The Historical Novels Review: Editors' Choice Titles for Feb 2010

THOUGH WATERS ROAR
Lynn Austin, Bethany House, 2009, $13.99, pb, 430pp, 9780764204968
    Once again, Lynn Austin has created an intense, thought-provoking and thoroughly satisfying historical Christian fiction tale. The story spans the life of four generations of women, each struggling with society and marriage, but ultimately fighting for justice and a better life. It begins in 1920 in Roseton, Pennsylvania, as twenty-year-old Harriet Sherwood sits in jail for transporting bootleg liquor.
    As Harriet contemplates her current predicament, she confesses her feelings of inadequacy – she comes from a long line of heroines, but somehow ends up in jail for something she does not even believe in. Harriet tells the story of her great-grandmother, Hannah, who participated in the Underground Railroad; her Grandma Bebe who fought for Prohibition; and her mother, Lucy, a suffragist who fought for women’s right to vote. As Harriet reminisces about the irony of her current state, her story unfolds through her recollection of her family’s history.
    As always, Austin’s characters are flawed, realistic, and completely lovable. Harriet’s narration was riveting, and I anxiously turned the pages to find out what happened next. The flashbacks kept each of the women’s stories alive through the pages and helped to complete Harriet’s own tale. The book’s powerful message of trusting in God during times of trial helps give it a particularly satisfying conclusion, when each character learns from her mistakes. With its precise historical detail, intricate storyline, and a consistent theme of faith and love, this is yet another of Austin’s masterpieces.
-- Rebecca Roberts

THE POSTMISTRESS
Sarah Blake, Putnam/Amy Einhorn, 2009, $25.95/C$32.50, hb, 336pp, 9780399156199 / Viking, May 2010, £12.99, hb, 336pp, 9780670918683
    This atmospheric novel follows the intersecting lives of three American women during 1940 and 1941. Iris James is the postmaster (she doesn’t believe in the term postmistress) of Franklin, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod. Emma Trask is a new arrival in town: she has just married Franklin’s doctor. And Frankie Bard is in London, broadcasting about the Blitz with Edward R. Murrow.
    Iris takes very seriously her role as the government representative who acts as a conduit in making sure that people receive their mail. Emma, who has no one else in the world, is delighted to be cherished by her new husband. And Frankie, despite the terrifying conditions, is energized by being able to observe and report on the fortitude of Londoners. But things soon start to unravel. Emma’s husband’s life changes course after a tragedy with a patient, and Iris breaks her code of ethics by failing to deliver a letter. Frankie heads off to the Continent to witness and to record the voices of those who have been dispossessed, those who find their very lives at risk. Frankie’s broadcasts both intrigue and repel Iris and Emma, and then Frankie appears in person in Franklin to deliver devastating news.
    The author successfully paints a portrait of small town America; many don’t want to acknowledge that what is happening in Europe may soon affect them, despite their paranoia about their supposed enemies. A few realize what is coming but make little headway in convincing others. The scenes set in London vividly mix the people’s determination with tragedy. Across the Channel, the desperation of the Jews that Frankie interviews is palpable. The plot presents a time often written about in a fresh and most engaging manner. Highly recommended. -- Trudi E. Jacobson

THE BOOK OF FIRES
Jane Borodale, Pamela Dorman/Viking, 2010, $26.95, hb, 368pp, 9780670021062 / HarperPress, 2009, £14.99, hb, 400pp, 9780007305728
    Jane Borodale’s stunning debut novel begins with that classic element of suspense, a countdown to an explosion—not so much of the pyrotechnics that fascinate and draw together the two main characters, but the birth of a bastard child. Agnes Trussel’s Sussex family ekes out a living in tough times. Rather than confess her shameful pregnancy, she runs away to London with a cache of stolen coins. Along the way she meets a helpful stranger, but by her own efforts she finds employment in the household of John Blacklock, maker of fireworks—not merely as a servant, but as his assistant.
    For a variety of reasons Agnes walks in guilt. She lives with constant fear that her theft and her pregnancy will be discovered. She must conceal both from Blacklock’s other servants as well as from neighborhood merchants and strives to hide the truth of her past—even her family’s existence. The slightest mistake while filling the containers could result in destruction and instant death. Her hands may be deft, but her mind is uneasy. All the while she grows expert in her master’s most dangerous trade, and more hopeful of helping him produce rockets capable of colored fire.
    Agnes is the plaything of fate, alternately enjoying good luck and bad as her swelling belly threatens both her livelihood and her life. The climactic scenes do not disappoint.
    Through Agnes the author thrusts her readers into 1750s London, with atmospheric descriptions, impeccable dialogue, and gripping uncertainties. An exceptionally well-crafted novel, beautifully written. -- Margaret Barr

