History professor and author Mary Malloy will be at Auntie's Bookstore in downtown Spokane on Friday, December 2 to share her new mystery novel "Paradise Walk."
"Paradise Walk" is Malloy's second book in a proposed trilogy about Lizzie Manning. Manning, much like her creator, is a maritime historian. Her research leads her on adventures that blend history and fiction in fascinating ways.
According to Joanna McQuillan Weeks of the Cape Cod Times, "The first Lizzie Manning mystery, "The Wandering Heart," dealt with medieval tales, the Knights Templar and naval history, springing from the research Malloy did for her Ph.D. dissertation at Brown University. The debut novel prompted Publishers Weekly to comment, 'Malloy mixes history and fantasy with flair and delivers a wonderfully satisfying puzzler.'"
Manning's latest adventure is inspired by the Wife of Bath from Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales." The Wife of Bath is perhaps the most popular character from his collection of stories about a group of pilgrims representing every aspect of English life during the 14th century. Her noncomformist attitudes about marriage and gender roles have given people a lot to think about since Chaucer created her over 600 years ago.
According to Publisher’s Weekly, “Malloy loads her...second Lizzie Manning mystery (after 2009’s The Wandering Heart) with literary history.... British scholar Alison Kent has inherited a reliquary holding what are said to be the bones of St. Thomas à Becket as well as the journal of an ancestor of hers known as 'the Weaver,' who might be the model for Chaucer’s Wife of Bath.
"Too frail to make the journey herself, Alison hires American history professor Lizzie Manning to walk the pilgrimage route and glean further evidence for a scholarly publication. Lizzie is thrilled to find the Weaver’s secret mark on artworks at key sites, but when she uncovers a generations-old conspiracy to hide and protect Becket’s real bones, she puts both of their lives in peril. This unconventional mystery will most satisfy those who enjoy intellectual puzzles like Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time.”
"Paradise Walk" is available now from Auntie's Bookstore, Amazon and Leapfrog Press. Leapfrog Press has a 12-page preview of the book available on their web site. Based on the .pdf sample, the book should appeal to lovers of British literature and the Indiana Jones movies.
Readers who only have vague memories of reading excerpts from "The Canterbury Tales" either in high school or college should have no trouble following the story. Malloy quickly spells out what people need to know in a style that most people will find more pleasant to read than Chaucer's Middle English.
The event will start at 7 p.m. Auntie's Bookstore is located in the Liberty Building in downtown Spokane at 402 West Main Avenue. For more information, call (509) 838-0206.
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