- Title:
- The Alchemist’s Code (The Alchemist, #2)
- By:
- Dave Duncan
- Pages:
- 308
- Rating:
- 4
The legendary Maestro Nostradamus may be able to glimpse the ever-changing future, but even he cannot see the danger that is about to envelop him and his daring apprentice Alfeo when Nostradamus is hired to find a foreign spy by Venice’s ruling Council of Ten. The only clues they can offer him are the spy’s intercepted messages, encoded in a seemingly unbreakable cipher. But Nostradamus soon detects evil influences working against him, and realizes the spy can only be caught by occult means. He turns to his able apprentice, the young swordsman Alfeo Zeno, whose unique talents may prove essential to unraveling the truth.
It was spring half a decade ago when, of the Alchemists Apprentice, I wrote: “whilst an enjoyable enough read, there was nevertheless a feeling of something missing and I’m probably going to put the continuing parts of the series deep in my haystack, which I may or may not get through one day.”
That day has come, and I picked up Alchemists code yesterday evening.
Whilst I still believe almost every other work of Duncan’s is better in many ways, I cannot but help enjoy the style and observational skill of the narrator and, even for one who knows nothing of the era or locale I found the description fairly captivating, the scenery and pomp of the age well depicted. I’ll read the third, but this isn’t a series to keep me up all night reading, unfortunately.