I honestly did not enjoy reading this book. Its central characters are unlikeable, and while there is one likeable female character she is fairly flat. In fact, there's a good deal of misogyny in this book, only part of which, IMHO, can be explained by wanting the (male) characters to have historically accurate views on women. There's gratuitous violence, murder in various forms, revenge-rape, - and the bloated style this is written in does not help. You'll finally see that obscure vocabulary you tried to memorize for the GRE actually being used.