Blurb and Synopsis feedback: comedy historic murder mystery

[davesachs]

Hi, I's appreciate feedback on the synopsis and blurb for my novel, Who Killed Alexander the Great?

The synopsis is a 1 pager to use in agent queries, the blurb is for the query letter and back page. I'll put the blurb first but the synopsis has more deets so it may suggest more ideas for the blurb.

The book is a comedy, historic murder mystery, like I, Claudius.

Blurb
Babylon. The night zoo of a hundred thousand beasts. There's that many stories here, but only one that will be remembered in a thousand years. Who killed the world's greatest killer? The beautiful monster, my old friend and greatest student. Who killed Alexander the Great?Aristotle is on the case. That's me. I'm Aristotle. He brought me here with a riddle. He was dead by the time I got off the ship, leaving another one. This is a story of riddles and love, power and death, and other headscratchers.

Synopsis

He brought me to Babylon with the riddle in his last message. He died before I got off the ship in Jaffa, leaving another: who killed the world's greatest killer? Who killed my star student, the most beautiful monster, Alexander the Great? Aristotle is on the case. That's me. I'm Aristotle.

I taught the not-great-yet prince back in Macedonia. I had been friends and poker buddies with Alexander's father, King Philip. Alexander's cohort in that class, his oldest friends, the tribal princes, were now the ranking generals in his army. What had been his army. These were the men who went on to found the dynasties across Western Asia and Egypt that Alexander's empire broke into (history spoiler alert!). So this is kind of their secret origin story, too.

And so I plunge into a world of palace intrigue in the exotic ancient capital, among my old students; Alexander's mentally damaged half-brother who was the new puppet on the throne,; a handful of queens and royal empress widows and such (including one with my own ancient history); an Asian general named T-Bone; and assorted others.

Between questioning the prime suspects, and re-evaluating the meaning of my long correspondence with Alexander, I finagle a vial of the dead king's blood. I bring the blood to the legendary Alchemist of Babylon. But before I can present the Alchemist's findings...

...Alexander the Great's Even Better Funerary Games are held. Amidst the ceremony, athletics, and entertainments, the queens turn on each other! The generals beat the snot out of each other! I stumble into a sacred and psychedelic cult festival. When I stumble back to the camp at dawn, two of the queens are found murdered, and I am arrested for the crime. It is only when the generals contradict each other, exonerating me before the king, that I finally unveil the ultimate proof that Alexander was murdered by one of those closest to him. The new king is frightened by the risks of this information. I have three days to find the killer. Or get my own crash course in metaphysics, if you know what I mean.

I'm joined by the legendary old general Antipater, who had been King Philip's military chief and Alexander' home regent in Macedonia. He was a poker nemesis, and frankly, a bully, back in the day with the old king, and perhaps the only man in the empire the young generals fear. A brutal, violent, black-humoured man of few words, he moves in with me at the inn, joining the investigation, setting up a classic odd couple.

I survive a ninja assassination attempt, visit the Oracle, am held up by the worst named bandit gang in the desert, make love to the most beautiful woman in Asia, as well as a GILPH-Royale (Empress-Grandmother-I'd Like to do the Phrygian With). I rekindle an unfinished affair with another of Alexander's widows, attend a palace production of a strangely familiar play performed from beyond the grave (well, the actors were live, but it turns out the author was Alexander), and look for answers in Scribe Alley. We're 4/5 of the way through, and everyone seems like the killer!

In one of Literature's great Thracian Standoffs, knives at all throats, cocktails going around, Antipater and I defuse the situation so that I can finally untie the Gordian Knot of this murder. (The real Alexander-and-the-Goridan Knot story having just been told.) Turns out, everyone was in on it, in an alliance of the queens and an almost totally separate conspiracy of the generals, Alexander's most trusted friends. All the young Macedonian generals wanted after a decade of war in foreign lands, was to go home and retire in peace. But Alexander solved the riddle long before I did. Betrayed by his lovers and oldest friends, ashamed of his own crimes (against humanity, his friends, his honour, blah blah blah), Alexander took pre-emptive revenge by killing himself before any of the conspiracies could, forcing them into untenable suspicions and rivalries between themselves, leaving them a future of eternal war and never to return home

Which turned out to be the way things went. I wrapped it in a nice little package for the king's satisfaction—pinning the crime on poor General T-Bone. The young generals and sister-queens were left to tear each other apart. Me and old general Antipater rode together out the gates of Babylon into the desert, the general to return as regent of Macedonia, and me, to a seaside retirement, occasionally lending a hand to the local authorities when a particularly vexing crime needs solving.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by davesachs

The book is a comedy, historic murder mystery, like I, Claudius.

I, Claudius is not a comic murder mystery. I'll grant that your book and I, Claudius are both historical fiction.

[JSWolf]

When did I, Claudius become a comedy?

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

When did I, Claudius become a comedy?

Never.
Also it makes some Tragedies look like cosy romances with HEA. Well, it has Caligula* in it!

It's not a Murder Mystery either.

Though I only saw the BBC TV version. I didn't read the Robert Graves book.
Graves later was regarded as promoting a lot of his own fiction as real folklore or history in "The White Goddess"

He's not noted for humour and his lack of accurate research is maybe more obvious today. Sadly a lot of people take "The White Goddess" seriously.

[* Many of the allegations against Caligula are dismissed as misunderstandings, exaggeration, mockery or malicious fantasy. But not by Graves.]


You've Got mail: A RomCom like Shakespeare's Macbeth

[Nabeel]

I like the blurb. Very snappy and concise: it leaves questions hanging, but that's the idea?

[Quoth]

Aristotle and Alexander (Eskandar) fell out before Alexander went to Persia.

Alexander (Eskandar) died in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar II in Babylon between the evening of 10 June and the evening of 11 June 323 BC, at the age of 32. It was most likely from Typhoid.

Aristotle died 322 BC (about a year later), about 62 years old.

Jaffa is about 1200 miles from Athens and Babylon about 300 more.

Six years after Alexander's death there was a claim by Plutarch that Aristotle (dead five years) had organised poisoning of Alexander. There has never been any evidence.
In the week before his death, historical accounts mention chills, sweats, exhaustion and high fever, typical symptoms of infectious diseases, including typhoid fever. Scholars think it likely he died of typhoid fever, though malaria is possible.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_...e_Great#Causes

The poisoning theory seems to have arisen some years after his death. perhaps as political attack on family of Antipater.


I think the Blurb is confusing.

[davesachs]

Thanks for pointing out the error. I had deleted part of the line. A better comparison would be I, Claudius told by Joseph Heller or Steve Toltz. Any other comment on the blurb or synopsis?

[JSWolf]

Comparing to I, Claudius at all is wrong.

[hildea]

I think the blurb is fine -- makes me curious, and looks like it gives a good impression of the book, judging by the synopsis.

"Aristotle is on the case. That's me. I'm Aristotle." is a bit clunky, can you rewrite it?

I read in an author blog somewhere that the synopsis should be just a dry summary of what happens, and if that's correct you should probably cut some of the flavor. But I'm in no way or shape any kind of expert, this is strictly from the school of "someone wrote something on internet"!

[JSWolf]

I don't see needing a synopsis/ Also, the synopsis is too long and too detailed.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I don't see needing a synopsis/ Also, the synopsis is too long and too detailed.

A publisher accepting a submission wants a synopsis. No-one else does.