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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Jul 2003, 400 pages
Paperback:
Jun 2004, 400 pages
For readers of John Le Carré and Alan Furst, a remarkable debut thriller about love, betrayal and the shadows that war leaves behind.
Larkwood Priory, England: Father Anselm is stopped by an old man. What, he is asked, should a man do when the world has turned against him? Anselm's response: claim sanctuary. But the answer sets off more trouble than he ever could have imagined when the man returns, demanding the protection of the Church. He is Eduard Schwermann, a suspected Nazi war criminal.
Agnes Aubret has unburdened a secret to her granddaughter Lucy. Fifty years earlier, Agnes was in occupied Paris, risking her life to smuggle Jewish children to safety—until her group was exposed by an SS officer: Eduard Schwermann.
Not only has the Church granted Schwermann sanctuary before; in 1944 it helped him escape from France to begin a new life in Britain. As Anselm attempts to find out why and as Lucy delves deeper into her grandmother's past, their investigations dovetail to form a remarkable story.
William Brodrick makes a dazzling debut in this literary thriller where two seemingly unconnected lives gradually, shockingly converge. Brodrick, himself a former Augustinian friar, is a master of precision plotting, morally complex characterization, and crisp historical re-creation. In Father Anselm, Brodrick has crafted a unique and compelling hero. Taut and completely compelling, The 6th Lamentation promises to be the literary thriller discovery of the season.
CHAPTER ONE
"Sanctuary."
"My bottom!"
"Honestly."
The Prior, Father Andrew, was fond of diluting harsher well-known expressions for monastic use, but the sentiment remained largely the same. He was an unconverted Glaswegian tamed by excessive education, but shades of the street fighter were apt to break out when grappling with the more unusual community problems.
"It was abolished ages ago. He can't be serious."
"Well, he is," said Anselm.
"When did he come out with that one?"
"This morning, when Wilf asked him to leave."
The Prior scowled. "I suppose he declined to oblige?"
"Yes. And he told Wilf there's nowhere he can go."
The two monks were sitting on a wooden bench on the south transept lawn of the Old Abbey ruin. It was Anselm's favourite spot at Larkwood. Facing them, on the South Walk cloister wall, were the remnants of the night stairs from the now vanished dorter. He liked to sit here and muse upon his thirteenth-century ...
Jeffrey Deaver
It's indeed rare to find such a masterful blending of sharp suspense and literary resonance as we see in The Sixth Lamentation. Author Brodrick has produced a truly compelling novel. Martha Grimes
The Sixth Lamentation is a meticulously-plotted, cat's cradle of a mystery with the interwoven stories pulled as taut as a piano-wire. The setting of Paris during the war is invoked to chilling effect. William Brodrick has written the first of what I hope will be a series of especially literate thrillers.
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