You can buy Act Of Oblivion...Here You can find out more about Robert Harris...Here
'From what is it they flee?'
He took a while to reply. By the time he spoke the men had gone inside. He said quietly, 'They killed the King.'
1660. Colonel Edward Whalley and his son-in-law, Colonel William Goffe, cross the Atlantic. They are on the run and wanted for the murder of Charles I. Under the provisions of the Act of Oblivion, they have been found guilty in absentia of high treason.
In London, Richard Nayler, secretary of the regicide committee of the Privy Council, is tasked with tracking down the fugitives. He'll stop at nothing until the two men are brought to justice. A reward hangs over their heads - for their capture, dead or alive.
Act of Oblivion is an epic journey across continents, and a chase like no other. It is the thrilling new novel by Robert Harris.
Robert Harris is probably my favourite author and for good reason. He is not afraid to change his "weapon of choice." Lee Child for all his success has strictly maintained his winning formulae for book after book. If it aint broke dont fix it right, and one could see his point. Robert Harris is different. He started with alternative history (Fatherland) but has dabbled in dystopian science fiction (The Second Sleep), contemporary fiction (The Fear Index, The Ghost, Conclave) and what I believe to be the strongest string to his bow historical fiction (The Cicero trilogy, Pompeii, Officer and a Spy, Munich, V2 and now Act of Oblivion.)
He does two things exceedingly well. He describes the uppermost strata of political power and the constant changes therein and he also settles the reader into the time period. The reader feels like an small but integral part of whatever timeline the author is describing. There aren't many who can do both these things. The other excellent, well known example I can think of would be Hilary Mantels Wolf Hall series. Chris Lloyd also has both these gifts but tends to focus life further down the political food chain, in the bureaucracy below the people who make the big decisions in history.
And so to Act of Oblivion. The Act refers to the restoration of the Monarchy when Charles II takes the thrown left vacant since his father Charles I was executed. The Act wipes the slate clean for any who took up arms against the Monarchy in the Civil War with a few notable exceptions. Those exceptions being anyone who signed the King's execution order. They are to be hunted down and hung, drawn and quartered. And so the biggest man hunt of the 17th Century begins.
The two Colonels, Ned Whalley and his son-in-law William Goffe alight in the New World initially living out in the open, using their own names. When a warrant for their arrest arrives from London the duo are off and running. Hiding in cellars, barns, secret rooms and even out in the wild as the net inexorably closes around them. The chase is eventful and long, and you will keep turning the page faster and faster to find out who pervades in the end.
The author expertly keeps us enthralled with several strands. We follow the driven regicide hunter in chief Nayler and gradually come to understand his obsession with Whalley and Goffe in particular. We follow the battle against poverty and the need for secrecy of Goffe's wife and their young family whom Goffe has unwillingly abandoned. We are caught up in the escape of Whalley and Goffe including their very different personalities and religious outlooks. We get a series of diary entries where Ned explains his rise to power with his star tied to that of his cousin Oliver Cromwell, and finally we get a glimpse in the halls of power with Charles ll, his brother the Duke of York and the courtiers that surround them including Nayler's boss. The author dexterously juggles all these balls, each in turn demanding our full attention.
The reader will hungrily learn a lot about a lesser known part of British history all while being enthralled in a wonderfully told escape story. All based on a true episode.
After reading this novel I would recommend watching a youtube video where Harris discusses his research into Whalley and Goffe. It is utterly fascinating.
The reader feels as if they are there, in the middle of it all, in real time. The times may change but people and their nature's do not. The protagonists aren't wholly good, and the antagonist isn't wholly bad. Harris like many good writers understands this but his writing purveys it better than most.
At times the manhunt reminded me of the "who are those guys?"scene from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Where the outlaws while being exhausted in the chase recognise the tenacity and endurance of the posse hunting them. In turn Whalley and Goffe's deprivations while on the run reminded me of the hardships endured in "Papillon."
A fascinating tale, superbly told.
Books like this are the reason I love books. Breathtakingly good.
"The killing of a tyrant is no crime.’ ‘The most learned minds in England disagree with you.’ ‘Learned minds can still believe wicked things, especially when their own interests are at stake."
"I shan’t press you on the matter – merely advise you, from long experience, that obsession and good judgement seldom sit well together."
"you’re two years past forty, you know nothing of soldiering, you will be killed for certain, you will leave me a widow with four little ones to look after and no money to do it. ‘Besides, your cousin Cromwell is half mad, you’ve said it often enough yourself’ (this spoken quietly, with a glance at the window, beyond which Oliver sat impatiently on his mount)."
"He must have known that by his demeanour at the trial and on the scaffold, he had won a victory over his enemies at last. It was only then that it occurred to Ned that the King had died exactly as the regicides had many years later – in the absolute certainty that he was right."
"Our intention was that England should be a righteous republic, and that no kings or princes, lords or bishops should ever again interpose themselves between the people and Almighty God. The principle was a fine one; I believed in it then and believe in it still,"
- If You Like This, Then You May Like...
Wolf Hall by Hillary MantelPillars of the Earth by Ken Follet
Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks (same time period as Act of Oblivion)
Robert Harris was born in Nottingham in 1957, later studying English at Cambridge University.
He was a TV correspondent for the BBC and has also worked as a columnist for the London Sunday Times and the Daily Telegraph, and as Political Editor for The Observer. He was named 'Columnist of the Year' in the 2003 British Press Awards.
As well as several non-fiction books, including Selling Hitler: The Story of the Hitler Diaries (1986), he is the author of six novels: Fatherland (1992), set in 1964 in Berlin; Enigma (1995), set in World War II; Archangel (1998), set in present day Russia; Pompeii (2003), a dramatisation of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79; Imperium (2006), the first of a trilogy of novels about Cicero; The Ghost (2007), narrated by a professional ghost writer; Lustrum (2009), the second in the Cicero trilogy, shortlisted for the 2010 Walter Scott Prize; The Fear Index (2011); An Officer and a Spy (2013); and Dictator (2015), the last in the Cicero trilogy.
His novel Enigma, about the codebreakers of Bletchley Park, was made into a feature film directed by Michael Apted, from a script by Tom Stoppard. Archangel, the story of a historian on the trail of Stalin's secret diaries, was adapted for BBC Television in 2005, starring Daniel Craig. Pompeii has recently been adapted for film by the author, and will be directed by Roman Polanski.
Robert Harris lives in Berkshire and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
(from British Literature Council)
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