Nicked A Novel

by Anderson, M. T.

• ISBN13: 9780593701607
• ISBN10: 0593701607
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780593701614
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2024-07-23
• Publisher: Pantheon
• More Book Details

Summary

"[An] uproarious saga . . . drawing on contemporary accounts, fantastical folk tales, and [Anderson's] own knack for high jinks."—New York Times Book Review

"[A] rollicking comic novel."—NPR

"M. T. Anderson is one of our greatest and most precious voices."—Lev Grossman, author of The Magicians Trilogy

From the award-winning and bestselling author of Feed comes a raucous, slyly funny, and delightfully queer work of historical fantasy, based on a bizarre but true quest to steal the mystical corpse of a long-dead saint

The year is 1087, and a pox is sweeping through the Italian city of Bari. When a lowly monk is visited by Saint Nicholas in his dreams, he interprets the vision as a call to serve the sick. But his superiors, and the power brokers they serve, have different plans for the tender-hearted Brother Nicephorus.

Enter Tyun, a charismatic treasure hunter renowned for “liberating” holy relics from their tombs. The seven-hundred-year-old bones of Saint Nicholas are rumored to weep a mysterious liquid that can heal the sick, Tyun says. For the humble price of a small fortune, he will steal the bones and deliver them to Bari, curing the plague and restoring glory to the fallen city. And Nicephorus, the “dreamer,” will be his guide.

What follows is a heist for the ages, as Nicephorus is swept away on strange tides, and alongside even stranger bedfellows, to commit sacrilegious theft. Based on real historical accounts, Nicked is a swashbuckling saga, a medieval novel noir, a meditation on the miraculous, and a monastic meet-cute, filled with wide-eyed wonder at the world that awaits beyond our own borders.

Author Biography

M. T. ANDERSON is the New York Times bestselling author of Feed, a National Book Award Finalist and winner of the LA Times Book Prize; The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, winner of the 2006 National Book Award; and Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad, a Boston Globe/Horn Book Honor Book, among many other books for children and young adults. He is also the author of three graphic novels, including The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge, a National Book Award Finalist, with Eugene Yelchin.