A Measure of Justice
1453 is not a good year for Constantinople. The shadow of the Ottomans looms ever larger over the city, and the Venetian colony is presently discussing whether they should stay and fight with the emperor—or leave.
Enter Nicollo Moro, former magistrate in Venice, now turned merchant. He explores a city that on the one hand awes him, on the other fills him with guilt—Constantinople still bears the scars from 1204, when the Fourth Crusade, cheered on by the Doge of Venice, pillaged the city. As it is, Constantinople is in disrepair, and the emperor is desperately trying to win Western support against the Ottomans by offering to join the Greek Orthodox church with the Roman Catholic Church. His people, however, are less enthused.
Nicollo’s explorations of Constantinople take on a darker turn when he is approached by the Venetian governor, Minotto, and asked to investigate the murder of Alvise Contarini. Suddenly, Nicollo is chasing a conspiracy, one in which the rulers of Venice play a less than heroic part.
Mr. Sherry delivers a beautiful—if sad—depiction of Constantinople in its final months while adeptly guiding the reader through the complexities of the religious controversies that stopped most of Western Europe from riding to Emperor Constantine’s aid. The murder plot itself is intricate—a tad too intricate—and Nicollo has his hands full balancing his genuine desire for justice with a more sanguine approach to the political consequences of what he ultimately discovers.
A Measure of Justice is an engaging and well-researched story. The ending, however, is too abrupt, and this reader wonders why Mr. Sherry chose not to give us a fuller description of 1453’s greatest calamity—the Fall of Constantinople. After all, Nicollo was there!
