Any historical novelist worth his salt makes the material of his tale faithful to the realities of the age he wishes to revive, banishing stereotypes and bringing alive figures dimmed by the passage of years. Mary Renault did this in her 1956 novel, "The Last of the Wine."… In "The King Must Die,"… she does it again so well, in fact, that it puts her in the top echelon of historical novelists.
For her material this time Miss Renault has turned to the old Greek legend about Theseus, the hero-king of Athens….
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