Synopses & Reviews
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 Englands youth. On one of his rescue forays into no-mans-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 Cullingfords driver and translator, harbors her own fearful suspicions.
Meanwhile, Joseph and Judiths 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.
Review
"Perry deftly brings together different threads in this new series, all the while suffusing the story with her trademark passion against injustice and evil." Library Journal
Review
"An absorbing tale, ranging from Flanders fields to Gallipoli, in which the visceral horrors of warprovide a better balance for the plummy periods of Perry's high-flown dialogue than Victorian England ever did." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"If Perry's novel is a skillful popular entertainment, it is also a reminder of the limitations of such fiction in dealing with human tragedy on a scale that should make the heavens weep." Washington Post
Synopsis
The taut, inspiring sequel to No Graves As Yet continues Perry's acclaimed World War I series, which follows the lives of the Reavley family amid the horrors of war.
Synopsis
Book Two of Anne Perry's
New York Times bestselling World War One series...
This installment, set in 1915 and with action alternating between the trenches and the home front in England, is both an espionage thriller and front-lines adventure.
Joseph Reavley's regiment is located in the Ypres salient, where a war correspondent named Eldon Prentice arrives and proves himself to be an arrogant troublemaker. Prentice wants to file a muckraking report on soldiers' self-inflicted wounds; in so doing, he earns the wrath of the entire regiment, including Joseph.
Before long, the journalist is murdered drowned, with his head forcibly held down in the filthy water of the trenches. And soon a connection of conspiracy is made between his death and the murder in London of a highly regarded British general. Joseph Reavley and his brother Matthew, an Intelligence operative, collaborate to unmask a deadly killer a man who, furthermore, is implicated in the murder of Joseph and Matthew's parents.
About the Author
Anne Perry is the bestselling author of the World War I novels, No Graves as Yet, Shoulder the Sky, and Angels in the Gloom, as well as four holiday novels including a Christmas Visitor and A Christmas Guest. She is also the creator of two acclaimed series set in Victorian England. Her William Monk novels include Dark Assassin, Death of a Stranger, and Funeral in Blue. The popular novels featuring Thomas and Charlotte Pitt include Long Spoon Lane, Seven Dials, and Southampton Row. She lives in Scotland.