Simon Levack’s The Shadow of the Lords is the exciting second book to his Aztec Mystery series (the first being Demon of the Air). Levack writes in an easy-to-read style with good character development. The second book picks up right where the first one left off (I have not experienced this concept with any of the other mystery series that I have read) – I love this idea.
Here is a brief synopsis of the book from Publishers Weekly:
Levack’s second 16th-century Aztec mystery (after 2005’s impressive Demon of the Air) is another intellectual page-turner that will satisfy even those with no previous knowledge of the ancient Central American civilization. The novel picks up moments after its predecessor’s dramatic conclusion. The complex and all-too-human Yaotl, a former priest, has just learned that he is a father and that his son is connected with a murder mystery he was probing at the request of Montezuma himself. As he tries to protect his son, Yaotl faces further challenges after he stumbles into a new inquiry involving a brutal killing and sightings of the dread god Quetzalcoatl that have driven the local population into near panic. The author matches impressive period research with tight plotting and the rare ability to make the inhabitants of a different world and time seem familiar.
I think you will enjoy this second book.