THE JEWEL BOX
Anna Davis, Black Swan, 2009, £7.99, pb, 413pp, 9780552773393 / Pocket, 2009, $15.00, pb, 384pp, 9781416537366
    Grace Rutherford is a pioneer. By day she is the first female copywriter at a stuffy advertising agency. By night, she is Diamond Sharp, gossip columnist, arbiter of fashion and good taste and all round flapper.
    Soon, she finds herself having to choose between two very different men – American playboy novelist, Dexter O’Connell, who has never quite recovered his form since his scandalous first novel, and the quiet, intense John Cramer, whose past is inextricably linked with O’Connell’s and whose future might lie with Grace’s younger sister, Nancy, a widow with two small children.
    It is a stroke of genius on Davis’s part to reinvent chick-lit for the London of the 1920s. The hedonistic era is perfect for the more daring or frivolous aspects of the genre but, like all the best chick-lit, this is a book with dark undercurrents beneath its glittering surface.
    The Great War is still within living memory and continues to haunt the central characters. Grace might appear to have a party lifestyle, but she is working so hard in order to support her family as well as trying to assuage the guilt she feels at the secret injury she has inflicted on her beloved sister. Like the book itself, she is far deeper than might appear from an initial glance.
    The novel is cleverly plotted, the characters satisfyingly complex and only one phrase, ‘does what it says on the tin’ is far too modern for the period in which the story is set. In short, I loved it. -- Jasmina Svenne

DAY AFTER NIGHT
Anita Diamant, Scribner, 2009, $27.00/C$32.00, hb, 294pp, 9780743299848 / Simon & Schuster, 2009, £12.99, pb, 304pp, 9781847377074
    Welcome to Atlit. Meet Tedi, from Holland, who lost her sense of smell during the war, but who has regained it with a vengeance. Meet Zorah, from Poland, though she would probably rather not meet you. And Shayndel, also from Poland, a natural leader and very brave. And there is Leonie, a French beauty, who is great friends with Shayndel. All have managed to get to Palestine after the war. All are Jewish, and their experiences during the war are better left unstated for now, though you will read about them in Day After Night. But these young women are unable to start new lives yet in Palestine, for Atlit is an internment camp. Tedi and Zorah and Shayndel and Leonie are not free to leave it, as they do not have sponsors. So they wait, struggling to learn Hebrew, trying to envision communal life on a kibbutz, and slowly opening up to those around them.
    Anita Diamant’s compelling new novel introduces us to these and many other memorable characters, all of whom have gripping tales. The tensions between the survivors of the Holocaust who are trying to rebuild their shattered lives and the British who are strictly controlling those who can freely enter the country are made vividly clear. The Palmach, the unofficial Jewish fighting unit, is active on behalf of new arrivals, coming into conflict with the British.
    I was truly sorry to see this book end. I wanted to spend much more time with all these brave women about whom I had come to care so much. As the author brings us up to date on their lives, it came as a shock to realize that I wouldn’t be able to eavesdrop on their experiences post-Atlit, that their lives have already been lived. This caused a profound regret. Ms. Diamant, might you not go back and fill in some of the blanks? -- Trudi E. Jacobson

