This book is like TV's Bones set during the reign of Henry II in England. The main character, Adelia, is almost exactly like Temperence Brennan in Bones. Adelia is a singular woman, orphaned as a child and raised by two doctors in Solerno, a cosmopolitan city that allowed for the existance of female doctors.
Adelia is sent to England at the request of the King Henry to help discover the sadistic serial killer of children that has been prowling through Cambridge. At the start of the book, the Jews in Cambridge were blamed. She examines the bones of the dead children and helps look for suspects. She is constantly up against the moral dilhemma of granting people life or justice. Despite her affinity for the dead, she is still a doctor and want to ease suffering. She is accompanied by her eunuch manservant, Mansur, and is helped by Simon of Naples, a Jewish spy. She meets Sir Rowley, a former crusader turned tax-collector/spy who she gradually falls in love with. In the end, we find out the killer is the generous, wealthy and sadistic knight and his accomplice is the angelic, masochistic, victim/lover nun (the least suspected, of course).
This story actually read like a movie or tv episode too, not just in the story. The start of the story is written in a series of vignettes that jump back and forth as an introduction to the story. And in each of the main event scenes, you only get Adelia's impressions and aren't able to guess anything because you don't get to "see" what happens, so you have to wait until Adelia draws her own conclusions after she experiences each event. It's a little odd to read at first, but not terrible, just weird...
I have yet to decide if I would read the other books in the series.
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