I have to admit to gross ignorance of the base character and stories of this biography. BUT......the story is so compelling that not only did I find myself drawn into the adventures and challenges while giving his life over to searching for pieces of Alexander the Great's travels across the desert, I researched several of the stories and characters. Yes, it's a biography but each section of his life brings together so many pieces of history, it reads more like a thriller.

I requested this DRC because the summary of it looked intriguing, and I am glad I did. My interest in history had not brought me to the lost city of Alexandria and I think this book was the best way to lightly dip my toe into pursuing more reading material. While there were many people discussed I didn't feel it bogged the book down because the format of the writing felt like I was reading a historical fiction book despite being nonfiction. Thank you for the opportunity to read this book.

I have always been a history enthusiast and this feeds it. Sometimes it's hard to get excited about certain subjects but Alexandria, count me in. This is one for your shelf.

This book was not for me. It was way too descriptive. I did not finish reading this book and am not rating it elsewhere to avoid discouraging readers who enjoy knowing every little detail from discovering this book.

Overly academic and dry. I enjoy history and this subject has the potential to be a great read. Unfortunately the author was not the person to tell this story in a manner that would capture the reader’s attention..

Thank you NetGalley for a free ARC in exchange for my honest opinion. The description of The King’s Shadow attracted me to this book. However, I had a difficult time getting into this book. I started and stopped reading twice before I finished it. I didn’t find the adventures exciting and I was disappointed that the lost city of Alexandria was in Afghanistan and not Egypt.

I had trouble getting into this book. The biggest disappointment was that it did not deal with Egypt's Alexandria, but Afghanistan's Alexandria. I also had a lot of trouble believing this guy's journey - it seemed a little far-fetched to me.

It is always refreshing to learn about a new historical figure, and what a ride this man’s story is! The author clearly has a talent for storytelling, and anyone who loves history and adventure would love this!

Many, many thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of this. This was such a fun ride. I had never heard of the main character Charles Masson before. I learned so much from this history. Will definitely recommend this. The story is so interesting but at times it was hard to even believe! Great stuff!

Subject, research, writing, historical backdrop, human emotions, and feelings are perfectly represented in the book.
The author made a very deep research into the subject, taking it from ancient times, bringing it to modern times, and was able to keep interested in the quest and keep the silver lining of adventure and deep respect towards matter throughout the book.

I love reading about little-known 19th century travelers like Charles Masson. Here is a fellow who could have been a total loser given that he went AWOL from the East India Company. He might have brought nothing but shame upon his family and nation, and instead he followed his (obsessive) path, changing his name and telling tall tales about himself to receive decent treatment from people who might easily have left him to die. The Pakistan and Afghanistan he encountered are so different from what exists today that it should give any reader pause to reflect on the nature of culture and circumstances. Charles Masson was, quite frankly, an amazing guy. This is nonfiction written with drama and flair.

As I jumped into this book, it felt a lot like Around the World in 80 Days. . .an unlikely man with unlikely ways to accomplish his very unlikely quest. Starting out as an ordinary foot soldier with the British army, shipped off to central Asia, he finds army life not to his taste. Being a direct sort of person, he deserts. After a long, sandy escape, he falls in with a storyteller, being fascinated by the stories told of a rumored golden city built by Alexander the Great (Yes. That Alexander). Alexander who parked 'Alexandria's all over the map during his 3 decades on earth. Legend had it, quoth the Storyteller, that Alexandria Beneath the Mountains was deep in the very land our former soldier had his feet on. . .and so begins the quest. He will find that Alexandria. In the land called Afghanistan. He renamed himself Charles Masson. My delight was complete when, unlike Jules Verne adventurer, Phileas Fogg, only Charles Masson's name was fiction - his adventures were real to the very end!

This book is sturdy, scholarly, well-researched, and not tiresome. The author's narrative is pithy from time to time, in a way that surprised and amused me, with observations that were cogent and benefited from the distance in time and historical data that our former foot soldier could have used. Both the tale of Charles Masson, the urgent explorations of the short-lived Alexander, the heartbreaking history of the people of Afghanistan and their constant condition of being on the top-ten list of countries to invade from the beginning of time help described the arch of the narrative - from specific to wide-ranging.

