With this second volume of the trilogy, Ehrhardt continues her masterful exploration of modern human relationships. When I read the series opener, I wWith this second volume of the trilogy, Ehrhardt continues her masterful exploration of modern human relationships. When I read the series opener, I went into it rather dubiously, without very high expectations. It proceeded to earn five stars, handily. (My review of that one is here: /review/show... .) Going into this novel, it presented the opposite challenge: the expectations set by the first one were so high, I wasn't sure this reading experience would measure up. But I needn't have worried! This installment displays no slackening of the author's craftsmanship and storytelling skill. And unlike some middle books of trilogies that merely tread water while waiting for the denouement, this one advances the story arc in very significant ways.
My general comments about the style, quality and ethos of the first book apply with equal force to this one. And it follows the same main characters, unfolding more of the same tightly-knit plot; this is a trilogy that forms one story arc, rather than three episodic adventures. (So this book can't be read independently of the first, or used as the starting point for the trilogy; this is a series which has to be read in order, or you lose valuable comprehension of the characters and their situation.) That plot plays out against the backdrop of high-profile movie making; and the dynamics and procedures of a movie set, and the world of the actors and actresses, directors and producers, and the assorted (and often sleazy and self-serving) agents, critics, reporters/paparazzi and other hangers-on who orbit them has a strongly realistic feel. This is also true of the depiction of the literary world of highly successful authors and their agents --though, because of Kary's reclusive lifestyle (imposed by her CFS, or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome), we're not in that world as much. But the treatment isn't a superficial vicarious wallowing in the glitz and glamour of the milieu. Rather, it's a serious exploration of the (romantic, familial, friendly, etc.) relationships, challenges and moral choices of believable, flesh-and-blood characters whom the author makes very real to us.
We get even better acquainted with all three of our viewpoint characters here. The realism with which Kary is depicted probably owes a great deal to what I strongly suspect is a considerable infusion of Ehrhardt's own personality into the heroine. Both ladies are serious writers, empty nesters who've raised their kids (though at ca. 50-51, Kary's younger than the author), practicing Roman Catholics with a vocational background in the sciences --medicine in Kary's case and physics in the author's-- and suffer from CFS. But Andrew and Bianca, both of whom are profoundly different from Kary and from each other, are also developed so well they could walk off the page. All three have strengths and weaknesses, good points and flaws. (Self-centered, 24-karat sociopath Bianca, who could fairly be called our villain here, is the most flawed and least endowed with any positive qualities; but she does have a lot of discipline and a work ethic, albeit employed for self-glorifying purposes.) Geographical settings on three continents are developed well, and the author makes good use of chapter epigraphs and snippets from Kary's writing or bits from Andrew and Bianca's films for artistic purposes.
Five years elapsed between my reading of the two books. (They were published seven years apart.) In the interval, I'd forgotten the names and relationships of some of the secondary characters, so it took me a bit of time to get up to speed; but that was my problem (and a minor one), not the book's. As in the first book, Kary's sometimes seemingly off-sides dialogue (which sometimes confuses Andrew, and her friend Zoe, as well as this reader!) can be a challenge, and there were times with other people's dialogue where I felt I was missing something; but that's also a minor quibble. A slightly bigger one is the fact that when Kary does ethical reasoning, she comes to the right choices, but despite her Catholic faith, seems to do so solely on the basis of her own wants and perceptions, never with reference to Biblical commands or Christian moral tradition. But that's a realistic, though sad, commentary on modern "Christendom;" most church-going Catholics and Protestants today do make their day-to-day ethical decisions totally without reference to faith. :-( (And in her climactic moral decision at the book's end, where she actually does look to church teaching, IMO she comes down on solid theological ground, though that will be controversial for some readers.) Again, the content of the book is relatively free of issues; there's no really explicit sex (one scene comes close, with artistic reason, but stops short of being more explicit than it has to be), and bad language is restrained. (This volume does have a few more f-words than the first one, but they're all concentrated in two places.)
At 529 pages, this is a thick, meaty book that demands even more time commitment than the first book. But it's time that's well invested! Regardless of the fact that it doesn't come from Big Publishing and isn't touted by the critical clerisy, this series is a literary achievement of the first rank, and deserves to be reckoned as a significant work of 21st-century American fiction.
