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THE MOSAIC OF SHADOWS
by Tom Harper
St Martin's Minotaur, June 2005
288 pages
$23.95
ISBN: 0312338678


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Byzantium 1096. For the first time in many years, the Empire is generally stable, thanks to Emperor Alexios Komnenes. He has fended off attacks from many enemies, but the Turks have persistently tried to invade, take the 'Romans' into captivity, and sack the city.

Alexios had sent a messenger to the Pope asking for help, and many Christian knights and their aides and camp followers are waiting outside the walls of the city for permission to proceed further into the Empire to free the Holy Land from the Infidels.

Demetrios Askiates, the Unveiler of Mysteries and a widower with two nearly grown daughters, is called to the Palace where Krysaphios the Eunuch, chamberlain to the emperor, shows him an oddly-shaped arrow stained with blood.

A soldier in full armor, standing just behind the mounted Emperor, had been killed earlier that day. when the arrow pierced the armor. Demetrios is told to find the assassin. Reluctantly, he accepts the commission.

Accompanied by members of the Emperor's Guard, the Varangians (mostly expatriate soldiers from Britain), Askiates searches the city for someone who can tell him what manner of weapon could fire a missile that could pierce armor.

He learns that the knights encamped on the plain are from the very same countries that had invaded Britain only 30 years earlier, the Norsemen and the Normans. There are also Franks and other groups waiting for the Emperor's permission to proceed through his kingdom.

Alexios wants the strangers to promise to return the lands taken from his empire by the infidels. The 'barbarians' refuse to do so because they are promised to their own lords.

Harper takes us through Byzantium and its environs, from slums to palaces and many places in between. He shows us the home life of an average citizen with well-drawn characters in their every day occupations. This is a good first novel. I expect this writer, who studied medieval history at Oxford University, will get better over time.

Reviewed by Barbara Franchi, July 2005

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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