THE TEMPLAR MAGICIAN
Paul Doherty, Headline, 2009, £19.99, hb, 299pp, 9780755354542
The Templar Magician is an action-packed historical adventure set in 1152 during the civil war between King Stephen and Matilda’s son Henry Fitzempress, later to become Henry II. The fifty-year-old Templar Order is a wealthy power, glittering with riches. Jerusalem is controlled by the Crusaders, although, five decades after the first Crusade, idealism is replaced by subtle power-play. Against this background, Edmund de Payens, Crusader and Templar, is caught up in murderous intrigue after the brutal assassination of Raymond, Count of Tripoli. Edmund and Philip Mayele, as envoys for the Templars, are sent to negotiate with The Assassins, a sect believed responsible for the murder. It appears, however, that this assassination may be connected to a rogue coven within the Templar Order itself. The narrative now becomes a thrilling pursuit that moves from the Crusading kingdoms to England. Here terrifying mysteries are revealed and a dark plot which surrounds the English court during the turbulent 12th century is exposed.
This excellent novel is to be commended in particular for its character development. The mystery will keep the reader guessing to the final chapter because the story is inhabited by complex characters and no one is who they appear to be. Paul Doherty is also to be praised for his period authenticity. 12th-century London is resurrected through gritty sensual descriptions of streets, inns, wharves, monasteries and palaces. Details of the people who inhabit London create a vibrant world. People throng these streets and alleyways, ‘beggars, drunks, the importunate apprenticeships with their mantles lined with dormouse fur’. Enemies lurk amongst the shadows. Equally well realised, atmospherically depicted desolate country manors, priories and abbeys haunt Doherty’s pages. Scenes set in the Crusading lands are also authentically created to reveal colour, cruelty and the darkly exotic. Finally, this novel shows Paul Doherty as a storyteller who weaves a fast moving tale of intrigue; one which speculates but also posits a horrible and possible truth.
-- Carol McGrath

THE ENDLESS FOREST
Sara Donati, Delacorte, 2010, hb, $27.00/C$33.00, hb, 640pp, 9780553805260
    With The Endless Forest, Sara Donati’s sweeping saga of the Bonner family comes to a close, and what a magnificent ending it is! The story that began in Paradise, New York with Into the Wilderness comes full circle as Nathaniel and Elizabeth’s children return to their mountain home in 1824 to raise their families and face the past and the future. This final book in the series settles old scores and ties up loose threads while giving us fevered action and romance in the bargain.
    Opening with a springtime flood that manages to devastate Paradise both physically and spiritually, The Endless Forest brings daughter Lily home in hopes of beginning her own family. Her twin Daniel, still affected by his disabling accident years earlier, keeps to himself until the arrival of young Martha Kirby sparks a reawakening. When town nemesis (and Martha’s mother) Jemima Kuick returns, old wounds resurface that force the hand of not just Daniel and Martha, but also other Bonners and townspeople. Jemima’s still out for blood, and the family must draw together in order to keep what’s rightfully theirs.
    All the characters we’ve grown to know and love are present: Nathaniel and Elizabeth, now grandparents, are still lovingly guiding their families; Hannah, Luke, and Gabriel are raising children along with their spouses; and Curiosity is still dispensing advice. Most delightful is the presence of Birdie, youngest child of Nathaniel and Elizabeth, who manages to insert herself in the thick of things and always has an opinion to share.
    Donati supplies us with an epilogue that lets us know what happens next in the lives of the Bonner clan. I will miss these stories, and yet I find that Donati has given this saga a most gratifying finale. Highly recommended.
-- Tamela McCann

THE LAKE WOMAN
Alan Gould, Arcadia, 2009, AU$29.95, pb, 296pp, 9781921509346
Alec Dearborn, a thoroughly likeable Australian soldier in the British paratroopers, takes part in the Allied invasion of France. On the eve of the D-Day offensive, he crosses the Channel prepared to fight but still unsure of how he will acquit himself, having developed no personal animosity towards the enemy. When his aircraft is shot down over Normandy, he manages to break free, landing in a lake, and is rescued by an enigmatic French woman. After being revived and hidden, he sets out to join his troops but is unable to erase the impression Mamzelle leaves in his mind. His search, and its eventual conclusion, makes a poignant, mystical and yet utterly believable tale.
In this literary novel, poet Alan Gould catches the voice of the era and renders it beautifully. Every sentence is worthy of lingering reflection. The narrative starts strongly, with Dearborn plunged into a cold lake, entwined in his parachute, and struggling for breath. He paints the relationship with Mamzelle with a fine brush. Although the protagonist spends only a few hours in her presence, we understand her indelible appeal. Chapter Two is largely back-story, which interrupts the narrative flow briefly. There are also a couple of instances in which the passing of time draws unnecessary attention to itself. But these are minor considerations. The overall work is a thing of beauty, tender, heartfelt and compelling. A meditation on love and morality in a time of war, this story lingers long after its final page is turned. -- Elizabeth Jane

