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With this fresh and vibrant novel now reclaimed, the heroic Maurice and Lorin will soon be placed in the vaunted ranks of other Dumas stalwarts—from Dantès to D’Artagnan and the rest of the glorious Musketeers. Brave men who willingly flipped aside their thick robes to clash swords for a noble cause or a beautiful woman (and few are as luminous as our current heroine, Geneviève), or very often both at the same time. Dumas’s characters all live through turbulent days, death always a mere flick of a blade away, romance ever elusive; they are men of power and wealth flaunting their riches in cities drowning in poverty and despair.

It is what helps make Dumas timeless—his Paris of 1793, with a mere shuffling of the deck, can be any other major city, with little care to decade or century. The turmoil faced by Lorin during the glory years of Marie Antoinette could easily be matched in today’s world in many a city and any number of countries.

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In The Knight of Maison-Rouge, as in all his other works, Dumas treats history with the casual indifference of the storyteller. He uses it not for accuracy but to propel his story forward, to turn its laws and abuses to suit the goals of his tale. His fictional creations mingle easily in the company of historical personages, fighting for their causes, bowing to their lineage, pledging fidelity to their reign. All of it done for the sake of story. Yet despite any quibbles historians may have with Dumas, his Parisian novels paint a more than accurate picture of an explosive time and a changing world.

In this enchanting book, the anger that percolates on the stone streets of Paris is felt through every page. The tension between the classes, between those casually dismissive of their wealth and the hands and faces of those one missed meal away from death, is as palpable as a baby’s heartbeat. The seeds of a revolution are not merely planted in a careless manner but seem always to be on the brink of a bountiful harvest. Through his many novels, this latest just one more brilliant addition, Dumas has made the city and its history his own and is more than eager to share it with a willing world.

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It is so very easy to get lost in the pages of a Dumas novel. To forget time and place and be engulfed by characters rich and full, battles one-sided and hopeless, promises that must be kept and deceptions that cannot be forgiven. There are dozens of unforgettable characters in The Knight of Maison-Rouge, each one of them a complete portrait, his strengths, weaknesses, foibles, and motives painted with a palette of many colors. The panorama is, as always, lush and layered, from the overview of a struggling nation to the turmoil of a small side street, all drawn down to the most precise detail. It is the work of a writer trolling within the full force of his powers, both the destiny and the direction of his story resting in his hands alone. The reader is merely a passenger venturing on a literary journey that will always be remembered.

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After my childhood, I continued to turn to the works of Alexandre Dumas. As a troubled teen, I sought out his stories as a safe haven from the questions of a life that offered me so few answers. As a young man, I looked to his work as my template for the proper way to deliver a story, to coat it and coax it and bring it to a conclusion with the power and brilliance it so much deserved. I have always fallen short in my attempts, while Dumas never failed to succeed with his own. And now, as a middle-aged man, I read his works for the fond memories they never fail to bring. The time I’ve spent with those fine novels will always belong to no one else but me.

Ride with The Knight of Maison-Rouge. If you have never read Dumas before, let this be the first of many steps in his direction. If you’ve crossed his path, are familiar with his many sagas, then there should be no hesitation to journey on yet another adventure. Either way, once we are inside the pages, there is no escape, as we are again taken hostage and made