The Jester Leaps in Book

It takes a fool to know a fool-or find one. So it befalls the member-in-good-standing of the Fool's Guild, Theophilos, to travel the Adriatic coast in the company of a duchess dressed as a man and acting the fool's apprentice. Their mission is to find out why six good fools have vanished in Constantinople. Amidst the whispers of spies, and the calumny of traitors, the plotting of assassins, and the ribaldry of dwarves, Constantinople is the gleaming center of a world brimming with war. Like all true fools, Theophilos seeks to bring sanity to this world. But with his beautiful wife-disguised as his apprentice-by his side, he cannot guess how Byzantine the danger is, or why, in a city that is the apple of the Crusader's eye, fools are the first to die...AUTHORBIO: ALAN GORDON is a lawyer with the Legal Aid Society. He is the author of one previous novel, Thirteenth Night, and several short stories, that have appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, among others. He lives with his family in Queens, New York.Read More