Robert Wilton (2)

The Scottish merchant Keith Kinnaird, having received a letter from his friend Henry Greene asking for help, travels to Saint-Denis in France in the autumn of 1792, but his friend has disappeared. Determined to find him, Kinnaird makes enquiries, but soon he finds himself at the centre of a web of intrigue. Will he be able to make it out alive?

I love Robert Wilton's historical thrillers, centred on documents found in the archives of the (fictitious) Comptrollerate-General for Scrutiny and Survey. His novels are tense, intricate, complex and compellingly readable, and with enough twists and turns to make a reader feel dizzy, while remaining eminently realistic; this fourth volume in the series (not chronological) is no exception. The prose is one to savour as Robert Wilton has a knack to describe a character, setting or atmosphere with a few well-chosen words that make the action come alive before one's eyes. It's a fairly demanding read because the reader is required to pay attention not only to the things that are said, but also to what remains unsaid; sometimes the threads become visible only later on in the book. However, it is not perfect: the rather loose structure, just as in the other novels in the series, takes some getting used to, with short sections providing a focus on one character, only for the next section to move to another. I also found the jump between tenses at times slightly distracting, but when the narrative is this compelling, that is easy to forgive.

As with Robert Wilton's author books in the Comptrollerate-General for Scrutiny and Survey series, Treason's Spring is fiendishly clever and definitely worth a re-read, to better understand, and to better appreciate, how the plot threads are interwoven.

In the author's notes Robert Wilton mentions certain connections to characters in Treason's Tide, set only a decade after the events in Treason's Spring, which make this book worth a re-read sooner rather than later.

Apparently this is the beginning of a new trilogy, and I can't wait to get my hands on the sequels when they're eventually published.… (plus d'informations)

In the spring of 1914, amid increasing tensions between nations and ethnicities in Europe, an old man in London is preparing what might be his last opportunity to trap the Spider, a master of spies and his long-standing enemy, and reveal his identity. Consequently, he sends out four civilians from different backgrounds and of very different characters – three men and one woman – to gather information on the continent and to report back to him their impressions. But soon other and more hostile agencies become aware of their existence and before long track their every move …

I admit this is a difficult book to review, as essentially not very much happens, but it is gripping and incredibly tense nonetheless as the author plays fiendishly clever mind games and occasionally requires the reader to pay close attention and join up the dots themselves. Once again I can only marvel at the author’s impeccable research – he asserts that parts of the novel are based on previously unpublished documents by the enigmatic Comptrollerate-General which made appearances in his two other books – as the atmosphere he creates is one of the European nations on the brink of war, with only reports here and there of increasing arms shipments and foreign currencies being converted to gold, but nothing substantial, and Britain and Germany to all intents and purposes still playing at allies with a joint regatta of their navies. The novel literally starts with a bang, but then takes a little while to get going again; once the four agents have been sent on their respective ways, the stakes are raised as they are essentially on their own, with no set objective to follow, and have to rely on their wits. Robert Wilton resorts to a very clever stylistic ploy to increase the urgency and tension, which probably not everyone will appreciate as it makes following the individual plot strands more difficult and is quite disorientating at first, but in my opinion proves very effective, and I raced through the pages and had to force myself to stop reading from time to time to sleep or look after my family.

As spring turns to summer and events start to spiral out of control, it was more than a little disappointing to find that the denouement, despite a major twist and a surprising (slightly forced?) coincidence, rather fizzled out and ended quite abruptly, with one or two questions still left unanswered. But, up till then, I have to award the author full marks for delivering a novel with such skill and panache.

Where and when will the next published case files of the Comptrollerate-General take us?… (plus d'informations)

This is a work of historical fiction set in the period of the English civil war in the mid to late 1600s. It is written in jumpy, edgy way, with the story broken into pieces, told from the voices of the various main characters, plus some faux documentary evidence from newspapers and archives, each piece of which is designed to tell only part of the story, and to leave the readers grasping for the full meaning and context. I found this structure a little annoying, but the author is smart enough to keep it all together, and the story eventually unfolds for the reader. The historical background seems authentic, from my limited research, and this helps make the book a satisfying read.
Read November 2014… (plus d'informations)

Covering a period of roughly three years, from the aftermath of the Battle of Preston in 1648 to the escape of the young King Charles II in 1651, this novel focuses on two very different personalities: Sir Mortimer Shay, a staunch Royalist and veteran of thirty years of war on the continent, who assumes the role of fixer for the monarchist cause and tries to rebuild the opposition to Cromwell's Parliamentary Army; and John Thurloe, a clerk in the Parliamentarian ranks, who shows his intelligence and capability during the course of the war and thus increasingly finds himself within Cromwell's trusted circle and eventually chief intelligencer of the regime.

Every once in a while a book comes along that lets you forget that you're an impassive, outside observer and transports you right into the atmosphere of the book, leaving your body behind and not aware that you're still having to turn the pages to make the plot progress, everything appearing so real that you can hear, see, smell and feel what the author is describing to you; this is one of those books. Robert Wilton's prose is eloquent and atmospheric, his descriptions evocative and dynamic - occasionally even urgent when the action demands it (the literary equivalent of a car chase in a film) - the plotting intricate and tense, and this novel completely absorbing and gripping. In a different take on the historical novel, the author has constructed the narrative around the framework of genuine authentic documents from the period, thus adding credibility to the fictionalised characters and plot strands and seemingly confirming events as described in the book. The old-fashioned fonts used in some of these news sheets, pamphlets and letters add to the authenticity, but occasionally make reading them a challenge.

The novel's structure is complex and it takes a while to get used to it, the narrative jumping from one scenery and character to the next, often barely allowing the reader to catch their breath before the plot is moved elsewhere, and at first it's not always clear whether the paragraph portrays the Royalists or the Roundheads until you've become more acquainted with the principal names; a cast of characters in the prelims would have been helpful, as I had to leaf back on several occasions to find the context in which the name had previously been mentioned. I didn't mind as I think this device will keep the reader alert, guessing and on their toes, and the narrative restless and dynamic, but others might feel that this is disrupting the flow too much. The novel features a mixture of historic and fictitious characters, all of them imbued with life, yet to me it is the person of Charles I who stands out most clearly; with such a small part to play in the novel, he makes an extraordinarily vivid impression, and I couldn't help but feel sorry for him. As the action moves to Ireland, the siege of Drogheda is portrayed in all its breathtaking and terrifying chaos and noise, an outstanding piece of descriptive writing. John Thurloe's progression from a clerk standing on the sidelines to becoming someone in the trappings of intelligence, making life-or-death decisions and influencing the course of history, appears entirely natural, driven by his intelligence and curiosity, but also afflicted by occasions of self-doubt.

Unfortunately Robert Wilton doesn't quite manage to sustain the high quality of the plotting all the way through, and, in the final stages, I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed: Thurloe's actions towards the end of the book seem too out of character to me, and the final revelations relating to the identity of the traitor stretch credibility just a little too far in my opinion, so that I can't really justify awarding this book five stars: four and a half feels entirely deserved.

In the foreword, the author hopes that the novel will inspire the reader to make their own investigations into the facts described, and I will certainly do some background reading involving the (real-life) character of John Thurloe and the English Civil War, but unfortunately he didn't feel it necessary to supply some additional historical notes, which would surely have added merit to an already excellent novel.

(This review was originally written as part of Amazon's Vine programme.)… (plus d'informations)