Four for a Boy (John the Eunuch Mysteries) - Softcover

Reed, Mary; Mayer, Eric

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0743486900 ISBN 13: 9780743486903

Publisher: UNKNO, 2004

Synopsis

Gang-plagued streets, politicians plotting each other's downfall, poverty and homelessness existing side-by-side with manifest wealth-no, this isn't modern day Washington D.C., but rather 6th-Century Constantinople. After a philanthropist is murdered in the city's Great Church, where he's gone too visit a controversial statue of Christ, John the Eunuch, Lord Chamberlin to Byzantine Emperor Justinian the First, is assigned to ferret out the killer and maybe also to act the role of a spy in a web of rivalries involving the current and future emperors.

About this title

Review

Gang-plagued streets, politicians plotting each other's downfall, poverty and homelessness existing side-by-side with manifest wealth--no, this isn’t modern-day Washington, D.C., but rather 6th-century Constantinople, as portrayed by Mary Reed and Eric Mayer in Four for a Boy. A prequel to their three previous novels featuring John the Eunuch, Lord Chamberlain to Byzantine Emperor Justinian I, this nimble and scrupulously plotted tale finds John still a mercenary-turned-slave in the palace of Justinian's predecessor, Justin I. He hardly seems the right man to take on a "defense of the empire." Yet after a philanthropist is murdered in the city's Great Church, where he’d gone to visit a controversial statue of Christ, John is assigned, along with a German palace guard (and fellow pagan), to ferret out the killer and maybe also to act the role of spy in a web of rivalries involving the current and future emperors, as well as an imperious city prefect--"the Gourd"--with a misshapen head and supposedly magical powers. Not until a marble importer is slain does a solution to these odd crimes emerge.

Reed and Mayer excel at crafting royal intrigues, especially the plot by Justinian’s mendacious lover, Theodora, to wrest control of the former Eastern Roman Empire from Justin, whose senescence has him parlaying at length with his dead wife. They are clever, too, in creating action sequences (such as one in which John tries to "fly" from pursuers on Icarus-like wings) that fit their historical setting. It's only too bad that the authors don’t do more in this prequel to fill in John’s backstory, and that they force him to spend most of his time here in an annoying pique, his violent castration and lowly position frustrating his desire to return the affections of a senator's daughter. --J. Kingston Pierce

About the Author

The husband and wife team of Mary Reed and Eric Mayer published several short stories about John, Lord Chamberlain to Emperor Justinian, in mystery anthologies and in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine prior to 1999’s highly acclaimed first full length novel, One for Sorrow. Entries in the series have been honored by a Best Mystery Glyph Award, an honorable mention in the Glyph Best Book category, and was a finalist for the IPPY Best Mystery Award (Two For Joy), nominations for the Bruce Alexander Memorial Historical Mystery Award (Four For A Boy and Five For Silver), and a Glyph Award for Best Book Series (Five For Silver). The American Library Association’s Booklist Magazine named the Lord Chamberlain novels one of its four Best Little Known Series. Mary Reed & Eric Mayer also write under Eric Reed.

Edition details

• Publisher: UNKNO
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0743486900
• ISBN 13: 9780743486903
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 328