Where Suleiman Can't Trust Anyone

Suleiman the Magnificent - Sultan of the East by Harold Lamb
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I love Lamb's historical retellings/novels/life stories/biographies, but this one is a little less dazzling. It starts great, but it gets less and less compelling through to the end. Still pretty good, still pretty easy and pleasant to read, and worth the time, but not as fun as others.

Lamb writes hybrid books, ones that could be novels or biographies or something else, and I like the novel type most. This starts that way and then slowly turns into a biography. The last 30 pages are about developments after Suleiman's death, which was the hardest and densest part to get through. but for that part, I would have probably given this a 4.

Lamb does an amazing job popularizing the history of figures and places that are usually given too little coverage in American history classes and media, and I give him a ton of credit. His research and writing are excellent. I definitely learned a lot about Suleiman and the way the Ottoman Empire expanded and threatened Europe during his lifetime. It answers a lot of questions I had about that time period. And, as always, it's a pretty good read.

I just feel like this book, if he had novelized it a bit more, made it a little more like some other biographical novels of his I've enjoyed more, it would have worked better. As a biography, it's fine.

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