THE SAFFRON GATE
Linda Holeman, Headline Review, 2010, £6.99, pb, 435pp, 978075531130
This book was a delightful surprise. I do not usually review romantic fiction, but this arrived just after I had sent out a batch of books for review, so I took it on for myself. It is most definitely a love story, with a lovelorn heroine on a quest to find her missing amour. But Sidonie O’Shea is no conventional romantic heroine, innocent, beautiful but feisty. She is innocent only because she is a polio victim, the product of an isolated, over-protected childhood in a poor immigrant family in upstate New York. Feisty she is not. However, she faces a daunting task, for her lover has gone missing in Morocco and she sets out to find him there. It is 1930, and Morocco has only recently been ‘pacified’ by the French: it is exotic and dangerous.
The Saffron Gate is about love and loneliness, betrayal and redemption, and also about culture shock and assimilation, physical handicap, colonialism, and above all about Morocco, its culture and its peoples. It is worth reading just as a travel book, but read it also as a page-turning mystery story with an unusual denouement. -- Edward James

REQUIEM IN VIENNA
J. Sydney Jones, Minotaur, 2010, $24.99/C$31.99, hb, 293pp, 978031238390
    In 1899 Vienna, the director of the Court Opera, conductor-composer Gustav Mahler, appears to be the intended victim of a series of accidents: first a singer dies when the fire curtain falls on her during a rehearsal, then Mahler’s podium collapses under him. Alma Schindler, who is in love with Mahler, approaches lawyer Karl Werthen to find out who is trying to kill the composer. At first Mahler doesn’t believe the incidents are any more than accidents, but the murder—made to look like suicide—of a violinist who saw the singer killed convinces him that something much more serious is going on.
    Werthen, with the assistance of his new wife Berthe and the great criminologist Hans Gross (a real person, said to be one of Conan Doyle’s models for Sherlock Holmes), investigates the case and finds there are many people with reasons to kill Mahler. Then, when Werthen receives an anonymous letter suggesting that the supposedly natural deaths of Brahms, Bruckner, and Johann Strauss may not have been natural after all, he realizes a murderer may be plotting to kill the great composers of Vienna.
    Jones, who has lived in Vienna for twenty years, brings late 19th-century Vienna—its opera house, cafes, and food—brilliantly to life and made me feel as if I were living there. Werthen and Berthe are wonderfully sympathetic characters, and Gross, while not as immediately appealing, clearly possesses a brilliant mind. I would highly recommend this book to music lovers and anyone interested in Vienna. -- Vicki Kondelik

THE SWAN THIEVES
Elizabeth Kostova, Little, Brown, 2010, $26.99/C$32.99, hb, 576pp, 9780316065788 / Sphere, 2010, £16.99, hb, 576pp, 9781847442406
    An enchanting story and a deeply human experience. At the end of it, one feels compelled to paint, or write, sing or make music, or simply live with greater intensity. The crisis of mind—and soul—of a famous artist that begins the story leads the narrator, psychiatrist Andrew Marlow, on the reluctant hero’s journey as he unravels the haunting obsession that has caused his patient to attack a painting with a knife. Kostova deftly weaves two stories of love and art from the Impressionist era in Paris to contemporary rural Maine and New York. The larger-than-life figure of Robert Oliver, the artist-patient, looms over the narratives of the women who have loved him and the doctor who is determined to free him from the silent cage he has chosen to inhabit.
    Kostova’s writing is always good, and sometimes exquisite. Here’s a sentence describing how Andrew feels upon seeing his 90-year-old father for the first time in a few years: “When I saw him waiting for me in his good summer clothes…I felt as always both his reality and the thin air that would one day replace him.” She uses letters, narrative, dialogue, and exposition with ease. The story is weighty, and moves slowly, thoughtfully—not a book to rush through, but to savor and ponder as you read it.
    There is a little unsteadiness in the plot. The fortuitous connections seem just a touch too easy, and the last chapters almost rush to the conclusion. But these are minor issues compared to the overarching quality of the writing and the humanity of the characters. The Swan Thieves is a deeply involving story, one that will resonate for a long time after you’ve closed the book, like the sound of a very old church bell at dusk. -- Mary F. Burns

