Vango - Between Earth and Sky / A Prince Without a Kingdom

Vango - Between Sky and Earth / A Prince Without a Kingdom

Timothée de Fombele

Treat the Vango books as one glorious Chandleresque thriller, to be digested in one summer and you will be mightily rewarded. Follow the many threads of deception, betrayal, subterfuge and

murder that weave around the world like RKO radio waves. A pebble

dropped by a character can send ripples across the globe; the repercussions are felt years later.

Beginning above the rooftops of Paris in 1934 the enigmatic Vango is on the run from taking holy orders and a crime he did not commit. Aided and chased by (in no particular order) an heiress, an assassin, the police, the Order of Violette, an elusive feline, a Zeppelin and the ghosts of his past, to name but a few, Vango is headed for all points of the compass to clear his name and right the wrongs perpetrated many years before in the Tyrrhenian waters off Sicily.

The second volume mercifully includes a cast of characters to help

keep track of the many fictional and historical figures. It lends

authenticity and the reader will be rewarded seeing how

effortlessly the author threads his characters into the warp and

weft of the vast canvas on which he writes. I enjoyed the cameo

appearance by Prokoviev (in volume one).

This complex and rewarding fusion of thriller and picaresque

historical, free-running romance has been lovingly translated by

Sarah Ardizzone who has won numerous awards in her field.

Confident readers 13+

Author's other books in translation are Toby Alone & Toby and the

Secrets of the Tree