This week covered six books as usual. I had a hard time choosing between my two favorites, but I finally gave Ariana Franklin's Mistress of the Art of Death a nod over Lauren Willig's The Betrayal of the Blood Lily. Both are historical, and I liked both stories. The selection is based on the fact that I've tipped Lauren Willig before, but not Ariana Franklin.
Mistress of the Art of Death takes place in 1170 Cambridge. At the roundabout behest of King Henry II, one of the only female doctors in the world is asked to help discover the identity of a vicious child-killer. Franklin realistically recreates medieval England and a (relatively) modern forensic scientist (although she calls herself "doctor to the dead") seamlessly. She also manages royal politics with accurate references to Thomas Becket and the colonies of Jews in Henry's England.
For me, the mystery, while satisfying, was secondary to the author's deft hand at forensic inquiry at a time when superstition and religion were doctrinal. Her doctor Adelia is an anachronism that manages to fit in.
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