[quote=""Margaret""]I'm sorry to hear this about
The Blackstone Key - it got good reviews. I do often find historical thrillers boring, though. I started Dietrich's
Napoleon's Pyramids and set it aside after a couple of chapters. Now I'm working on an advance review copy of Liss's new historical thriller,
The Whiskey Rebels. I'll finish reading it, but it's not thrilling me. I get much more hooked by strong characterization and a thorough exploration of a historical event or period - and the thriller format just doesn't lend itself to that kind of depth.
Can anyone recommend some historical thrillers they've really enjoyed?[/quote]
Well, I really liked
Pompeii, by Robert Harris, partly because the hero was an aqueduct engineer (hurrah! a change from a soldier or a spy!), partly for the terrific description of the Vesuvius eruption, and partly because the Roman water supply system was critical to the story. Apart from Attilius the engineer, and maybe Vesuvius which is almost a character in its own right, the characterisation isn't all that great. Review here:
http://www.carlanayland.org/reviews/pompeii.htm
I also liked
The Conscience of the King, by Martin Stephen. This is a spy thriller featuring Henry Gresham (fictional; the Jacobean answer to James Bond) and involving conspiracies about who really wrote the plays of Shakespeare and why the Globe theatre really burned down. I thought it was great fun, like a James Bond film (and about as plausible). Again, characterisation was a bit on the obvious side, but there was some interesting stuff about the London theatre scene. Review here:
http://www.carlanayland.org/reviews/conscience_king.htm.
I have
The Blackstone Key for review at the moment - will be interesting to see what I think of it given the comments here!