It’s more than halfway through 2009 and time to evaluate what I’ve read so far.  For some reason, I’ve been reading a lot of my favorite authors (John Connolly, C.J. Sansom, Michael Koryta, and C.J. Box) rather than new authors.  Nevertheless, George Pelecanos and Ross Macdonald, who I’ve never read before, wrote superb mysteries.

Of the 20 books I’ve read so far in 2009, here’s my top ten list:

1. Right as Rain – George Pelecanos (2001)   See review
2. The Killing Kind – John Connolly (2002)  See review
3. Sovereign – C.J. Sansom (2007)  See review
4. Envy the Night – Michael Koryta (2008)  See review
5. What the Dead Know – Laura Lippman (2007) See review
6. Free Fire – C.J. Box (2007)
7. Prayers for the Assassin – Robert Ferrigno (2006)
8. The Black Angel – John Connolly (2005)  See review
9. The White Road – John Connolly (2003)  See review
10. The Chill – Ross Macdonald (1964)  See review

HOLY COW BATMAN! (Translation: Highly Recommended!)

Sovereign by C.J. Sansom

This is now my favorite book in the Matthew Shardlake series.  Like no other historical mystery writer, C.J. Sansom brings the sights, sounds, and even smells of 16th century England to life.  Unlike his other traditional mysteries, Sansom’s third book in the series is a heart-pounding political thriller with eerie assassination attempts and a centuries old secret.  In the end, you come away totally believing Sansom’s narrative actually happened and the story of King Henry VIII’s ancestry is absolutely true. (Which it is.)

Synopsis: It was autumn, 1541. Following the uncovering of a plot against his throne in Yorkshire, King Henry VIII has set out on a spectacular Progress to the North to overawe his rebellious subjects there. Accompanied by a thousand soldiers, the cream of the nobility, and his fifth wife Catherine Howard, the King is to attend an extravagant submission of the local gentry at York. Already in the city are lawyer Matthew Shardlake and his assistant Jack Barak. As well as assisting with legal work processing petitions to the King, Shardlake has reluctantly undertaken a special mission – to ensure the welfare of an important but dangerous conspirator being returned to London for interrogation. But the murder of a local glazier involves Shardlake in deeper mysteries, connected not only to the prisoner in York Castle but to the royal family itself. As the Great Progress arrives in the city, Shardlake and Barak stumble upon a cache of secret papers that holds danger for the King’s throne, and a chain of events unfolds that will lead Shardlake facing the most terrifying fate of the age.

GOOD BUT NOT GREAT (Translation: Recommended with some reservations)

Every Last Drop by Charlie Huston

Joe Pitt reemerges from his exile in the Bronx to do what he does best: stir up trouble.  With a new clan, the so-called Cure, disturbing the delicate peace between the other Vampire clans, Pitt makes a deal with the Coalition to find out if the new clan is actually close to discovering a cure for the Vyrus.  But the plot takes an unexpected turn, when Pitt ventures to Queens to look for the source of the Coalition’s blood supply.  What he learns there changes him.  And if people know what he knows, it will definitely lead to an all-out war.  But can Joe keep a secret?

After a slow and confusing start, Huston finds his rhythm when familiar characters, like Predo, Amanda Horde, and Terry, appear in the story.  This fourth book in the series doesn’t wrap up as nicely as the first two, but damning secrets are revealed, which have stark implications for the future.  Huston’s writing is hypnotic, and I just love the world Huston has created.  I look forward to the next installment.

Synopsis: It’s like this: a series of bullet-riddled bad breaks has seen rogue Vampyre and terminal tough guy Joe Pitt go from PI for hire to Clan-connected enforcer to dead man walking in a New York minute. And after burning all his bridges, the only one left to cross leads to the Bronx, where Joe’s brass knuckles and straight razor can’t keep him from running afoul of a sadistic old bloodsucker with a bad bark and a worse bite. Even if every Clan in Manhattan is hollering for Joe’s head on a stick, it’s got to be better than trying to survive in the outer-borough wilderness. So it’s a no-brainer when Clan boss Dexter Predo comes looking to make a deal. All Joe has to do to win back breathing privileges on his old turf is infiltrate an upstart Clan whose plan to cure the Vyrus could expose the secret Vampyre world to mortal eyes and set off a panic-driven massacre. Not cool. But Joe’s all over it. To save the Undead future, he just has to wade neck-deep through all the archenemies, former friends, and assorted heavy hitters he’s crossed in the past. No sweat? Maybe not, but definitely more blood than he’s ever seen or hungered for. And maybe even some tears–over the horror and heartbreaking truth about the evil men do no matter who or what they are.

DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME (Translation: Not recommended)

L.A. Outlaws by T. Jefferson Parker

Parker gives us a great heroine in Alison Murrieta, who loves to steal cars and stick-up fast-food joints.  In the great tradition of bandits, she even gives some of her take to poor charities, but there ends my love-affair with the book.  What remains is a struggling plot, which ultimately fails to deliver.  The Latino hit man is borrowed right out of the pages of No Country for Old Men.  One caveat though: the way Parker has Murrieta dispose of her relentless, psychopathic pursuer is quite brilliant and deservingly brutal.  Often authors make female characters superhuman, capable of incapacitating hardened criminals in the most unbelievable ways.  Here, Alison Murrieta dispatches the Latino hit man with style.  Loved the character, but it didn’t make up for an awfully boring story.

Synopsis: Allison is an L.A. celebrity, a folk hero, and a modern-day Jesse James who loves a good armed robbery. She has a compulsion to steal, a knack for publicity, and the conscience to give it all to charity. In fact, one of her biggest fans is a cop. And no one’s ever been hurt—until last night. Now she and the rookie deputy are on the run for their lives.

The Deceived by Brett Battles

In the same league as Barry Eisler and Lee Child, Brett Battles is one of today’s best writers of action-packed thrillers.  Every single action sequence in the book is pitch-perfect.  Nevertheless, despite a rousing ending, The Deceived doesn’t have enough breadcrumbs throughout to sustain interest.  Battles should have slowly unveiled pieces to the puzzle, but instead, readers are kept in the dark up until the last 150 pages.  At which point, everything is revealed all at once.  Great ending, but it took awhile to get there. The Deceived isn’t up to the standard set in his first book: The Cleaner.

