MADreads

If these bones could speak.

May 14th, 2009 Katie H.

A. D. 1156, and it’s the end of the world.  Or at least that’s what it feels like when an earthquake rips open the earth around Glastonbury Abbey, long reputed to be the site of Avalon, King Arthur’s final resting place.  In the chaos, a terrified, dying monk sees mysterious figures burying two bodies in a fissure, bodies he is convinced are those of Arthur and Guinevere.

Twenty years later the abbey has burned, revealing the coffins of the reputed Once and Future King and his lady.  With Welsh rebels waging war in the name of Arthur, King Henry II wants to prove once and for all that Arthur is dead.  And only Adelia Aguilar, the Salerno-born, throughly unconventional Mistress of the Art of Death can unravel the bones’ history.

In Grave Goods, her third book in her Mistress of the Art of Death series, Ariana Franklin adds an element of the Gothic to her fast-moving plot.  Once Adelia arrives at the blackened ruins of the abbey, she immediately senses that the near-deserted town and its wild surroundings hold real evil.  Sick with worry over the disappearance of her friend Emma in the nearby countryside, Adelia and her Arab assistant Mansur try to uncover the truth in the lawless hillsides.  The mutilated skeleton of Guinevere haunts Adelia’s dreams, goading her to find the murderer.  But the mystery of a long-dead king and queen hold terrible danger for the living, threatening to claim someone dear to Adelia.  Astute mystery readers might guess some of the plot twists, but Franklin’s strength lies in her characters, especially Adelia’s supporting cast of misfit companions, as much at odds with their constricting medieval society as she.  In its denoument, Grave Goods suggests some unfinished business and tough decisions that promise a strong continuation to an already entertaining series.

Entry Filed under: Mystery