The Jester

Written by James Patterson and Andrew Gross

455 pages

Published by Little, Brown & Company

Review by Jeannine Ford

Receives:

Fans of James Patterson will be pleased with his latest work, an historical thriller called The Jester, set after the time of the First Crusade.

The protagonist is Hugh De Luc, a poor innkeeper who goes to the Holy Land during the First Crusade. He returns home disillusioned at the injustice and the carnage he has seen, and his disillusionment becomes only stronger when he discovers that his son has been killed and his wife has been abducted by a noble searching for a priceless relic dating back to the time of Jesus. What began as a religious journey becomes a personal one as Hugh is forced to masquerade as a jester to try to find his wife among the courts of 11th century France. Hugh becomes involved in a battle of good against evil as he struggles to reclaim the life and the love he has lost.

The Jester is a well-written page-turner that is set in an historical period, though the historical details do not stand out. You will not find paragraphs of historical details in this novel; still, such information is not wholly missed. Patterson and Gross's quick-paced, dialogue-centered action leave us captivated. This is an historical novel that reads like a thoughtful fairy tale. Like Patterson's previous suspense novels, this one is a thriller in the best sense of the word as it leaves us wondering what will happen next as Hugh finds himself involved in one intrigue after another. We find ourselves rooting for Hugh in his struggles because he represents the everyman that we are—people who want to undo the past and create our lives anew.

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Jeannine Ford is a writer from Spokane, Washington. She teaches creative writing at her church and she is an avid reader. This is her first publication.