Synopsis: A freelance operative and professional “cleaner,” Quinn knows better than to get emotionally involved in any of his jobs. But in this superb powerhouse of suspense, Quinn’s latest job is different. A friend and old colleague has been murdered. A woman has gone missing. And for Jonathan Quinn, this time it’s personal.

In this year of Darwin, I’ve just read This Thing of Darkness by Harry Thompson. It is I suppose a historical novel, based on Fitzroy, captain of the Beagle who took Darwin as a companion. It is not only a fascinating insight into the achievements of Fitzroy himself, but also into the social mores of the time, particularly in respect of bringing native Tierra del Fuegans back to England to “civilize” them, and of the awful consequences of Christian missionary activities in far-flung places.

Above all it is a brilliantly well-written book. I’d never heard of this author before and I was surprised at the sheer accomplishment in everything he attempted.

Also, I’ve just finished C.J. Sansom’s Shardlake novels, all four of which have been superb, and I’m sorry I have to wait for another one to be published. My own fault for reading them all back-to-back.

Currently reading Terry Pratchett’s Night Watch, a satirical take on Les Misérables and revolutionary politics, among other things. Also dipping in and out of various historical studies of 16th century popular revolt, the English Reformation, and the Pilgrimage of Grace.

In one of his travel programmes for TV, Bernard Levin used to take a hefty book with him (cheap paperback) and tear out each page as he read it thus lightening his rucksack as he went along (it also saved having to carry toilet paper). His justification for doing this was that whereas he considered books to be “sacred” he did not consider paperbacks to be real books.

Winter in Madrid
CJ Sansom
Penguin
January 2007
$15.00
544 pages

Continuing the list of books I read on vacation

A slowly evolving tale of espionage and shifting loyalties, spanning World War I, the Spanish Civil War and the start of World War II, “Winter in Madrid” is a detailed story of betrayal, bringing together the personal and the political with a keen sense of place.

“Winter in Madrid” tells the story of three friends from an exclusive British boys’ school, whose lives intersect, years later, in Franco’s Spain.  Idealistic Bernie has come to fight for his Communist beliefs.  Calculating, manipulative Sandy is there for business, looking to make money off the chaos.  Harry remembers both from his school days, and has returned to a Madrid he remembers from happier, boyhood travels.  A reluctant spy, Harry is still raw with shell shock from Dunkirk, and unhappy to rekindle his friendship with Sandy under false pretenses.  The British government wants reports of Sandy’s business dealings, and has sent Harry to exploit his childhood friendship.

The novel shifts slowly backward and forward in time, delicately probing the connections between former school friends, and to Barbara Clare, a British Red Cross nurse, whose service in war-torn Spain links her to all three men.  Shifting perspectives, both in point of view and time frame make it hard to track the narrative’s progress.  Characters, even those supposedly loyal to each other or the same cause, seem to dance awkwardly around one another, wary even of those they supposedly trust.  The shifting time frame makes it difficult to follow how characters are relating to each other and how characters and their motives evolve and mature over time.

One possibility is that the characters aren’t growing or changing, but staying static in their motives and reactions, as events unfold around them.  Sandy, in particular,  seems shockingly malicious.  Glimpses of his school days barely hint at what could have made him so cold and manipulative.   Cruel to his lover, Barbara, and duplicitous in business dealings with Harry, Sandy seems poised as a cipher of the creepy bad guy.  His calculating nature resists any emotional connection, sketched in a little sociopathic, and all the more chilling in his static portrayal of evil.

1- The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death – Charlie Huston (Bought this hardback as soon as it was released in January)
2- The Reapers - John Connolly (Finally out in paperback in the UK, but released on April 28 in the US)
3 – The Renegades – T. Jefferson Parker (I’m currently reading L.A. Outlaws right now and loving it. Out now in hardback.)
4 – The Dead of Winter – Rennie Airth (His third John Madden mystery coming out in hardback on July 23)
5 – The Scarecrow – Michael Connelly (Connelly brings back Jack McEvoy on May 26 in hardback)
6 – Revelation – C.J. Sansom (Shardlake’s fourth adventure. Out now in hardback.)
7 -  The Way Home – George Pelecanos (Released in hardback on May 12.)
8 – The Last Child – John Hart (The author of Down River has become one of my favorite storytellers.  This one comes out on May 12th.)
9 – The Deceived – Brett Battles (Thoroughly enjoyed Battles’ first thriller. His second one finally comes out in paperback in June.)
10 – Gone Tomorrow – Lee Child (Another Jack Reacher adventure not to be missed on May 19.)

Sotto gli alberi era buio e solo un debole chiaro di luna filtrava attraverso i rami mezzi spogli. Sul terreno, uno spesso strato di foglie morte; gli zoccoli dei cavalli non facevano rumore e non era facile dire se fossimo ancora sulla strada. Prima Barak l’aveva definita una strada da schifo, bofonchiando ancora una volta quanto barbara fosse quella contrada in cui l’avevo portato

Metà del XVI secolo, Inghilterra.
L’avvocato gobbo Matthew Shardlake segue la visita ufficiale del Re, Enrico VIII, nel Nord dell’ Inghilterra per ricevere la sottomissione dei nobili delle contrade dopo le tumultuose ribellioni degli anni precedenti. Partecipa poiché l’arcivescovo Thomas Cranmer gli ha ordinato di condurre vivo alla Torre di Londra il cospiratore Edward Broderick. Ma arrivato a York egli dovrà come sempre indagare su dei fatti alquanto strani, ben più pericolosi del previsto.
Ancora una volta Matthew Shardlake indaga su omicidi e nefandezze che nascondono ben più del semplice atto sullo sfondo della visita ufficiale del Re nel Nord Inghilterra; infatti, immerso nell’ipocrita mondo della corte, si ritroverà a fronteggiare i suoi segreti che potrebbero avere conseguenze disastrose

Un grazie a Shardan, autore dell’articolo.

