Recommended reading: The Baron of Magister Valley by Steven Brust 📚
I read The Count of Monte Cristo twice, the second time in an unabridged edition that suffered mightily from the author’s insistence that revenge required that the villains must be raised up to their highest height before being cast down, but also that those who had helped the hero must be cast down into the depths of despair before they could be rescued.
Brust’s novel avoids that flaw while providing a fabulous revenge story that links marvelously well into the Dragaera and the Vlad Taltos novels.
Highly recommended.