by Graham Clews ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 26, 2007
An impeccably worked historical novel with a flare for the sensuous and melodramatic.
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A detailed chronicle of the foundation of the Roman fortress of Eboracum, circa A.D. 71, today known as the city of York.
Given the detailed appendix and author’s warning that any presumably unfamiliar word in the text will be italicized, the book begins gratifyingly right in the thick of early Roman Empire conquest. The graphic and lovingly rendered atmosphere of fire, death and victory lets readers know immediately that this is no mere academic exercise; it’s high melodrama, but with a historian’s dedication to detail. We meet Gaius Trebonius, a Roman engineer whose career has been hindered by a tarnished family name. A sympathetic Roman general has given him a project that will not only establish a fortress from which to launch future conquests, but will help Gaius polish his tarnished name. The conversation of the Romans is blessedly unencumbered by the pseudo-formal stylistics that are so endemic to the historical genre, and when the author can’t help but use an unfamiliar term, there is always the appendix. However, the most human characters are the Britons. With their muddy lives and chieftains that find themselves sleeping on the vomit-laden ground amid a hundred others, the Britons’ humble form of elitism is charming and sets taut the central conflict of the novel: civilization versus civilization (though the Romans might put it differently). Cethen, an Eburi chieftain and loyalist to the increasingly incompetent King Venutius, and his wife Elena live on the proposed grounds of Eboracum. And so without establishing any diametrically opposed villains and heroes, readers enjoy the confrontation between human perspectives. During a battle, Gaius is taken prisoner and, though he finds himself with the opportunity to harm Elena, he does not. Elena, by far the sharpest and most sophisticated character, recognizes this and treats him well as a prisoner. It’s not entirely unpredictable, but the chemistry feels legitimate as these two intelligent characters interact amid the chaos created by the conflict between their respective civilizations. The novel will mostly enamor history buffs, but there is enough action and intrigue to satisfy lovers of thoughtful prose, larger-than-life characters and trilogy addicts (this is book one).
An impeccably worked historical novel with a flare for the sensuous and melodramatic.Pub Date: July 26, 2007
ISBN: 978-1425119997
Page Count: 456
Publisher: Trafford
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by David Grann ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 18, 2017
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
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Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
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by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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