The Falconer's Knot: A Story of Friars, Flirtation and Foul Play - Hardcover

*Starred Review* Hoffman set her acclaimed Stravanganza novels in an alternate world that resembled sixteenth-century Italy. In this suspenseful mystery, Hoffman leaves the alternate worlds behind and locates her story in the real-world history of fourteenth-century Umbria. Sixteen-year-old Silvano, a handsome nobleman, admires Angelica, a local merchant's wife, from afar. Then Angelica's husband is murdered, and Silvano becomes the prime suspect. Until his innocence is proven, Silvano takes refuge in a Franciscan friary, where he enjoys making pigments for local artists and finds himself attracted to a lovely novice at the adjoining abbey. Then a series of mysterious deaths puts Silvano under greater suspicion, and he determines to find the murderer. The publisher has compared this novel to Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose (1983), and there are certainly similarities between the books' friary settings and central mysteries. Hoffman makes the story her own with an exciting tangle of murder suspects and romantic intrigues. The plot is crowded with characters, and the intricate details about pigment preparation and fourteenth-century art and life will slow some readers and fascinate others. Hoffman creates utterly engaging characters and vivid settings, and she skillfully turns up the suspense, wrapping her varied plot threads into a satisfying whole. Readers will race through to the satisfying, fairy-tale conclusion, which includes some empowering twists for the female characters. Gillian Engberg
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