Continuing the theme of “Character is King,” I thought I might post a list of my favorite characters, but with a twist.  What characters totally enthrall you?  What characters would you love to meet?  With each new adventure, I spend so much time with these fictional characters that I feel like I truly know them.  They fascinate me and captivate me.

10. Mary Russell (Laurie King) – As Sherlock Holmes’ equal, I’d love a lesson in chess over tea.

9. Cork O’Connor (William Kent Krueger) – Staying at his cabin in Minnesota, hanging out at his hotdog stand, and meeting his daughters would be a real treat.

8. Alex McKnight (Steve Hamilton) – A tour of Paradise on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula with Alex as a guide would be great.  Then we could go to the Glasgow Inn for some Molson.

7. Patrick Kenzie (Dennis Lehane) – I’d love to have a beer with Patrick in a Boston pub and have him tell me about his latest investigation.  Maybe he would introduce me to Bubba…  On second thought, maybe I don’t want to ever meet Bubba.

6. John Rain (Barry Eisler) – I’d love for Rain to teach me Jujutsu and then go to Tokyo’s best jazz club to hear Midori play the piano.

5. Mickey Haller (Michael Connelly) – Wouldn’t it be great to talk trial strategy with Mickey?  I’d volunteer my services for free, just to see him prepare a case.

4. Joe Pitt (Charlie Huston) – Hopefully, when I meet him, he won’t be in a bad mood. (I know that’s not likely.)  I also hope that he’s fed the Vyrus and he’s not thirsty.

3. Jack Reacher (Lee Child) – It would be a pleasure just to shake those huge hands of his.  He’s definitely someone I’d want around when I’m being mugged or kidnapped.

2. Joe Pike (Robert Crais) – Yes, I’d rather meet Pike than Elvis Cole.  Wouldn’t want to play Hide-and-Seek with Pike though.  No, I’d just like him to show me his gun collection.

1. Matthew Shardlake (C.J. Sansom) – I’d love to have a pint with Master Shardlake more than anyone else on the list, even if it is in a 16th century Tudor alehouse.

Who are your favorite characters?  Comment below and create your own top ten list of characters you’d like to meet.  I’m interested to read why you’d want to meet your favorite characters in real life.

I would rate this book at 2.5 out of 5 stars.   Scroll down to see an excerpt from the Prologue of the book.

Description: In September 1940, the Spanish Civil War is over and Madrid lies in ruins . . .
Into this uncertain world comes Harry Brett, a reluctant spy for the British Secret Service who was traumatized by his recent experience at Dunkirk. Sent to Spain to gain the confidence of Sandy Forsyth, an old school friend turned shady Madrid businessman, Brett finds himself involved in a dangerous game and surrounded by memories. Meanwhile, Sandy’s girlfriend, ex-Red Cross nurse Barbara Clare, is engaged in a secret mission of her own — to find her former lover who has vanished on the bloody battlefields of the Jarama.

When I started this book there were several times I wanted to put it aside for other books.  It was probably because I am unfamiliar with what was going on in Spain during this time period.  I was getting so confused trying to keep straight the Nazis, Russians, Falange, Republicans, etc., what each of them believed and who was aligned with who.  It was a lot of work to wade though that to get into the story.  I will say the 2.5 stars was mostly because I want a happy ending which this did not have.  If you are ok with that then this was probably a 3-3.5 star book.

The character development was nicely done.  Each character had their foibles like real people.  No one was perfect and they all made mistakes like normal people.  About halfway through the book I couldn’t put it down but then the ending was a big disappointment.  Stop here if you don’t want any spoilers.

I fully admit I’m a sucker for a happy ending and don’t care for books with depressing endings.  It bothered me that Harry’s fiance is killed and then after all the work and risks everyone goes through to rescue Bernie he decides to go right back to war and ends up dying anyway.  So it was like everyone’s sacrifice was a waste.  Then to end it all Harry pretty much gives up on life and people like Sandy who only think about themselves end up sitting pretty.

Prologue from A Winter in Madrid
by C.J. Sansom,
Author of Winter in Madrid: A Novel

The Jarama Valley, Spain, February 1937

Bernie had lain at the foot of the knoll for hours, half conscious.

The British Battalion had been brought up to the front two days before, rattling across the bare Castilian plain in an ancient locomotive; they had marched by night to the front line. The Battalion had a few older men, veterans of the Great War, but most of the soldiers were working-class boys without even the Officer Training Corps experience that Bernie and the smattering of other public-school men possessed. Even here in their own war the working class stood at a disadvantage.

The Republic had held a strong position, on top of a hill that sloped down steeply to the Jarama river valley, dotted with little knolls and planted with olive trees. In the far distance the grey smudge of Madrid was visible, the city that had withstood the Fascists since the generals’ uprising last summer. Madrid, where Barbara was.

Franco’s army had already crossed the river. There were Moroccan colonial troops down there, experts at using every fold in the ground as cover. The Battalion was ordered into position to defend the hill. Their rifles were old, there was a shortage of ammunition and many did not fire properly. They had been issued with French steel helmets from the Great War that the old soldiers said weren’t bullet-proof.

Despite the Battalion’s ragged fire, the Moors slipped gradually up the hill as the morning advanced, hundreds of silent deadly bundles in their grey ponchos, appearing and disappearing again among the olive trees, coming ever closer. Shelling from the Fascist positions began, the yellow earth around the Battalion positions exploding in huge fountains to the terror of the raw troops. Then in the afternoon the order to retreat came. Everything turned to chaos. As they ran, Bernie saw the ground between the olive trees was strewn with books the soldiers had thrown from their packs to lighten them — poetry and Marxist primers and pornography from the Madrid street markets.

That night the Battalion survivors crouched exhausted in an old sunken road on the meseta. There was no news of how the battle had gone elsewhere along the line. Bernie slept from sheer exhaustion.

