This is, in many ways, the last magnificent adventure for Nicholas, the last of his innocence, not that some of the people around him aren't mad at him for being underhanded and secretive and ruthless about his scheming, which of course, he is. To Africa, then, in morally questionable circumstances, unable to escape the tangled web of personal and family complications that cling to him like molluscs, to find riches, but also suffering, and perhaps even love and a glimmer of peace, all to be shattered by one of the cruelest endings of a book since... well since Checkmate by the same author. 

It is a big and epic and intricate book full of the bustle and buzz of traders embarking on a major expedition, brilliant with descriptions of people and places, the evocation of Timbuktu in particular an absolute masterpiece of historical gorgeousness, a beautiful, vulnerable city of trade and learning that captures the hearts of the characters and the readers. 

Left at a loose end after the shattering conclusion to his Trebizond venture, assorted people seek to induce Nicolas to lend them his talents, and Nicholas refuses all of them, choosing instead to join his company's mercenary leader, Astorre, in fighting the war in Naples. Kidnapped and taken to the island of Cyprus, Nicholas is initially steadfast in his refusal to support either side in the war of succession between Queen Carlotta and the pretender, James, but soon finds various reasons, mostly cynical, one of them plain revenge, to pick a side, assuming he can keep himself and his army alive long enough. 

Action, adventure, schemes and plots, high and low romance, family feuds and epic battles and highly devious murder attempts enliven his stay in Cyprus, but then these sorts of things tend to follow him around, or lie in wait for him. Brilliantly entertaining.

Nicholas has been persuaded to travel to the fabulous far-off city of Trebizond, last outpost of an ancient empire. The machinations surrounding this expedition run deeper than the complexities of trade - which Nicholas views as a game - and the politics of European city states and eastern potentates, and are more subtle than the unexpected rivarly of sea-prince Pagano Doria and his apalling marriage, who keeps Nicholas and Co busy with assorted acts of sabotage, some deadlier than others. While lawyer gregoria and wife Marian try to sort things out at home, Nicholas makes the perilous voyage to the Black Sea and the decadent court of the Emperor, with one eye on the caravans carrying raw silk and another on the army and navy of the Ottomans, who can't possibly threaten Trebizond, or so they are assured.

Brilliant, epic, breathtaking, this twists and turns and has heartberaking tragedy and utterly maddening bad guys and characters that aren't actually bad but still quite maddening in their own way, and laugh out loud humour and Dunnet's penchant for characters playing dangerous games that aren't just trade and politics and intrigue, but actual sports, albeit from which the other games are not entirely absent. A confident second volume in which Nicholas embarks on his first great adventure, still callow and with much to learn, and with friends and companions who aren't aways comfortable with what they learn about him. 

Some chaotic incidents, beginning with an incident with a bath, a cannon and a canal, upset the good Burghers of Bruges. They also launch the career of a brilliant, dangerous man into the world of the Renaissance, where chivalry is on the wane and business is on the rise, and war is business. Despite his brilliance, he makes mistakes, or over-reaches, or simply sets in motion trains of events that have outcomes even he can't control or predict, for he is still young and inexperienced. If he survives his enemies, disasters, wars, tragedies and the machinations of Dukes and kings, he still has his family to worry about, because under all the plots and plans and clever designs there are deeper, ineradicable secrets. This is merely the edge, the launch and dive into the world of Niccolo. Questions you weren't aware were being posed in the first page will not be answered the end of seven whole epic novels, because though the writing can seem fine as filigree, it's also as sharp as razors and the plot is like a network of steel hawsers. Dive in, it's brilliant. 

