A Murderous Procession

Unfortunately I started reading this series in 2017, six years after the passing of Ariana Franklin (AKA Diana Norman). What wonderful books she wrote. Now I only hope to find another author who can at least come close to her much missed mastery of story telling.

This book exceded my expectations. I loved it from beginning to end. This book leaves you hanging in such a way that you are dying for the next one in the series. ( I am crossing my fingers that there will be one, and it will come out soon!) Ariana Franklin has such a gift with description and just creating such powerful images. I love her writing style and the way she describes people and places. Each "Mistress of the Art of Death" book makes me wish for the story of Adelia to just continue on and on forever.

In "A Murderous Procession," by Ariana Franklin, Vesuvia Adelia Rachel Ortese Aguilar is content practicing medicine in Somerset, England, and enjoying the company of her six-year-old daughter, Allie. Adelia's attendant, Mansur, has been with her for seven years, since Henry II "plucked the two of them away from Sicily and dropped them down in his realm." Adelia, a trained physician and a "mistress in the art of death," is skilled at performing autopsies and determining why someone met his or her end. She is uninterested in fine clothes and the traditional feminine arts. Since women healers were considered witches by the church, Mansur pretends to be the doctor and Adelia acts as his "translator." Rowley, the Bishop of Saint Albans, is Adelia's occasional lover and father of her child, but they can never be together openly. For the past two years, King Henry has allowed Adelia a bit of peace and quiet. This blessed interval comes to an end when Adelia and Mansur are ordered to join a large procession to Sicily, where Henry's ten-year-old daughter, Joanna Plantagenet, will be given in marriage to King William II. Henry wants Adelia to keep an eye on Joanna and deliver her in good health to her future husband. The king also wants Adelia to use her wits to make sure that Excalibur, King Arthur's legendary sword, is delivered safely to William. Allie will not accompany her mother on the journey, much to her Adelia's consternation. She would be even more distressed if she knew that a bitter enemy intends to join the procession in disguise and attack her when she least expects it. Adelia's pursuer is a devious villain, whose insanity and bloodlust intensify as the book progresses and he closes in for the kill. As she did in the first three installments of this engrossing series, Franklin enlivens her story with fascinating allusions to historical events. Although the dialogue occasionally sounds more fitting for modern speakers than for those living in the 12th century, the historical information is generally accurate. We learn about Henry and his family; the corruption and dissension in the church; the persecution of women and heretics; the ferocious infighting among warring political factions; and the ways in which the sick and injured were treated during the Middle Ages. Whether the author is depicting the glorious architecture of an ornate castle, a sumptuous banquet, or the brutal execution of a heretic, her detailed descriptive writing is wonderfully evocative. There is a great deal of humor, some of it bawdy, and more than enough action to hold the reader's attention. Franklin adds several colorful characters to the story, among them a foulmouthed Irishman named Admiral O'Donnell--he is a skilled sailor who looks like a pirate and takes a particular fancy to Adelia--and a clumsy maid named Boggart, whom Adelia takes under her wing. As always, Adelia is fiercely independent, blunt, and courageous. She may not be conventiona

Ariana Franklin joins that rare fraternity of medieval mystery writers -- Ellis Peters, Peter Tremayne, Margaret Fraser, Michael Jecks -- who have brought the Middle Ages to life for the modern reader. The only caution I have is that one needs to read the series from the beginning (Mistress of the Art of Death) to keep up with the various story lines. Otherwise, a wonderful read.

This series of books gets better with each installment. they are fairly closely bound together, in that the action of one book begins shortly after the end of the previous one. In the last book, two depraved outlaws attempt to murder our heroine, but she kills one with the fabled sword Excaliber, and the other escapes, vowing revenge. Even though everyone believes that this second person is dead, he is not and he stalks our heroine across Western Europe. Our female doctor is dragooned by King Henry II to accompany his young daughter Joanna from England to Sicily for her wedding. She is reluctant to go, but the king uses her young daughter as a hostage, and there is no choice. The usual group of friends accompany her, and she is once again compelled to struggle against the prejudices of the Church toward women, and particularly women who practice the healing arts. After all, they say, most illness can be cured by the placing of a relic on the troubling body part! There is much action, many murders, and lots of friends and foes, as the identity of the stalker is attempted to be discovered in time to prevent him from carrying out his threat to murder our heroine. The end, as usual, gives inklings of the plot of the next book, at least of its beginning. I'm looking forward to the next one, for this is quite an enjoyable series.