In the morning the Russian staff commander ordered the remnants of the Battalion to advance again. Bernie saw Captain Wintringham arguing with him, their heads outlined against a cold sky turning from purple-pink to blue as the sun rose. The Battalion was exhausted, outnumbered; the Moors were dug in now and had brought up machine guns. But the Russian was adamant, his face set.

The men were ordered to line up, huddling against the lip of the sunken road. The Fascists had begun firing again with the dawn and the noise was already tremendous, loud rifle cracks and the stutter of the machine guns. Standing waiting for the order to go over, Bernie was too tired to think. The phrase ‘fucking done for, fucking done for’ went round and round in his head, like a metronome. Many of the men were too exhausted to do anything but stare blindly ahead; others shook with fear.

Wintringham led the charge himself and went down almost at once with a bullet to the leg. Bernie winced and jerked as bullets cracked around him, watching the men he had trained with collapse with howls or sad little sighs as they were hit. A hundred yards out the desperate urge to fall and hug the ground became too strong and Bernie threw himself behind the shelter of a thick old olive tree.

He lay against the gnarled trunk for a long time, bullets whining and cracking around him, looking at the bodies of his comrades, blood turning the pale earth black as it soaked in. He twisted his body, trying to burrow as deep as he could into the ground.

Late in the morning the firing ceased, though Bernie could hear it continuing further up the line. To his right he saw a high, steep knoll covered with scrubby grass. He decided to make a dash for it. He got up and ran, crouched over almost double, and had almost reached cover when there was a crack and he felt a stinging blow in
his right thigh. He spun over and hit the earth. He could feel blood trickling down his trousers but dared not look round. Using his elbows and his good leg he crawled frantically towards the shelter of the knoll, his old arm injury sending pain lancing into his shoulder. Another bullet made earth spit up around him but he made it to the knoll. He threw himself into the lee of the little hill and passed out.

When he came to it was afternoon; he was lying in a long shadow and the warmth of the day was receding. He had fallen against the incline of the hill and could see only a few feet of earth and stones ahead of him. He was conscious of a raging thirst. Everything was quiet and still; he could hear a bird singing in one of the olive trees but also a murmur of distant voices somewhere. They were talking Spanish so it must be the Fascists, unless the Spanish troops further north had made a breakthrough, which he couldn’t believe after what had happened to his section. He lay still, his head cushioned in the dusty earth, conscious that his right leg was numb.

He drifted in and out of consciousness; still he could hear the murmuring voices, ahead and to the left somewhere. Some time later he woke properly, his head suddenly clear, his thirst agonizing. There was no sound of voices now, just the bird singing; surely not the same one.

Bernie had thought Spain would be hot; the memories of his visit with Harry six years ago were all of dry heat, hard as a hammer. But in February, although the days were warm enough, it grew cold at dusk, and he wasn’t sure he could get through a night out here. He could feel the lice crawling in the thick down on his stomach. They had infested the base camp and Bernie hated their crawling itch. Pain was a strange thing: his leg was bearable but the urge to scratch his stomach was desperate. For all he knew, though, he could be surrounded by Fascist soldiers who had taken his still form for a corpse, and would open fire at any sign of movement.

He raised his head a little, gritting his teeth, dreading the impact of a bullet. Nothing. Above him only the bare hillside. Stiffly, he turned over. Pain shot through his leg like a knife and he had to clench his jaw shut against a scream. He pulled himself up on his elbows and looked down. Half his trouser leg was tom away and his thigh was covered with dark, clotted blood. It wasn’t bleeding now, the bullet must have missed the artery, but if he moved too much it might start again.

To the left he saw two bodies in Brigade uniforms. Both had fallen on their faces and one was too far off to see but the other was McKie, the young Scots miner. Fearfully, trying not to move his leg, he swivelled on his elbows again and looked upwards, to the top of the knoll.

Forty feet above him, projecting over the lip of the hill, was a tank. One of the German ones Hitler had given Franco. An arm protruded limply from the gun turret. The Fascists must have brought up tanks and this one had been stopped just before it lurched down the knoll. It was precariously balanced, the front protruding almost halfway over; from where he lay Bernie could see the pipes and bolts of the underside, the heavy plated tracks. It could topple over on him at any moment; he had to move.

He began crawling slowly away. Pain stabbed through his leg and after a couple of yards he had to stop, sweating and gasping. He could see McKie now. One arm had been shot off and lay a few yards away. Untidy brown hair was ruffled slightly by the breeze, in death as it had been in life, though the face beneath was already white. McKie’s eyes were closed, the pleasantly ugly face looked peaceful. Poor devil, Bernie thought, and felt tears pricking the corners of his eyes.

When he had first seen dead bodies, the men brought back from the fighting in Madrid and laid out in rows in the street, Bernie had felt sick with horror. Yet when they had gone into battle yesterday his squeamishness had vanished. It had to when you were under fire, Pa had told him on one of the rare occasions he spoke about the Somme, every sense had to be tuned to survival. You didn’t see, you watched, as an animal watches. You didn’t hear, you listened, as an animal listens. You became as focused and heartless as an animal. But Pa had long spells of depression, evenings spent sitting in his little office behind the shop, head bowed under the weak yellow light as he fought to forget the trenches.

Bernie remembered McKie’s jokes about how Scotland would be independent under socialism, laughing as he looked forward to its being free of the useless Sassenachs. He licked his dry lips. Would this moment, McKie’s hair ruffling in the breeze, come to him in dreams if he got out of it alive, even if they succeeded and created a new, free world?

He heard a creak, a small, metallic sound. He looked up; the tank was swaying slightly, the long gun barrel outlined against the darkening sky moving slowly up and down. Surely his movements at the bottom of the knoll couldn’t have been enough to shift it, but it was moving.

Bernie tried to rise but pain stabbed through his injured leg. He began crawling again, past McKie’s body. His leg hurt more now and he could feel blood oozing down it. His head was swimming; he had a horror of fainting and of the tank falling down the hill and crashing down onto his prone body. He must stay conscious.