A Sincere Thanks to Edmund Richardson, St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for an ARC to read and review.

# The King's Shadow is by author # Edmund Richardson. A wonderful novel of a lost city. Discovered in 1833 by Charles Manson. Alexandria Beneath the Mountains, founded by Alexander the Great.....
Thank you for the advance copy,
# Netgalley and # St. Martin's Press

I had some mixed feelings about this story. Things I loved: I loved the historical background, and the detailed info on Afghanistan, a country so vibrant and eclectic in its time. A country broken by the British Invasion. I also found the story of Charles Mason, a British deserter who rose to notoriety when he became an amateur archeologist looking for Alexander’s lost city, another city named Alexandria. He had many unique finds that he never really got credit for, and then he died in obscurity. The issues I had was the way the information was presented. I wasn’t a fan of the mixed third person/ first person account . It just made it more confusing and harder to get through. Review posted to Goodreads, Litsy, Amazon, LibraryThing.

I am voluntarily posting an honest review after reading an advanced reader copy of this story.

I've tried to like this book but it's so dry & academic that I would lose interest. I expected more of a story about the search for Alexandria but the academic notations should have clued me in. Charles Masson was an interesting man & his journey was incredible. The East India Company, cruel & money grabbing as they were, and the Middle Eastern countries backgrounds are interesting as well. I felt the book more a class assignment in history than an enjoyable read.

Thank you Net Galley and St. Martins Press for an ARC in return for an honest review.

This book gives an interesting overview of Charles Masson (or whatever his name was) and his journey from India to Afghanistan. It begins with desertion and covers the many mysteries of his life and the choices he made that led him to his obsession with Alexander and finding the Lost City of Alexandria.

I definitely recommend this book if you are interested in history and want an engaging story that will keep you hooked from start to finish.

This was such an interesting style of nonfiction biography about the Charles Manson. From his beginning in the service to deserting and all his trials and tribulations and tricks and aliases. His search for the mystery of Alexander the Great.
This book felt like a story about the adventures and you felt like you were there rather than being told of events that happened.

I was very interested and a lot of what happened was horrible. I will say there must be another ring of hell for them East Indian Trading Company, those sadists and greedy beasts should suffer somewhere.

Thank you stmartinspress for the gifted copy for my honest and voluntary review.

I'm in the minority here it seems but I had a difficult time getting into this one. As a big fan of any history nonfiction, I'm surprised by it. The writing was fine, though a little meandering at times, and there's no storage of things going on in each chapter. I just didn't click with it and that happens sometimes.

Even though it wasn't my cup of tea in the end, I think there are plenty of history buffs who would love this story, especially considering the other reviews here. So don't let me stop you, it's always worth checking out a book that sounds interesting to you even if a few reviewers here and there weren't enthusiastic.

Note: I received a free electronic edition of this book via NetGalley in exchange for the honest review above. I would like to thank them, the publisher, and the author for the opportunity to do so.

"As he left Agra behind, Lewis had no way of knowing that he was walking into one of history’s most incredible stories. He would beg by the roadside and take tea with kings. He would travel with holy men and become the master of a hundred disguises. He would see things no westerner had ever seen before, and few have glimpsed since. And, little by little, he would transform himself from an ordinary soldier into one of the greatest archaeologists of the age. He would devote his life to a quest for Alexander the Great."
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"There’s an old Afghan proverb: ‘First comes one Englishman as a traveller; then come two and make a map; then comes an army and takes the country. Therefore it is better to kill the first Englishman.’ He did not know it yet, but Masson is the reason that proverb exists. He was the first Englishman."

