By Miriam R. Kramer Mistress of the Art of Death Writing under the pen name Ariana Franklin, former journalist Diana Norman penned a series of five absorbing, colorful medieval thrillers, starting with Mistress of the Art of Death, about a female doctor and forensic investigator named Adelia Aguilar. The subsequent novels The Serpent’s Tale, Grave Goods, A Murderous Procession, and Death and the Maiden trace her development as a tenacious woman working to fulfill her mission solving murder mysteries in patriarchal twelfth-century England. A related novel, The Siege Winter, is equally intriguing. Children are going missing in Cambridge, England, and locals are blaming the Jews of the area, who have left their homes and hidden in a local castle to escape harassment. A boy named Peter has been found in the river Cam after having been crucified. King Henry II has started losing revenues from the Jewish community there, since his citizens want to expel Jews from the country. Pragmatic and cunning, he is intent on solving the problem before he loses more money from his treasury. Therefore he sends a request to Salerno, which is known for its doctors and medical investigators, to send him their best. As a tenacious investigator, Adelia can trace criminals like few others. In England she plunges into a series of murders that bring her talents to the forefront. With her is Simon of Naples, a Jew who solves murders while using his unassuming personality behind the scenes. As a doctor Adelia cannot resist treating someone in pain. To practice medicine on locals she gets her bodyguard, Mansur, who does not speak English, to pretend to administer medicines and perform procedures. She masks herself as his assistant and does what needs to be done, along with practicing forensics. Ariana Franklin’s novels have a straightforward…
Girls of the Resistance Miriam R. Kramer In July books become a necessary accompaniment on vacation, whether you’re headed for the ocean, a pool, or a cabin in the woods. If you have a teenager traveling with you, you want to keep them reading during summer vacation with an intriguing piece of young adult fiction. Two recent books offer compelling stories of young women navigating the difficulties and horrors of World War II in Germany and Holland. Orphan Monster Spy by Matt Killeen and Girl in the Blue Coat by Monica Hesse are exciting choices for keeping your adolescent learning not only about Europe in World War II, but also how to navigate the unpredictability of life itself. In Orphan Monster Spy, Sarah, a Jewish girl, struggles her way out of a car after her mother is shot at a roadblock on their trip out of occupied Austria to neutral Switzerland. Running from Nazis with dogs, she escapes only to bump into a British spy pretending to be a German at an abandoned factory. When he takes her on as his pretend niece, obtaining papers for her, she decides to go back with him to Berlin and help fight those who have taken over her country. With Sarah’s gymnastic training, acting skills, powers of observation, and desire for revenge, she plays the part of Ursula Haller, the niece to a respected German named Helmut Haller, who is in reality the British spy Captain Jeremy Floyd. Floyd is on a mission to destroy the equivalent of a nuclear bomb. He needs Sarah to infiltrate a Nazi girls’ boarding school to become friends with the daughter of the scientist building it. When Sarah agrees to take on this challenge, she puts herself in a situation where obedience to the state is key….