Third crime is the charm : England in the Middle Ages, high tech in Virginia and a haunting past in Finland. | Book Around the Corner
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Third crime is the charm : England in the Middle Ages, high tech in Virginia and a haunting past in Finland.

January 29, 2023 Leave a comment Go to comments

Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin (2007) French title: La confidente des morts. Translated by Vincent Hugon.

This is the first instalment of a series by Ariana Franklin featuring the female doctor, Adelia Aguila. We’re in Cambridge, in 1171, during the reign of King Henry II of England. Adelia came from Sicily with Simon of Naples and Mansur.

They were sent by their king upon Henry II’s request. Children have been murdered in Cambridge and the local population accuses the Jews of the crime. They have been staying in a castle for months now and as valuable tax payers, Henry II wants them back to their occupations.

Adelia is an oddity for 12th century England: she’s a woman, a doctor and “mistress of the art of death”, in other word, the ancestor of medical examiners.

The book is a criminal investigation, a cool description of life in Cambridge at the time. I’m not sure that everything is totally accurate or that the characters are historically plausible but I didn’t care. I’m no historian, the main details were correct and I had a great time following this ad hoc team of investigators while they looked for the perpetrator of these gory murders.

Recommended to spend a good afternoon on the couch, with a blanket during a cold winter Sunday or lying on a towel on the beach during a hot summer day.

Livid by Patricia Cornwell (2022) Not available in French. Yet.

My daughter raised to the challenge of getting me a book for Christmas and the poor child sweated bullets and spent a lot of time in a bookstore wondering what to buy to her bookworm of a mother.

I hadn’t read anything by Cornwell in 25 years, I think. I used to read her, Mary Higgins Clark and Elizabeth George in my teens and twenties. Then I got tired of them, even if Elizabeth George is the best writer of the three. What Came Before He Shot Her is truly remarkable. But back to Cornwell.

Kay Scarpetta is back in Alexandria, Virginia, as the chief of medical examiners and let’s say that CSI techniques have progressed since Adelia’s time in Cambridge.

The book opens with an excellent trial scene where Scarpetta is testifying and put under unfair pressure by the Commonweath’s Attorney while the judge doesn’t intervene. The said judge is Annie Chilton, her college friend and by the end of the day, Scarpetta learns that the judge’s sister Rachael has been murdered and that there was an attempted terrorist attack against the president of the USA.

Scarpetta goes on the crime scene and the CIA and FBI have already invested the place as the victim worked for the CIA. Scarpetta quickly understands that Rachael was killed by a microwave gun, a very rare and specific weapon. Later, another body is discovered in the neighborhood.

Follows a family investigation since Scarpetta does the autopsy, her niece is on the case as an FBI agent and so is her husband Benton, as a secret services agent. What a family, eh?

It’s good entertainment even if the pace of the book is a bit weird at times. The description of Scarpetta’s work at the morgue seemed to drag on while the denouement was rushed and not detailed enough. The characters sounded a bit formulaic and I wasn’t too interested in the office politics and antagonism.

It was published in October 2022 and I couldn’t help noticing that the war in Ukraine was already mentioned in the book. Eight months after it started it’s already in a published book. There was no time wasted in editing and polishing this book before its publication, it seems.

Anyway, this is another Beach & Public Transport book, one you read as you watch a CSI episode on TV.

The Oath by Arttu Tuominen (2018). Not available in English. French title: Le serment. Translated by Anne Colin du Terrail.

The Oath is truly the best book of the three. We’re in Pori, Finland in 2018. Jari Paloviita is the interim head of the local police and Rami Nieminen is murdered by Antti Mielonen during a party in a cabin in the woods. The victim was stabbed in the back and Antti ran out of the cabin and was found in the woods with his sweatshirt full of the victim’s blood. There is no doubt he did it.

Inspector Henrik Oksman and his partner Linda Toivonen know it. All they have to do is follow procedures to the letter to ensure there is no room for doubt about Antti’s guilt when the trial comes.

But Jari Paloviita used to go to school with Rami and Antti. Antti was his best friend while Rami bullied him relentlessly. He and Antti share a heavy baggage as the story unfolds and we discover what happened to them during the summer 1991. They were 13 at the time and dramatic events pushed them out of childhood.

To what length is Jari prepared to go to in the name of an old friendship?

I’d say you’ll have to read the book to find out but sadly, it’s not available in English. It baffles me since Nordic crime is such a hit in the English-speaking world. It’s a real pity because the plot is tight, the back and forth between 2018 and 1991 is gripping and full of grey areas. The characters’ personal life is troubled and I can see the beginning of a great series.

This is also my contribution to Annabel’s event Nordic FINDS.

It strikes me that I didn’t choose the three books I just wrote about. I got the Ariana Franklin with my Quais du Polar entry ticket, my daughter gave me the Cornwell for Christmas and the Tuominen came with my Kube subscription. The Tuominen is probably the only one I would have bought myself, so kudos for the Kube libraire who blind-picked it for me.

  1. January 29, 2023 at 8:33 pm

    I have a friend who will really enjoy the Franklin – she’s hard to buy for and I’d not heard of this author at all, so thank you Emma!

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  2. January 29, 2023 at 9:08 pm

    Excellent! I hope she’ll like it.
    Is she a fan of historical crime fiction or is it just the Middle Ages setting that appeals to her?

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  3. January 29, 2023 at 9:33 pm

    The Oath would be my pick… As for why not translated… My guess would be that only a few publishers publish translated Nordic crime fiction. So far it seems that once they select an author, they tend to stick with that author rather than start w new names. I would bet we see it in the future though.

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    • January 29, 2023 at 10:06 pm

      I hope The Oath will make it into English. There are four books in Finnish, one in French…We’ll see. Tuominen was at Quais du Polar in 2022.

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  4. January 30, 2023 at 12:57 am

    The Oath does sound like the pick of the three, and I think Guy is right – sometimes it can take years for a book to get translated, but eventually it happens.

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    • January 30, 2023 at 8:38 pm

      The Oath is definitely the strongest of the three and yes, I suppose it’ll be translated some day.

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  5. January 30, 2023 at 2:36 am

    It was Elizabeth George who put me off reading crime altogether. It was years ago, and the gore spattered throughout the pages was really vile. So *chuckle* it’s interesting to see that she’s moved onto tidier murders done with microwaves!

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    • January 30, 2023 at 8:39 pm

      Are you sure it was EG’s book? I don’t remember that much gore in her books.
      Cornwell is the one who moved to microwave guns but the autopsies are always a bit disgusting.

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      • January 30, 2023 at 11:09 pm

        Oh yes, what’s that TV show where they wander about with human livers in their hands while they skirt around their love lives?

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  6. January 30, 2023 at 8:57 pm

    Thank you for the Finnish suggestion… will look into it more closely. I wonder whether the similarity in name to Antti Tuomainen might be a problem!

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  7. February 25, 2023 at 3:50 am

    I am a big fan of Franklin’s books although my favorite is A Catch of Consequence. I think she died before finishing this historical mystery series and that her daughter finished one of the books. I wasn’t sure I wanted to read it but maybe sometime.

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    • February 26, 2023 at 8:44 am

      I’ll read other books by her, probably. And yes, like William G. Tapply she died before she finished this promising series.

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  1. January 7, 2024 at 6:56 pm

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