Directly ahead of him was a puddle of dirty water. Despite the danger, his thirst was so great that he buried his head in it and took a deep drink. It tasted of earth and made him want to retch. He lifted his head and jerked back in surprise as he caught the reflection of his face: every line was filled with dirt above a straggly beard and his eyes looked mad. He suddenly heard Barbara’s voice in his head, remembered soft hands on his neck. ‘You’re so beautiful,’ she had said once. ‘Too beautiful for me.’ What would she say now?

There was another creak, louder this time, and he looked up to see the tank inching slowly forwards. A little stream of earth and stones pattered down the side of the knoll. ‘Oh Christ,’ he breathed. ‘Oh Christ.’ He heaved himself forward.

There was a creaking noise and the tank went over. It rolled slowly down the hill with a clanking grinding noise, missing Bernie’s feet by inches. At the bottom the long gun buried itself in the earth and the tank came to a halt, shuddering like a huge felled beast. The observer was thrown from his turret and landed face down, spreadeagled in the trench. His hair was whitish-blond: a German. Bernie closed his eyes, gasping with relief.

Another noise made him tum and look upwards. Five men stood in a row at the top of the knoll, drawn by the noise. Their faces were as dirty and weary as Bernie’s. They were Fascists; they wore the olive-green battledress of Franco’s troops. They raised their rifles, covering him. One of the soldiers pulled a pistol from his holster. There was a click as he slipped the safety catch. He stepped forward and descended the knoll.

Bernie leaned on one hand and raised the other in weary supplication.

The Fascist came to a halt three feet away. He was a tall, thin man with a little moustache like the Generalisimo’s. His face was hard and angry.

‘Me entrego,’ Bernie said. ‘I surrender.’ It was all there was left to do.

‘¡Comunista cabrón!‘ The man had a heavy southern accent.

Bernie was still trying to make out the words as the Fascist brought up his pistol and aimed at his head.

The above is an excerpt from the book Winter in Madrid: A Novel by C.J. Sansom. The above excerpt is a digitally scanned reproduction of text from print. Although this excerpt has been proofread, occasional errors may appear due to the scanning process. Please refer to the finished book for accuracy.

Reprinted by arrangement with Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
From WINTER IN MADRID by C.J. Sansom.
Copyright © 2006 by C.J. Sansom.

Author Bio
C. J. Sansom, author of Winter in Madrid: A Novel was a lawyer but now writes full time. He holds a Ph.D. in history and is the author of Dissolution, Dark Fire, and Sovereign in the Matthew Shardlake series. Winter in Madrid was a major bestseller in England and is being published in twelve countries. Sansom lives in Brighton, England.

Quella mattina avevo lasciato la mia dimora di Chancery Lane presto per recarmi alla Guildhall, il Palazzo delle corporazioni, dove dovevo discutere un caso in cui rappresentavo il consiglio comunale. Sebbene su di me incombesse il pensiero della tragica questione di cui avrei dovuto occuparmi al ritorno, mi godetti almeno un po’ la frescura delle prime luci del giorno, mentre cavalcavo lungo una Fleet Street assai tranquilla

Estate del 1540 a Londra: l’avvocato gobbo Matthew Shardlake ha l’arduo compito di difendere Elizabeth, una ragazzina adottata in casa dal ricco zio, accusata di aver ucciso il cugino dodicenne, buttandolo nel pozzo. La ragazza si rifiuta di parlare e la condanna sembra essere già scritta, quando interviene Lord Thomas Cromwell che concede una sospensione del processo per circa una settimana. Naturalmente esige in cambio i servigi dell’astuto avvocato gobbo per una questione della massima riservatezza: l’uccisione di due alchimisti che lavoravano al misterioso Fuoco Greco, che dovevano presentarlo al re Enrico VIII da lì a pochi giorni.
L’indagine di Shardlake ci porta, attraverso una tesissima corsa contro il tempo, in una Londra dalle mille cupe sfaccettature: saloni aristocratici, luridi bordelli e bassifondi, sudice strade e case dall’aspetto ambiguo che celano segreti inenarrabili.

Un grazie a Shardan, autore dell’articolo.

Shardlake, Matthew (b. c. 1500), lawyer, was the son of a yeoman farmer from Lichfield. Early in his childhood he developed severe kyphosis, a disability that would go on to have a significant impact on his adult life. In 1518 he moved to London to attend Lincoln’s Inn, going on to practice as a lawyer. In the late 1520s he was introduced to Thomas Cromwell, at the time a lawyer associated with Cardinal Wolsey. In 1533 Shardlake was able to use these connections to find a post under Cromwell for Mark Poer, son of his father’s steward William Poer.

In the winter of 1537 Shardlake was sent by Cromwell to investigate allegations of corruption at the Benedictine monastery of St Donatus the Ascendant of Scarnsea. The visit became a criminal investigation after another of Cromwell’s officials was found dead. While at Scarnsea, Shardlake was introduced to Guy Elakbar (known by his monastic name of Guy of Malton), a Spanish Muslim and apothecary who had fled Spain after the reconquista. Shardlake appears to have maintained an association with Malton after this meeting. Meanwhile Shardlake’s links with Poer seem to have ended after Scarnsea. After 1537 Poer disappears from the historical record, although correspondence recently unearthed suggests he may have eloped to France. In 1538 the monastery at Scarnsea was razed to the ground by Giovanni Portinari, Cromwell’s engineer.

The Scarnsea incident appears to have established Shardlake’s reputation as a fixer, particularly where crimes were involved. In 1540 Shardlake was asked by Cromwell to recover what was rumoured to be a recipe for ‘Greek fire’, the liquid weapon used by the Byzantine army. At the same time he was also involved in defending a young girl against a false charge of murder. It was during this time that Shardlake also met Jack Barak, a servant of Cromwell’s with whom he would go on to have a long association.

