Mistress of the Art of Death

The Mistress of the Art of Death series follows Adelia Aguilar, a physician trained in Salerno whose knowledge of anatomy makes her an extraordinary investigator in twelfth-century England. Beginning in Cambridge in 1171, the novels place murder inquiries inside the reign of Henry II, where royal government, church authority, Jewish communities, medicine and superstition repeatedly intersect. Adelia's position as a foreign woman with skills many around her distrust gives the mysteries their distinctive tension.

Across the series, Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine's turbulent political world expands beyond England to Glastonbury, Wales and the Norman kingdom of Sicily. The later books carry the story into 1191 and the next generation, while retaining the series' central interest in what physical evidence can reveal in a society governed by rank, faith and custom. Real rulers and dynastic events form the historical framework, but Adelia, Rowley Picot and their families remain the fictional centre of the investigations.