A Candle For Judas

There are, broadly speaking, two kinds of historical novels. The first sort arrive wearing polished boots and carrying maps, eager to educate you about dynastic crises and cavalry deployments. The second sort lurk in candlelit corridors muttering darkly about betrayal, conscience and the faint possibility that everyone involved may need a lie-down. A Candle for Judas belongs very firmly to the second category, and thank goodness for that.

David Fraser, who knew a thing or two about history beyond merely rearranging Wikipedia pages before Wikipedia existed, delivers a novel steeped in intrigue, suspicion and the sort of moral gloom that clings wonderfully to late-night reading sessions. This is historical fiction in the grand old tradition: people whispering in stone chambers, loyalties shifting like damp wallpaper, and the ever-present sense that trusting anyone is probably a catastrophic mistake. The title alone sounds like something discovered in a dusty monastery library beside a poisoned goblet and a strongly worded letter from 1647.

What makes the book especially enjoyable is its refusal to behave like a modern thriller in fancy dress. There are no cinematic explosions every eleven pages, no conveniently attractive assassin performing parkour across rooftops. Instead, Fraser gives you atmosphere. Dense, intelligent, slightly theatrical atmosphere. The kind that makes you feel faintly more educated simply by holding the paperback while drinking tea. It is a novel that trusts the reader to keep up, which in publishing terms is now practically an act of rebellion.

The Fontana edition itself has all the reassuring qualities of a proper second-hand historical paperback. Slightly yellowed pages? Good. A cover that looks as though it may once have been read during a rainstorm on a British Rail journey to York? Even better. Books like this were not designed to become minimalist “shelf aesthetic” props for social media influencers named Poppy. They were designed to be read properly, preferably while ignoring household responsibilities.

Condition-wise, this copy is listed as Good, which in the marvellously elastic dialect of old-book selling means it has survived the passage of time with dignity intact. It has not been entombed in museum-grade plastic by a collector terrified of fingerprints. It has lived a little. Which somehow feels appropriate for a novel concerned with history, betrayal and the complicated business of being human.

There is also something wonderfully ironic about buying serious historical fiction from Crappy Old Books, a shop name that sounds less like a refined literary establishment and more like a place where an exhausted detective in a 1970s television drama might accidentally uncover a state conspiracy. Yet here we are: one moment civilisation is collapsing into algorithmic sludge, the next you are rescuing a thoughtful 1989 historical novel from obscurity for the price of a mediocre sandwich.

If you enjoy historical fiction with intelligence, shadowy motives, rich period texture and just enough moral discomfort to make you stare thoughtfully out of windows, A Candle for Judas may be exactly your sort of thing. And if not, it will at the very least make you look considerably more interesting while sitting on the train.

Keep browsing: See more Thrillers books Other books by David Fraser