Customer Reviews

Street of Death

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

At first, this was decent.. The Spanish Inquistion is going on, Teresa is leaving a convent to care for an elderly man, and tons of sinister characters are introduced. Then it starts going downhill.

The sinister characters are unlikeable and vile. They are all jealous, cruel, vindictive, having sexual relations with their brother or sister, wanting to have sexual relations with their brother or sister, or sexually molesting young girls.

Meanwhile, the Inquistion is eyeing this household of sinister people (who I add are constantly bickering with each other) because the head of the household used to be Jewish. All the money in the world could not protect the Jews for long during the Inquistion.

And that's that. The only reason it doesn't get a one star is because I was interested in Teresa enough to keep reading. But I didn't like it or the way it turned out.

Late in the fifteenth century in Spain everyone fears the Inquisitor, whose Papal direction is to root out heretics and Jews, but never allow blood to flow. Many Jews convert to Christianity to avoid torture, but practice their secret religion inside their homes; if outed they are tortured until they confess. Susana Diego's lover reported to the authorities that her father was still a Jew so he was burned at the stake and though she lived to give birth to a daughter had her skull nailed to her home to warn others from going down the wrong path.

Susana's daughter Teresa, unaware of her Jewish heritage, was born at a convent and raised by the sisters. Considered a healer Teresa is sent to the Velez home on the "STREET OF DEATH" to care for the dying wealthy patriarch Roberto, a converted former Jew. His son Luis does not want her in their home at first, but soon finds himself attracted to her courage. As they fall in love, Luis continues to try to learn the fate of a servant Catrin, taken by the Inquisitor. However, family secrets by their parental generation begins to surface placing both in danger as Teresa is accused of witchcraft and Luis of Jewish heresy.

The haunting atmosphere of the Velez home located on the aptly named STREET OF DEATH ironically brings to life the Spanish Inquisition in which loyalty was a commodity not to trust. The family secrets provide fascinating twists that add depth so that the audience fully understands the plights of Jews in fifteenth century Spain; for instance why Luis' mother is buried where she is. Although Luis' conversion from disdain to desire seems a stretch, Mary Ann Mitchell paints a dark picture of what mankind did in medieval times and still does to one another in the name of God.

Harriet Klausner