RANSOM
David Malouf, Chatto & Windus, 2009, £14.00, hb, 224pp, 9780701184155 / Pantheon, 2010, $24.00, hb, 240pp, 9780307378774
    Ransom is a diamond of a novel, tiny but flawless, prose so pared away and carefully constructed that however many times you read it, it persists in revealing new meanings and unfolding new images to the mind’s eye.
    It begins with the tragic consequences of the anger of Achilles, the deaths of Patroclus and Hector and Achilles’ desecration of Hector’s body. But fatherhood is its real subject matter. Priam mourns his son, but also reflects on his own fatherless upbringing. Achilles, who thought the war was going to be ‘over by Christmas’, misses his own son. When Priam decides he will go to intercede with Achilles for Hector’s body, he goes not as a king but as a father, plainly dressed and travelling in an ordinary mule-cart, whose driver is himself no stranger to the grief of losing a child.
    As with Homer, so with Malouf; when heroes step away from their public image and allow themselves to be mortal, miracles of empathy and reconciliation can happen, beautifully represented here by small details – the feel of water running over bare feet in the heat of the day, a shared meal, sleeping in the open air under a good blanket. These are also the things which, by contrast, warn us about the consequences of heroism and its inflexibility. Cassandra-like, Malouf spares the reader nothing in his sickening account of the inevitable slaughter of Priam by Neoptolemus.
    n his afterword, he recounts first encountering The Iliad as a boy in Brisbane during World War Two. He, like Priam and Achilles, was suspended in the middle of a war with no end in sight. I assume it is no accident that he has come back to the subject now, and I wish fiction like this was taken more seriously by politicians. This book is, quite simply, a masterpiece. -- Sarah Bower

WOLF HALL
Hilary Mantel, Henry Holt, 2009, $27.00, hb, 532pp, 9780805080681 / Fourth Estate, 2009, £18.99, hb, 560pp, 9780007230181
    The story of the courtship and marriage of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn is the stuff of legend. I could not imagine it being done again, and done with indescribable talent, until I read Hilary Mantel’s version.
    Thomas Cromwell, Putney-born and a blacksmith’s son, has the brilliance, wit and savvy of the most enlightened man of his age, exceeding even that of his rival, Sir Thomas More. Where Cromwell’s life is full of energy, love and learning, More is circumscribed by his warped religious intolerance, culminating in the torturing of heretics right under his family’s noses at Chelsea. Cromwell has seen plenty of death and loss since childhood and has carried those memories into adulthood, utterly rejecting this earlier deprivation yet hardening him to the reality of Tudor life.
    Cromwell is a pragmatic man, charming and astute. A consummate politician, he knows the follies and foibles of court politics – and how to keep his head on his shoulders while all around him are losing theirs. As Cromwell’s fortunes improve, and his political aspirations are met and exceeded, he becomes Henry’s closest ally and supporter. It is by Cromwell’s maneuverings that Henry marries and crowns his heart’s desire – Anne Boleyn. It is also Cromwell who breaks the logjam of opposition to Henry and Anne’s marriage – by defeating the power of More, Queen Katherine and Princess Mary, all of whom Mantel paints as full-blown people, not simply caricatures. Even they can’t help liking this fellow.
    The recipient of the 2009 Booker Prize, this is a remarkable book told in a unique and compelling voice. The reader experiences Cromwell on the most intensely personal level, his humor, equanimity and brilliance shining through. Mantel’s use of language is almost musical, and I found myself rereading passages just for the lyrical enjoyment of the words. An amazing journey that must be experienced. -- Ilysa Magnus

O, JULIET
Robin Maxwell, NAL, 2010, $15.00, pb, 352pp, 9780451229151
    Maxwell delivers a mesmerizing retelling of the famous star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet, in her latest novel, set in Italy at the beginning of the Renaissance. Juliet Capelletti is a headstrong, intelligent young lady who is facing an arranged marriage to Jacopo Strozzi, her father’s new business partner. She does not look forward to her match but knows that it will make her parents happy. Juliet’s entire future is forever changed one night at the engagement party of her best friend, Lucrezia, when she meets the handsome Romeo Monticecco. Romeo is at the party to seek reconciliation between his family and the Capelettis, who have been feuding and retaliating against each other for years.
    Juliet and Romeo find a chance to talk together alone under the stars, and their destiny unfolds. Both are surprised by the other’s passion for poetry and shared interest in Dante Alighieri’s Vita Nuova. After their first meeting, Juliet is determined to find a way out of her upcoming marriage to Jacopo, even though this means defying her family’s wishes for her and possibly destroying the business between her father and her betrothed.
    What unfolds is a beautiful love story between the soul mates Romeo and Juliet. Maxwell realistically portrays the torment with which Juliet is faced as she wonders what her future holds. The things I enjoyed the most about the novel were how Maxwell drew parallels between Dante and his love, Beatrice, and Romeo and Juliet, and her use of poetry and quotes from Dante throughout the novel. Readers will savor this exquisite and magical love story.
-- Troy Reed