Note: This wasn't a review copy, but the author (who's a Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ friend) did donate a copy to the Bluefield Univ. library, where I work....more
Irish writer James Stephens (d. 1950), a contemporary and friend of James Joyce, was a staunch Irish nationalist who had an abiding interest in the riIrish writer James Stephens (d. 1950), a contemporary and friend of James Joyce, was a staunch Irish nationalist who had an abiding interest in the rich folklore of his native land. A successful author of original novels and poetry, he was also known for his many retellings in English of ancient and medieval Irish legends (he could both read and write the original Gaelic), ten of which are included in this short collection, first published in 1920. Most of the tales here originally go back to the period before the Christianization of Ireland (which took place in the 5th century A.D., mostly through the missionary activity of St. Patrick), but a few, at least in the form they have here, reflect the times just after that.
My interest in folklore is long-standing, but I'm more of a dabbler than a systematic student, let alone an expert. Back in my community college days, I read extensively in a book on Irish legends (though not the whole book), the author/title of which I don't remember, and I could recognize some names and references that appear here as well; but most of the material here was new to me. Stephens' intent here, of course, is not scholarly; rather, it's to retell the tales in written form in a way that's essentially faithful to the original(s), so that ordinary modern readers can experience and enjoy them simply as stories, in their own right. (The closest parallel I can think of is The Heroes of Asgard: Tales from Scandinavian Mythology by Annie and Eliza Keary, though the Keary sisters were writing for younger readers and Stephens for adults.) IMO, he succeeds in that. These selections have their surreal elements, some more so than others; but the surrealism doesn't totally overwhelm the plots as it does in the early parts of The Mabinogion, and the behavior of the characters is more realistically consistent.
Our first tale, and the most surreal, is "The Story of Tuan mac Cairill," as told by the title character, who supposedly was a miraculously long-lived grandson of Noah who for centuries lived in the form of various animals, recounting the history of Ireland as he experienced it to one Abbot Finnian, in the early days of Irish Christianity, after Tuan's own conversion. (According to the very short Introduction to this edition, which is mostly a brief summary of Stephens' life, this legend is first attested in the 11th century; but I would surmise the oral tradition to be much older.) Most of the stories tell of events in the life of the pre-Christian warrior Fionn [pronounced as "Foon"] mac Uail (spelled as Finn mac Cuail in the other book I mentioned above), starting with his boyhood. (One of his fellow warriors is named Conan; that was probably where Robert E. Howard got the name, though his source was probably Bulfinch's Mythology.) "Becuma of the White Skin" focuses on the pre-Christian High King Conn and especially his son Art (also familiar names from the other book); the last story, "Mongan's Frenzy," is also supposedly told to an abbot, but recalls pre-Christian events said to take place some twelve generations earlier.
It's difficult to tell exactly how closely Stephens follows his sources, and he doesn't document them. But he appears to have had a genuine (and patriotic) interest in the authentic folkloric tradition, and a sincere concern for preserving the substance of the material. That argues for a pretty faithful rendition; and wherever I could relate elements of the tales to glimpses of the lore that I've gotten from other Celtic folklore-inspired fiction, my general knowledge of social and cultural conditions in ancient and Dark Ages Ireland (and elsewhere in Europe) as a history major, and what points of contact there are with my other admittedly scanty reading in medieval literature and folklore theory, Stephens' telling seems consistent. The picture of a warlike society, a country divided into petty kingdoms that owe a loose loyalty to the suzerainty of the High King at Tara, the high view of warrior camaraderie and personal honor and word-keeping, the view of wives as chattels mainly valued for their looks (but also of women as, sometimes, fierce warriors) reflects the realities of that period. Faery (the Celtic Otherworld) and its denizens also bulk large in these stories, as they do in other sources I'm aware of. Stephens' literary style here contains a vein of pithy wisdom, often lyric descriptions of the natural world, quaint turns of phrase and folk humor that probably also derives directly from the Gaelic originals.
