Four star review, originally posted here on December 31st, 2025:
Full disclosure: I’ve done that thing where I don’t review any book for a couple months, then try to catch up all in 1 day. I’ve done several other reviews today, and I am fried. Also, I barely remember this book. I listened to it as an audiobook, and was at one of those points in my life where I was only half-listening half of the time. Which is not very fair to the author or their book.
That being said, I gave it 4 stars, so I must have liked it! When I WAS paying attention, I was pretty drawn in. This is one of this tales from history that are stranger than fiction. These people were some crazy freaking characters! And the situations they got into were absolutely nuts! So as long as the story was told in a halfway competent fashion, you can’t really mess this one up. That being said, as I already mentioned, I was only partially paying attention. Which means part of this were written in a dull enough fashion that I was spacing out. I would say that 80% of the fault here lies with me, and 20% with the author.
I think I heard there’s a show or movie coming out about this, and I am really looking forward to it. Assuming they remain faithful to the real story, this should be a wild ride!
Helga without the H 