With the five-hundredth anniversary of the Protestant Reformation in 2017, there will be a flood of new books about Martin Luther, who already has a considerable number of books written about him. Some of these books will be well-worth reading, such as Scott Hendrix's new biography. Some books will be specialized treatments, and will add to our knowledge of Luther and the Protestant Reformation. But there will be other books that will not be worth your time and energy, and this volume by James Reston, Jr. is firmly in the latter category. While his chosen angle into Luther's life, the period that Luther spent at the Wartburg Castle (1521–1522), is certainly important, this book really tells us nothing new about it. Worse than this, this book is more novelistic than historical; certainly historical fiction can be useful, but this one is not even a good example of the genre. As a history, the book falls flat; the book's “Selected Bibliography” shows that Reston has apparently not consulted any of the standard major and modern Luther biographies, and that the books he has selected are generally old (many over 100 years old), and very eclectic, to say the least. Comparing this book with the treatment of Luther's time at the Wartburg in similar sections in the standard biographies, the Reston book shows definite peculiarities. Reston is seemingly fixated on Luther's bowel troubles and hemorrhoids, and on his spiritual wrestling with the demonic, to the detriment of other issues. He also juxtaposes the Luther narrative with sections about contemporary developments within the Papacy. Granted, this is an important subject, but he fails to connect it directly with Luther's time at the Wartburg. There are other inexplicable digressions, including considerations of Henry VIII of England and Argula von Stauff, similarly unconnected to the main narrative.

Even when Reston moves into the realm of fictional speculation, he does not manage this very well. Admitting that there is no contemporary description of this event, Reston nevertheless imagines a Christmas feast that Luther and his guardian, Hans von Berlepsch, might have enjoyed (151–152). The narrative rapturously imagines the dishes they might have feasted upon, including several featuring potatoes, without considering the fact that potatoes had not yet been encountered by the Spanish in South America (late 1530s), and would not have been introduced into Germany for at least the next fifty years. It is annoying that a major publisher would print such a poor book. All in all, forget this book, and read one of the other excellent new works on Luther.