PRINT THE LEGEND
Craig McDonald, Minotaur, 2010, $24.99, hb, 342pp, 978031255437
    Since I have never been a Hemingway fan, the plot of Print the Legend only mildly intrigued me. I was willing to be entertained, but I didn’t expect it to be one the best books I’d read in years. I may even go back and give Hemingway another try.
    Although the story begins with a Hemingway scholar wanting to prove Mary Hemingway murdered her famous husband, it quickly becomes a multi-layered plot with moving timelines. In the hands of a less skilled writer, the short bursts of text told from different points of view could easily have doomed the story, but McDonald never loses his reader.
    The book is labeled a crime novel, but that’s a terrible oversimplification. McDonald uses Hector Lassiter, an old friend of Hemingway’s, as a hero and a literary guide. Through Hector’s musings and actions, we are treated to an intimate view of Hemingway’s writings as well as his life. And as Lassiter tries to protect the woman he loves while pursing a personal enemy, he evolves into a credible romantic figure. Like many writers, McDonald has a not-so-subtle agenda in Print the Legend, but he can be forgiven, since his characters are so well drawn and he brings us along successfully until almost the very end.
    There is one thing that I did not like about the book: its menacing cover. It misrepresents what is inside. Not being familiar with the author, I would never have selected to read this book based on the cover art. This book will appeal to readers who read outside the crime genre. -- Veronika Pelka

EYE OF THE RAVEN
Eliot Pattison, Counterpoint, 2010, $26.00, hb, 400pp, 9781582435664
    In the second installment of his colonial mystery series, Edgar Award winner Pattison provides an absorbing tale firmly and effectively grounded in the history of early America. Traveling a wilderness road with his Indian comrade and mentor Conawago, Scots medic Duncan McCallum comes upon a grisly murder scene. Not only is the victim—a land surveyor—nailed to a tree, his heart has been replaced by a metal gear. Together the Scotsman and the Indian strive to solve the mystery of this and other identical murders that connect Virginia planters, a mulatto slave family seeking freedom, a French-born former Jesuit, Quakers, and Philadelphia grandees eager to expand their holdings in the Pennsylvania Territory.
    The ritual killings coincide with the negotiation of a treaty between the natives and the land companies, with representatives from Virginia and Pennsylvania competing for advantage. A false confession by a respected Iroquois chief sends McCallum on a dangerous and enlightening investigation across the disputed territory. In Indian settlements along the way, he witnesses the upheaval and devastation imposed by European encroachment. By the time he and Conawago reach Philadelphia, where the outcome of both treaty and the murder trial will be simultaneously determined, his identity as a runaway bondsman imperils his life. For in that city he encounters the aristocratic and vengeful enemy who professes to hold his indenture.
    Scientific advances in mechanics and electricity, and the ancient Indian traditions alternately aid and hamper McCallum’s quest for truth, and he meets with widely divergent methods of justice. Their divergent methods of justice are also factors. Throughout the novel Pattinson superbly builds tension and explores a period of shifting and uncertain alliances and loyalties. A thoroughly gripping read. -- Margaret Barr

ROME, THE EMPEROR’S SPY
M.C. Scott, Bantam Press, 2010, £12.99, hb, 493pp, 9780593055724
This is a spy thriller which opens in Jerusalem in the reign of Tiberius where a young man, Math, watches as a body is removed surreptitiously from a tomb. The story then moves on to Gaul in the reign of Nero. It is here that Sebastos Abdes Pantera (the Leopard) becomes involved with Math, dock thief and apprentice charioteer, Ajax, his trainer and Hannah, a physician who was reared by the Sybils. The Emperor Nero, hearing a prophecy that Rome will burn, charges Pantera with stopping the impending catastrophe. Math, Ajax and Hannah are drawn into a deadly game where death is the price of failure.
This book takes off like a rocket from the opening sentence and does not let up until the final paragraph. The characters stride across the pages with colour and vibrancy, backed by compelling descriptions which bring alive the people and the cities. The action sequences, especially the chariot races are vivid, exciting and gripping. I could feel the sand on my face racing chariots in Alexandria and the heat from the fire as parts of Rome burned. Superb writing from a master story-teller, this is a book to keep and savour. Highly recommended. -- Mike Ashworth

