Just finished this book by Robert Harris( The last book by him I read by him being the thriller Conclave.) and it reminded me very much of a fantastic song by The Stranglers Toiler On The Sea, in that I started off reading one thing and before very long discovered I was reading something else entirely.). The year is 1468, a young priest, Christopher Fairfax, has travelled on horseback to a remote village in Sussex, deep in the heartland of a sleeping Albion. He has come to bury his predeccessor who has died while exploring an ancient location known as The Devil's Chair. Whether by accident or at the hands of persons unknown, it is not clear. And within a short spell the priest will discover that much in this rural idyll is not what it appears to be and that some secrets are buried deep, though merely resting.beneath the soil of this merry old England.
Christopher fairfax is about to turn over a rock, to reveal the squirming under belly of a community that wears its past well. The England portrayed in this book feels like one from some old painting, conveying an image of rustic charm and hard work. An agrarian society, one of superstition and piety. Where the citizens toil hard and all have soil beneath their finger nails, remnants of the good Earth which sustains them. A vision of an England long past. Quite beautiful actually...
It is a difficult book to discuss without respecting spoilers. Robert Harris has constructed a very intriguing thriller, built upon a sturdy frame of a history the reader will recognise but will also appall.
But is'nt that the history of the real world,after all.
