Invitation to join our upcoming Book Read - Medieval Mystery Book!

Fictional mystery book, centered in the 11th century in England.

***Our book group offers: Prizes and the Author will be Participating!***

About this book
From The Washington Post
It's hard enough to produce a gripping thriller -- harder still to write convincing historical fiction that recreates a living, breathing past. But this terrific book does both, and does it with a cast of characters so vivid and engaging that you'd be happy to read about them even if they weren't on the track of a sexually depraved serial child-murderer.

Mistress of the Art of Death opens with a clever takeoff on Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, which introduces the central players, a group of pilgrims returning from the shrine of the newly canonized St. Thomas à Becket: a prior and a prioress (from rival abbeys); two knights, lately returned from the Crusades; an overweight but very shrewd tax collector; a gaggle of citizens; and three Gypsies, who are in fact secret investigators sent by the king of Sicily to discover the truth behind a series of gruesome murders near Cambridge.

Four children have been found dead and mutilated. The Jews of Cambridge have been blamed for the murders, the most prominent Jewish moneylender and his wife have been killed by a mob, and the rest of the Jewish community is shut up in the castle under the protection of the sheriff.

More details here: Mistress of the Art of Death Book Group Read.

Gross!

Have you read the book? It was the winner of the 2007 Crime Writer’s Association Ellis Peter’s Historical Novel Award.

I haven't read it and don't intend to. The synopsis above doesn't sound all that medieval to me, just lurid.

It sounds Medieval to me but more 12th century than 11th.

I respect the fact that this book doesn't appeal to your taste.

However, I just finished the book and it has many other components besides the dramatic crime thriller points: Henry V, politics, religion, medical knowledge and usage during this time period, cooking, Sir Thomas Becket, etiquette and more.

I hope we have the pleasure of greeting you at another book read for our group.

vintage_books

I'm sure to join in, all reviews I've read were really good and the story sounds very intriguing, exactly right for the summer holidays...

Henry V of England? Then it's 15th century.

Haven't read it but all the reviews I saw were talking about Henry II, not Henry V.
But it is still 12th century, not the 11th.

Me bad. It was Henry II

soo has the book read already started or can u still join? i'm interested but if its already started i guess i'd be behind...

We just started last Monday. Please *do* join us, and don't worry about being behind - read at your own pace and join in when you can! :)

vintage_books

ok awesome :)

Since I could get it through my local library, I borrowed the book and read it this afternoon. It's actually much better than the gushing description led me to expect and fairly true to the period in more ways than I expected.

Ooh, glad to hear you say that, Erilarlo, I will check it out.

And don't you hate the stupid deceptive descriptions that are sometimes pumped out by the well-meaning publicists. My favorites to despise are the ones that compare to the books to some classic. It's like "Canterbury Tales" they said of Company of Liars. Well, actually it was entirely unlike Canterbury Tales except that it was set in England in the past.

ThePam: That was exactly my problem with this book when I read the blurb 8-) But since I could read it free, I decided to try it. It's also nothing like the Canterbury Tales. It just has some characters returning home from a pilgrimage--hardly an unusual way of grouping disparate characters in a medieval novel.