You have probably never heard of Charles Masson. At the time of his creation in 1827, no one else had either. Nor had his creator. For six long years, Private James Lewis had endured soldiering in the military force of the East India Company (EIC) in sundry nations and city-states, in what is now India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. He had hoped for a life better than what was possible in a squalid London. Dire economic times had driven large numbers of people into bankruptcy and poverty. And if they were already poor, it drove them to desperation. The government’s response was to threaten to kill those protesting because of their inability to pay their debts. There had to be a better option somewhere, anywhere. But it had turned out not to be the better life that he had hoped for.

Lewis suffered from the multiple curses of curiosity and intelligence. He had tired of the often corrupt, ignorant, mean-spirited officers and officials above him, and knew he would not be allowed to leave any time soon. When opportunity presented, Lewis and another disgruntled employee took off, went AWOL, strangers in a strange land. And in the sands of the Indian subcontinent, having fled across a vast no man’s land, feverish, desperate, and terrified of being apprehended by the EIC or its agents, Lewis happened across an American, Josiah Harlan, leading a small mercenary force in support of restoring the king of Afghanistan, and the adventure begins. Lewis vanished into the sands and Charles Masson was born into Lewis’s skin.

A ripping yarn, The King’s Shadow (Alexandria: The Quest for the Lost City in the UK) tells of the peregrinations and travails of Lewis/Masson from the time of his desertion in 1827 to his death in 1853. It will remind you of Rudyard Kipling tales, particularly The Man who Would Be King. The real life characters on whom that story is based appear in these pages.

It certainly sounds as if the world James Lewis thought he was leaving in London, a fetid swamp of human corruption, cruelty, and depravity, had followed him to the East. There is an impressive quantity of backstabbing going on. Richardson presents us with a sub-continental panorama of rogues. Con-men, narcissists, spies, the power-hungry, the deluded, the pompous, the vain, the ignorant, and the bigoted all set up tents here, and all tried to get the best of each other. There are political leaders who show us a bit of wisdom. More who know nothing of leadership except the perks. They all traipse across a land that Alexander the Great had travelled centuries before.

"His quest would take him across snow-covered mountains, into hidden chambers filled with jewels, and to a lost city buried beneath the plains of Afghanistan. He would unearth priceless treasures and witness unspeakable atrocities. He would unravel a language which had been forgotten for over a thousand years. He would be blackmailed and hunted by the most powerful empire on earth. He would be imprisoned for treason and offered his own kingdom. He would change the world – and the world would destroy him."

The American mercenary with whom Lewis/Masson joined forces was a fanatic about Alexander, seeing himself as a modern day version. He taught Masson about his idol and in time Masson took the obsession on as his own, albeit without the desire for a throne that drove his American pal, reading up on histories of Alexander.

You will learn a bit about Alexander, of whom stories are still told. He may not seem so great once you learn of his atrocities. The British government and the East India company tried to keep up, demonstrating a capacity for grandiosity, cruelty and inhumanity, whilst also armed with alarming volumes of incompetence and unmerited venality.

In his travels, aka invasions, conquests, and or large-scale slaughter, Alexander established a pearl necklace of cities along his route. Some were grander than others. One, in Egypt, is still a thriving metropolis. Most vanished beneath the drifts of time, whether they had been cities, towns, villages, or mere outposts. But Charles Masson was convinced that one of Alexander’s cities could be found the general area in which he was living. The evidence on which he based this view was cultural, appearing in stories, legends, and local lore, but then more concrete evidence began to appear (coins) and appear, and appear.

Time and again, Masson is dragged away from his work, and time and again he finds his way back, his passion for unearthing the lost Alexandria becoming the driving force in his life. Surely, if his own survival were his highest priority, he would have sailed for home a long, long time before he finally did. His work was hugely successful, all the more remarkable because he was a rank amateur. Much of Lewis’s work, thousands of objects and drawings, is still on display at the British Museum. He was a gifted archaeologist, and made several world-class advances. These include discovering a long-lost Alexandrian city and using ancient coins he had discovered, that contained Greek on one side, and an unknown language on the other, to decipher that language. And significantly modify the historical view of Alexander’s era.

