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A review by sjgochenour
Street of the Five Moons by Elizabeth Peters
4.0
ROME! In these troubled pandemic times, it's hard not to wish oneself into 70s Rome. This book is silly and charming and as much about how Elizabeth Peters loves Italy -- Italian antiquities, Italian gardens, Italian food, the Italian language -- as anything else. Fountains! Cypresses! Marble!
Sir John Smythe makes his debut, and a charming rascal he is. Caesar the dog is equally charming but rather less rascally.
I want to go sit in an art gallery. Curses.
(spoilers ahead)
Things that don't hold up so well -- everything about how Helena, Pietro's mistress, is treated, is uncomfortable. She's mocked for being fat and stupid, and her greed is used to set her up as being a murder victim the reader won't miss too much, while her murderer is excused almost at once for being young and beautiful and talented and male.
Also the stereotypes of Italian people do not land well in the year of our lord 2020.
Sir John Smythe makes his debut, and a charming rascal he is. Caesar the dog is equally charming but rather less rascally.
I want to go sit in an art gallery. Curses.
(spoilers ahead)
Things that don't hold up so well -- everything about how Helena, Pietro's mistress, is treated, is uncomfortable. She's mocked for being fat and stupid, and her greed is used to set her up as being a murder victim the reader won't miss too much, while her murderer is excused almost at once for being young and beautiful and talented and male.
Also the stereotypes of Italian people do not land well in the year of our lord 2020.