From Publishers Weekly
This absorbing mystery/spy thriller, set in tranquil Cambridge just before the onset of the Great War, marks a powerful start to bestseller Perry's much anticipated new series. In a lush and deceptively peaceful opening scene, college professor and chaplain Joseph Reavley is interrupted while watching a cricket game by his intelligence officer brother, Matthew, who reports the sudden death of their parents in a car crash. This horrifying news sets off a long but compelling investigation by the brothers that takes them across verdant summertime England, looking for a secret document that their father was trying to deliver to Matthew at the time of his death. Against a backdrop of ominous news from the continent, Perry artfully weaves connections between pacifist students at Cambridge, one of whom is also murdered, and German agents who may be planning "a conspiracy to ruin England and everything we stand for." The intrigue is further complicated by jilted lovers and jealous spouses at the university, all with grudges against an alleged blackmailer in their midst who may also be privy to exam cribbing and other illicit goings-on. Perry's title, a quotation from G.K. Chesterton, is a portent of the carnage that soon awaits the youth of England, yet by the final resolution of this gripping case, many graves have regrettably already been filled in Cambridge's serene churchyards.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Matthew and Joseph Reavley's parents are killed in a car accident on the same day the Austrian Archduke of Serbia is assassinated. Matthew is an intelligence officer; his father was driving to London to show him a document he believed was part of a conspiracy that would disgrace England. Days later, Joseph's favorite student is found murdered in his Cambridge dormitory room. The brothers join forces to investigate the two murders. Michael Page's reading adroitly captures the quiet atmosphere of Cambridge and the British countryside in 1914 alongside the climate of fear instilled in the students by the unsolved murder and the threat of coming war. Page's cadence and tone lend an excitement and grace to the story that improves upon the original plot. A.B. © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine--
Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
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