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3.69 AVERAGE
3.69 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Just scrapes a four-star mark. Really enjoyable storytelling and great page-turning tension towards the end, but somehow this didn't quite satisfy, and there were some irritating editing mistakes which I notice other reviewers have picked up on too.
adventurous
informative
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This book paints a brutal but immersive picture of Spain in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. I'm no expert in this period but to me it felt as though the subtleties of the problems faced by Spain were really carefully conveyed, veering away from oversimplification or stereotypes.
I found myself totally wrapped up in the each of the characters narratives and a little sad to leave them behind when the novel ended.
I found myself totally wrapped up in the each of the characters narratives and a little sad to leave them behind when the novel ended.
adventurous
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Very well written and with great characters. But I just found it a little boring. The overall story was interesting, it just didn't get anywhere quick enough for me
adventurous
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Really liked this one. C.J. Sansom is a British author who deserves more attention in the States than he is getting. His previous series (3 books so far) stars Matthew Shardlake, a crippled lawyer who works for the Cromwellian government ferreting out secrets and squeezing out money from the Catholics. I've enjoyed those books too.
This book takes the reader to a very different time and place- WWII era Spain. The reluctant hero is drafted as a spy after being invalided out of regular service after Dunkirk. He is tasked to spy upon a childhood friend from public (or boarding) school who seems to be making good in Franco's Spain.
The plot is intriguing, the setting is fascinating, and Sansom uses the story to meditate on loyalty and morality in time of war.
Minor annoyances: the stiff-upper lip style of British speech left me feeling that mostly the characters tried to avoid revealing themselves in any way through their dialogue. But of course, probably accurate. Barbara, the main female character, came across as rather brittle and weak, although she improved by the end of the book.
If you enjoyed this book, I would also recommend "Farthing" by Jo Walton. Similar examination of wartime and how it alters character set during WWII, plus a classic English country house mystery. Only this book is set in an alternate timeline in which Britain made peace with Germany.
This book takes the reader to a very different time and place- WWII era Spain. The reluctant hero is drafted as a spy after being invalided out of regular service after Dunkirk. He is tasked to spy upon a childhood friend from public (or boarding) school who seems to be making good in Franco's Spain.
The plot is intriguing, the setting is fascinating, and Sansom uses the story to meditate on loyalty and morality in time of war.
Minor annoyances: the stiff-upper lip style of British speech left me feeling that mostly the characters tried to avoid revealing themselves in any way through their dialogue. But of course, probably accurate. Barbara, the main female character, came across as rather brittle and weak, although she improved by the end of the book.
If you enjoyed this book, I would also recommend "Farthing" by Jo Walton. Similar examination of wartime and how it alters character set during WWII, plus a classic English country house mystery. Only this book is set in an alternate timeline in which Britain made peace with Germany.
I am a big fan of Sansom’s work, though so far I have only read his Shardlake series – crime thrillers set in Tudor England. This is a departure from that work; it’s a spy novel rather than a crime and it’s set in Spain at the end of the Spanish Civil War. Though I like historical fiction, it’s not very often I read books set as late as the 20th century.
Harry Brett is a WWII veteran; he was there on the shores of Dunkirk. With war still raging in France, he is recruited by the British Secret Services, not to enter into Nazi-occupied France, but to Spain where the Civil War has just ended and General Franco reigns supreme. The Secret Service want Brett to connect with an old school chum and pretend to be an interpreter in the British Embassy – but this is a cover story for something else, naturally.
As spy stories go, nothing is ever simple. It is a spy story after all and it wouldn’t be a spy thriller if everything went according to plan, on schedule with no hiccups or obstacles or external elements threatening to unravel the story. He runs into another school friend quite unexpectedly and eventually falls in love with somebody he meets in the course of the plot. It wouldn’t be a spy story without a tale of seduction and love across the miles, it wouldn’t be a spy story without at least one other sub-plot. He’s no James Bond though, Brett is a level-headed and cautious man, a million miles away from the playboy 007 and his clones.
The style is surprisingly simplistic. Sansom’s work is known for being quite dense and heavy-going, but this is not the case here. It’s very easy to read but no less detailed because of it; it’s slow moving but not boring; it’s richly detailed but not bogged down in detail to the point of drowning in itself. This is a surprising alteration to Sansom’s style, but it still feels very much in the tradition of previous works by the same writer. It’s also surprisingly more of a love story than I expected. Thrillers are rarely laid back and romances are rarely page turners (at least, not to me) but Sansom has done really well to gel all of these elements together. It’s perhaps a little less pacey than the average spy thriller though.
How he compiles Madrid is also well written. It’s not that often I get a good sense of place in a novel, but Sansom does it just as well, if not better, than he managed in the Shardlake books. Madrid in the early years of the Franco dictatorship feels vivid and colourful, threatening and beautiful, alive.
Enjoyable, with more depth than the crowd-pleasing Shardlake books but I found the characters difficult to engage with. Still not sure if it was an old-fashioned romance or espionage tale - and get the impression the author didn’t seem to sure either.