Into the trenches of hell in the second book about the Reavley family.

Can't wait for the next edition in this series | Shoulder the Sky: A Novel (World War One Novels) | Anne Perry

books:


	• Shoulder the Sky: A Novel (World War One Novels) Anne Perry Ballantine Books, 2005 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 19 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

Absolutely Riveting!

In her second book of her World War I series, Shoulder The Sky, Anne Perry delivers another stunning story revolving around the Reavley siblings. The death of a young war correspondent, Eldon Prentice, at first seems to be one of the many casualties of war. Upon closer inspection, Joseph Reavley, a Chaplin working on the front lines in Ypres, suspects Prentice was not a casualty of war, but murdered. Meanwhile Matthew Reavley, a diligent employee of the Secret Intelligence Service, continues to track down the elusive Peacemaker. While the plot line itself is fantastic, it is Perry's ability to paint a vivid picture of life during the war that captivates the reader. Perry is unrelenting in her description of life in the trenches. She has a unique ability to convey the horrors of war, but at the same time express the fierce companionship between the men fighting for what they believe in. Even if the plotline does not interest you, her meticulous research and dramatic presentation of the war effort is well worth the read. I find it hard to believe that after writing so many novels Anne Perry is still able to present us with fresh storylines, incredibly realistic characters and a vivid reconstruction of life during World War I. This is definitely one of Perry's better works.

for more information click here

Into the trenches of hell in the second book about the Reavley family.

Earlier this year, I returned to the works of long time mystery writer, Anne Perry. I had gotten tired of her earlier series, but there was something about this new work that had caught my eye, and I decided to take this one on.

Set in the harrowing years of World War I, Shoulder the Sky continues the story of the Reavleys, a solidly middle-class English family. In the first book, we had been stricken with the sudden death of the parents, John and Alys, deaths that had turned out to be murders. Now the adult children are struggling along, caught up in the year 1915, and still unraveling the mystery of the Peacemaker.

The eldest, Joseph, is a chaplain in the bloody, filthy trenches of Ypres, doing what he can to help the nameless numbers of soldiers fighting a war that is quickly turning into a stalemate. Brother Matthew is in London serving with the Intelligence services. The youngest child, Judith, has taken on the duties of a VAD -- a Voluntary Aid Dispenser -- driving ambulances and acting as the personal driver for one of the commanding generals, Owen Cullingford. Another daughter, Hannah, is struggling to hold her own small family together while her husband is at sea.

Told mostly through the eyes of Joseph, we get a first hand account of the war between England and Germany, and Joseph's relationships with the men around him. Most intriguing is the one that he has with Sam Weatherall, a major who is running a crew of sappers, men who are digging tunnels towards the German lines, to try and gather intelligence on future attacks. Joseph and Sam have known each other since their days at Cambridge, and they share what few luxuries that they have, hoping that one day soon, they will all get to go home.

The novel opens with the arrival of Eldon Prentice, a brat of a journalist, who is demanding to be taken to the front lines. He makes crass comments about the soldiers, derides a young sapper who has part of his hand taken off by a sniper and accuses him of doing it deliberately, and isn't above using blackmail to get what he wants either. Retrieving bodies after an attack, it's Joseph Reavley finds Prentice dead on the field, head down in a bomb crater. But the writer hasn't been shot -- someone has held him underwater, and everything is pointing towards it being murder, and the killer being someone that Joseph knows. Will the chaplain let it be, or take the route of finding justice, no matter how much it might cost him in mental anguish?

Perry's own viewpoint on pacifism rings throughout the story, but how she does it is what makes the story interesting. She describes the killing fields of Flanders with all of the horrors attached, swarming with the dead, the brutal life in the trenches, filled with disease, sudden attacks, rats, filth and all the rest.

What makes this book work so well is the psychological drama in each of the various characters as they cope with warfare that has become industrialized. Two sequences are particularly wrenching to read -- the gas attacks on the British at Ypres, and the slaughter at Gallipolli. Effective as well is Judith's complicated relationship with General Cullingford -- in the hands of a lesser writer, there would have been a sexual affair, no doubt told in great detail, but Perry doesn't take the easy way out either -- Judith and Cullingford come across as adults, not idiotic teenagers, and that's very refreshing to read.

Those readers who persevere will find this to be rewarding. While the subject matter is certainly grim, and told in language that spares nothing, there are moments when it all fits neatly together. You start to care very much what happens to the characters, and by the end, several truths come home about the nature of friendship and heroism. Perry does this without hyperbole or mawkishness. It's some of the best fiction that I've read about the nature of warfare, and it has me waiting to reading the next book in the series, Angels in the Gloom.

Four stars. Recommended.

for more information click here

Can't wait for the next edition in this series

I am not usually an Anne Perry fan, but this series is wonderful, can't put the books down. I have read all three books in the series, starting with Shoulder the Sky. I can't wait for the next one. I am now an Anne Perry fan.

In the firmament of great historical novelists, Anne Perry is a star of the greatest magnitude. First there were her acclaimed Victorian mysteries, sparkling with passion and suspense. Now readers have embraced this bestselling new series of World War I novels?which juxtapose the tranquil life of the English countryside with the horrors of war.

By April of 1915, as chaplain Joseph Reavley tends to the soldiers in his care, the nightmare of trench warfare is impartially cutting down England?s youth. On one of his rescue forays into no-man?s-land, Joseph finds the body of an arrogant war correspondent, Eldon Prentice. A nephew of the respected General Owen Cullingford, Prentice was despised for his prying attempts to elicit facts that would turn public opinion against the war. Most troublesome to Joseph, Prentice has been killed not by German fire but, apparently, by one of his own compatriots. What Englishman hated Prentice enough to kill him? Joseph is afraid he may know, and his sister, Judith, who is General Cullingford?s driver and translator, harbors her own fearful suspicions.

Meanwhile, Joseph and Judith?s brother, Matthew, an intelligence officer in London, continues his quiet search for the sinister figure they call the Peacemaker, who, like Eldon Prentice, is trying to undermine the public support for the struggle?and, as the Reavley family has good reason to believe, is in fact at the heart of a fantastic plot to reshape the entire world. An intimate of kings, the Peacemaker kills with impunity, and his dark shadow stretches from the peaceful country lanes of Cambridgeshire to the twin hells of Ypres and Gallipoli.

In this mesmerizing series, Anne Perry has found a subject worthy of her gifts. Illuminating the murderous conflict whose violence still resounds in our consciousness?as well as the souls of men and women who lived it?Shoulder the Sky is a taut, inspiring masterpiece.

From the Hardcover edition.

for more information click here

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

hot