In 1541 Shardlake rose to prominence due to his involvement in the Progress by Henry VIII to York. By this time Sharlake had become associated with Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, who sent Shardlake to York to handle petitions to the king from the citizens of York. However, there are suggestions that while there, Shardlake was also involved in trying to bring an important prisoner, Sir Edward Broderick, safely to London for questioning. In 1543 Shardlake again acted on Cranmer’s behalf in investigating a series of murders that included the brutal killing of Shardlake’s friend Roger Elliard.

Throughout what is known of his career, Shardlake continued to practice law. No evidence survives of him having been married. He maintained a substantial London household and appears to have been close to his servants. He was also a horse enthusiast, holding particular affection for his first horse called Chancery.

Other events in Shardlake’s life and the date of his death remain unknown, although it is to be hoped that ongoing research by his biographer, C.J. Sansom, will uncover more details.

Sources C.J. Sansom, Dissolution (Basingstoke and Oxford, 2003); Dark Fire (Basingstoke and Oxford, 2004); Sovereign (Basingstoke and Oxford, 2006); Revelation (Basingstoke and Oxford, 2008).

(All of which is a roundabout way of saying how much I’ve been enjoying working my way through the Shardlake series recently. I hope I haven’t given away any of the plots).

Da var ‘ferien’ over, og skoleåret har startet (I realiteten så har jeg jo jobbet heltid de siste fire ukene). Jeg har hatt min første forelesning, og foreløpig virker alt lovende. Valgfaget mitt foregår på engelsk, og det blir unektelig mange morsomme øyeblikk når foreleserens engelsk ikke er helt stødig… “Many of us are not English-speaking from the begin with” er et utsagn jeg kommer til å huske lenge. Det er folk fra alle slags land som går på disse forelesningene. Iran, Ghana, Nigeria, Canada, Tyskland, Japan osv. Vi er to som snakker norsk i klassen og vi sitter ved siden av hverandre (uten å vite på forhånd at den andre også snakket norsk). Tilfeldig?

Jeg fikk til og med anledning til å praktisere de tre setningene jeg virkelig kan på tysk. Morsomt!

I morgen starter de første forelesningene med “Vitenskapsteori og metode” og jeg må innrømme at jeg ser litt mørkere på det. Hvis det er noe i nærheten av Ex.Phil. eller Ex.Fac. så kommer jeg til å dø.

Ellers så blir det litt dårlig med lesingen for tiden. Heltidsstudium, jobb hvert øyeblikk jeg ikke er på skolen og lørdagsjobb i tillegg. You do the math. I tillegg starter forlagenes bokmøter fra mandag av, så da har jeg ikke fri på kveldstid engang! Jeg må innrømme at disse møtene er frivillige da. Men hvem greier å stå i mot gratis mat, vin og bøker? Ikke jeg!

Med det samme jeg skriver dette, så kommer jeg jo på at jeg har lest èn fantastisk bok siden sist!

“Tett inntil dagene” av Mustafa Can er virkelig et mesterverk, og den fortjener all omtalen og oppmerksomheten den har fått. Dette er ikke en roman, men en dokumentar/selvbiografi. Can er journalist, og han har skrevet om hvordan han opplever moren sin som er førstegenerasjons innvandrer i Sverige. Han forteller om hvordan han har skammet seg over henne, analfabeten med skautet som nesten ikke kunne et ord svensk. Can bruker flere sider på å beskrive hvordan moren omsider lærer seg å skrive sitt eget navn slik at hun kan gå på posten og hente ut barnetrygden selv. Det er ikke før hun ligger for døden at han begynner å få et nyansert bilde av moren sin. Hun har alltid fortalt svært lite om seg selv, men nå begynner hun endelig å fortelle. Vi får se små glimt her og der fra hennes liv, og sakte men sikkert begynner leserens (og Cans) oppfatning av den ‘typiske innvandrerkvinnen’ å forandre seg. Hun har en bakgrunn, hun har et liv og hun ser og vet mer enn Can tror.

Det som gjør denne boken så fantastisk er ikke bare den interessante (og aktuelle) historien, det er Cans språk. Det er poetisk, vakkert, nydelig! Jeg har anbefalt denne boken til mange i bokhandelen, og jeg angrer sannelig ikke når jeg nå endelig har fått lest den selv! Boken passer like godt til både kvinner og menn, og for voksne i alle aldre.

Ps: Jeg har også lest “Oppløsning” av C.J. Sansom og likte den. Sånn rent bortsett fra at Umberto Eco allerede har skrevet historien bedre. Dennis Lehanes “Et glass før krigen” var helt ok, og Owen Sheers “Motstand” var en ganske interessant skildring av hvordan krigen artet seg i en bortgjemt dal i Wales. Da alle kvinnene i dalen våknet var mennene deres sporløst forsvunnet. Intriguing!

Ps2: Ny bokpakke fra capris.no ligger på postkontoret og venter på meg. Spennende!

Both American presidential candidates, John McCain and Barack Obama, named Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls when asked recently by journalists to cite their favorite novel. McCain has said that during his captivity in North Vietnam as a POW he recited portions of the book to himself.

It’s intriguing that both McCain and Obama chose a novel set not in the United States, but in Spain during its fratricidal Civil War in the late 1930s. The protagonist of For Whom the Bell Tolls is an American, however, Robert Jordan, a leftist college professor and International Brigades volunteer who embarks on a dangerous mission to blow up a strategic bridge in the Iberian hill country. At least one conservative writer, Michael Knox Beran, has tartly suggested that McCain should find a different favorite, one that isn’t “a maudlin lament for a socialist bridge-bomber.”

There is some irony in Beran’s critique of the politics of Hemingway’s novel, because the hard Left in the United States, including some of the American Communists who served in the Abraham Lincoln Battalion (part of the International Brigades), ferociously attacked the book (and its author) after its publication in 1940. These critics, among them former Lincoln commander Milton Wolff, objected to Hemingway’s negative portrayal of Soviet motives and tactics in Spain and to his unsparing and harsh portraits of political commissar André Marty (known as the “Butcher of Albacete” for his purge of non-Communists in the International Brigades) and the Communist leader Dolores Ibárruri, the Leftist icon also known as La Passionara. (Hemingway, never one to duck a fight, responded directly and profanely to those he called the “ideology boys.”)

