This is a clever revisiting of the characters in Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" with a twist: what if fools had an agenda?
I bet you didn't know there was a sequel to Shakespeare's âTwelfth Nightâ. Gordon has written a very clever mystery set in the 13th century, where the Fool's Guild secretly influences political events. In this first of a series, Feste the Fool gets a mysterious message: âOrsino is deadâ. Back he goes to the town of Orsino to meet up with all the characters from Twelfth Night (plus a few more) and solve the Duke's murder. I'm afraid I am not terribly familiar with the play â" only knowing the basic outline - so no doubt many interesting references escaped me, but the play itself is summarized during dialogue. There's at least one other reference to a Shakespearean play, and I'm thinking if I read it a bit more carefully I might see more. Gordon uses modern language instead of trying to be authentic, but it doesn't detract in the least. If all the clues that led to the murderer were there in the plot, I sure didn't see them â" seemed to me that at the end a lot of it had to be explained by Feste. The idea of having the Fool be a secret agent is just very fun, the characters are interesting and well-drawn, and the book moves right along â" in fact it's fairly short for a typical mystery. I enjoyed it very much and I'll be looking for more in the series; looks like there are at least six more.
This is an unusually well-done historical mystery, with an intelligent, intriguing plot, an interesting protagonist, and a great sense of humor. The first in a series.
