It remains a bestseller in Italy and has become a cult hit throughout Europe.Q is set at the time of the Reformation.

Four young Italians in Bologna wrote Q in the mid 1990s.

There are Luther Blissetts writing, drawing, and carrying out elaborate hoaxes all over the world. This hapless fellow inspired a group of Italian artists to appropriate his name and attach it to all manner of projects. He was victimized by Italian fans, whose racist and nasty comments caused his career to take a dive. Luther Blissett, the 'author' of Q is the name of a Jamaican soccer player who played for AC Milan in the early l980s. A good amount of historical research is lumped throughout, but the period stylings are wooden and the story never gains enough momentum to carry readers along., The story of Q begins with the mystery surrounding the author(s). Speech anachronisms abound throughout, especially when events are related by Metzger and company (' 'What the fuck did you say? What? So you're not dead, but you scare me anyway, pal, you scare me''), and most of the characters sound so alike that not only do they remain lifeless on the page, they are often indistinguishable from one another. She's extremely beautiful') alternate with epistolary passages given a faux-historical gloss. Translator Whiteside has done the best he could with the material: stripped-down chapters breathlessly composed of short, snappy paragraphs ('The girl smiles. For the next 30 years, even as Protestantism slowly makes inroads across Europe, Metzger is tracked by a papal spy who, traveling incognito under the eponymous moniker Q, keeps his boss apprised while he and his compatriots attempt to crush the movement on behalf of the Vatican before the schism widens. In 1525, a one-time theological student, a radical Anabaptist who goes under a number of names over the course of the narrative, but who is initially called Gustav Metzger, pulls off the first of a number of hairbreadth escapes from heretic hunters keen to spill the blood of any would-be supporter of Luther. In 1517, Martin Luther nails his 95 theses to the door of Wittenburg Cathedral.

Rich religious history is turned into bloated, tedious fiction in this Reformation-age epic produced by four anonymous writers lurking behind a pseudonym.

Q by Luther Blissett