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THE DEATH MAZE
by Ariana Franklin
Bantam, April 2009
425 pages
7.99 GBP
ISBN: 0553818015


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

I nearly stopped reading the book just a few pages in when a desperate old crone popped a live cat in a boiling cauldron, in a bid to make a pact with the Devil. For a cat lover that was stomach churning. But then the novel is set in the 12th century when human as well as animal life was cheap and Ms Franklin's subsequent descriptions of human suffering are even more graphic, but somehow less shocking or unexpected.

The old crone is Dakers, obsessively devoted servant of Rosamund Clifford, or the Fair Rosamund, favourite mistress of King Henry II. Someone has poisoned the mistress in her tower and rumour has it that Henry's Queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine is behind the murder. If Henry believes the rumours it could result in civil war.

Enter Adelia Aguila, a southern Italian doctor, specialising in post-mortem analysis, who is given a royal summons to solve the mystery. Her situation is complicated, not least because she is a woman and should her medical prowess be known in those primitive times she could be cast out as a witch. So she hides behind the screen of Mansur, in reality her Arab manservant but he plays the doctor, and she the assistant when their skills are needed. She is also multi-lingual, the mother of a small girl and ex-mistress of a bishop. An intriguing character.

Once the somewhat convoluted first couple of chapters are negotiated, the story romps along. The language is frequently robust Anglo-Saxon vernacular, even from the senior clergy – but who's to say how they spoke in the late 1100s? (The author's notes at the end of the book explain and justify many of the apparent anomalies that crop up.)

The action, and there's plenty of it, crisply and graphically laid before us, takes place in the winter, which, as Franklin leaves us in no doubt about, is a killer in many senses. We are moved from the fens to Cambridge, to Rosamund's tower surrounded by the Death Maze of the title, along the frozen Thames river in an open barge, and to a nunnery at Godstow.

There is death and skulduggery, political and religious intrigue, all the way until the denouement.

Franklin has a compelling style and this is a good read.

THE DEATH MAZE appeared as THE SERPENT'S TALE in the US.

Reviewed by Jo Bayne, February 2010

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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