A murderous procession

There are eerie echoes of Barbara Vine in THE EXECUTOR (Putnam, $25.95), Jesse Kellerman's stunning novel of psychological suspense: the clinical dissection of a mind that refuses to examine itself; the disintegration of moral boundaries when such a mind develops a fixation; the macabre humor of people who think too much; and, most unnerving, a certain playful cruelty about matters of life and death. At first, Kellerman seems to be taking an easy satiric poke at that pathetic specimen of academic life, the perennial student. After six years of graduate study at Harvard, Joseph Geist has yet to produce the dissertation on free will that will earn him his degree in philosophy. His funds have dried up, his girlfriend has tossed him out of her apartment, and all he has to his name are a duffel bag of rumpled clothes and a half-bust of Nietzsche, bought at a flea market in East Berlin. Ejected from the warmth of the academic womb, he answers an ad in The Harvard Crimson for a "conversationalist" and finds himself being paid to chat about philosophy with Alma Spielmann, an elderly Viennese woman parched for intelligent dialogue. Enchanted by his patron's lively mind, Geist accepts her invitation to move into her large Victorian home and, despite the discrepancy in their ages and her frail health (not to mention her addiction to soap operas), believes he has finally found his Platonic soul mate. At this point, it seems relevant to note that "Geist" translates from the German as "mind," while "Alma" is Spanish for "soul." But it also seems appropriate to question Geist's veracity as a narrator. For all his idyllic renderings of the life of the mind he now enjoys with Alma, Geist is too fearful to examine it realistically. And when her grasping nephew puts a bad thought in his head, he hasn't the intellectual fiber to challenge its premise. "Language ought not to be waved around like a loaded gun," Geist declares, pledging his commitment to cool, logical deliberation. But once he embraces that bad thought, he's so lost to logic, so driven by circumstance, you begin to wonder if free will is nothing more than a cosmic joke. Readers unfamiliar with Adelia Aguilar's adventures as "mistress of the art of death" are quickly brought up to speed in A MURDEROUS PROCESSION (Putnam, $25.95), the fourth in a high-spirited series of romantic suspense novels by Ariana Franklin set in 12th-century England. In brief: Adelia was a foundling, raised in Sicily by a Jewish doctor and his Christian wife, also a doctor. She was trained in autopsy at the Salerno School of Medicine, then summoned to England by King Henry II, along with the Arab eunuch who accompanies her everywhere. The mistress of a bishop, she's in constant peril of being burned as a witch for her heathen healing methods. Once these and other particulars of her complicated biography are dispensed with, Adelia is free to take to the road, where excitement and danger live, as personal physician to the king's 10-year-old daughter, Joanna, bound for Sicily to be married to King William II. This arduous journey is made even more perilous by the secret presence of a madman in the royal entourage, bent on revenging himself on Adelia for taking the life of his lover. But even his murderous mischief pales when compared with the barbaric cruelties exacted by the church on heretics and other social misfits, or even with the day-to-day ordeal of life in a dark, superstitious age. Declan Hughes isn't just another gruff voice in the barking crowd of noir crime writers. His characters have depth, his scenes have drama, and his sentences have grace. If only this gifted Irish writer didn't feel compelled to follow the American genre practice of writing for maximum horror, CITY OF LOST GIRLS (Morrow/HarperCollins, $24.99) is burdened with a serial killer who couldn't coax a victim into his car if he had a three-ring circus in the back seat. But the characters who count - a famous Hollywood director who returns home to Dublin to make a movie about its historic red-light district, as well as the women he mistreated and the friends he betrayed - are substantial figures with considerable heart. Ed Loy, the private eye who keeps this series on the up-and-up, is no cliché either. Although he comes with his own sad history and battles the bottle to forget it, Loy has a strong work ethic, doesn't take himself too seriously ("Maybe I am broody. Is that a sin?") and has the wit to appreciate a good comic-book store. FREEZE FRAME (Poisoned Pen, $24.95) finds Peter May's clever sleuth, Enzo Macleod, taking on the fourth of seven cold cases he accepted on a bet with the author of a book about famous unsolved crimes. The formula is a neat one, going back to the golden age of detective fiction, when stout men in club chairs puffed on after-dinner cigars as they pondered brain-teasing puzzles involving timetables and exotic poisons. May treats the conventions with all due respect; but this being the 21st century, he also contrives to have Macleod hop into bed with the lady in the story, the daughter-in-law of a professor of tropical medicine who was murdered 20 years earlier in his island home off the coast of Brittany. Nothing has been moved from his study, which still awaits someone to decipher the cryptic messages the professor left for his son, who died before he could read them. Although May obviously (and justifiably) prides himself on his grasp of the plot mechanics, something must be said for his vivid settings, which remove the story from the library and send it out into the wide, wide world. The narrator of Jesse Kellerman's latest suspense novel is paid to chat with an eccentric old woman.

In the fourth Mistress of the Art of Death mystery, medieval forensic pathologist Adelia Aguilar has been an enjoying a quiet life in the countryside with her daughter and friends. Then Henry II demands that she accompany his daughter and her formal procession to Italy and offers to keep her daughter with Queen Eleanor until her safe return. But death stalks the procession, and Adelia and her loyal friends soon realize that the killer is someone from her past bent on revenge. As with previous books in the series, historical details are many and add an extra layer of atmosphere. Readers who doubt the likelihood of a female Jewish pathologist in twelfth-century Britain will be reassured by Franklin's detailed historical notes at the end of the book. With some uneven pacing and a plot that relies heavily on previous series knowledge, this book isn't the best place to start for readers new to the series, but it will be enjoyed by series fans.--Moyer, Jessica Copyright 2010 Booklist

In Franklin's well-paced fourth Mistress of the Art of Death novel (after Grave Goods), Henry II of England assigns his trusted doctor friend, Adelia Aguilar, who studied at the School of Medicine in Salerno, Italy, to accompany his 10-year-old daughter, Joanna, on Joanna's wedding procession to Sicily, where the girl is to marry Henry's cousin, William II. Along the way, the clever and brave Adelia has to not only contend with the dangers facing the princess but thwart a diabolical and conniving assassin named Scarry, who bears Adelia a murderous grudge. The suspense rises as members of the royal party start to die unnatural deaths as they journey across Europe. At times, Franklin, who's obviously done a lot of research into the period, in particular into the House of Plantagenet, overexplains or lapses into pedantic description. Still, both fans of historical fiction and mystery readers will be rewarded. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

In the fourth installment of Franklin's "Mistress of the Art of Death" series (after Grave Goods), King Henry II orders Adelia Aguila to accompany his ten-year-old daughter -Joanna to Palermo to marry his cousin, the king of Sicily. To make sure Adelia returns to England, Henry holds her daughter as a "ward." Also joining the procession are Mansur, Adelia's Arab protector, and Rowley, the Bishop of St. Albans and father of her daughter. The expedition soon starts to go badly, with deaths, delays, and illness further complicated by the reappearance of the outlaw Scarry seeking vengeance for his lover's death. VERDICT Sprinkled with fascinating historical facts about the medieval period, Franklin's plots always intrigue. For fans of Sharon Kaye Penman and medieval mysteries, this is essential reading. [See Prepub Mystery, LJ 12/09.]-Susan T. Hayes, Chattahoochee Valley Libs., Columbus, GA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.