The King’s Shadow is an adventure-tale biography, which focuses on Masson’s life and experiences more than on Alexander. Sure, there is enough in the book to justify the UK title, but barely. There is a lot more in here about him trying to secure the connection between his head and his shoulders, threatened by a seemingly ceaseless flood of enemies. He is a remarkably interesting character, which is what holds our interest. He has dealings with a large cast of likewise remarkably interesting characters, all of which serves to keep us interested, while passing something along about what life in this part of the world was like in the early 19th century. (Remarkably like it is today in many respects)

There are few downsides here. One is that there is a sizeable cast, so it might be a bit tough keep track of who’s who. That said, I was reading an ARE, so there might be a roster offered in the final version. I keep lists of names when I read, so managed, but that it seemed needed should prepare you for that. Second was that there were times when events went from A to D without necessarily explaining the B and C parts. For example, there is an episode in which Masson is sent along with a subordinate of Dost Mohammad Khan’s, Haji Khan, to extract taxes from a recalcitrant community. But Haji has no intention of returning, yet somehow Masson is back in Kabul in the following chapter. Really, did he escape? Did he get permission to leave? How did the move from place A to place B take place? In another, a military attack fails, yet there is no mention of why the fleeing army was not pursued. Things like that.

There are multiple LOL moments to be enjoyed. Not saying that there is any chance of passing this off as a comedy book, but Richardson’s sense of humor is very much appreciated. You may or may not find the same things amusing. His descriptions are sometimes pure delight. An itinerant Christian preacher arrives at the palace of Dost Mohammad Khan, intent on converting him. The preacher had encountered serial misfortunes in his travels and had arrived in Kabul stark naked. Richardson refers to him at one point as “the well ventilated Mr Wolff.” He also describes Masson arriving late at night at the home of Rajit Singh, the local maharaja, only to find an American in attendance, singing Yankee Doodle Dandy. Another tells of a message Masson left for future explorers at what was then an incredibly remote site. LOL time. As much as you will frown at the miseries depicted in these pages, you will smile, maybe even laugh, a fair number of times as well. I noted five LOLs in my notes. There are more than that.

Charles Masson, despite the lack of appreciation and recognition he received, made major contributions to our knowledge of the Alexandrian era. Edmund Richardson fills us in on those, while also offering a biography that reads like an Indiana Jones adventure. Richardson has a novelist’s talent for story-telling. His tale shows not only the power of singlemindedness and passion, but the dark side of far too many men, and some unfortunate forms of governance. It is both entertaining and richly informative. Bottom line is that The King’s Shadow darkens nothing while illuminating much. Jolly Good!

"This is a story about following your dreams to the ends of the earth – and what happens when you get there.
Had he known what was coming, Lewis might have stayed in bed."

Review posted – April 8, 2022

Publication date – April 5, 2022


I received an ARE of The King’s Shadow from St. Martin’s Press in return for a fair review and a couple of those very special coins. Thanks, folks. And thanks to NetGalley for facilitating.

For the full review, with illustrations and links, please head on over to https://cootsreviews.com/2022/04/09/the-kings-shadow-by-edmund-richardson/

Published in the UK in May 2021 as Alexandria: The Quest for the Lost City, the title was zhuzhed for its American release: The King's Shadow: Obsession, Betrayal, and the Deadly Quest for the Lost City of Alexandria. A longer title for sure, with keywords to draw an audience more keen on sensation and spectacle. But what I most enjoy about this nonfiction book is how the author creates a vivid narrative using speculation and imagination along with exhaustive research with primary sources. Edmund Richardson writes this tidbit of history as if it were a novel. It's absolutely my favorite kind of nonfiction. We readers become acquainted with the book's main character, Charles Masson, by traveling alongside him and hearing his thoughts. We feel the Afghani sun on our faces, we imagine the sights, sounds, and smells of Kabul's bazaar circa 1833. We taste the summer melons and wander the British Museum with Masson, unable to escape the shadow of Alexander the Great. If you're a history buff, this book is an appetizing read. It's fortified with facts, but goes down like a tasty adventure novel.

[Thanks to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for an opportunity to read an advanced reader copy of this book.]