Where Fate Really Hates Randal

Fortune's Fool by Rafael Sabatini
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a very entertaining and well-written historical adventure novel set in 17th century England. I enjoyed it.

[Spoilers about plot abound here. Skip ahead if you prefer.]

The story of a mercenary soldier with bad luck his whole life, it tells about a particularly tough period in the main character's life. Returning to England to try to find work, Randal Holles struggles to overcome forces arrayed against him. His father was a famous traitor, making his very name an enemy to luck. Old friends try to entice him to join their rebellion, and even though he doesn't take them up on it he becomes a known associate and at risk of arrest. One acquaintance with a title and pull tries to get him a position overseas, but a nobleman of higher rank forwards his own candidate instead, and he has almost no way forward. In addition to all this, the plague returns, gates are closed, and he has no way to get out of the city.

[Most critical spoiler. Jump down if you want to avoid it.] The biggest turn of bad luck is when another noble acquaintance--Lord Buckingham, a man who had been a boy when Holles saved him--offers him work, but it requires him to help kidnap an actress Buckingham has a fancy for. Holles refuses, but worsening circumstances eventually force him to do him this service, the worst thing he's ever done, over the objections of his pride and conscience. And the woman turns out to be his lost love, a girl from his youth, the woman he searched for and couldn't find.

[That's the end of the spoilers.]

The rest of the novel deals with Holles working through the consequences of his actions, and I feel like the author does a good job of showing us how he changes course, leading to a satisfying and reasonable ending.

Sabatini is, to me, like Sir Walter Scott translated to English a century nearer our own time, with a lot of the digressions and authorial intrusions cut out. I love Scott, but Sabatini writes something closer to the "good parts" version of Scott's historical adventure stories. This book is from 1923, but I feel like a new edition with a decent cover would get people in 2025 and beyond reading his books like they were new, because it reads very modern overall. IMO, obviously.

Good book. Lots of fun. I recommend it for people who enjoy historical adventure novels.

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