I wanted to try to get outside my personal typical fare and also come up with something outside our usual anglophone choices and I've settled on
Samarkand by Amin Maalouf, a French-Lebanese writer. (Russell Harris, translator) I'm looking upon the poet and the judge in the blurb as the tangoing twosome.
The blurb from all over:
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A gripping historical novel set in 11th century Persia that imagines the life of poet and philosopher Omar Khayyam
Accused of mocking the inviolate codes of Islam, the Persian poet and sage Omar Khayyam fortuitously finds sympathy with the very man who is to judge his alleged crimes. Recognising genius, the judge decides to spare him and gives him instead a small, blank book, encouraging him to confine his thoughts to it alone.
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From Wikipedia:
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Ahmed Rashid reviewed the book for The Independent, and wrote: "Maalouf has written an extraordinary book, describing the lives and times of people who have never appeared in fiction before and are unlikely to do so again. The book is far more than a simple historical novel; like the intricate embroidery of an oriental carpet it weaves back and forth through the centuries, linking the poetry, philosophy and passion of the Sufi past with modernism."
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It won the Prix Maison de la Presse in 1988 and has a Goodreads rating of 4.22 on nearly 20,000 ratings.
Cheap in the US and UK; somewhat dearer in Canada and Australia.
US $3.99; Canada $10.99; Australia $12.99; UK £3.99
304 pp.