A great tale of revenge taking place during the early 19th century in France. Edmond Dantes is a young sailor poised to take over as ship's captain. He has a beautiful fiance, Mercedes. Soon everything goes wrong as Dantes is falsely imprisoned for an indeterminate length of time. After several years, Edmond learns from a fellow prisoner that a great cache of riches lay hidden on the island of Monte Cristo. Following a fantastical escape, Dantes finds the treasure, assumes the identity of Count of Monte Cristo, and begins to exact revenge on all those responsible for his prison term. Suffice it to say that all those who crossed Dantes do indeed feel his wrath. But to prove that prison did not completely warp him, he also shows great compassion to his former employer and to his former fiance who had since married one his hated enemies. A very good book that profiles Dantes' psyche extremely well.