This book was recommended by a former student, and so I finally got around to checking it out. It is historical fiction, written by a group of Italian writers under a pen name, and I read the English translation (while my student read the Japanese one).
This is a meaty book – set in the mid-1500s around the Mediterranean Sea. The story shows the point of view of a Venetian spy hunter, who becomes hunted himself. This leads to travel all over, and thanks to the detailed writing style the reader gets a real taste of what life could have been like in those days. The novel overall deals with the Jewish struggle to establish a homeland for themselves, which in turn is set on the unstable edge of friction between the Ottoman Empire and the Venetian Empires. Throw in some interested European parties, hints of the future of Palestine, a dramatic invasion of Cyprus, and you get a wide ranging multicultural story that has a lot of depth.
There is a lot about this period of history that I don’t know, so it served as both entertainment and education. Thanks to the pacing of the story and the tag-team nature of the writing style (who wrote what?) you really find yourself unable to stop reading sometimes. Also, I had the chance to visit some of the places in this book which made them feel even more real to me.
There are some points that I didn’t like – the main character is generally likable but is prone to fits of sudden violence or lust that didn’t seem to fit his nature overall. I understood him as a vehicle to tell an overarching story, but I’d have still preferred a little more depth to him. Some of this might be due to awkward translations – I understand that things can feel slightly off when reading translated work.
Also this grand tale sometimes gets a sudden fast-forward, speeding through parts that I had been looking forward to, and glossing over intrigue that could have been teased out a little more. There is plenty of intrigue here, though, and this made me want to read some more spy stories (Tom Clancy?) soon.
Next I’m reading Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell.
