"The Fallen Blade" is the first of three novels set in an alternative early-15th century featuring Tycho, fallen angel and assassin, at the Venetian court, in a Venice where Marco Polo's family have been hereditary dukes for five generations and the Mongol emperor Tamberlaine has conquered China, making him the most powerful ruler in the world. The second novel in the Assassini series, "The Outcast Blade" was published in 2012, with the third "The Exiled Blade" published 2013. The novels take as a template sequences and tropes from Shakespeare's plays "Othello", "Hamlet" and "Romeo and Juliet". The novels have been sold into a number of languages.