The Serpent of Venice by Christopher Moore

Some characters tend to be one dimensional, acting how you would expect them to act with a singular motivation, but this does keep the plot moving and in itself can be entertaining. So with the enigmatic (or so he thinks) Pocket taking advantage of the situations he finds himself in, what is left for the other characters? Characters that can be classed as friends of Pocket seem to come out quite well as they tend to be manipulated by Pocket.

I found Pocket to be an interesting character, although he dresses in the motley of a fool and appears to be a court jester he is too smart for his own good, always letting his mouth run before him and yet for all his uncouthness and bawdiness he is fairly engaging as well. Unfortunately along with meddling with the romantic life of one of the Senators daughters (he helped Desdemona marry Othello) Pocket is also caught up in a plot of intrigue and murder. Pocket is in Venice to stop the formation of a crusade by appealing to the Doge and the Senate that this would be wrong. There is a slight crossover between this book and Fool but there is enough exposition in this book that it will not matter if you read Fool before or after the Serpent of Venice.

The main character though is a Fool called Pocket, who is a character of the author’s earlier book called Fool. As you may have guessed The Serpent of Venice is set in Venice and mixes characters from three of Shakespeare’s plays: The Merchant of Venice, Othello and King Lear.

The Serpent of Venice by Christopher Moore