The Shadow of the Lords

Aztec Murder Mystery #2

by Simon Levack

Mexico, 1517. The Aztec capital is awash with fear and rumors. A strange figure has been seen running through the streets. A being with the face of a snake, his body covered with glittering green plumage: Quetzalcoatl---the Feathered Serpent. Is it an omen? Or is it the god himself, come to warn of impending disaster?
Yaotl, the chief minister’s slave, has more immediate matters to worry about than omens and portents. Engaged in a desperate search for his son, he’s on the run from his vengeful master, the all-powerful Lord Feathered-in-Black. If the chief minister catches him, Yaotl can expect a grisly fate.
Attempting to escape his master’s bloodthirsty warriors, Yaotl stumbles upon a dismembered, unrecognizable corpse. As he pieces together the clues to who the dead man was and how he died, Yaotl finds himself drawn into an affair of greed, jealousy, and lust among the ancient, secretive society of the feather workers, the Aztecs’ foremost craftsmen. And, as he is to discover, the answers to those clues will provide the key to the search for his son.
But before he can solve the mystery, Yaotl will need his wits about him simply to stay alive---for Lord Feathered-in-Black and his henchmen are never far away....

“An exhilarating, fast-paced tale . . . plenty of plot, well-rounded characters, and some black humor to make this second book a delight.”
---Historical Novels Review

Genres: Historical Fiction, Mystery, Historical Mystery, Historical, Fiction

421 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Simon Levack is a British author of historical mystery novels set in Precolumbian Mexico on the eve of the Spanish colonization of the Americas and feature as the protagonist Yaotl, a fictitious slave to Tlilpotonqui, the Cihuacóatl or chief minister in the Aztec state of Tenochtitlan under Hueyi Tlatoani, or Emperor, Moctezuma II. Demon of the Air won the Debut Dagger Award, given by the UK Crime Writers' Association, in 2000. He has also published short stories in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine featuring the same character and setting. His work has been noted for its historical detail, complex plotting, humour and often graphic violence. He has acknowledged australian historian and anthropologist Inga Clendinnen and the work of Bernardino de Sahagún, compiler of the Florentine Codex, as influences; he has also (in an interview with the Criminal History ezine) indicated that science fiction has been an influence on his work.

Reviews

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5* This book is excellent in its depiction of Aztec life, culture, and thinking, but the mystery was a little hard to follow. The main character escapes situations so many times in so many ways that I had to keep going back (did he talk his way out, or escape cleverly, or get rescued? I forget, and it'll be important the next time he meets that person). The main character also keeps thinking he knows what's going on, and then he's wrong, but not completely wrong. This meant that by the end, I had started to lose track of which parts he was right about and which he was close on but wrong. The book also ends on a cliffhanger, which I found annoying. But still, the historical details were so good that I did enjoy the book. A good author's note could well have given it that extra half star.

[Sharon Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not my usual sort of book but I enjoyed it.

[J. Else · Rating 2 out of 5]

While the author did a good job of illustrating the customs and beliefs of the Aztec people, the plot was a muddled up mess. I could not figure out what path it was following. The main charcter, Yaotl, has no personality. He reads very flat. And Yaotl never grows in the story. His perceptions do not change. He even ends up in a worse state than he was at the beginning! While the author may chalk this up to a noble self-sacrifice, no one benefited from anything Yaotl did! And he's cotinually getting the stuffing knocked out of him. The character seems to stumble along between one beating to another. Then he finds his answer to the mysteries in a couple of dreams (one drug induced)? I'm not one who's against divine intervention, but talk about spoon feeding! Yaotl also seems to have no skills except escaping death an ungodly amount of time. The suspense is lost when you get past the third threat.

The plot seemed very superficial. It went from one house, to the next, to the next, and then back along the circuit. I admit to not having read Levack's first book, and that may have set me back on the character. I just did not feel the relationships between Yaotl and his brother or his son. There was no complexity in them. And then the story ended with the bad guys grinning? Is there a third book? I think there were gaps left unfilled. Then ending was not satisfying. The investigation was confusing and seemed to not lead anywhere significant as it "progressed."

While I appreciated the cultural details, the mystery itself lacked strength and focus. I was left wondering what the point was? No one was brought to justice (because I guess its okay to murder people if you really don't care about them), and the investigator was thrown to the wolves. What? Give me something! Its like the whole journey was moot. Who cares what he found? Nobody came out the wiser for it, and nobody was saved! There were no admirable characters in this story. They were all spiteful and cruel. There was also a lot of bloodshed. While I understand the Aztec culture incoorperated this in their belief system, it was a little much when you have blood sacrifices AND the main character getting his butt kicked. I kinda felt cheated after reading this book. 392-pages that was not worth the effort.

[Ruth · Rating 1 out of 5]

c2005: FWFTB: Yaotl, dismembered, slave, feathers, omens. Perhaps I was unable to finish this book because it was the second in a series and I had no feel for the main character. Unfortunately, the style of writing just didn't work for me either and I was unable to finish the book - although I did read the ending. Sadly, then, I am unable to recommend to the normal crew. "This vision of how the greatest monuments we had thrown up to our gods had once looked was one more reminder of how far my people had come in the few bundles of years since they had found themselves on this island."

[SmokingMirror · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yaotl, such a mixture of roguish characteristics in the first book, did not expand his range much in this book. My reading pace was much, much more sluggish than with the plot heavy first Aztec Mystery, and the conversation seemed more like clumps of dirt clods than scatterings of jade. Still, I would not mind reading the next two books in the series. The setting is so vividly depicted and I have hopes of Yaotl's former cunning returning.

[sheofseidhr · Rating 2 out of 5]

The setting and the world-building were great, the characters and the plot were passable, but the ending was horrendous. It kind of just became a jumbled mess. The cliffhanger ending was just poorly executed and downright frustrating. It's not the kind that will make you want to read the next book. When I saw where it ended I just shook my head in dismay for having picked it up in the first place.

[David H. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Retroactive Review (11 Jun 2022): I wish I remembered more about this book. It's a historical murder mystery among the Aztec right before Cortez arrives. I never continued the series since my library didn't have the final two books.

[Kendall · Rating 3 out of 5]

January's book club pick - it was okay. Since I lived in Mexico City for a while, the hard place names didn't phase me a bit.