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In the process of reading this, and no, it’s not a patch on Pillars of the Earth. The characters have no real depth and their interactions are not c convincing. Having said that Follet is a great writer. His Kingsbridge novels really do hold your attention. Let’s pray that his next one will reassure us that he hasn’t lost his touch!

My wife bought me the paperback version (Broadside Books) for my birthday, and being a big fan of Mr Murray I was looking forward to reading it. Imagine my dismay when I found even the first few pages of the Introduction unintelligible in parts. The sentences were clumsy, phrasing obscure, I couldn’t believe it. Just two sentences from p7 to illustrate my confusion.. “In like manner, insofar as women’s activists were going after ”male designs,” Western private enterprise, and significantly more, they were helpful. Women’s activists who didn’t toe that line or thought they were similarly wealthy in the West were treated as sellouts, best case scenario adversaries even from a pessimistic standpoint.” I don’t know if this was a translation of a translation, but I gave up.