Well-researched and entertaining.
Putative presidential hopeful, political lightning rod and prolific author Gingrich (Gettysburg, 2003, etc.) novelizes a little-known Civil War battle.
Joined by Forstchen, Gingrich deconstructs an 1864 Union effort that could have ended the war. The Battle of the Crater occurred after Grant maneuvered away from a bloody stalemate at Cold Harbor to attack near Petersburg, Va. Grant wanted to seize Richmond, the linchpin of the Confederacy. Jerusalem Plank Road, “the aorta of Bobbie Lee,” linked the two cities. However, Grant’s probe soon descended into trench warfare, with Confederate lines anchored by Pegram’s Battery. The 48th Pennsylvania Infantry, led by Lt. Col. Henry Pleasants, volunteers from coal-mining country, realized the fortification was only a few hundred feet from their own lines. The miners believed they could tunnel under no-man’s land until they were beneath the fortification, and then plant enough explosives to blast a hole in the defenses. The daring plan was put in place, although few of the brass believed it would work or offered material support. Pleasants, Burnside, Meade and other officers are well-known figures, but other historical people appear, including Garland White, once a slave to Senator Toombs of Georgia, but then serving as sergeant major of the 28th Colored Infantry. A fictional illustrator for Harper’s Weekly, James Reilly, nourished as a homeless young man by an attorney named Abraham Lincoln, is the now-President Lincoln’s secret eye on the battlefield. His character ties the narrative together. The fractured relationship between Burnside and his superior, Meade, which may have doomed the unorthodox plan, is dissected. The authors also provide insight into the treatment of African-American troops, superbly trained to lead the drive through the breech but relegated to the reserves by prejudice. Reilly’s fictional perspective is gained by hindsight, and there’s a disconcerting random switching from first to surnames, but overall, the action-filled narrative is easily followed through the planning, the battle and the inquiries that followed.
Well-researched and entertaining.Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-312-60710-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
When you’re done binge-watching The Crown, pick up this multifaceted wartime thriller.
During German bombing raids on London during World War II, the young princesses Elizabeth and Margaret are secreted away to Ireland for protection.
Clonmillis Hall has seen better days. A large estate in rural Ireland belonging to the Duke of Edenmore, Clonmillis, by virtue of Ireland’s neutrality in the war, feels a world away from the bombs raining down on England. But during a secret meeting in Dublin, arrangements are made: King George’s two young daughters need to be kept safe during the Blitz, and remote Ireland seems the perfect place. The result is a series of domestic and professional frictions of nationality, class, religion, and gender. There is Dick Lascelles, the louche, charismatic diplomat in charge of the arrangements. Detective Garda Strafford, whose Anglo-Irish background sets him somewhat apart from his countrymen, oversees the estate’s security. Special Agent Celia Nashe, posing as a governess, is caught between her professional duties and being a surrogate caretaker to the serious elder princess, code-named “Ellen,” and the fiery younger girl, “Mary.” There is the irascible Duke and his household staff, who have varying levels of knowledge of the plot, and then there are those outside the estate who would seek to undermine the safety of everyone on it. Black (the pen name of Booker Prize–winning novelist John Banville) continues his storied career in the same vein as his most recent novel, Wolf on a String (2017), a historical mystery set in Prague, though his return here to his native Ireland is a welcome one. As ever, Black’s gifts of rich description and deft characterization are on display, and if the first half of the novel is more leisurely than a typical political thriller, its second half positively gallops.
When you’re done binge-watching The Crown, pick up this multifaceted wartime thriller.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-13301-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2019
A vivid setting and a devious, deadly plot, though the first is a bit overdone and the second contains a few...
In 1956, a pair of college roommates meets again in Tangier, with terrifying results.
“At first, I had told myself that Tangier wouldn’t be so terrible,” says Alice Shipley, a young wife dragged there by her unpleasant husband, John McAllister, who has married her for her money. He vanishes every day into the city, which he adores, while Alice is afraid to go out at all, having once gotten lost in the flea market. Then Lucy Mason, her one-time best friend and roommate at Bennington College, shows up unannounced on her doorstep. “I had never, not once in the many moments that had occurred between the Green Mountains of Vermont and the dusty alleyways of Morocco, expected to see her again.” Alice and Lucy did not part on good terms; there are repeated references to a horrible accident which will remain mysterious for some time. What is clear is that Lucy is romantically obsessed with Alice and that Alice is afraid of her. In chapters that alternate between the two women’s points of view, the past and the present unfold. The two young women bonded quickly at Bennington: though Alice is a wealthy, delicate Brit and Lucy a rough-edged local on scholarship, both are orphans. Or at least Lucy says she is—from the start, there are inconsistencies in her story that put Alice in doubt. And while Alice is so frightened of Tangier that she can’t leave the house, Lucy feels right at home: she finds the maze of souks electrifying, and she quickly learns to enjoy the local custom of drinking scalding hot mint tea in the heat. She makes a friend, a shady local named Joseph, and immediately begins lying to him, introducing herself as Alice Shipley. Something evil this way comes, for sure. Mangan’s debut pays homage to The Talented Mr. Ripley and to the work of Daphne du Maurier and Shirley Jackson.
A vivid setting and a devious, deadly plot, though the first is a bit overdone and the second contains a few head-scratchers, including the evil-lesbian trope. Film rights have already been sold; it will make a good movie.Pub Date: March 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-268666-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
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