Reviewed by: Kris

Written by: James Patterson and Andrew Gross

Titled: Jester, The

Arriving home disillusioned from the Crusades, Hugh discovers that his village has been ransacked and his wife abducted by a ruthless duke in search of a relic worth more than any throne in Europe. Only by taking on the role of a jester is he able to infiltrate the duke's castle, where he thinks his wife is captive. This is just the first step in a battle that leads Hugh to places he never imagined—with results more majestic than he ever dreamed, as he goes on a personal crusade to save the common people from the oppression of savage nobles. Anyone who has ever rooted for the underdog, hoped for good to defeat evil, or believed that love can conquer all will not be able to stop listening to this masterful novel of virtue and suspense.

First of all, for my sake more than yours, I am going to say this is mostly a James Patterson novel. Yes it is co-authored, but since I don’t know Andrew Gross other than the two other novels he has worked with J.P. on, this will be a J.P. novel. I’ve had this book on my shelf for a few months now; I wasn’t really sure if I should read it or not, especially since it’s not like any other books that James Patterson has written. See, I’m a huge James Patterson fan. I own all of his novels, almost all in hardcover format. I have also read all of them, including the one that is out of print, and I understand why that is, because that is one of his worst works I have read. Mostly J.P. writes fictional crime novels. If you’ve never read his stuff, I’m sure you’ve at least heard of the movies Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider, both based on J.P.’s books. He has two main series that he writes, the Alex Cross novels, there are about seven or eight of these, and now he has a woman’s murder club series, only two of these have been written so far. He has a few miscellaneous novels, and The Jester falls into that category.

So, like I said earlier, this is not like any book J.P. has written before. Which, ultimately, leads to an interesting plotline. This is a book about a man in the Crusades in the Eleventh Century. He goes to fight hundreds, if not thousands, miles away; when he gets back to his town in France, he finds life there has changed drastically. He goes through things no one should ever have to go through. A lot of heartache and death takes place in this novel.

Considering this novel is supposed to take place in the Eleventh Century, I am disappointed. The thing that really disappoints me is that the people in the book talk and think like we do in the Twenty-First Century. That is definitely not right. I understand that it would be hard to write in a dialect hundreds of years old, but it would definitely add a lot to the story. There are also a lot of crude jokes, always dealing with sex. There is language that we consider foul, so I can only imagine what they thought of that back then. The authors did a lot of research for this novel, so they tried to be accurate to some extent, but I am just a little disappointed.

If you enjoy James Patterson novels, you will probably like this one. It is different, and that is a good thing. There is a lot of violence and violent images, and like I said, there are also a lot of crude jokes. There is also some sex portrayed, but those few scenes aren’t too graphic. Definitely read if you are a James Patterson fan, or if you want to read an interesting tale about the Crusades, but remember that it is fiction.