Where I Liked Some Things More Than Others

The Serpent's Tale by Ariana Franklin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's good, but annoying. 4 stars.

I find this whole series entertaining, for reasons I can't clarify in my own mind, and I'd almost give this book a 5 for that, but I'm frustrated by some things and it lowers my estimation of the book overall.

Mostly, it succeeds. We're in the 1400's in England, and Adelia is an educated woman--a kind of doctor, though more like a coroner or a forensic scientist--who serves the king by solving important mysteries. The setting is used well in this and the other books in the series, with a clear indication of deep research by the author. There's lots of good action, from sleuthing and fighting to passionate love scenes and man-versus-nature battles through dangerous landscapes--though we do sometimes slow down more than is really fun. Overall, though, it's about as thoroughly entertaining as genre fiction can be.

As a mystery, it's a bit disappointing, because most of the work is done in tiny obscure passages that only pay off at the very end. There's very little collecting of clues, really just hints of it, as if the author wants to keep the facts of the crimes a secret until the end, à la Sherlock Holmes (who is also fun and also annoying). Too much of the time, our main characters are kept powerless, useless to achieve anything, pushed around by circumstance--locked up, tied up, watched, trapped--so that they are inactive and passive for long parts of the book. Don't love that.

And Adelia is frustrating, making herself almost always disagreeable, being argumentative and insulting and rude with everyone on almost every page, including the people she likes as well as people she needs favors from. She's honorable and highly moral, doing good work, but she is so disagreeable that I find her a drag to hang out with.

So I like the books and the story pretty well, but I wish the main character's crankiness was turned down by about a half and her affability at least occasionally turned up a little. But that's just my opinion. Others may find her perfectly pleasant, and that would be fine. In any case, most mystery readers should enjoy the series and this book.

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