'Subtle and dramatic' - The best historical fiction out now: The Life of Herod The Great by Zora Neale Hurston, The Players by Minette Walters, The Blackbirds of St Giles by Lila Cain By EITHNE FARRY Published: 00:02, 3 January 2025 | Updated: 00:02, 3 January 2025 e-mail View comments The Life of Herod The Great by Zora Neale Hurston (HQ £20, 368pp) The Life of Herod The Great is available now from the Mail Bookshop The author of the much beloved, soulful Their Eyes Were Watching God offers a much trickier proposition in this unfinished novel – published for the first time more than 60 years after her death – which seeks to rehabilitate Herod, the horror of historical infamy. After 14 years of research, Hurston concluded that his most heinous act – the Massacre of the Innocents, as recorded in Matthew’s Gospel – did not actually take place, and that Herod, although a hothead, was also charismatic, politically astute and a brave soldier and ruler. With that in mind, Hurston’s version of the Jewish King is very much an old-fashioned macho leading man – too handsome, too smart, and far too heroic to convince.
The Players by Minette Walters (Allen & Unwin £20, 496pp) The Players is available now from the Mail Bookshop Political machinations, moral dilemmas and social unrest are the (dis)order of the day in Walter’s turbulent sequel to The Swift And The Harrier. It’s 1685 and, once again, England is mired in strife. The illegitimate, exiled Duke of Monmouth is.
