Chabon’s most celebrated previous work, *The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay* ,won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2001. In his latest amazing adventure, which was serialised in the *New York Times* earlier in 2007, Chabon gives us a swashbuckling historical adventure novel set in the 10th-century Kingdom of Arran. This fun-filled boys’-own romp stars the Frankish Zelikman and his sidekick the giant Abyssinian Amram. The two amiable horse thieves and sword masters pool their talents to restore order to Khazaria, the fabled kingdom of wild red-haired Jews on the western shore of the Caspian Sea. The book epitomises Chabon’s skilful re-creation of historical settings and explores his fascination with Jewish history, in particular the fabled medieval Jewish empire of the Khazars.The atmospheric line drawings by Gary Gianni emphasise the book’s comic-book feel.