What readers think of Glorious Exploits, plus links to write your own review.

This book pays homage to the ancient Greek playwrite Euripides who wrote more than 90 works, staged in Athens around 400 BC. If reading classics makes you yawn but you wish you knew a little more, this book is for you.

The action takes place in Syracuse, on the island of Sicily, where the invading Athenians have finally been defeated. Many are captured and imprisoned in a natural rock quarry where they will certainly starve to death.

Enter Lampo and Gelon. Lampo is a wonderful narrator, a compassionate goofball hero determined to stage Medea (a Euripides play) using prisoners. He is loveable, honest and bumbling. He is constrained by his humble class origins. He falls hopelessly in love with a slave girl who he plans to purchase.

I enjoyed the crazy fast moving plot, the backdrop of the Peloponnesian War, and the uplifting theme of theater for salvation. The action is relentless. Sadly for the dynamic duo everything goes wrong.

The ending was perfect with a short chapter back in Athens. The final description of Euripides summarizes the theme: "his master was ever in love with misfortune and believed the world a wounded thing that can only be healed by story". Tragedy for a tragedian.