THE ANARCHIST
John Smolens, Three Rivers, 2009, $15.00/C$18.95, pb, 320pp, 9780307351890
    This novel is a fictitious account of Leon Czolgosz, who, on September 6, 1901, in Buffalo, New York, shot and mortally wounded President McKinley. It is primarily a story of the months leading up to the assassination. It’s also the story of the men who tried to stop him.
    Czolgosz was an anarchist who followed the teachings of Emma Goldman, a radical labor leader, preaching an overthrow of big business and government. A weak, timid man, Czolgosz was driven by a sense of duty to the cause of anarchy.
    This is a suspense-filled novel featuring many characters affected by the assassination: European immigrants who are treated unkindly and must work hard to earn a living; the Pinkerton detectives who take advantage of their power; corrupt politicians; women forced into prostitution to survive; and, finally, Moses Hyde, who befriends Czolgosz and is forced by the police to spy on him.
    Mr. Smolens has written an exceptional book of America around the turn of the 20th century – one which covers the entire breadth of the conflict between the working man (and woman) and the American political machine. The major characters – Czolgosz, Hyde, the nasty detective, and the Russian prostitute – are interesting and add depth to the story. The author stays true to the facts and develops a fictional storyline that held this reader’s interest, as I quickly turned the pages to read the next chapter. Highly recommended.
-- Jeff Westerhoff

A DISTANT MELODY
Sarah Sundin, Revell, 2010, $14.99, pb, 432pp, 9780800734213
    In 1942, plain Allie Miller travels to northern California for her best friend’s wedding. There, she meets pilot Lt. Walter Novak on his last furlough home before being shipped overseas. The two, usually both social misfits, hit it off and quickly form a deep bond, prompting them to correspond after the weekend is over.
    As letters fly between Walt’s bomber base in England and Allie’s upper-class home, their friendship binds them together, but lies soon tear them apart. Walt falls in love with Allie only to discover that she already has a boyfriend. And Allie has agreed to marry J. Baxter Hicks just to please her parents. In reality her deepest desire is to obey God, who is telling her to follow a much different path. Allie must choose between her faith and her family, and Walt must come to grips with the pain and sorrow of war.
    Debut novelist Sundin delivers an impressive World War II romance full of courage, sacrifice, and lessons learned. The time Sundin has put into researching aviation during the war is evident, and she does an excellent job weaving these details into the story. Walt’s relationships with his crewmen and his struggles to fit it in are as intriguing as Allie’s fights against her parents for freedom and independence.
    Perfectly plotted, dramatic and full of tension, this is an excellent start to the new Wings of Glory series, which will feature each of the Novak brothers. Highly recommended. -- Rebecca Roberts

A DUTY TO THE DEAD
Charles Todd, Morrow, 2009, $24.99/C$32.99, hb, 330pp, 978061791765
Todd (the pseudonym for a mother-son writing team) departs from the Inspector Ian Rutledge series in this engrossing mystery featuring World War I nurse Bess Crawford. Injured in the sinking of the hospital ship Britannic, Bess uses her leave to fulfill a promise to a dying patient: deliver a mysterious message to his brother, “Tell Jonathan I lied.” The Graham family is singularly uninterested in Arthur’s last words, and Bess finds her curiosity piqued and her nursing skills in demand in their small town in Kent. Through a series of events, she finds herself investigating an event that occurred fifteen years ago, stonewalled at every turn.
As with the Inspector Rutledge series, the effects of World War I permeate the lives of the characters. Bess, with her front seat at the theatre of war, has more compassion than most when she encounters a shell-shocked patient. She also encounters family secrets that include adultery and an attempt to thwart primogeniture. I absolutely devoured this mystery. Unlike the Rutledge books, it is told in the first person, and Bess’s voice is a compelling one. Some threads are dropped, but that is a minor complaint. If this is the first in the Bess Crawford series, it is an excellent debut. -- Ellen Keith

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