Ariana Franklin was the pen name of British historical novelist and journalist Diana Norman (1933–2011). Born Mary Diana Narracott, she began working in newspapers as a teenager and became one of the youngest reporters on Fleet Street before turning increasingly to historical writing. Under her own name she published numerous historical novels spanning the medieval period through the eighteenth century, as well as biography. As Ariana Franklin she moved more decisively into historical crime, combining meticulous research with modern narrative pace and a strong interest in medicine, law and the position of women within medieval society.
Franklin is best known for the Mistress of the Art of Death series, which begins with Mistress of the Art of Death and follows Adelia Aguilar, a highly trained female physician and investigator working in the England of Henry II. The series continues through The Serpent’s Tale, Grave Goods and A Murderous Procession, using murder investigations to explore Angevin politics, religious conflict, medieval medicine and figures including Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. The first novel won the Crime Writers’ Association Ellis Peters Historical Dagger. Franklin also wrote City of Shadows, a historical mystery centred on the Anna Anderson/Anastasia controversy in 1920s Berlin. Her books are particularly effective at placing fictional investigations inside well-defined historical crises without allowing the period detail to overwhelm the mystery.
