Venetian Exile: Book One: The Adventures of Baltasar

Baltasar Albueno (1480–1550) is the illegitimate, but only, son of a noble Spanish father and a Moorish slave girl. He is sent off to Venice with a potentially lethal family secret, a gentleman's education, divided religious loyalties, no inheritance, and a missing foreskin. Meanwhile, the Ottoman Turks, North African pirates, a corrupt and expansionist papacy, and the emerging nation states of France, Spain, and Portugal are all threatening the well-being of the Venetian trading empire.

A harried Venetian spymaster sees where the young man's true talents lie and recruits him as a secret agent. Baltasar — hand-reared, home-schooled, pampered, and trusting — is thrown into an unforgiving world of intrigue and warfare. He quickly makes the acquaintance of a cadre of other colorful outsiders: a young nobleman and gifted swordsman with sodomite tendencies, a converted Jew and brothel owner with literary aspirations, a lovely and erudite nun of noble lineage, and an ambitious teenage courtesan who becomes his friend and confident.

"An unsentimental tale of love and adventure about a young man who aspires to be good in a world that will make him pay for such hubris."