The Twelve Tasks of Flavia Gemina : The Roman Mysteries, Book VI (The Roman Mysteries)

Rating:
Summary: Starts out excellently, then fizzles
Review: I just wrote a rather long review for this, then it disappeared so I'll make this rewrite short. My daughter and I love the Roman Mystery books, and were really enjoying this one until the whole mystery turned out to be a non issue and (SPOILER) they killed off a female character that Flavia had just bonded with so touchingly. My daughter was outraged. For myself, I'm so tired of children's books and Disney movies with their dead mothers, this seemed like a great opportunity to go against the tide, but apparently Lawrence chose not to take it.

For the first two thirds of the book we were reading eagerly, claiming that this was her best book yet. By the end my daughter was upset at the death (which looked completely tacked on in one paragraph, as if some outside source told her to do it) and the unsatisfying conclusion. In addition, it was never made clear whether the mystery woman's younger sister was normal, an overly jealous sibling, or actually something of a psycho. Oh, and one other thing. Not sure I want to read about a ten year old girl being romantically obsessed with a forty year old man. It may have been ancient Rome, but it's still creepy.