CITY OF LIARS

The terror and political intrigues of the Spanish Inquisition loom large in Fogle’s debut historical novel set in 15th-century Barcelona.

Arriving home after a voyage at sea, young ship navigator Joachim Déulocresca finds his city marred by the violence and prejudice of the Inquisition, which is quickly spreading across the country. Jewish inhabitants are arrested, their property seized, and their lives put on trial in a politically fueled and fanatical culling of so-called “heretics.” Joachim, who’s Jewish himself, can only watch in horror as close friends and neighbors are jeered at, degraded, and put to death. Then the opportunity to save lives arrives in the form of a wealthy Catholic woman who has foreknowledge of the Inquisition’s next targets. Aularia Bautista, the daughter of the richest spice merchant in Barcelona, shares Joachim’s distress while witnessing the auto-da-fé, in which Jewish victims are marched to be burned at the stake while onlookers pelt them with trash. She volunteers to minister to families that her tutor, a Catholic friar, designates as at-risk, intending to save them from certain doom. Aularia and Joachim craft a plan to smuggle these families out of the city, far from the reach of the Holy Brotherhood. As their plan unfolds, a romance develops between them despite the omnipresent threat of discovery. Fogle’s historical drama provides a plot with a great many twists and turns, including one that many may not see coming. For the most part, though, readers will be unsurprised by the overall path the story takes. The tale also moves so quickly that character development often gets short shrift, even in later stages when the main players must deal with the pain and uncertainty of separation. The story would have benefited from the inclusion of more backstory, which might have kept the characters’ sentiments from seeming as rote as they occasionally do.

A fast-paced and immersive, if somewhat uneven, story of prejudice, betrayal, and love.