Hemingway made a distinction between supporting the Loyalist cause, as did his fictional character Robert Jordan, and endorsing the Soviet strategy of deception and manipulation in dealing with the Republican government. Such an approach was anathema to the hardliners. There’s an amusing anecdote (recounted in Peter Carroll’s The Odyssey of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade: Americans in the Spanish Civil War) involving the actor Gary Cooper, Hemingway’s choice to play Robert Jordan in the film of For Whom the Bell Tolls, and Alvah Bessie, a Lincoln veteran and screenwriter. During the filming, Bessie lectured Cooper about how the Spanish conflict hadn’t been a civil war, as Cooper believed, but instead was a German and Italian invasion designed to overthrow the legal government of Spain. Cooper’s laconic, and classic, response: “That so? That’s what so great about this country…a guy like you can fight in a war that’s none of his business.”

Art and the “Good Fight”

It’s not hard to see why the “Good Fight” (as the Spanish struggle was dubbed) inspired artists, poets, playwrights, novelists and short story writers from the start. The conflict was rich with dramatic, and tragic, elements. Writers have been drawn by the idealism of many of the defenders of the Republic, and by the idea that the Spanish hostilities represented a dress rehearsal for World War II. Some of the best works about the conflict, such as George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia and Hemingway’s novel, have explored the tensions within the ranks of the Loyalists. This artistic and literary fascination with the “Good Fight” has continued into the 21st century as evidenced by a continuing stream of books (fiction and non-fiction) about the Spanish Civil War and the International Brigades, including English author C.J. Sansom’s Winter in Madrid, a best-seller in Britain.

Sansom has set his fictional story in 1940 Madrid, a year after General Francisco Franco’s victory over the Loyalists, and Winter in Madrid shines brightest in its evocative portrayal of the grim life in Spain’s capital city: the compromises, and sacrifices, required for survival. The novel’s protagonist, Harry Brett, a veteran of Dunkirk, is recruited by British Intelligence to spy on a former schoolmate, Sandy Forsyth, who is involved in shady business dealings with the Spanish government. Brett’s mission exposes him to the corruption and venality of the Nationalist victors, and to the growing rivalry between the Royalist and Falange wings of Franco’s regime.

Sansom’s characters reflect the range of British attitudes toward the Spanish conflict. Harry Brett is a self-described liberal Tory (“As far as I am concerned, Spain before the Civil War was rotten with chaos, and the Fascists and Communists both took advantage”). The crypto-Fascist Forsyth is balanced by a British Communist, Bernie Piper, an internationalist who embraces the Republican cause as part of a broader struggle against Fascism. And there is an English Red Cross nurse, Barbara Clare, an idealistic, but fragile, fellow traveler who becomes romantically involved with both Piper and Forsyth. The three men—Brett, Piper and Forsyth—have all attended Rookwood, a traditional British public school, and Sansom intersperses flashbacks of their school days throughout the pages of Winter in Madrid, linking past and present friendships and rivalries. That’s a lot of baggage for any novel to carry, and Sansom struggles to pull off the dual narratives.

He also misses the mark in his characterization of Forsyth, a straight-from-Central-Casting sadist, exactly the sort of predictable Fascist bad guy found in innumerable World War II thrillers. Franco’s Spanish supporters are also uniformly portrayed by Sansom as grasping, or evil, or both. Yet, it is possible for a novelist to write about the complex human dimensions of those loyal to a twisted ideology. For example, Alan Furst has created a number of fully-rounded characters drawn to totalitarian creeds in novels like The World at Night, Kingdom of Shadows, and Dark Star, and David Downing’s Zoo Station and Silesian Station give us flesh-and-blood Germans struggling to retain their decency in Nazi Germany. Winter in Madrid would have been better served by grays instead of black-and-white, and it would have been a much better novel if Sansom had risked more by creating less predictable, and less cliched, villains.

To his credit, Sansom gets his history right. There’s no whitewashing of Comintern treachery during the Civil War, and also no shying away from the post-war reality of Nationalist brutality. At one level, Winter in Madrid can be read as an indictment of Britain’s accomodationist policy toward Franco and the Spanish Right in the 1930s and 1940s, and yet Sansom acknowledges that by the time of the Battle of Britain, Whitehall’s options had narrowed. No matter how distasteful the Franco regime might be, keeping Spain out of an alliance with the Germans had to shape British policy.

Sansom’s imaginative leap in setting Winter in Madrid after the end of the civil war deserves praise as well. We see Spain confronting not only the human costs of its ideological death struggle—the shattered veterans, the orphans, the despairing widows—but also the grim prospects of life under a dictatorship. It is a fascinating, and haunting, story and Winter in Madrid tells it well.

Copyright © 2008 Jefferson Flanders
All rights reserved

C.J. Sansom was educated at Birmingham University, where he completed a BA and then a Ph.D. in history. After working a variety of jobs, he retrained as a solicitor and practiced in Sussex until becoming a full-time writer.

Drawing inspiration from Graham Greene, John Steinbeck, and John le Carré, Sansom writes captivating historical mysteries set in Tudor England. There are four novels in the Matthew Shardlake series: Dissolution (2003), Dark Fire (2005), Sovereign (2007), and Revelation (2008).  In addition, his love for the city of Madrid led him to write a stand-alone spy novel, Winter in Madrid in 2006.  The first three Matthew Shardlake books were nominated for Dagger Awards (Britain’s prestigious crime writing awards).  In 2005, Dark Fire won the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Dagger.

What makes his books so good?

