A fragment of psychological terror set in the Roman-era fortress of Machaerus, where Gustave Flaubert reconstructs the legendary story of John the Baptist's execution with his signature ruthless precision. Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee, has imprisoned the prophet Iaokanann who publicly shamed him for marrying his niece Herodias. The tetrarch wavers - something holds him back from ordering the death of this vocal prisoner - but Herodias has no such hesitations. She wants the prophet's head, and she will use her stepdaughter Salome's dance to get it. What unfolds is a masterfully claustrophobic study of political ambition, religious fury, and the lethal theater of desire. Flaubert, working from historical sources and his own exhaustive research, renders ancient Judea with archaeological precision while plumbing the darker currents of human motivation. This is unfinished fiction - Flaubert died before completing it - which somehow makes its final vision of a young girl walking toward a soldier with a silver platter all the more haunting. For readers who want historical fiction that refuses to comfort.
