In The Jester James Patterson and his occasional collaborator Andrew Cross step across genre boundaries and produce a hectic historical adventure of distinctly mixed merit. This is a revenge story, mystery and love story across insuperable class barriers--the mixture is rich and the ingredients sometimes ill-combined. Part of the trouble is that the book wears its research too lightly. The inn-keeper hero Hugh reads a little too like a modern Californian time shifted into the eleventh century while the book's inventive plotting plays fast and loose with historical fact to a worrying extent: Hugh's life disguised as a jester combines elements from about five different centuries.

The account of the First Crusade is convincing enough and there are moments--Hugh's first sight of Byzantium--that are genuinely moving. The plot depends a little on Hugh's being obtuse--he takes forever to work out why the relic-hunting, sinister Tafurs (Christian shock troops with a taste for atrocity) destroy everything he loves. At the same time, the plot is genuinely exciting as Hugh is driven to take revenge for specific crimes and the general offence that feudalism often was; there is a real sense here of what medieval warfare might have looked and felt like that often makes up for specific inaccuracies. --Roz Kaveney

2008-06-17 How much more can poor Hugh take?

This book is amazing. I couldn't put it down and read it in two days!
The story is pacy. exciting and heartbreaking in places. Close your eyes and you can see the images unfold as the descriptions are so vivid.
A few times since reading it I have though to myself.. poor Hugh, how much more could he have taken?. Would make a fantastic film.