This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Reviewed by Verity Wilde
Master of Shadows is Scottish archaeologist and TV historian Neil Oliver’s first novel. Inspired by real historical characters, it follows John Grant who is orphaned as a boy and forced to flee his homeland. Guided by a great warrior – who had been sent to rescue him – he becomes a mercenary available for hire to the highest bidder. With unique abilities that go beyond fighting skills, he finds himself in Constantinople in the dying days of the Byzantine Empire. Accompanied by a mysterious woman, who has spent most of her life in hiding, his fate becomes entangled in that of the city.
Although I’m fairly well up on western European history in the fifteenth century, my knowledge about Constantinople in this period is very sketchy. But Neil Oliver does a really good job of bringing all the locations in this book to life – no matter what you already know about it. It feels like a lot of research has gone into Master of Shadows, but it is worn very lightly – there are no massive info dumps or moments where you feel like he’s trying to show off what he knows. The plot is a little fantastical, but because of that research, you don’t really notice until you stop to think about it.
But boy, is it bloody. There’s a lot of fighting, with descriptions of gruesome killings and a big old body count. I found it a bit much, but then I can’t cope with Game of Thrones! It’s a fascinating period and I’d probably be off down an internet black hole trying to figure out where fact and fiction meet if I wasn’t so squeamish.
If Master of Shadows were a film, Gerard Butler would play John Grant and it would be rated 18 for very strong bloody violence – but if you can get past the gore, there’s an entertaining chase across Europe and fascinating picture of an imploding dynasty.
7/10