Gollancz 2010: ISBN 978 0 575 08438 4

This is history as it should have been! Translated from the original French, (Les Lames du Cardinal) The Cardinal’s Blades is a swash-buckling, fast-paced tale set on a parallel Earth. It’s 1633 in Paris and Louis XIII reigns over France. Cardinal Richelieu, one of the most dangerous and powerful men in Europe governs the country, while keeping a constant eye on the enemies of the Crown, avoiding assassination attempts, thwarting spies and averting wars. But he’s up against people who will stop at nothing to achieve their political goals, even going so far as to forge alliances with France’s oldest and deadliest enemies — Spain and the Court of Dragons.

Forget Pern’s dragons or Temeraire: Pevel’s dragons are different beasts entirely. While the nobility may keep tiny dragonets as pets, and royal couriers ride tame wyverns, lethal man-shaped, scaled dracs roam the country, and humans who have a close relationship with dragonkind develop the disfiguring and fatal disease called ranse. To society, this disease is proof positive that dragons are demon-spawned and must be eradicated.

But forces are at work to restore the ancient lineage of dragons: The Court of Dragons, through the Black Claw Sect, aims to resurrect dragons as they once were: ancient, terrible, utterly merciless… to move against France. Faced with this growing threat, Richelieu summons Captain la Fargue back from an ignominious retirement to aid France in its greatest peril. La Fargue is an exceptional swordsman, devoted officer and brilliant captain who leads a legendary company of swashbucklers and rogues who must — again — be asked to risk their lives, fortunes and reputations for Richelieu and for France.

Within this wider canvas is a sub-layer of petty intrigues, sinister plots, betrayals. Just when you think you have it worked out, and the sides all neatly drawn, a character turns it upside down. The surprises only stop on the last page.

Pevel creates subtle yet powerful images and seamlessly interweaves fact and fantasy. He is comfortable with his creation and does not labour the worldbuilding to convince the reader that this is ‘real’. The writing is at times challenging, but refreshingly original and evocative. The cast of characters is large. Pevel introduces each via a series of vignettes/chapters, so that when the protagonists eventually reunite as ‘the Blades’, each character is fully realised with the reader bond firmly established. We have Baronne Agnes de Vaudreuil, lethal in bed and out of it; the womanising duellist Marciac; the enigmatic, ranse-infected Leprat and the enigmatic half breed, Saint Lucq pitted against the Vicomtesse de Malicorne, the compelling, pragmatic leader of the Black Claws — to name but a few of the characters skillfully drawn by Pevel. I eagerly await book two of the series.

Pierre Pevel was born in 1968 and began his writing career as an author of role-playing games. He has written many fantasy novels under the pseudonym Pierre Jacq and is perhaps best known for his Cycle de Wieldstadt trilogy, the first book of which, Les Ombres de Wieldstadt, won him in 2002 a Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire. In 2005 his L'Elixir d'oubli (2004) won the Prix Imaginales for best French novel.