This is a impressively researched piece of dark historical crime fiction by John Banville, writing as Benjamin Black, set in the Prague of 1599 and the court of the Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolf II, The central protagonist is Christian Stern, a markedly unlikeable man. Stern is an arrogant young doctor with ambitions to make his mark and rise in the court. He arrives in Prague, gets drunk on his first night, only to find himself stumbling over the dead body of a woman in the snow. It transpires that the murdered woman is Magda Kroll, the mistress of the emperor. Rudolf takes in Stern, tasking him to investigate Magda's murder. The emperor is a man given to odd whims and has a strong interest in the occult, perceived by many as a poor leader.

However, Christian Stern has neither the wit or the means with which to succeed at the job. He finds himself moving here and there, following leads supplied by others, and hopelessly out of his depth. The court is full of intrigue, plots, conspiracies, covert relationships and the ambitious jostling for power amongst religious divisions and competing parties. There does lurk a more powerful and able wolf behind the scenes. Black writes a well plotted story with a first person narrative and there are finely honed descriptions that evoke the period. The characters struggle to evoke a sympathetic reaction from the reader It is a good read that transports the reader to such an interesting period in history. Thanks to Penguin for an ARC.

Prague Nights is a historical mystery novel set in Prague in 1599. It follows the story of Christian Stern, who arrives in Prague for the first time to find a woman’s body left in the night, a woman who turns out to be the mistress of the emperor, Rudolf II. He is suddenly swept into the court and its intrigues of murder, alchemy, and religious tension. Historical figures mix with fictional characters in this unravelling mystery set as the century turns over into the next.

Black’s novel is written in an archaic style that is somewhat stilted, but once the reader is used to it, it becomes less pronounced. The story is a fairly simple mystery, weaving together the concerns of various figures in the court and how the fairly hapless first person narrator uncovers their secrets. The main character is quite difficult to get invested in as he has few traits other than an occasionally unlikeable attitude towards women, though the book feels more focused on the narrative than the main character. The backdrop is vividly drawn and elements of historical language and references to famous figures like Dr Dee set it firmly at the very end of the sixteenth century. The combination of magic and religion is pretty standard for the era too.

Prague Nights will likely appeal to fans of historical mystery, with the Prague setting a particular selling point, along with the combination of fantasy and court scandal and seduction. However, it does not stand out a great deal in this genre nor is the narrative hugely gripping. It is a light and fairly short read for European history fans not looking for too much depth or complex plot.

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Don’t let the beautiful cover and the fairytale-like description fool you, this book is nothing like what it seems.

I was beyond excited to request Prague Nights on NetGalley. And I can’t tell you how happy I was to start reading it.

Sadly, it was in vain.

Prague Nights is a dreary, boring, uneventful narrative about some equally boring events that did not happen in the court of Rudolf II.

In theory, this book could have been fantastic. Rudolf II was obsessed with the occult, with different curiosities, he was a patron of art and magic. Looking for the philosopher’s stone in 16th century Prague? How awesome is that?

Not very awesome, in this book.

The narrator and main character, Christian Stern, is a person who needs a hard slap. He is not remarkable in any way, he is not particularly talented, nor is he very smart, for that matter. Christian Stern is ordered by the emperor to investigate the death of a young girl. What he does instead of that is snoop around the court affairs, have sex, and think how he should investigate but isn’t. There is not a drop of suspense, because the narrator is in no way engaged in the drama unfolding in the palace. He is no part of it, he doesn’t know what the relations between the other characters are, he is usually at a loss as to how to act and what to do. The main event of the book being the death of Magda Kroll, Christian Stern plays no role in solving it. He just follows what other characters tell him to do and ends up learning information that is completely inconsequential, as everyone else already has the knowledge. Even in the end, he is just a passive observer. He doesn’t manage to achieve absolutely anything.

More so, out of what could have been an absurdly beautiful scene for the events of the book, my dream city of Prague, what we get is usually Stern’s cold house where he has sex. No enchanting adventures in the maze of streets of old Prague, no hidden treasures, no magic, no life in this book.

All of the events simply happen and we are forced to read about them from the view-point of the most uncharismatic outcast in the court of Rudolf II.

Lastly, what could have been the two most interesting characters in the book, Rudolf and his son Don Julius Caesar, are just mentioned as background information, and often mocked, while in reality, they were both probably insane, but also very interesting people.

Wolf on a leash
Winter 1599 and Christian Stern, a naïve and over-confident young man, arrives in Prague determined to make his name at the court of Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor and patron of the alchemical arts. Imagine his surprise when drunk, on his first night in the city, he stumbles across the murdered corpse of a wealthy young woman, is arrested for her murder and then adopted by the superstitious emperor as a talisman sent by God. Worse, despite his innate lack of skill or power, Stern is ordered by the emperor to find out who has murdered the girl, recently his own mistress.
I confess Christian Stern is not an especially attractive protagonist, cast as he is amidst a pack of conspiring and plotting factions within the eccentric court of Rudolf. But this is what makes this an interesting and entertaining novel: the competing groups of ruthless characters, divided by religion and ambition; the bleakness of the Prague winter; the foibles of Rudolf, a man clearly unfit to rule; the seasoning of Kafkaesque hopelessness, as Stern blindly and ineffectually attempts to negotiate a way through a murderous maze. He imagines himself a ‘wolf on a leash’, but he is wrong – that description better fits another…