Klicka på en bild för att gå till Google Book Search.
Laddar... Unicorn's Blood (1998)av Patricia Finney
Books Read in 2004 (74) Laddar...
Gå med i LibraryThing för att få reda på om du skulle tycka om den här boken. Det finns inga diskussioner på LibraryThing om den här boken. Patricia Finney's second Elizabethan espionage thriller is even better than the first (and the third is even better still, but we'll get to that.) Narrated by the Madonna herself, the Virgin Mary, who moves from scene to scene with grace and compassion, the muti-stranded narratvie concerns an old scandal from childhood of Queen Elizabeth, and the Book of the Unicorn, which contains the secret, and the factions searching furiously and ruthlessly for said book which promises to either destroy or grant absolute control over the Queen. A Catholic priest hiding from the pursuivants hears an old woman's confession, and hatches a scheme. Protestant priest-hunters and courtiers, pressing for the execution of Mary Queen of Scots have a chance to put Elizabeth herself in her place. A man wakes in the Tower with no memory of who he is, Simon Ames comes back from the dead to rescue an old friend, and the Queen's Fool sets out to save her mistress. A brilliant thriller that lays out life in the Westminister Court of the Virgin Queen, from the morning routines of the Queen and her women to the cut-throat world of the courtiers and counsellers, to the lowest cellar where the night-soil is collected and stored, the plots and counter-plots, the politics and the unforgiving religious hatreds are all brought to sinister, dangerous life. Superbly written, full of detail and living, breathing characters and sly commentaries on religious extremism and misogyny, this is a top-notch novel of historical intrigue. Set in Elizabethan England – with Elizabeth herself as a major character – what impresses about this novel is not the convoluted, sometimes Disneyfied plot, but the details of life in Court in the 16th century. Everything down to the clothing and the slop in the streets is meticulously depicted (there’s even a glossary), so the reader does feel transported to another time and place. Elizabeth’s character is also meticulously depicted, as an often cold, headstrong, independent, sometimes lesbian woman well ahead of her time. I only wish the rest of the story had held up as well, but the plot to discover Elizabeth’s diary from her teenage years and protect the secrets held within does sometimes border on the type of playful, adventurous romp perhaps better suited to a light matinee rather than a serious work of historical fiction.
"Swiftly moving and deftly woven, this courtly tale is as engrossing as it is improbable -- and thus all the more delightful." "Early efforts to link three different characters named Mary (the queen, the Virgin and a defrocked nun) take a little getting used to, but all confusions are resolved in time, while Finney's fictional meditations on Elizabeth's iconic womanhood (and virginity), her overmastering will and her life-preserving, lonely suspiciousness not only bring Elizabeth alive--they make England's greatest queen an object of sympathy and even identification." "A hot-blooded, noisy cast, including the great Queen; shudderingly graphic details of torture chambers and executions; and an exhilarating facsimile of the grandeur and grunge of Elizabethan London: in all, a roaring good tale, with a poetic sensibility and judicious sense of humanity at its core." Ingår i serienIngår iHar som referensvägledning/bredvidläsningsbok
Patricia Finney's outstanding literary thriller plunges into the vivid and deadly world of the 16th century: from the torture chambers of the Tower to the elegant artifice of court life; from the bawdy-houses of Southwark to the Queen's own bed. Why are the Jesuits, the Queen's Puritan councillors and even the Queen herself searching for the mysterious Book of the Unicorn? What ancient scandal threatens Elizabeth Tudor as she fights to avoid executing her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots? And what of the man waking up in the dungeon with no memory of who he is? David Becket and Simon Ames, the two mismatched heroes of FIREDRAKE'S EYE find themselves unwillingly in the thick of the struggle to unravel the plot. Inga biblioteksbeskrivningar kunde hittas. |
Pågående diskussionerIngen/ingaPopulära omslag
Google Books — Laddar... GenrerMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.914Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999Klassifikation enligt LCBetygMedelbetyg:
Är det här du? |
Patricia Finney has built a complex tale of intrigue around this reversal, basing it on the search for a supposed diary kept by the young Princess Elizabeth, which would have destroyed her as a monarch and a woman.
This densely plotted tale is rife with espionage, double-dealing, turncoat agents, secret codes, hidden passageways, and disgraced clergy. It meticulously sets out pictures of both court life and the desperate struggle for survival of London’s poor, rich in detail and developing an all-too-plausible tale of events in Elizabeth’s life before she ascended the throne. It even toys with mysticism, assigning some of the narrative to the Virgin Mary, who manages to be almost as interesting as the mortal characters carrying the action.
Readers looking for a court-heavy tale of Tudor lives, loves, and feuds, may be disappointed at the emphasis on spies and double-dealings, while those attempting to winkle out just who among Elizabeth’s court was allied with whom may be impatient with a wandering subplot about an unfrocked nun desperate to make a dowry for her great granddaughter. And anyone coming to the novel as a stand-alone is apt to be dismayed that there is an earlier volume, ‘Firedrake’s Eye’, which introduces some of the main fictional characters in this tale.
Finney’s research is exhaustive, and there are many fascinating details about life at court and among the populace. Finding these nuggets may distract the reader from the fact that the pace is glacial and that there are more characters and subplots than hairs in one of Elizabeth’s wigs. ( )