Obviously, much of this material is fictional. How much of it is pure imaginative storytelling like the Jack Tales, how much of it the oral storytellers believed to be true (and how they came to think that), and how much if any of it actually reflects some basis in historical reality, would be vexed and subjective questions. I personally believe that Conn, Art, and Fionn at least were probably actual persons (St. Patrick believed that Fionn was, according to an appended quote from his writings), though their exploits as recounted here are clearly wildly embroidered, and that Ireland probably actually did experience varied waves of immigration from the mainland over the long centuries of its prehistory, with later comers like the Celts probably inclined to interpret earlier ones as magical beings. But that's speculative; and it's not a necessary type of speculation to enjoy the tales for what they're worth. If you have an interest in this type of material (the fountainhead from which the modern literary genre of fantasy springs!), you'll probably find this a solidly worthwhile read....more
In this book, first novelist Isabel Canas has produced an accomplished work of considerable power, in the best tradition of Gothic fiction. It's set iIn this book, first novelist Isabel Canas has produced an accomplished work of considerable power, in the best tradition of Gothic fiction. It's set in her native Mexico, mostly in the titular hacienda near the fictional village of Apan. (What part of Mexico this is supposed to be isn't really stated, or at least not that I picked up on, just that it's quite a ways south of Mexico City.) The main story takes place in the roughly nine or so weeks between September and November, 1823, with some flashbacks to earlier parts of the year, and flashbacks and recollections of events in prior years, mostly recent. So besides being (very effective) supernatural fiction, it also occupies historical fiction territory, and Canas handles that aspect equally well. The lingering legacy of the long centuries of Spanish rule, with its creation of the hierarchical, racist casta system and what amounted to feudalism in the rural areas, the ravages of the 11-years-long (1810-1821) war for independence, and the instability of the new nation are all vividly reflected. (My only previous experience with fiction set in Mexico was my read last year of Mexican Gothic, so the setting had considerable freshness for me.)
Our heroine is 20-year-old Beatriz Solorzano, newly married, after a brief courtship, to the master of Hacienda San Isidro, Don Rudolfo. It's a loveless marriage, to a widower eight years her senior; but she felt she had no other option. Her father was an army general in the recent war, and a member of the cabinet in the new government, that of Emperor Agustin I; but he was a mestizo (that is, of mixed Spanish-Native American ancestry), and her mother's crillo family, of unmixed Spanish descent, virtually disowned her when she married him for love. When he was murdered in the 1823 coup that created the new Republic, Beatriz and her mother were left destitute, and dependent on the grudging charity of relatives who despised them. Sexist social conventions meant that Beatriz couldn't work to provide her mom with a home of their own. So when crillo army officer Rudolfo (a protege' of one of the Republic's founders), in the market for a new wife and physically attracted by her beauty, proposed to her, she grabbed at the chance, even though she barely knew him.
Before long, though, she's made acutely aware that the great house on the hacienda (a plantation that grows, by the labor of its Indian peons who are more or less bound to the soil, maguey, a field crop from which the profitable, beer-like beverage pulque is produced) is NOT going to be a pleasant refuge for mom. On the contrary, it's a house possessed, harboring dark secrets related to Rudolfo's first wife (whose unexplained demise is the stuff of vague rumors) and rife with paranormal phenomena, such as preternatural, bone-numbing cold, hallucinations/apparitions, seeming voices barely heard, doors slamming by themselves, and icy hands touching and shoving Beatriz in the dark. (Rudolfo's brusque, hard-drinking sister Juana lives on the grounds, but won't sleep in the house.) With Rudolfo back in the capital as the country gears up for its first-ever presidential election, birthright "Catholic" Beatriz, with little personal faith but a desperate need for help and a vague, half-superstitious hope that maybe the Church can provide it, turns to the local priests to plead with them to perform an exorcism on the house.
The one priest who's sympathetic to her problem --and who happens to be uniquely attuned psychically to the fact that yes, there really IS something seriously wrong with that house-- is young Padre Andres, not much older than Beatriz, and the only mestizo priest in the parish. He's of local birth, with family ties to San Isidro going back to long before the Solorzanos owned it (and they've been there for seven generations). And although he's seminary trained and takes his Catholic faith and priestly calling seriously, he has other sides to his religious heritage. His now-dead grandmother was a "witch," a practitioner of both herbal medicine (not all of it of an innocent type) and folk magic mixed with Native American religious traditions, albeit traditions influenced by three centuries of contact and partial assimilation with folk Catholicism. She recognized in him an aptitude for this type of power, and trained him thoroughly in it. (And then there's the tradition of European, Satanist-style black magic on his low-class crillo father's side of the family, along with the hand-written grimoire his aunt left him....)
