KINGS' MASQUE

Once again, as in Crippled Splendour, this is a colorful recreation of historical events and plenitude of characters, blended with a dramatic interpretation that holds the reader's interest. Perhaps the material is neither fresh nor new (it deals with the story of Marie Antoinette and her loyal gentleman, Axel Von Fersen), and with America and Europe of pre-revolutionary and revolutionary days. A careful pictorial detailing of the period, the people, the events, of Fersen in America, in France, in Sweden, of the open recognition of his devotion to the queen and hers to him, of the scandal and the use to which his love was put -- and eventually of his murder. Evan John is one of our fictional historians who has helped raise the standard of this class of literature to a high plane of scholarship and significance.