A Place of Greater Safety

Product Information

I found the book enthralling, and at times it was difficult to put down. Mantel's ability to infer information about the leaders is very intuitive, and this is the quality which really makes this historical novel great. The only slight downside to the book, but bear in mind this is completely down to personal taste, was that at times I felt that as a reader, one had to pay very close attention to Mantel's writing to fully understand her inferences, making it a book best read when fully awake, and not, perhaps the best choice for a relaxing evening read.

Jean-Marie Hérault de Séchelles: An young reformist aristocrat and legal dignitary, filthy rich and idle. Later called a "Dantonist". A gambler.This may be how it was for Madame Guillotine, or it may be the author's detailing, but this happens over and over again. Crafty tensions, twists and high drama...a bravura display of her endlessly inventive, eerily observant style.’ Times Literary Supplement In a word of warning, if you know nothing about the French Revolution, this is not the best book from which to increase your knowledge. It helped that I had some idea of dates and times and events and, to a lesser degree, persons from that cataclysmic time in the history of France. Get out your encyclopaedias, your Baroness Orczy and Jean Plaidy, and there is always good old Google. Gabrielle Danton: A royalist surrounded my revolutionaries. Willfully naive but principled, and subtler than others give her credit for. verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{

Lucile Desmoulins, wife of Camille Desmoulins - a clever and observant woman, much underrated initially, as Desmoulins' first love was her mother and he only married Lucile because Annette/Anne would not consider divorcing her husband. Lucile was in the midst of the group - Robespierre, Danton, Desmoulins, Marat and the many other men who drove the French Revolution with their commitment and foresight. A gripping tale based on historical events, extremely well read, each character having his own voice. Ben Miles as Thomas Cromwell and Lydia Leonard as Anne Boleyn in Wolf Hall. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian

The novel is written in darting, suggestive sentences; the dialogue, in all its stoical tones and elements of good and bad humour, is like a chorus, or a commentary on life and its hardships. Using hints and clues, a deceptive indirection, Mantel allows us to enter the wounded spirit of her giant and the restless mind of the inquiring and ambitious doctor-cum-bodysnatcher. Their circling of each other is conducted with slow subtlety, but also with an unsparing sense of doom. Maximilien Robespierre: An earnest young provincial lawyer; slight, sober, and punctilious. He is unassuming, reliable, and competent, but a bore. Abhors the sight of blood.