Canas crafts a perfectly paced, page-turning tale of supernatural menace, the dark natural secrets of a very corrupt family with a lot to hide, and the oppressive realities of a profoundly unjust social order. Her English prose style (she writes in English) is smooth and fluid, and she handles both female and male first-person narrative voices convincingly. (Beatriz and Andres alternate as narrators, though she narrates more than he does.) Integration (without info-dumps!) of Native-American magical and spiritual traditions into the story-line is one of its strengths. But I didn't feel that the author's message was anti-Christian; though I don't know what her religious beliefs (if any) are, I felt like the ultimate messaging took Christianity seriously and integrated the various aspects of Andres' heritage well. The "Author's Note" testifies to her extensive research into Mexican history and folk beliefs; it also speaks of this novel as a "homage to Shirley Jackson and Daphne du Maurier." Some reviewers have compared this novel to Rebecca; it has some similar plot elements, but not having read the latter, I can't speak to more than that. (It's also been compared to Mexican Gothic, but though they share a Mexican setting --albeit 127 years apart!-- and Gothic elements, and are both great reads, the differences are greater than the similarities.) There is a similar atmosphere bonding this house to the one in The Haunting of Hill House; and I also detected thematic echoes of aspects of Manly Wade Wellman's Silver John corpus, and of Tanith Lee's "Red as Blood." Although I didn't always agree with some things the two main characters did, I always understood why they did them, and liked both as persons.
Note: I read this as a buddy read in one of my Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ groups. That discussion is here: /topic/show/... , and may provide additional insights, if readers are interested!...more
Whether they're observant or not, most members of the worldwide Jewish community are familiar with the holiday Purim, commemorating the 5th-century B.Whether they're observant or not, most members of the worldwide Jewish community are familiar with the holiday Purim, commemorating the 5th-century B.C. deliverance, as a result of the courageous intervention by Queen Esther, of the Persian Empire's Jewish population from a genocide planned by the king's vizier, Haman. The historical background of this is recounted in the Old Testament book of Esther, written by an anonymous author probably not long after the events, so is also familiar to Christians versed in the Bible. First published in 1950, this novella by British historical fiction writer Norah Lofts is a fictionalized re-telling of the key parts of the Biblical story. Since in the light of ancient practices, we can infer that Esther was, at the time, in her teens --this was her first (and as far as we know, only) marriage, and she hadn't been married very long-- the author and publisher marketed the book to teens. However, there's nothing inherently "kiddish" about the storyline or treatment here; it can appeal to historical genre fans of any age.
At just 141 pages of actual text, this is a relatively quick read. It's not, however, a superficial one. On the contrary, it has a considerable degree of psychological depth. While the sequence of outward historical events is often reasonably well-documented, it's often difficult or impossible for a nonfiction historian to attempt to reconstruct the inner psychology and character of the people involved. This is where the fictional, interpretive element of historical fiction comes in, with its imaginative reconstruction of behind-the-scenes conversations and ability to get inside the character's heads. As she does in Crown of Aloes, Lofts (who's a longstanding favorite author of mine) excels at this kind of thing. All five main characters are very well developed, and she fleshes out the events of the biblical story in such a way that the underlying psychology is entirely understandable and realistic at every stage. The treatment of the biblical material here, like that in How Far to Bethlehem?, is respectful; Christian and Jewish readers will find the novel faith-friendly. (While far from ascetic, and not wearing her faith on her sleeve, Lofts herself was an Anglican Christian who took the spiritual side of life seriously.) She crafts her plot here impeccably; re-telling the whole Old Testament book would have been anti-climactic, but she quits here on the perfect ending.
Nits, of course, can be picked here with regard to historical accuracy. Lofts was a secondary school history teacher before becoming a writer; but her knowledge of history was primarily of European (and especially British) history, not that of the ancient Near East, and she normally wrote about the former, not the latter. That shows here. Her most glaring error is confusing Esther's actual husband, Xerxes (that name is Greek; he's called by his Persian name, Ahasuerus, in the Bible) with his son and successor, Artaxerxes I, whose name is consistently used here. She assumes that the Jews were still forbidden to return to Judea at this time, but the Babylonian Captivity had ended with the decree of the first Persian king, Cyrus, in the preceding century; Jews still living in the eastern parts of the empire did so from choice. Given the sexism of that day, it's unlikely that Esther would have been taught to read; and "Jehovah" is not a real divine name that Jews in any era ever used (it's actually a mistranslation of "Yahweh" that first appeared in the early English-language Bibles). Other quibbles could be listed, but these can suffice for review purposes.
