Published by Ballantine Books, 2009, 369 pages. This is a gripping story set in 18th century London. Thief-taker[1] Benjamin Weaver is asked by a mysterious man called Cobb to carry out a dangerous assignment. When Weaver declines, Cobb resorts to other means. He threatens three people close to Weaver with destitution unless Weaver agrees to …
Category: Historical fiction
The Widows of Malabar Hill: Sujata Massey
Published by Soho Press, Inc., 2018, 400 pages. This is more than just a crime novel: by setting it in India in the early 1900s, Sujata Massey paints a vivid portrait of the country and especially of the lives of the women at the time. The book starts in Bombay in 1921. The British are …
The Shadow King: Maaza Mengiste
Published by Canongate Books, 2020, 448 pages. “The newspapers say that the [Italian] soldiers marched to Axum and took the city without a single shot being fired. … They claim that…Adua was finally, proudly, taken by the Italians on 5 October 1935 and the tiny, nondescript village welcomed the invaders with bowed heads and ululations. …
Tyll: Daniel Kehlmann
Translated from German by Ross BenjaminPublished by riverrun, 2020, 352 pages. Original version published in 2017. The jester or trickster is a ubiquitous figure, popping up in mythologies, literature, street theatre, and in playing cards and tarot. He (it’s almost always a man) is an entertainer, mentally and physically agile, and able to speak truth …
The Moor’s Account: Laila Lalami
Published by Random House / Pantheon / Periscope / Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014, 336 pages. History is written by the victors, as the saying goes. What we know of the conquest—or the invasion—of the Americas tends to come from those who conquered the land. This book gives another perspective—the narrator, Mustafa ibn Muhammad ibn Abdussalam al-Zamori, …
Tombland: C.J. Sansom
Published by Pan / Mulholland Books / Mantle, 2018, 880 pages. I wasn’t going to write this, since I’ve already reviewed a book in the Shardlake series (Dark Fire). But Tombland is a little different—it is not just a murder mystery but also describes a little-known event in English history. The series centres around Matthew …
Les Misérables: Victor Hugo
Translated from French by Norman DennyPublished by Penguin, 1976 (this translation), 1232 pages. Original version first published in 1862. This is probably one of Victor Hugo’s best-known books, popularized by the musical starring Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe and Anne Hathaway. But since a two-hour film can only provide a brief summary, I decided to read …
Harilal & Sons: Sujit Saraf
Published by Speaking Tiger, 2017, 528 pages. Beginning in 1899 when India was still under British rule, this sprawling narrative takes us through the country’s independence and partition in 1947 and ends in 1972, following the creation of Bangladesh. At the centre of the story is Harilal, a Marwari[1] merchant. When the story opens, Harilal …
The Man Who Loved Dogs: Leonardo Padura
Translated from Spanish by Anna KushnerPublished by Bitter Lemon Press / Farrar Strauss & Giroux, 2014, 592 pages. Original version published in 2009. “If the social dream and economic utopia supporting it had become corrupt to the core, what remained of the greatest experiment man had ever dreamed of?” It is easy to forget today …
The Dictator’s Last Night: Yasmina Khadra
Translated from French by Julian EvansPublished by Gallic Books, 2015, 160 pages. Original version published in 2015. On 20 October 2011, the news was full of the capture of the Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi, found hiding in a culvert in near Sirte. It was an unimaginable fall for the man who saw himself as the …
