A Dystopian Mystery…
“Today I finished writing my 13th novel. Nunc est bibendum!” Robert Harris, February 15, 2019
THE SECOND SLEEP by Robert Harris Book Review – Alternate History – Dystopian Mystery
“I like playing around with time — and different universes,” Robert Harris explained in an interview about writing his newest novel THE SECOND SLEEP.
And the result landed in our mailbox a few days ago — orange Penguin logo on the package — shiny new advanced reader copy compliments of our ever-lovin’ GoodReads.
Big fan of Harris’ FATHERLAND and CONCLAVE, I’d have asked for a copy for my birthday anyway…
It’s a rainy English April day in the Year of Our Risen Lord 1468 and a young priest is making his way on horseback to a remote village to officiate at the funeral of an old priest. Father Christopher Fairfax expects that he’ll be returning to the Exeter Cathedral chapter house within a day or two.
Of course, young Fairfax will stay much longer. As with his other novels, historic or alternate, Robert Harris doesn’t bury us with details of his creation at once — we take a stroll through his countryside, learning of this place and time and people slowly. We ask the questions, and his worldscape becomes part of the mystery.
Fairfax finds himself in an intrigue of heresy. The dead priest, Father Lacy, had been a collector of forbidden things. In the small study at the parsonage, shelves of them. Old books, mostly about the Apocalypse of eight hundred years ago — some of them copies of titles that had been publicly burned by the Church in other towns. And strange objects: old coins, keys, plates and white plastic cutlery.
And up in the thickly forested hills, the rock-strewn Devil’s Chair, where Father Lacy had fallen to his death…
Step by step, Fairfax finds himself becoming part of a group seeking, in dangerous times, to uncover the secrets in those hills. And we follow them. All the way.
And discover that even the title is a clue.
I’m left, in my own imagination, with a scene of young Rose, she with the big blue eyes and black hair tied with a blue ribbon, looking up toward the Devil’s Chair, wondering what has become of Christopher Fairfax.
Not as dark as Cormac McCarthy’s THE ROAD, maybe, or as sentimental as Edgar Pangborn’s DAVY, it’s somewhere in the middle. If categories matter, then this has got to be one of the best dystopian novels of 2019. Certainly, as always with Robert Harris, it’s a tense, thoughtful mystery.
I raise a glass of cold Schooner beer to you, Robert!
Five Stars, indeed.
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Title: THE SECOND SLEEP by Robert Harris Book Review – Alternate History – Dystopian Mystery – From the bestselling author of MUNICH
Keywords: Alternate History books, best dystopian novels 2019, Book review, Dystopian novels, Fatherland, murder mystery 2019, Munich, Mystery, Second Sleep, Second Sleep Robert Harris review, Robert Harris