However, none of these inaccuracies kept me from really enjoying the book. Accuracy is obviously a plus in historical fiction; but it's not the only factor that can contribute to the appeal of a storyline!...more
Having read the first book in this series together, Barb and I also started this sequel together. She liked the series opener better than I did; but eHaving read the first book in this series together, Barb and I also started this sequel together. She liked the series opener better than I did; but even her interest began to flag in this one when the author switched the focus from the two main characters in his present to a lengthy info-dump about an Elder Race of long-lived and magically gifted aliens in the primeval past. These supposedly created human culture by their interventions with and selective breeding of pre-human primates, and later interbred with early humans to create the fairy-folk of Celtic legend. Neither of us were summoning much "suspension of disbelief" for this premise, and when we then have another of the protagonist's dream visions of the remote past in Chapter 4, which features a vivid description of a rape from the viewpoint of the rapist (view spoiler)[who may or may not be the protagonist; in the first book, the reader certainly gets the impression that Fitz's dream visions are of his own forgotten past (hide spoiler)], we agreed to bail on the read. So this isn't an actual review of the book, just a note to explain why it's shelved as "started, not finished." (And won't be finished!)...more
I'm just writing a short note to explain why I'm not rating or reviewing this book (not an actual review). This novel, I think, would generally be agrI'm just writing a short note to explain why I'm not rating or reviewing this book (not an actual review). This novel, I think, would generally be agreed to be "literary fiction," in the contemporary sense, whatever that term means to you. (My own definition is subjective and impressionistic, based on very few primary sources, and would certainly be dismissed by genre fans as pejorative.) C. S. Lewis once wisely commented something to the effect that you shouldn't presume to review types of literature you don't like, because your distaste for the material itself blinds you to distinctions of quality in particular examples of it. (In my case, those types of distinctions are even more hampered by near-total lack of experience with the genre as a whole, and no knowledge at all of the context of Barnes' other work.) If I'd chosen the book willingly as a read, the situation would be different; but I read it only because it was picked as a common read in one of my groups. I felt it would be unfair to the group not to read it --and I did finish it-- but the same sense of fairness to the author makes me feel that to attempt a review and rating would be gratuitous, unjustified, and not well founded....more
Full disclosure at the outset: I accepted an ARC of this book in electronic format from the author, who's a Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ friend. There was no guarantee mFull disclosure at the outset: I accepted an ARC of this book in electronic format from the author, who's a Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ friend. There was no guarantee my review would be favorable, but he knew I'd liked a number of his earlier books.
Like another of Shane's novels, Milltown, this one has some content that involves illegal activity. But I've classified both books as general, rather than crime, fiction. Most of the characters are everyday people with ordinary lives, not professional criminals or detectives, and the focus of the plot is on normal human interactions, relationships and moral decisions.
Our setting is the author's adopted country of Canada –mostly in and around Toronto, and with some key scenes in coastal British Columbia. The story takes place in 2011, the year of a pivotal national election in Canada (which is reflected in the book). 60-something protagonist Avery Mann is a widower who lost his wife to cancer, a former marketing executive who's now “retired� because the pharmaceutical company for which he formerly worked for some 30 years essentially threw him in the trash. He's basically having what, if he were ten years younger, would be called a mid-life crisis; his son and daughter-in-law are careening into an acrimonious divorce, which is leaving Avery's 10-year-old grandson neglected and miserable; his neighbor is gearing up for a run for Canada's Parliament, a quest in which he's already been defeated twice. And all is not well at Avery's former employer, Sand Pharmaceuticals.
If someone were to ask, “what is this novel about?� one answer would be that it's “about� the dark side of Big (or, in this case, mid-sized –but the principles are the same) Pharma, with its temptation to cut corners to maximize profits, even though the consequences may be payable in human lives. Another might be that it's about political corruption, focused on the Canadian context, but applicable to every country in which some people seek political power for their own selfish ends. Some might say that it's about the lost soul of modern Big Business in general, where nothing matters but money and ethics long since was tossed out the window. Others could point to family relations, functional and dysfunctional, spouse to spouse and parent to child; to gender relations in general in a toxic culture practically berift of moral guidance; and even the plight of today's kids, having to raise themselves with the Internet for a babysitter. All of these would be correct. But most fundamentally, it's “about� what truly matters in human life and how we should treat each other; which is to say, it's a quintessentially moral novel, as the greatest fiction in the Western tradition has always been.
