Key Confrontations

Rating:
Summary: Unusual Historical Series
Review: Author M.E. Cooper's Italian Renaissance series stands out from the historical mystery crowd for setting and characters. This isn't another medieval monastary or story that is little more than an excuse for some famous name dropping, which have become almost cliches in the genre. Protagonist Avisa Baglatoni is a widowed locksmith, in stories full of her life with her neighbors and guild and a strong sense of place in the depiction of the Renaissance Italian city state of Bologna. The mystery itself provides a good puzzle in which the author plays fair but offers a number of misleading red herrings to confuse the trail. The writing is straightforward storytelling rather than striving to be particularly witty or literary. It's also a bit uneven and there are some editing errors, but readers looking for character driven stories that take you to a very different place in space and time will enjoy following the engaging heroine and her neighbors (not all of whom are engaging, but all of whom are vivid as characters).