Kirkus Review

Another sleek, skillful historical fiction from Holland (Two Ravens, Great Maria), a cloak-and-dagger tale of who's-betraying-whom set--with view of a crumbling Colosseum and a urine-scented Pantheon--in ever-popular Renaissance Rome. Nicholas Dawson, dubbed ""Messer Mouse"" by villainous Cesare Borgia, is a penny-pinching, boy-chasing, shadow-hugging ambassador's secretary at the court of the Borgia Pope, Alexander VI. After 20 years of merely observing events and rewriting his master's correspondence, Nicholas--of English parentage, Spanish birth, and Italian employ, hence loyal only unto himself--decides to Get Involved with real intrigue. Thus, according to Holland, it's Nicholas who suggests to Cesare Borgia two of the deeds that most startled his contemporaries: the seizure of Urbino and the murder of his captains. Nicholas' efforts to be useful to the Borgias make him very rich, then very scared, then unemployed, then very nearly dead. He is shown at last to possess both honor and courage, but that he survives is due mostly to chance. Lots of the famous wander through, of course--Macchiavelli (by mail), Gonsalvo da Cordoba, the assassin Michelotto, and all those madcap Borgias--but, thanks to Holland's customary ingenuity, they behave here like the busy people they really were, not like guest stars in a TV special. And crabby Nicholas, with his intellectual snobbery and self-indulgent courting of danger, is a remarkably original hero for historical fiction, unlovable but sympathetic. With splendid period atmosphere--a real sense of living in the dangerous, inconvenient, ruinous, glorious heap of antique Rome--and shrewd plotting, this is another costumed triumph, deliciously Hollandaise. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.