I first heard of Joan of Naples – under her “real” name, Giovanna – through Marjorie Bowen’s historical novel, “The Sword Decides!” It captured my imagination, so – having also enjoyed two other volumes in Alexandre Dumas’s Celebrated Crimes series – I expected great things from this.

Well, a few parts here and there engaged me, but on the whole I found this a hard slog. Problems I had with it is having countless characters thrust upon me, extensive sections of dialogue that sound unnatural, and condensed third-person paragraphs that drag on far too long.

I feel this would’ve worked better as full-blown historical fiction or as a “proper” biography. This is a biography written as though it was historical fiction. Although this worked fine with other episodes in the series, it fell flat with “Joan of Naples”. ( )