Is ‘The Religion’ the first hard-boiled Renaissance thriller? Tim Willocks, author of the much-lauded ‘Green River Rising’, has always been influenced by the darker side of American crime fiction, and much of the architecture of the noir is here. Its flawed hero, Mattias, is a wheeler-dealer with a past that has taken him from Hungary to Sicily via Ottoman Istanbul, and from Islam to a weary cynicism about anything beyond the corporeal. In Messina, his life of carousing and shady dealing is interrupted by a beautiful noblewoman begging for help to recover her illegitimate son from Malta, where the population is preparing to repel a vast Turkish fleet bearing down on the island. With the Ottomans intent on extinguishing the last obstacle to the reconquest of Spain and a Grand Inquisitor on his trail, Mattias knows answering the lady’s call could spell his end, but is unable to resist a beautiful woman and the scent of war.
With a slow-burning pace and a knack for a cliffhanger, Willocks builds the tension terrifically amid graphic slaughter and velvet-gloved treachery. To his credit, he draws no lazy parallels with any modern suppositions of a clash of civilisations. Rather, the constant here is the power of ideas and the merciless bloodletting they can inspire, infused with a cynical, not an idealistic, condemnation of war. ‘Who cares now that Hannibal won at Cannae?’ he has his hero say. ‘A line will change on a map, or not.’
Willocks isn’t going to win over any critics of his 1995 slice of Southern Grand Guignol, ‘Bloodstained Kings’, with this joyously scatological, bloody recounting of the siege that marked the long, slow decline of the Ottoman Empire. ‘The Religion’ is an unashamedly epic, occasionally schlocky romp, and if Willocks could have done with a more ruthless editor, it nevertheless paints its broad strokes with inventiveness and intelligence.
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17 comments
A book that left me stuned! I lived The Great Siege i always dreamt duringmy histroy lessons. Being from Malta i saw in my fantasy ever battle taking place on the still standing forts. well Done!
A fine, juicy (and extremely rare) steak of a read. Flowery? Uh... this is the 16th Century. Every read Shakespeare? Ever read letters of the period? That's the way people spoke. I for one love the flights of language (has Willocks read Cormac McCarty?) and the pure pile-driving storytelling. I have also delved into the siege and find the authenticity down to details (the bracelet) most pleasing.
Dear Tim,
Probably one the best reads in a long time. Thanks for a wonderful story. I look forward to the next edition.
Your story captured the feeling and the bloodshed that I'm sure was happening at the time. Thanks, Dr. "G"
I agree, Tim's book is excellent and as usual with him, well researched it seems.
I'm actually here to let you know about a poetry event that Time Out keep leaving off of their schedule or worse, insisting that it is finished.
Y Tuesday poetry club Springtime special, 8pm, Tuesday 20th March 2007 at the 3 Kings, Clerkenwell Close EC1, Farringdon Circle line station.
Regular readings on the first tuesday of the month for well over a year, and extra events such as this. Free !
Time Out is as cutting edge as a rusty saw !
Back to the book in question!
I am a professor of early European history and have lectured specifically on The Siege of Malta for over two decades. I was truly astounded by the authenticity of this novel. I have recommended it to all my students. I also recommend it to you.
It's a good thing that I don't count on the printed Time Out to know what's going on in the poetry world.
Y Tuesday (my favourite club) has been going for a year (as you can paradoxicaly see here) yet gets no mention in the mag'.
I'm suprised it doesn't get in on celebrity value alone these days ? ?
Tuesday the 6th of February marks one year of poetry at the Y Tuesday poetry club at the 3 Kings in Clerkenwell, EC1
A special evening of events is planned from 8pm, poets include Jazzman John Clarke reading from his new book, Burgess the Ryhmer with his melancholy mews, club favourite Ceri May, Line' Thomsen flying in especially from Denmark and one or two more. Not bad for a whopping great Free !
Great book, well researched and full of excitment. Highly recommended.
It seemed that all the spirits of Clerkenwell were summoned for the launch of the poetry club's first anthology "Echoes from the green room".
Mayakovski slipped out of the Marx library and into the words of Alphia and perhaps even the Filthy Orphans.
Eros and Thanatos longed and lurked in the shadow of the words of Burgess the Rhymer amid Italian processions ran wild.
The feline Guardian of good luck was ominously absent when Line Thomsen took us to the rooftops of our imagination but we did not jump, spellbound as we were by Ceri May glowing bright against a dark December sky.
And, whatsmore, a fair few of us promise to be back on Tuesday 2nd January 2007 at 8pm. And erm, please Time Out, we really are called Y TUESDAY ! !
I used to live next door to Tim by the Thames and, both being reasonably shy and English, neither of us realised the other was a writer of anything but cheques to our landlord !
Great to read more of your stuff Tim, and share this web page in a very humble way !
Burgess the Rhymer (first tuesday poetry club)
Having spent my childhood in L'Isola and gone to school as a young boy on the site of the former Fort St.Michel and having read and fantasised over many accounts of The Great Siege that our Island went through I felt a special attraction to this book. Being myself a doctor by profession I find the details, the atmosphere and the medically related situations created very accurate and well researched. All this Book needs now is a Director to take it up and make an Blockbuster Epic film from it! The script is there...
I can't believe Adrian Beattie has been reading the same book... flowery and artificial??? What does he normally read... telephone directories? Don't take any notice of this spoiling twat.
I still say The Religion is a fantastic book.
Admitedly ive only read the first few chapters but I have to say my gut reaction is to not bother with the rest! Flowery and artificial describe the prose , superficial and banal the characters! ill give it one more go , watch this space!
Unbelievable. Epic. An adventure of biblical proportions - one of, if not THE greatest book ever written. Totally without equal. The Religion is awesome while you read it and unforgettable when it's finished. Dazzling
Just finished reading The Religion, I thought it was bloody great. I want to be Mattias Tannhauser. This is a really smart no holds barred action adventure, the historical novel equivalent of extreme sports. Damm, people were tough in the 15th century.