Book Review: "The Serpent's Tale"

As expected, Ariana Franklin has penned a sequel to last year's Mistress of the Art of Death. The Serpent's Tale (Putnam) features most of the same characters, but Adelia's charge this time is to discover the killer of King Henry II's favorite mistress before England erupts into civil war. Like the earlier book, this one captures some interesting practices and custom of medieval England, and, while not literature of the highest order, kept my attention well and offered a nice little mystery to mull over.