Double Daggers
James R. Clifford
Reviewed by Michelle Boucher-Ladd
If you still haven’t used that book store gift certificate that you got
for Christmas and want to read something edge-of-your-seat-engaging,
historically fascinating, and really well written - cash it in for
Double Daggers, by James R. Clifford. It’s worth every penny, or should
I say,
denarium.
Double Daggers is a collection of four stories, which span the
centuries, connected by a famously cursed coin, the Eidibus Martiis.
Minted by Marcus Brutus, the Eidibus Martiis or the Eids of March
commemorates the March 15, 44BC date on which Julius Caesar was
murdered. The coin shows a depiction of Marcus Brutus on one side with
the inscription IMP BRVT (Imperator Brutus) and on the reverse side are
two daggers, which was the weapon used by Caesar’s assassins. Between
the daggers is the Liberty Cap with the date of Caesar’s death, EID
MAR. This depiction is said to signify that no individual is greater
than the Republic.
The first story in Double Daggers is the story of Brutus and the
murder of Julius Caesar. Clifford describes an ambitious Brutus who is
riddled by his own righteous politics and also by Caesar‘s last words.
Did he save the Republic out of his own lust for power? And was Caesar
his father? It is an interesting view of Rome, in all of its glory,
from Brutus’s vantage point. Clifford makes you feel as though you are
standing at the edge of the forest with Brutus as he falls upon his own
dagger, the very one he used to kill Caesar.
The second story is set in the time of the Crusades. It follows the
journey of two very different brothers as they make their way from
England to Constantinople. This story is full of wonderful descriptions
of pilgrims, travelers, traders, the Byzantines, Crusaders, and the
city of Constantinople in the year 1096 AD. The main character,
Michael, is the un-favored son and a promiscuous drunk. Upon entering
Constantinople he befriends the younger brother of Emperor Alexius,
Prince Nicephorus. After abandoning his own brother and the Crusades,
Michael unwittingly becomes involved in a plot to over through the
Emperor. Again, Clifford’s writing wraps the reader up in this exciting
plot.
The third story is that of a Nazi Colonel and close friend of Hitler’s
during the French Occupation. The story outlines the history of the
Aryan Nation and the ambitious agenda of The Third Reich and Hitler‘s
Order. All of the stories in Double Daggers are stories of violence but
this is the least glamorized in the collection and the most disturbing.
We are with Hitler in the bunker at the end of the war and Clifford’s
description of what becomes of his fictitious Maxwell Von Studt is
disconcerting.
The final story is a modern one, set on Wall Street. Clifford begins
this story with the Gordon Gekko quote, “greed is good.” The character
Jack Weston seems somehow less culpable then the previous owners of the
Eidibus Martiis, but is he? All of the characters in Double Daggers are
ambitious alcoholics, who bear an uncanny physical resemblance to
Marcus Brutus. They are all underdogs who struggle to place themselves
in the world of the privileged. Their success gives them vanity and
confidence. They are, in a way, champions of The American Dream. It is
hard to hate them completely because they remind us that the things we
covet most in life are cursed by desire.
This book is so wonderful because it is a retelling of the same story
over and over reminding us that we all hold an Eidibus Martiis at some
point during our own lives. Double Dagger’s Epilogue is especially well
done, it puts all of the characters together in a forest where they
merge together in a reckoning of all pasts. This book would make
wonderful book club fodder, it is well written and intriguing to end.