By April 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.

Anne Perry takes a break from her bestselling mystery series about William and Hester Monk of Victorian England for a mystery set in the trenches and on the home front of WWI. The characterizations are finely wrought, and the depiction of trench life is gripping. The mystery, which uncovers a murderous high-placed traitor called "The Peacemaker," is over the top, but Michael Page's well-tuned narration keeps one listening with pleasure despite the author's flights of fancy. Who needs a believable story when you have an engaging narrator like Page? The subtle tension of his voice during the trench scenes and the lightening of tone away from the battlefield are terrific, the pacing is expert, and the vocal characterizations, from Oxford don to Yorkshire farmhand-soldier to smarmy, exploitive journalist, are perfect. A thoroughly satisfying listen. A.C.S. (c) AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine

 

Anne Perry is the bestselling author of two acclaimed series set in Victorian England: the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt novels, including Seven Dials and Long Spoon Lane, and the William Monk novels, most recently The Shifting Tide and Dark Assassin. She is also the author of the World War I novels No Graves As Yet, Shoulder the Sky, Angels in the Gloom, At Some Disputed Barricade, and We Shall Not Sleep, as well as the holiday novels A Christmas Journey, A Christmas Visitor, A Christmas Guest, A Christmas Secret, and A Christmas Beginning. Anne Perry lives in Scotland. Visit her website at www.anneperry.net.

Shoulder the Sky by Anne Perry
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