's The Manor of Death by crimficreader to realise the fascination the Medieval period has for crime fiction writers.

I have only a smattering of knowledge about the period and approached reading Mistress of the Art of Death with considerable interest but some reservations. 

Review quotes such as 'CSI meets Canterbury Tales' don't encourage me to read a book, and the thought of a Medieval Kay Scarpetta was intimidating.

But I was pleasantly surprised and after reading the first 200 pages I am deeply engrossed in this alien world of the 12th century. Vesuvia Adelia Rachel Ortese Aguilar, the 'Mistress' of the title, is a likeable as well as intelligent character and as a woman in a foreign country surrounded by ignorance and bigotry she cries out for recognition. 

'I am a doctor of Salerno. You will show me respect.'

And because of the considerable amount of research that has gone into the book the situation Adelia finds herself in is very believable.

While the book is set in 1171 some things never change, the presence of serial killers and blaming the Jews for anything and everything seem to be consistent theme whether you are in 12th century Cambridge, or 20th century Berlin.

One thing the book could do with is a glossary of medieval terms as not everyone has a medieval scholar [Mrs Crime Scraps] in the house to explain 'catafalques', 'Montanists', 'Tertullian' and to provide a library of music of the period. 

There is however an excellent web site explaining a lot of the background of the book here.

This book has interesting characters, great atmosphere, lots of historical information and an intriguing mystery. It is one of those books I like to read slowly to enjoy a story that the author has obviously spent a lot of time creating. 

When I finish this book I will move on to the sequel, The Death Maze. 

 

CRIME SCRAPS COMPETITION:THE BROKEN SHORE WON

To win a copy of Peter Temples's novel The Broken Shore set in Australia the question was: 

Who was the commander of the largest Allied army corps on the Western Front in 1918, and what is his connection with a university and $100? 

The winner by a few hours "Ah now I see" over a runner up who stated:

" I can't believe how obvious the answer is....." 

That greatly pleased me as I was beginning to think my questions were too difficult.

Of course the answer was Sir John Monash, commander of the Australian Corps in 1918, whose picture is on the Australian $100 bill, and for whom Monash University is named.

Prize courtesy of Picador USA.

CRIME SCRAPS COMPETITION UPDATE: NOT BLACK JACK

More than one entrant to the 'Win The Broken Shore' competition has given the answer John 'Black Jack' Pershing  the commander of the American Expeditionary Force in World War 1.

Unfortunately that is not the answer because I had not thought of Pershing because he was not an Allied army corps commander.

The USA was not officially an 'Ally' in the Great War but an 'Associated Power'. 

It was the largest Allied Army corps of 166,000 men commanded by........

Here are a couple of clues:

The prize is The Broken Shore [location] and the USA is not the only country that uses the dollar as its currency. 

Answers to thbear08@googlemail.com  

NO SANCTUARY

It seems a bomb exploded in Exeter this lunchtime in the new £230 million Princeshay development.

Exeter was pounded by the Luftwaffe during the war so the residents have a tradition of defiance, so whatever was the motive for this incident the bustling cathedral city will continue to grow and prosper.

[photos from the BBC website]

CRIME SCRAPS COMPETITION: WIN THE BROKEN SHORE

Those very kind people at  Picador USA have sent me a copy of The Broken Shore by Peter Temple.

Not only did this novel win the CWA Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award but was also one of Crime Scraps best books of 2007. 

You can read my review here, and win this brilliant example of Australian crime fiction by answering just one question.

Who commanded the largest Allied army corps on the Western Front in 1918, and what is his connection with $100 and a university?

It is a little easier than my usual questions so the first correct answer gets the book.

Answers to thbear08@googlemail.com  by 30 June 2008.

HISTORY LESSONS

As I am reading Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin, the first Medieval winner of the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Award, and will follow that with the sequel The Death Maze.

I thought I had better do a bit of research to be able to comment on the authenticity of the books. Therefore as well as watching BBC 4 's excellent Medieval season I have been looking up some maps of Europe in the 12th century.

What a treasure chest of information is available on the internet!

This map looked rather nice and is taken from the library of the University of Texas.

NEW REVIEWS ON EUROCRIME: THE SNAKE STONE

My review of the historical mystery The Snake Stone by Jason Goodwin is posted on Euro Crime. 