Dissolution is the most atmospheric historical novel I’ve ever read.  Every time I opened the book, I was transported and immersed into Tudor England.  The sights, sounds, and smells just leap from Sansom’s pages. Another quality, which sets Sansom’s novels apart from the rest, is his use of the tension of the times.  His first novel takes place when Henry VIII orders the dissolution of the monasteries, the beginning of a very dark and contentious period in English history. Sansom exploits the tensions that arise between the bitterly divided Catholics and reforming Protestants.  Unlike many other historical fiction books that concentrate on the detail, Samson writes fluidly so that the reader is propelled through the story.   In spite of all this, the main strength of Sansom’s historical mysteries is the compelling protagonist, attorney Matthew Shardlake. As one of the most unconventional detectives in the crime fiction genre, Shardlake is a hunchback.  And yet, his physical deformity is not the only way that he is set apart from others around him.  In a time when most men are out to protect themselves, Shardlake is a man of conscience.  As readers, we are continually impressed with his sharp wit, but it is his private conflicts about faith, morality, and justice that truly make him an appealing character.

In addition, Sansom’s series also gives readers plenty of variety. Dissolution is a closed setting mystery, taking place in a monastery; Dark Fire is a quest; Sovereign is a political thriller set in York; and Revelation is a serial killer novel.

If you have any interest in historical mysteries, I highly recommend this series.  You won’t be disappointed.

Since 1990, I’ve been a serious fan of mysteries. Here’s perhaps the quintessential list to get you started with some of today’s best authors.

The Best First Novels in a Great Series SINCE 1990:

1992 Black Echo by Michael Connelly (Harry Bosch series) Police Procedural
1994 The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laure R. King (Mary Russell series) Private Eye
1994 One for the Money by Janet Evanovich (Stephanie Plum series) Private Eye
1994 A Drink Before the War by Dennis Lehane (Patrick Kenzie/Angela Gennaro series) Private Eye (NEW ADDITION)
1997 The Killing Floor by Lee Child (Jack Reacher series) Thriller
1998 Iron Lake by William Kent Krueger (Cork O’Connor series) Private Eye
2000 A Dangerous Road by Kris Nelscott (Smokey Dalton series) Private Eye
2001 The Patient’s Eyes by David Pirie (Dr. Jospeh Bell and Arthur Conan Doyle series) Private Eye
2001 Open Season by C.J. Box (Joe Pickett series) Police Procedural
2002 Open and Shut by David Rosenfelt (Andy Carpenter series) Legal Thriller
2002 Rain Fall by Barry Eisler (John Rain series) Thriller
2003 Dissolution by C.J. Sansom (Matthew Shardlake series) Historical, Amateur sleuth (NEW ADDITION)
2004 Tonight I Said Goodbye by Michael Koryta (Lincoln Perry series) Private Eye (NEW ADDITION)
2005 The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly (Mickey Haller series) Legal Thriller (NEW ADDITION)
I can now put this excellent thriller on the list now because he’s got a second book out in October.
2005 Already Dead by Charlie Huston (Joe Pitt series) Private Eye (NEW ADDITION)

Dark Fire by C.J. Sansom initially didn’t impress me but 200 pages in I was hooked, well written, well researched, atmospheric, genuinely exciting, with more depth as the plot progressed, I couldn’t fault it really. Set in Tudor London, it is the second in the series featuring lawyer Matthew Shardlake. It was a little difficult to get a grasp at first of who was who, specially as I was initially confused about all this talk of a Cromwell, ‘wasn’t he in the Revolution?” I thought, but then I realised I was thinking about Oliver Cromwell, whereas the real-life Cromwell in this book was a Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, King Henry VIII’s left hand man till the king had his head.

Thomas Cromwell – mmm not how I imagined he looked like whilst reading Dark Fire

It might have helped if I’d read the first book in the Shardlake series first, however it wasn’t overly necessary I think. Will I read more of the series now I’ve finished? Well, so many books out there, so little time, so having sampled what Sansom can offer I want to see what other authors can do but I suspect maybe having depleted my mammoth pile of books to read and on a rare moment when I can’t find anything else in the book shop, I may be reading another one.

If I may be so bold, you look a touch aweary midst this mizzling November mist. If I may be so bold, lay down your quill and your quarto, your brush and your bradawl, and join me for a walk along the south bank of London town, where the blue lights blink in the scarecrow trees like the eyes of Sinatran angels.

Wear this Basso & Brooke coat dress with thick ribbed grey tights and these laced skater boots from Clarks (no snob, I); slip the new Masaaki Suzuki Bach Mass in B Minor onto your iTouch; and hoof it head heavenward to the Tate Modern.

If you were in the mood for an exhibition, you would see The World As A Stage, a patchy but thought-provoking theatrically-themed melange of installations, sculptures and performances from international contemporary artists; but you’re not, so just jump over the crack and sashay into the shop. For your sternum: the Untitled necklace from Tatty Divine for the Tate collection. For your pocket: a new mini hardback edition of Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience, reproduced with full illustrations and illuminations.

Now, gulp a gingerbread latte on a bench overlooking the melancholy, mucky, magnificent Thames, open C.J.Sansom’s Dissolution, and lose yourself in a world of monks, snow and murder.

Some kind of wonderful, kid.

Mi trovavo nel Surrey in missione per conto di Lord Thomas Cromwell, quando arrivò la convocazione. Le terre di un monastero dissolto erano state assegnate a un membro del Parlamento del cui appoggio Lord Cromwell aveva bisogno, e i documenti che sancivano il titolo di proprietà di alcuni terreni boscosi erano spariti.

Autunno del 1537 a Londra: l’avvocato gobbo Matthew Shardlake è costretto a lasciare Londra per eseguire un incarico affidatogli da Lord Thomas Cromwell, consigliere del sovrano Enrico VIII. È inviato nel monastero di San Donato a Scarnsea, paesino del Sussex, a indagare su due efferate azioni compiute lì dentro: la cruenta uccisione di un commissario regio, inviato lì segretamente, e la profanazione dell’altare della Chiesa con lo spargimento di sangue di un galletto nero.
Sfono della trama sono le lotte religiose fra anglicani e cattolici durante il tribolato regno di Enrico VIII, con la seguente dissoluzione dei Monasteri. Sansom è bravo a portarci in questa cupa atmosfera, che penetra in tutta la vicenda svolta nel Monastero, con i sapienti tocchi di “giallo” e di cruda realtà storica.

Un grazie a Shardan, autore dell’articolo.