As a writer, I always got a huge number of historical novels to read (and provide cover quotes if I liked them). As Chair of the HWA, that number seems to have increased exponentially. Some of them, frankly, are dire. Some are OK. Some are quite good. Once in a while, there’s one that’s so very, very good it leaves me breathless and speechless and at the same time reading bits out to Faith. She has a degree in English Lit- she’s far more literate than I am - so it has to be good for me to read things to her.
Only once ever, have I sat by the fire in the evening and read aloud the entire opening chapter of a book. That book is ‘The Emperor’s Gold’ by Robert Wilton, published today.
The premise is simple, but clever: there exists a body called the ‘Comptrollerate of Scrutiny and Survey’ - a name so dull that you’d fall asleep just thinking about it - but it’s a cover for an espionage agency that existed long, long before MIs 5 & 6, and that may continue to exist long after they have gone. By dint of years of work, Robert Wilton has ferreted out the hidden annals of this organisation and has written his fiction around this framework. And what fiction… The book is set in 1805. Napoleon has taken all of Europe and his forces stand on the French coast, looking across to Britain. All that keeps them from invasion is the British Navy which keeps the French fleet in port and has denied them the channel - until now.
Cue the arrival of one Tom Roscarrock. A shipwrecked mariner, he is rescued - and renamed - by the man who leads the secretive Comptrollerate of S&S. Given little but this new name, he is propelled into the heart of an organisation, a city and a nation which is hovering on the brink of collapse. Around England, men call for the same freedoms as they see in France, in the US, perhaps one day in Ireland. And in the city, where gold traders threaten to bring down the entire economy, those who make decisions are paralysed. Without clue or hint as to whom he can trust, or even for whom he is truly working, Roscarrock must stay alive long enough to make the decisions that will change the fate of nations.
This is a gem of a book: the plot is clean and clear - and entirely opaque. The driving narrative keeps it moving while at the same time giving nothing away - I truly had no idea exactly what was happening until the last pages: which is another all-time first. And I cared what happened - Tom Roscarrock is an engaging, interesting, shadowy character who repays our attention with an intelligence that few fictional characters can match while those around him are always more devious than they seem at first.
So much of the current crop of historical fiction is populated with cardboard cut-out characters, thinner than the pages they’re written on, with plots that lurch from one uninspiring battle to the next, that it’s a true pleasure to read characters of depth and intelligence and colour, who never fail to surprise, but remain entirely plausible and human: no superhuman fighting abilities, no improbable feats of daring - this has the ring of truth to it aided all the time by the ‘found documents’ that populate the text.
But it’s the language that truly sets this apart. Not since Wolf Hall have I come across a writer who truly understood what could be done with the English language - who explored the joys of its poetry with such skill and beauty, while never letting go of the narrative drive. Nothing is unnecessarily flowery, but everything is a joy to read.
If there’s a criticism, it’s that the cover really doesn’t do this book justice. I was sent it by the publishers and read it in default of the others they’d sent, not particularly expecting to like it. In truth, if I’d seen it in a bookshop, I don’t think I’d have picked it up - it’s not a cover that inspires one to imagine intelligence within the pages, which is sad, because it’s there in spades and deserves better. Maybe it’ll get it with the paperback.
At any rate, it’s my book of the year so far and if you don’t read it, your life will be incomplete.