This book features Yashim the eunuch detective while among the other books reviewed this week, and also set in Turkey, is The Prophet Murders by Mehmet Murat Somer which has as the narrator possibly the world's first transvestite detective.

Definitely the mysterious east.

BEHIND ENEMY LINES: FORGETFUL FRIDAY

Over at Patti Abbott's pattinasse there is a series on forgotten books every Friday.

With my convoluted thought processes bumbling into action I remembered a complete series of forgotten books, several of which I read a very long time ago, set in occupied France during the Second World War.

This J. Robert Janes series featured Surete detective Jean Louis St-Cyr and former Munich policeman Hermann Kohler and was very strong on the wartime atmosphere of distrust and barely concealed hatred between the various authorities during the Occupation.

The detectives have to solve murders while under constant surveillance by the SS Secret police, Wehrmacht, Gestapo, collaborators in the French police system and Resistance fighters.

The De Luca Trilogy set in Italy during and just after the collapse of Mussolini's Republic of Salo had a similar theme of who to trust in the constantly shifting quicksands of occupation and liberation.

The BBC drama series Secret Army about a Belgian resistance movement broadcast between 1977-1979 covered the theme of the struggle between occupier and occupied in a thoughtful and serious manner. I am afraid I could not watch the ludicrous parody that was later made of this excellent series, entitled Allo Allo.

I have not read the highly praised Matt Beynon Rees Omar Yussef Mystery series set in the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza, but it is on my to be purchased list.

I shall be interested to see how the author deals with the sensitive subject of politics and murder in such a lawless land.

The two books so far published in the series have very different titles in the UK and USA, which is fairly significant of the difference in attitudes between the two countries to this controversial situation.

The American, The Collaborator of Bethlehem and A Grave in Gaza by Matt Beynon Rees, become for British readers The Bethlehem Murders and The Saladin Murders by Matt Rees?

I found it interesting when in Donna Leon's The Girl of His Dreams Count Orazio Falier, Guido Brunetti's father in law, goes on a trip the "occupied territories". Count Falier has taken to calling Sicily and Calabria by that evocative name because they are beyond government control and occupied by organised crime factions.

What other 'occupied territories' feature in crime fiction?

I first thought of Eliot Pattison's series featuring a former investigator for the Chinese government, Shan Tao Yun, in Tibet. It has taken the Beijing Olympics to bring this long standing occupation to Western sensibilities.

And then I recollected our neighbour about twenty years ago speaking about the 'occupied territories'. She was not a Palestinian or a Tibetan, but from the vast former German territories in the east now part of Poland.

That reminded me of the Eberhard Mock Quartet witten by Polish writer Marek Krajewski, a crime series with a difference, flowing back and forth in time and set in the Silesian German city of Breslau, which became after the Second World War the Polish city of Wroclaw.

What a wonderful educational facility we have with the varied library of crime fiction available today; it is all there entangled in the story, history, politics, sociology, religion and geography. And usually they are more fun to read than dry non fiction books?

HUNTING THE KING: A CRIME SCRAPS INTERVIEW

Peter Clenott has two good marketing ploys which are bound to get his intelligent thriller Hunting The King noticed and out 'there'.

Firstly there is an exciting video on 'You Tube' that got me interested, and secondly he has named his heroine Molly O'Dwyer, which qualified her for an Irish Crime Fiction blog post this week by Princess Lillyput's daddy here.

Peter very kindly consented to answer a few questions. You notice I am being very polite just in case this novel makes it big and is the new Da Vinci Code, although I think it is probably much more intelligently written than Dan Brown's book.

Over to you Peter.

How did I come to write the book?

HUNTING THE KING is actually the sequel. The original Molly O'Dwyer book was written way back in the 1990s. I had read an article in the Boston Globe in which a leading figure in the Church claimed that he could deny people access to God if they belonged to any organization he disapproved of. So, I wanted to write a novel whose theme was faith vs reason. The main character became a scientist, in this case an archaeologist with strong roots to the Catholic Church. Molly is both a passionate scholar and an observant Catholic, so she is often conflicted between the academic in her and the religionist.

