Publishers:
Sphere
Pages: 482
Main Characters:
Mondino de Liuzzi,
Gerardo da Castelbretone,
Uberto da Rimini
Inquisition is the
historical murder mystery novel from author Alfredo Colitto. The novel is based
in the year 1311 in the Italian city of Bologna during the Church’s Inquisition
of the Knights Templar. On a dark night, Mondino de Liuzzi, a respected
physician from Bologna’s prestigious School of Medicine, is interrupted by one
of his students knocking on his laboratory door. The student, Gerardo da
Castelbretone is carrying a dead body! After Gerardo finally convinces Mondino
that he is not the killer of the man he is carrying, Mondino allows him to
enter his laboratory and examines the body. He finds the techniques used to
kill the man are not normal. The man is missing both of his hands and his rib
cage has been made into a chamber in which his heart has been turned into Iron!
Mondino demands to know what happened to the man!
Gerardo tells him that the man was called Angelo da Piczano
and that Angelo and he were old friends. Angelo was visiting Bologna for a few
days, so Gerardo offered him his room as a place for Angelo to stay whilst he
was in the city. But that evening when Gerardo returned home, he found Angelo
dead in his room and decided to bring his body to Mondino to try and gain an
explanation of how Angelo was murdered. That was when he heard a knock at his
door from the Inquisitors, saying that they had been tipped off that a Templar
Knight had been killed during a blasphemous rite with the Devil. To avoid been
caught by the Inquisitor, Gerardo set fire to his room and fled over the roof
tops until he came to the School of Medicine and Mondino’s laboratory. He also
admits that he is not really a student of medicine but a Knight of the Temple
and is in hiding until the Inquisition is over.
The murder of Angelo sets in motion a series of events where
Gerardo and Mondino are accused of been heretics and the killers of two other
Templars which have been murdered in a similar way to Angelo. Gerardo and
Mondino must find who is behind the murders of the Templars to clear their
names. Mondino has another reason to help Gerardo. He wants to know the secrets
of how blood and flesh can be turned into Iron to further his understanding of
the human anatomy in his scientific studies. But will Gerardo and Mondino find
the secrets behind the murder of Angelo da Piczano or will the Inquisitor,
Uberto da Rimini find them first?
This was a good book and I really enjoyed the mystery behind
the murder of Angelo da Piczano. However I did have some issues with this book.
When I first picked this book up to read I was like ‘a book about the Templars,
I bet it’s about the Holy Grail/ Mary Magdalene’. I was worried that it was
going to be full of the Dan Brown clichés that many novels about the Knights
Templar and the Inquisition seem to be about these days. But I’m glad to say
that it wasn’t! Colitto does briefly mention that there is a secret behind the
Order and that the reason the Church wants to dissolve the Order is because
they do not agree with the secret. There is also mention of alchemical gold (or
the elixir of life) but again, Colitto does not go into it too much. For me
this was great because it meant the book was more about the mysteries behind
the murders than the mystery behind the Knights Templar, which I really
enjoyed.
Another part of this book that I found interesting was
reading about 14th Century medical techniques and how medieval physicians had some
very modern ideas but didn’t have the means to be able to put them into
practice. I also enjoyed reading about some of the gruesome (and at sometimes
crazy!) methods 14th Century physicians used to cure illness.
This was a good book and a great historical murder mystery
novel. I think that anyone who is a fan of C. J. Sansom’s Shardlake series would love this book. I would even say that fans
of authors like Dan Brown would also enjoy this book because it does touch on
some of the ideas about the Templars he uses in The Da Vinci Code.
For author's offical website click here
P.S. Don’t forget to enter my Book of the Month Competition
for your chance to win a signed copy of Spartacus the Gladiator by Ben Kane for
absolutely FREE. To enter, just follow the instructions on the widget below and
for more information click here
No comments:
Post a Comment