Books: Nicked By M.T. Anderson (2024)

“The year is 1087, and a pox is sweeping through the Italian city of Bari. When a lowly monk is visited by Saint Nicholas (yeah, that one) in his dreams, he interprets the vision as a call to serve the sick (“We must leave our nest”). With Europe overrun with domineering Norman knights, ne’er-do-well Italian princes and irritating Ottoman Turks scuttling unbridled over everything, his superiors, and the power brokers they serve, have different plans for the tender-hearted Brother Nicephorus.”

 As the Duke asks “How did your monk find the saint?”

“How…?”

 

“How was the Blessed Nicholas? In health? In comfort”

 

“Tell him, “ said the Archbishop.

 

The Abbot delivered his line: “He seemed – dissatisfied.”

 

“With?”

 

“His neighborhood.”

 

“And his request?”

 

The Abbot ventured, “To rescue him from where he lies entombed at Myra?” The Abbot waited to see if he answered correctly.

Enter Tyun, a charismatic treasure hunter renowned for “liberating” holy relics from their tombs. The seven-hundred-year-old bones of Saint Nicholas are rumored to weep a mysterious liquid that can heal the sick, Tyun says. For the humble price of a small fortune, he will steal the bones and deliver them to Bari, curing the plague and restoring glory to the fallen city. And Nicephorus, the “dreamer,” will be his guide. Based on real historical accounts, Nicked is a swashbuckling saga, a medieval novel noir, and a meditation on the miraculous. Nicephorus is swept away on strange tides, and alongside even stranger bedfellows, to commit sacrilegious theft. 

In the afterword, Anderson says relic hunting and thievery was a burgeoning industry in Europe during the Middle Ages and Anderson uses the real-life Nicephorus’ detailed account of the 1087 Barese expedition for the basis of his first novel for adults. While Anderson uses a good amount of lush language of Medieval storytelling here, he explained that in the Middle Ages, any good story also involved a fair amount of fantasy, myth, surrealism, and a bit of futurism that helped create a roughly contemporary fictional world. 

This is enlightening, magical tale that will make you want to turn the pages with wondrous speed. It’s an opulent and totally genre-bending tale.