What other crime thriller writers do you read?

Actually, I don't do a lot of reading at the moment. I have three young kids and work two jobs to support them (hence the desperation to do well in sales with my book). I am currently writing my next book, so I have little time to do pleasure reading. The last thriller I read was Angels & Demons by Dan Brown and the Bourne books by Robert Ludlum.

Have you been inspired by any particular book?

No, I think I'm inspired by the joy of writing and, as I said, by pure unbridled desperation. I enjoy a lot of writers but emulate none.

Who would play Molly O'Dwyer if the book was ever filmed?

I'm not sure, but I damn well want the casting couch. Molly's a red head. Keira Knightly is too young. Lucille Ball's too old. (And dead) How about Scarlet Johanson? Cate Blanchette could probably hold her own in the role, too. Renee Zellweger?

Having taken 34 years of writing to get published, what in your opinion makes a best seller?

Sleeping with the right agent. I have no idea. Writing a very good book means creating characters that resonate with people or creating a plot that somehow captures readers' imaginations. I am all over the place. I have written about chimpanzees who know sign language, the rise and fall of Patrice Lumumba in the Congo, the life of Jesus's illegitimate daughter, comedy, drama, you name it. Ultimately, in the real world, in order to get published let alone to get a best seller, you have to have contacts.

What other plans do you have for Molly O'Dwyer?

There is a prequel with Molly digging on an island in Boston harbor and uncovering her own mysterious past. Beyond that, if the books generate enough interest, I would write more archaeological mysteries. But I don't want to be caught doing one series or stuck in a particular genre.

For example, my last book revolved around the last survivors of World War I (There are about 12 worldwide including 111 Henry Allingham who is England's oldest man). My next book COMRADE LOLITA will focus on the Puerto Rican nationalists who tried to assassinate President Harry Truman. But Molly will always be there if people want to see more of her. (By the way, she can kick Harry Potter's ass).

You can read a review of Hunting The King here and it can be purchased here or here.

QUIRKY QUIZ: ANSWERS PART TWO

6) How was an author of a Roman epic unaffected when a detective changed his name?

Paul Newman starred in the 1966 film The Moving Target as Ross Macdonald's detective Lew Archer. But because of Newman's lucky-H superstition the name Archer was changed to Harper.

Lew remained as the first name and this was derived from Lew Wallace, Civil War general and author of Ben Hur.

7) Who was requested to go to the Court of the Pope, and what was the connection with Lebanon?

I am a bit embarrassed by this one as in trying to make the question more difficult I perhaps made it impossible unless you knew the exact part of the story it refers to.

Court of the Pope=Pope's Court and Lebanon is Lebanon, Pennsylvania.

I took the paper from him and read as follows:

TO THE RED HEADED LEAGUE

On account of the bequest of the late Ezekiah Hopkins of Lebanon Penn., U.S.A.....

All red headed men.........Apply in person on Monday , at eleven o'clock, to Duncan Ross, at the offices of the League, 7 Pope's Court, Fleet Street.

The Red Headed League, Strand Magazine 1891, Arthur Conan Doyle

8) Who in the world of crime fiction worked as a:

Professor of Forensic Pathology: Bernard Knight [Crowner John mysteries]
Professor of Medical Law: Alexander McCall Smith [No 1 Ladies Detective Agency]
Professor of Mathematics: Professor James Moriarty
Professor of French: Sian Reynolds [translator for Fred Vargas]
Professor of Anthropology: Kathy Reichs [Temperance Brennan]

9) How are a system of metal pipes, hounds crossing a river, and a saintly Milanese bishop connected?

I am surprised this one gave trouble; Milan's patron saint is Ambrose, and the Italian Banco Ambrosiano famously collapsed in 1982.

The Domenicans known as Blackfriars are also referred to as domini canes, the Hounds of the Lord.

In 1982 banker Roberto Calvi was found hanging from scaffolding [a system of metal pipes] underneath Blackfriars Bridge.

10) Guns play a big part in crime fiction but in real life who said:

You can get much further with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone.

Chicago gangster and tax dodger Alphonse Capone.

And When I hear the word ***** I reach for my Browning. What is the missing word and who said it.

The word was 'culture' and it was said by Hermann Goering.