Alan Gordon's novel Thirteenth Night is a speculative fiction based on the characters of William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. In December of 1200, some fifteen years after the events in the Bard's play, Feste learns that Duke Orsino of Illyria has died, unexpectedly and under mysterious circumstances.
He returns to Illyria in the disguise of a German merchant to find out what happened to the former duke and what will happen to the dukedom since the new duke is too young and a regent will have to be named.
Another member of the Guild, to which Feste belongs, shows up to help him discover the truth. I found Gordon's depiction of the Guild to be most interesting. According to the author, it was a group of fools trained in the arts of entertaining such as juggling, singing, telling stories, but they also acted behind the scenes spying and manipulating events as they felt necessary much like Frank Herbert's Bene Gesserit in his Dune series.
Feste realizes that much has changed since he left Illyria a decade and a half ago, especially the people any of which could be his chief suspect and old foe, Malvolio.
I am not familiar with Shakespeare's Twelfth Night enough to make connections between the play and the book, and that seemed to be a slight detriment to my enjoying this novel more. But even if one is no so well-versed on the Bard, this is still a very entertaining mystery with twists, turns and an ending to satisfy all fans of whodunits.
Gordon does a meticulous and excellent job of describing medieval Italian customers, settings and the political climates of the times. He incorporates the international events and governmental environments during that era that give the reader a brief history lesson in very early fourteenth century Italy.
Thirteenth Night is a great read, and although slow starting, soon becomes an exciting page turner to the last.
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