Chasing Odysseus – Sulari Gentill

Sulari Gentill has been blowing my mind with her meta murder mysteries for a couple of years now, but that’s not all she writes. She’s also got an impressive back catalogue of historical fiction and fantasy-adventure. Neither of those are genres I necessarily gravitate towards, but I’m desperate enough to read more of Gentill’s work that I’m willing to give them a go. The new format release of The Hero Trilogy by my friends at Ultimo Press seems a natural place to start.

Book One of the trilogy, Chasing Odysseus, begins with the sacking of the city of Troy. The Herdsmen of Ida are wrongfully accused of betraying the Trojans and allowing Greek soldiers to use their secret passageways into the city – and Odysseus doesn’t hang around long enough to correct anyone.

He sets off on his journey home, as immortalised in Homer’s epic tale. In Gentill’s retelling, unbeknownst to Odysseus, he is followed by four young Herdsmen who hope to force him to set the record straight.

I’ll admit, I’m not well versed in the stories of Ancient Greece and Greek gods and all the rest, so I was pretty lost for the first few chapters of Chasing Odysseus. Still, I had faith that Gentill would guide me through.

Sure enough, I settled into the story’s episodic rhythm as Hero and her brothers followed Odysseus through his misadventures with lotus eaters, the Cyclops, the sirens, and more. It even gave me the occasional chuckle, with Hero and co’s wry observations.

While it didn’t floor me to the extent of Gentill’s contemporary novels, Chasing Odysseus still strikes me as a perfectly serviceable read, probably best suited to fans of Madeleine Miller’s Circe and Stephen Fry’s Mythos.