Lead Review

• Book: Glorious Exploits
• Location: Syracuse
• Author: Ferdia Lennon

Review Author: tripfiction

Shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2025

Set around 412 BCE when the Peloponnesian Wars are raging. Upheaval and raids, killing and trauma form the backdrop to this narrative.

Many Athenians have been taken prisoner after their fleet is damaged and sunk, and now they are being held in a quarry, in the boiling sun, with only meagre rations.

Lampo is the narrator of this wryly, dark and funny story, speaking in a surprisingly engaging and lilting Irish accent; and his friend Gelon is an actor who loves the Greek playwrights (plenty of references to Greek mythology) and he wants to stage a play. Auditions take place and the story takes off.

It is such a unique and entertaining story. It could maybe do with just a little tightening at a couple of junctures. It has a really textured sense of period and place.

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