by C.J. Sansom ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 28, 2008
Wise and melancholy and, eventually, very tense.
The uneasy relationship of three British schoolmates haunts their adult lives during the first years of Francisco Franco’s dark Spanish dictatorship in a novel from the author of the excellent Matthew Shardlake Tudor detective stories (Sovereign, 2007, etc.).
Shell-shocked and deafened, Lt. Harry Brett was evacuated from Dunkirk moments after the man next to him was blown to pieces. Unable to return immediately to battle, he reluctantly accepts an undercover assignment to Spain, where he is to look up his public-school classmate Sandy Forsyth to see whether Sandy might be recruited as an intelligence source. Sandy was not really Harry’s friend at Rookwood. He wasn’t anyone’s friend. The rebellious son of an Anglican bishop, Sandy was cynical and a bully, but Harry was as close to a friend as he had before getting kicked out for cruelty to a faculty member. Now he has turned up in Madrid, a sleek and prospering businessman, cutting deals with the Falangists and Monarchists who recently ousted the Republicans. It won’t be Harry’s first trip to Spain. He was there once before to see Bernie Piper, Harry’s best friend from school and Sandy’s arch enemy. To the great disappointment of his working-class parents, Bernie’s scholarship to Rookwood gave him a deep distaste for the ruling class they hoped he would join, and he eventually turned to communism and joined the International Brigade defending Republican Spain against the Nationalists. When Harry, undercover as an embassy translator, reaches Madrid, he finds Sandy in possession of Barbara, a Red Cross nurse who loved Bernie before his disappearance and presumed death in the civil war. Harry takes up with the couple, worming his awkward way into Sandy’s confidence. As Harry learns details of Sandy’s sleazy high-level dealings, Barbara learns that Bernie is not dead. He’s a secret government prisoner, and she immediately begins to plot his escape as Harry at last finds a little love.
Wise and melancholy and, eventually, very tense.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-670-01848-2
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2007
Share your opinion of this book
More by C.J. Sansom
BOOK REVIEW
by C.J. Sansom
BOOK REVIEW
by C.J. Sansom
BOOK REVIEW
by C.J. Sansom
by Steven Rowley ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 2, 2019
Even if you have Jackie Kennedy—and this is a particularly sensitive and nuanced portrait of her—you still have to have a...
A debut novelist finds that his book has been acquired by Jackie O.
Rowley (Lily and the Octopus, 2016) likes a shot of fantasy with his fiction—last time it was a malignant sea creature attached to the head of a dachshund, this time it's Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis at her day job. A young gay writer named James Smale is sent by his agent to Doubleday to take a meeting about his book, with no advance warning that the editor who wants to acquire his manuscript is the former first lady. As this novel is already on its way to the screen, one can only hope that the first few scenes come off better on film than they do on paper—here, the brio of the premise is almost buried under the narrator's disbelief and awkwardness and flat-footed jokes, first in the meeting with Jackie, then when he goes home to share the news with his lover, Daniel. James' novel, The Quarantine, deals with a troubled mother-son relationship; as Jackie suspects, it has autobiographical roots. But James' real mother is extremely unhappy with being written about, and the two are all but estranged. Mrs. Onassis insists, in her role as editor, that he go home and deal with this, because he won't be able to fix the ending of his book until he does. So he does go home, and long-kept family secrets are spilled, and everyone gets very upset. As a result, he apparently fixes The Quarantine, though as much can't be said for The Editor.
Even if you have Jackie Kennedy—and this is a particularly sensitive and nuanced portrait of her—you still have to have a plot.Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-53796-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2019
Share your opinion of this book
More by Steven Rowley
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
by Herbert J. Stern & Alan A. Winter ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 11, 2020
An engrossing look at a monster.
A deeply researched novel about Hitler’s rise to power, co-authored by Stern, a former federal judge, and Winter, a novelist (Island Bluffs, 2015. etc.).
In a German army hospital in 1918, two soldiers meet. One, the narrator, has lost all memory of his past, even his identity, so a doctor assigns him the name of a dead soldier, Friedrich Richard. Richard shows kindness to the man suffering from hysterical blindness in the bed next to him. The blind man calls himself Wolf, but his real name is Adolf Hitler. They form a strong friendship, and Richard later follows Hitler into the Nazi Party. Richard is a not-entirely-sympathetic narrator who stands 6-foot-7 and “doesn’t shy away from a fight,” willingly bashing heads to defend his friend. But he shies away from talking about his past, especially when he learns he’s inadvertently been given the name of “a dead Jew.” Meanwhile, Hitler “demanded total loyalty, but he also gave it…even to friends who disappointed him.” “Friedrich,” he says, “you must stay close to me. Always. You are the only one I really trust.” Even knowing that Richard defended a bearded Jew against three thugs, Hitler promotes him to SS Obergruppenführer. “Our Friedrich is well known for his tender heart,” he says. The fictional narrator proves a great tool to show Hitler up close, based on the authors’ research. For example, historians often portray Hitler as pathologically afraid of women. Richard tells a woman that “Hitler’s romance is with Germany,” not with fräuleins, but Hitler is attracted to young women and girls, including his niece Geli, who commits suicide after ol’ Uncle Adolf leaves her for another woman. In 1934, Richard visits a dying man in Dachau but is long since hopelessly ensnared in the Nazi juggernaut. As the novel ends, the horrors are only beginning.
An engrossing look at a monster.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5107-5108-8
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Share your opinion of this book
More by Herbert J. Stern
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Trouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Trouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.