Feste, his wife Viola, and their two companions are jesters in the Byzantine court where they entertain their patrons with witty remarks, acrobatics, and do a fair share of spying in the besieged city of Constantinople. This premise held great promise, alas twas not to be. Instead it was quite dull!

One needs to have a fairly good background in the period to make sense of all the special interest groups, machinations, and skullduggery that take place and even then it’s confusing with all the references to earlier books. I was never quite sure where Feste’s loyalty lay, indeed most of the characters are motivated by self interest. The author fails to provide a map which would have helped a great deal as the jesters hurried about the city. I had to dig up a map on my own so unless you have ready access to 13th century cartography you will be confused.

The book is truly Byzantine with complicated intrigues and plots. When a Venetian merchant is murdered, Feste is called to investigate. Each person he meets has a separate agenda and all alliances are tenuous. The victim never emerges as an actual person so there is little to grieve. How he was killed is dull and overly complicated.

When I thought I had an inkling of Feste’s character the author includes innuendoes that he is not who he appears to be when he remarks on the name he now bears. I would have appreciated some slight clue here.

As a historian I found the historical note portion of interest and considered his projected plot as plausible but I could not but remember Rhett Butler’s final words to Scarlett O’Hara. And I leave you with that thought.

--Jane Davis