Because it made you care about a whole range of characters, some noble, most of them not. It takes the reader into history and shows the past as more terrifying and vivid than we can know.
Perfect for fans of HIlary Mantel and Philippa Gregory, C. J. Sansom's bestselling adventures of Matthew Shardlake continue in the fourth book, the haunting Revelation.
'When it comes to intriguing Tudor-based narratives, Hilary Mantel has a serious rival' - Sunday Times 'Sansom has the trick of writing an enthralling narrative. Like Hilary Mantel, he produces densely textured historical novels that absorb their readers in another time' - Andrew Taylor, Spectator
England, 1543: King Henry VIII is wooing Lady Catherine Parr, whom he wants for his sixth wife. But this time the object of his affections is resisting. Archbishop Cranmer and…
Because it has all the horrors and joys of the modern family and the scramble to make a living - but in Ancient Rome. Just suppose only your Dad can save your life but he is the biggest con man you know... Plus the romance and friendship is superbly written.
"GREAT STUFF...A classic hard-boiled, smart-mouth detective who happens to work in ancient Rome." --Molly Ivins Los Angeles Daily News After six months in wild Germania, imperial gumshoe Marcus Didius Falco is back in Rome sweet Rome. But his apartment has been ransacked. And although he desperately needs 400,000 sesterces in order to marry his aristocratic love, Helena, his only client is his mother, who insists that he find out whether the scandalous claims against his dead brother, Festus, are true. Then the chief tarnisher of Festus's good name is murdered, and Marcus becomes the prime suspect. Someone is definitely fiddling…
In a promising series about the hapless British consul in Venice with dominating cat and very superior wife, this new story goes deeper into the peril that Venice is in and how it extends our sense of being in the 21st century.
A fun and comically imagined series just took a step up!
'It is no surprise to find that Philip Gwynne Jones lives in Venice... art and architecture interweave into a story that builds to an almost surreal climax' Daily Mail
'Gwynne Jones's talent for evoking place and atmosphere is clear as ever' Literary Review _______________
It's the night of 12 November 2019. The worst flooding in 50 years hits the city of Venice. 85% of La Serenissima is underwater. Gale force winds roar across the lagoon and along the narrow streets. And the body of Dr Jennifer Whiteread- a young British art historian, specialising in the…
Who is killing off members of the Falconer family and why? Such is the challenge confronting highly skilled, extraordinarily intuitive Mary Wandwalker when she finds herself single, sixty and jobless. Long ago as an Oxford student with an unplanned pregnancy, Mary knew the Falconers as the family who refused to help when her fiancé, David Falconer died in a car crash. Now the baby boy she gave up for adoption is a policeman, George Jones, and he wants to meet her. Can Mary bring herself to confront her past? She must, for lost in her memory is a clue that could save her son’s life. Back in 1979, Mary wrote to the Falconers and was rejected. Now forty years later, key phrases from her letter appear in the faked suicide note of Perdita Falconer. Neither Perdita nor her killer had access to Mary’s document. Too exact for coincidence, the link is the pseudonym of the drug dealer who supplied her fatal dose. He or she is known as “the Kestrel.” When Mary was romanced by David Falconer in the 1970s, “the Kestrel” was codename for a Russian spy entertained at Falconer House. Could the resurrection of the nom de plume be connected to Viktor Solokov, the Russian oligarch renting the Falconer estate with his beautiful wife, Anna? For the Falconers have dark secrets, some centuries old. When George Jones’s wife Caroline begs Mary to save her husband from treacherous Anna, and the murderous talons of the Kestrel, Mary must act.
