Review of The Falconer's Knot by Mary Hoffman

Mary Hoffman's The Falconer's Knot: A Story of Friars, Flirtation and Foul Play is a medieval mystery, suspenseful if not especially fast-paced, which means it captured my interest but I know some young readers who would give up on it. Anyone who is interested in medieval illumination and the decoration of churches, or in 14th-century Italy, will likely find it a most inviting read. Several love relationships, some jealousy, and greed set in motion a grisly chain of murders, most of which seem to implicate one of the two men with whose affairs we are concerned. After young Silvano happens upon a dying man who's been stabbed with Silvano's dagger, he flees to a friary, where he plans to lie low, posing as a novice, till the truth of the murder is discovered. While there, he apprentices to a Brother Anselmo, mixer of glorious paints, a man with a past of love for a woman who was made to marry another man. When that other man spends the night with the friars and is found murdered the next day, rumors of Brother Anselmo's former life begin to spread, and the fact that this is another stabbing casts a shadow on the false novice as well.

Meanwhile, at the neighboring convent, the lovely but poor young Ciara is trying to adjust to the lot her brother has decided on for her--a life as a nun, despite her lack of vocation, because she has no dowry. Ciara also learns to mix paint colors to be used by the actual painters, Simone Martini and Pietro Lorenzetti. When the colors are delivered to the painters, or the painters visit the two religious houses, Ciara and Silvano see each other and are each attracted to the other. Unlike most women of her time, Ciara finds an escape from the unwanted life chosen for her, after she meets a strong widow who intends to carry on her husband's trade after his death. Before she does, though, she plays an active role in unraveling the murder at the friary, and the various murders that follow it.

In a concluding Historical Note, Hoffman points the reader to the Website for the Saint Martin chapel at Assisi, the locale that provides inspiration for much of the plot, at http://www.wga.hu/tours/siena/index_c2.html. Hoffman has a good site at http://www.maryhoffman.co.uk/. After reading The Falconer's Knot, I'm ready to read a few more of her books.