The Alchemist's Code - Softcover

Duncan, Dave

Softcover

ISBN 10: 044101562X ISBN 13: 9780441015627

Publisher: Ace Trade, 2008

Synopsis

Hired by Venice's ruling Council of Ten to uncover a foreign spy, legendary seer Maestro Nostradamus, aided by his apprentice, Alfeo Zeno, soon discovers that the clever spy can only be caught by occult means and must turn to Alfeo, a young swordsman in possession of some unique talents, to solve the dangerous mystery, in the sequel to The Alchemist's Apprentice. Original.

About this title

About the Author

Dave Duncan has lived all his adult life in Western Canada, having enjoyed a long career as a petroleum geologist before taking up writing. Since discovering that imaginary worlds are more satisfying than the real one, he has published more than thirty novels.

Reviews

Slightly overbalanced by dense, lush descriptions, Duncan's elaborate sequel to 2007's The Alchemist's Apprentice finds footing in intricate plots and conspiracies. Able swordsman Alfeo Zeno, a brash young noble serving as Nostradamus's apprentice, provides a firsthand account of murder and romance in an alternate 16th-century Venice. This time the mystery centers around coded messages from an enemy agent, with Nostradamus and Zeno aiming first to crack the code and then to find the spy through a combination of magic and Holmesian investigation and deduction. Zeno's chatty narration breathes life into the city as he describes its political and social structure. The level of detail occasionally stifles the flow of Duncan's prose, an effect offset by the energy of the twisting plot. The only snag is the somewhat superfluous element of the fantastic, which adds little to this tale of interpersonal intrigue. (Mar.)
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The even more intriguing sequel to The Alchemist’s Apprentice (2007) is a mystery solved by the clairvoyant and sage Nostradamus and his apprentice, Alfeo Zeno. An ordinary case of a missing girl turns deadly serious when Venice’s Council of Ten asks Nostradamus to unmask a spy. The only clues lie in intercepted messages in a cipher that hasn’t been decoded. Duncan’s alternate late Renaissance Venice is wonderfully drawn and quite believable. The characters are a bit archetypal at first, which is plausible at a time and place in which public behavior was highly restricted. Duncan uses action to show what lies beneath public deportment. --Frieda Murray

Edition details

• Publisher: Ace Trade
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 044101562X
• ISBN 13: 9780441015627
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320