A song by the Four Kings goes “It’s Not Istanbul It’s Constantinople…..’ It’s a catchy song about a tragic European event. The loss and sack of the Greek City of Constantinople. The last vestige of the Holy Roman Empire, fell to the Turks in 1453.
For a thousand years, the city was the heart of the vast Byzantine empire. Beloved of Greeks. Coveted by Turks. But by 1453 The empire had shrunk to what lies within its no-longer magnificent walls.
New technology (cannon) meant the ancient city could no longer be easily defended.
Enter the characters of this epic novel by C.C. Humphreys. One one side Mehmet, the youthful twenty year old Sultan, who brings an army of one hundred thousand to the walls of what the Turks call ‘The Red Apple.’
Against him Gregoras, mercenary and exile, returning to the city he once loved. Theon, his twin – and betrayer. Sofia, loved by both brothers, and Leilah, fortune teller and assassin, seeking her own tragic destiny in the destruction to come.
Humphreys tells a magnificent tale leading up to and including the seven weeks of the seige. Sea battles, night battles, tunnels, tower, cannons, the defence holding until one stray bullet dooms the defenders.
In a novel like this, painting with an epic brush requires the writer to produce strong battle scenes, and rest assured the reader is in good hands on this front.
Humphreys also does a good job at giving us strong characters, some real (Mehmet, Sultan and leader of the Ottoman Turks; the Emperor Constantine XI; Giovanni Giustiniani Longo; and the Scotsman John Grant).
So we can experience the battle and the siege from inside and outside. We get not just the action, but the human drama. And Humphreys also gives us a good dose of the potboiler.
At times I needed a map to understand the characters and their interaction.
‘Okay this one links through to that one and this means that.”
It was a little complex. But the story held to the climax of the great seige.