I absolutely dragged out the finishing of this to a ridiculous degree, to the extent that as the story moved into its final stages and the suffering of its main characters reached an unbearable pitch I began to feel guilty for protracting their agonies. I did not want to leave the world of Dorothy Dunnett, a world which as far as I'm concerned encompasses King Hereafter, Niccolo and Lymond in one massive epic generational saga. In the latter case, a characters who is introduced to us as a rogue and a bit of a prick, frankly, albeit by the end of the book proven to have been forced into the role, is stripped bare of all defences and shown to be barely hanging on by a thread thanks to a lot of things that are no fault of his own. Checkmate has everything - torrid romance, intrigue, action, self-sacrifice, humour, war, high pagentry, low villainy, emotions repressed so damned hard they are literally killing their repressers, and lots of French poetry. I sigh, I swoon, I'll come back soon. 

Francis and Philippa, man and wife, are on either side of the world, providing good service in different ways to different monarchs. The events of the previous book have changed them both, but it's fair to see Francis has been affected most severely. Forced to live by his vow to Philippa, he divests himself of all that is weak, brings out all that is strong, and throws himself into the forging of a nation under Tsar Ivan of Russia. Philippa, through the intervention of Margaret Lennox, is summoned to the court of Queen Mary, who burns heretic and pines to give her husband, Philip of Spain a son. Between them stretch intrigues and ventures and the demands of family and loyalty, but though they are pledged to divorce as soon as possible, have they become too alien to each other for any common ground? Or are they more alike than either could even imagine? 

The unearthing of a paltry pension for a war veteran sends two rival congresspeople on a quest either to rescue a forgtten and neglected hero from penury or to expose a ruthless and criminal enterprise defrauding the US governmet. What they find is Joyleg, a veteran of an altogether older war than expected. Joylegs archaic speech and historical references fill pages with delightful puncturing of cherished myths, but arguably his accidentally resolving the nuclear standoff between the US and the USSR has aged out in a way the 18th century stuff hasn't, and it's a pity they didn't go all-in on Joyleg's story a la Little Big Man or some other weighty literary tome, rather than focusing on the clash with (then modern) modernity.

Oh, yes. This one. The one they talk about in hushed whispers. A game played out between two masters from one end of the Mediterranean to the other, one a sadistic genius, the other a man of brilliance and control aware that he is balancing way too many interests to do anything other than manoeuvre with an inhumanly clinical skill until the opportunity comes to act decisively. Chasing a kidnapped child and his mother with a strange motley of friends he'd rather weren't there and a misanthropic pawn broker and horologist and his shocking and incomprehensible assistant, Francis Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny embarks on a fearful and harrowing voyage that culminates in one of the most tense, agonising emotionally devastating set-pieces in literature. A truly magnificent novel, and a wrenching turning point for the whole series. 

Lymond travels to Malta where the Knights of St John are bracing themselves for an attack by the fleet of Sulemein The Magnificent. There he finds a rival, and behaves disgracefully towards him. He also finds, briefy, and fatefully, Oonagh O'Malley. After much hullaballoo and general disorderliness, the action moves back to Scotland, where Lymond's rival and his sister set about winning him over, and he continues to behave disgracefully. Murder and betrayal and sabotage and incitement keep things interesting until the final monumental confrontation and revelation. Interesting that though she plays similar games in the Niccolo series, those books aren't heavily structured like mysteries or adventures or romances, as the Lymond books are - though if I remember correctly, the last three don't lean heavily on that kind of structuring either - as she comes to rely less on that kind of scaffolding to support her stories. Anyway, my point is that the finale has an inescapable 'gather the witnesses' staginess to it despite the skilfulness of the plotting, though it only seems so in retrospect, at the actual time of reading it was bloody riveting. 

In Game Of Kings Lymond was forced to play a part to prove his innocence, in Queen's Play, he is persuaded to play a part to protect the life of the young Queen Mary, thus, in the second volume, we are privy to the secret as he cloaks himself in the identity of the Irish Ullaimh, Thady Boy Ballagh, but even so the mystery and ambiguity remains pervasive, as the thrilling, hilarious, horrifying set-pieces are arranged and executed with flamboyant skill around the nobility of France and the deadly political intrigue of the 17th century.