Devlin Diary by Christi Phillips Review

From Publishers Weekly
Product Details
Paperback: 464 pages
Publisher: Gallery; Reprint edition (April 13, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1416527400 Product Description from Amazon.com" Fans of historical romance and traditional whodunits alike will welcome Phillips's second novel, which like her debut, The Rossetti Letter (2007), alternates between past and present. In the present, historian Clare Donovan, who delved into 17th-century Venetian intrigue with handsome Cambridge fellow Andrew Kent in The Rossetti Letter, is now a temporary lecturer at Cambridge's Trinity College, packed with scheming academics roiling in a hotbed of nearly every human frailty imaginable. When dashing and venal Professor Derek Goodman is found slain clutching a page of a coded diary by 17th-century physician Hannah Devlin, Clare and Andrew get on the trails of vicious killers from different centuries. The mysterious death of Charles II's sister, Princess Henriette-Anne, wife of Louis XIV's dissolute brother, propels the main historical narrative. Phillips's command of period detail and her sure touch with emotional relationships help make this a stand-out. "
My Thoughts 
This is the second novel by Christi Phillips that takes place in contemporary England as well as in 17th Century England, Paris . A murder mystery in both times and seemingly related. The story revolves around a diary by 17th century woman, Hanna Devlin, a physician who finds herself in very dangerous situations as physician at the court of Charles II, in a time when  women were not allowed to practice medicine . A dangerous time when any scandal could be a womans undoing. Hannah with the help of a man Hannah is finding hard to not get involved in while trying to find out how and who was involved in the death of Princess Henriette-Anne . Claire and fellow academic Andrew work on solving the murder of a professor which takes them to the old libraries of Cambridge in London. As they get more involved in the past they find that they have more than one murder to try to solve. Claire is fascinated by this diary by Hannah that tells what happened to Princess Henriette-Anne, wife of Louis XIV's  brother. The reader follows the parallel murders to the frightening conclusion and to the relationships of the characters involved. This is a work of historical and contemporary fiction that has the reader wanting more. I read this as a stand alone novel as I had not read the Rossetti Letter in which Claire and Andrew worked together solving another mystery. I enjoyed this story very much and hope that there is a third book in the works.