The Valet

In 1204, Massimo Gasparino has fallen from grace. Once the most trusted aide to the Doge of Venice, he is now a powerless prisoner, and he uses what little opportunity he has to write a secret letter to Pope Innocent III.

The letter is his confession. Gasparino has seen the Fourth Crusade, which was meant to head for Jerusalem, deliberately turned toward Constantinople, a great city of Christian Europe. He watched it be sacked and its treasures shipped off to Venice, and his letter lays the blame on the Doge's betrayal. Putting the truth on paper puts his own life at risk, and the story turns on whether the message can reach the pope before the Doge has him silenced.

Thorvald Steen's historical novel is a tense, intimate drama of ambition and guilt. It deals with an episode that reshaped European history and whose aftereffects are still felt in the present day.