An odour of sanctity

9th century Spain--an age of brutal battles to the death and dungeons equipped with thumbscrews and spiked boots. An age of perfumed harems where acts of love were spiced with the erotic mysteries of the Orient. a time when merchants, princes, thieves and whores, Christians, Islamic Arabs, Berbers, Yemenites, Greeks and Jews were trapped in an inferno of embattled peoples and faiths.

Only such an age could have spawned Alaric Tendisson - the mighty Spanish nobleman whose extraordinary capacity for love was matched only by the violence of his destiny. GOODREADS member reviews: Cliff Morrison rated it 3 of 5 Stars - liked it: Whether Frank Yerby's novels were set in the past or the present, his style could be rhetorically long-winded, his characters wildly inconsistent and his overall plots haphazardly developed. Despite all that, in "An Odor of Sanctity" and several other works Yerby had, in large supply, the often under-appreciated ability to tell a story that compels a reader’s attention. Sarah Rigg rated it 4 of 5 Stars - really liked it: I read this as a preteen, I think, but I'm guessing on the read date. I still remember a couple of images from this historical novel, particularly how everybody was kind of smelly and covered it up with perfume, and the main character having an image in his mind of St. Agatha holding out her breasts that were cut off as part of her torture at the hands of Roman prefect Quintianus. I didn't realize at the time I read the book that Yerby is African American and a bit of a legend in his time for his success as a writer. I want to read more by him now! Gerry Germond rated it 2 of 5 Stars it was ok: (medieval-history, fiction) In 1955, author Frank Yerby moved to Spain as a protest against racial discrimination in the U.S. It looks like he spent a decade learning about and researching early Medieval Spain under the Goths and the Emirate of Córdoba under Abd ar-Rahman II. An Odor of