Winter in Madrid
18. Winter in Madrid - C. J. Sansom, 2006 (first-time reading)
This is not a good book. It has an interesting setting, which Sansom does a good job of depicting with breadth and detail, but that's pretty much its sole redeeming feature. The characters are boring and there's a terrible lack of subtlety to all of Sansom's characterisation: you can tell Barbara is deep and interesting because she has striking green eyes! You can tell Sandy is villainous because he uses the word 'nigger'! You can tell General Franco is a soulless evil dictator because he doesn't like music! The writing style is even worse; sentences are clumsily constructed, without any flow, and sound stilted and unnatural (for example, 'Two more huts, one large, stood at a little distance and there was a large stone blockhouse too.') I read Dissolution a while ago, didn't love Sansom's writing style and thought the book was okay but not great, but Winter in Madrid doesn't even merit that description.
This is not a good book. It has an interesting setting, which Sansom does a good job of depicting with breadth and detail, but that's pretty much its sole redeeming feature. The characters are boring and there's a terrible lack of subtlety to all of Sansom's characterisation: you can tell Barbara is deep and interesting because she has striking green eyes! You can tell Sandy is villainous because he uses the word 'nigger'! You can tell General Franco is a soulless evil dictator because he doesn't like music! The writing style is even worse; sentences are clumsily constructed, without any flow, and sound stilted and unnatural (for example, 'Two more huts, one large, stood at a little distance and there was a large stone blockhouse too.') I read Dissolution a while ago, didn't love Sansom's writing style and thought the book was okay but not great, but Winter in Madrid doesn't even merit that description.