While it's not conceived in Christian terms, in a very real way it's a celebration of the abiding worth of some of what T. S. Eliot called the “permanent things� --family, community, integrity. It depicts very clearly the toxic reality of present-day culture (not just in Canada, but the West generally) with its aggressively promoted group-think conviction that the precept of, as one character puts it, “Me first, and [obscenity deleted] the rest of the world� represents the incontrovertible wisdom of the universe; but the author clearly begs to differ, and what's more, he unabashedly wants his readers to differ, too. As is his wont, he leads us to that conclusion not so much by sermonizing as by creating realistic, nuanced characters, and building around them a well-constructed and involving plot which shows (rather than simply tells) us what different kinds of human moral choices take us to. This is a novel that takes social issues seriously, but which also concerns itself with how we treat each other in our face-to-face daily private relationships, and realizes that healthy attitudes and actions in relation to the former grow directly out of healthy attitudes and actions in the latter. There's no rose-colored view of the universe here; we see some of human nature at its worst, and even our viewpoint character has his flaws and lapses. But he's capable of critiquing his own behavior; and rather than taking a jaundiced totally pessimistic view of human moral possibilities and calling it “realism,� Shane's realistic enough to recognize that humans do have the potential to change and grow.
We don't have any very explicit sex here; the one sex scene is more summarized than graphically narrated. But there is sexual content; some male characters' predatory and disrespectful attitudes towards women would justify a punch in the face, and even sympathetic characters may be relatively clueless about the essential relationship between sex and marriage, even after having had the benefit of experiencing happy marriage. The book also has some language issues, with occasional f-words (at times from Avery) and religious profanity, which can be wince-worthy. However, not all of the characters speak like this, and I didn't feel as though the author were trying to promote or 'mainstream� it. It's also important to realize that the book has a Canadian setting; and being himself a resident of Canada for many years, Shane has a better ear for what's realistic in specifically modern Canadian speech than I do (my contact with Canadians over my lifetime has been greater than some people's, but hardly extensive). But an author should not be faulted for depicting characters who realistically reflect in some ways the culture he's describing, and the overall moral tendency of the novel is positive.
To a certain degree, parts of the book presuppose more knowledge of both the pharmaceutical industry and the world of high finance (in which Avery's son works,for an investment firm) than I have, and I'm probably not alone in this. Generic drugs seem to be cast in a negative light here, although my own understanding of them is positive; to my best knowledge (which may be incorrect), they're simply the same drugs as brand-name versions, but much cheaper because they don't have to pay for the advertising budgets of the versions with high brand recognition. (My view is colored by the fact that I'm on a life-time regimen of a generic version –which is mentioned in the book!-- of the brand-name cholesterol reducer Lipitor, and would probably not be able to afford the latter.) Avery's son works in setting up IPOs (“initial public offerings� of stock in previous “private� companies where the stock has only been available to a few insiders; I Googled the term), and this is also viewed rather negatively, as a prelude to corporate abuses. I'm not sure why. Shane has clearly done diligent research in these areas, and commendably refrained from doing info-dumps of every bit of the knowledge he acquired; but doling out a bit more of it in controlled doses might have benefited readers such as myself. The political sub-plot depicts a Manichean conflict of a good "Centrist" candidate vs. a "Right Wing" incumbent who's not simply mistaken in his policy preferences, but darkly evil, and there's a strong implication that the clear and unambiguous good vs. evil dichotomy runs between both parties as a whole. In a U.S. context, that kind of heroes vs. villains dichotomy between the two Establishment parties would have no relationship to reality (and the widespread certainty that it does is part of our political problem!), and I'm dubious about whether it does in Canada either. (Though in fairness, with the 2011 nation-wide robo-call scandal, --see 2011 Canadian federal election voter suppression scandal - Wikipedia -- which I'd never heard about before this read, some elements of the Conservative party were certainly displaying their “anything goes� mentality with a flagrance their opponents didn't come close to matching!)
These quibbles don't keep me from greatly liking the book, however! It's a strong addition to the author's already distinguished corpus, and reaches a particularly gripping, page-turning intensity in the last part....more
Loading...
