Remind Me

Allan Levine will be in our Winnipeg bookstore to sign copies of the paperback version of his McNally Robinson Book of the Year winning work Coming of Age: A History of the Jewish People of Manitoba, on Sunday May 16, 2:00 pm.

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The Devil's Company by David Liss (Random House)

A great historical mystery series should have just the right blend of character, place and plot. It is a difficult balance, but American writer David Liss pulls it off brilliantly in his trilogy of Benjamin Weaver novels. He introduced Weaver, a likeable Portuguese-Jewish pugilist and rogue living in eighteenth century London in his award-winning A Conspiracy of Paper (2000). That novel revolved around the South Sea Bubble, the stock manipulation of 1729. He followed it up with A Spectacle of Corruption (2004) which found Weaver battling nefarious politicians. And then in The Devil's Company (2009), Weaver becomes embroiled in a twisted adventure surrounding the rise of the East India Company. Each novel succeeds because Liss has a wonderful sense of time and place. Readers are literally transported back to London of the 1700s with all of its wealth, poverty and sin. His dialogue is spot on as is his integration of local customs and attitudes from the parlours to the gin houses. Each novel is a page-turner and a lot of fun.

Robert Harris, a former British political writer, is the perfect author for the beach. In fact, I read much of The Ghost Writer while basking in the exquisite setting of Paradise Island in the Bahamas. Harris likes to play around with history. His first big book was Fatherland (1992) a fascinating novel set in the early sixties with the Nazis having won the Second World War. He has also written several books set in Ancient Rome. The Ghost Writer is an absorbing story about a young writer hired to "ghost" the memoirs of a Tony Blair-like former British prime minister. Of course, nothing is as it seems and murder and intrigue abound. Blair's decision to join the war in Iraq along side the United States is central to the plot. Equally intriguing is the recent movie version of the novel directed by Roman Polanski and starring Ewan McGregor as the "ghost" and Pierce Brosnan as the troubled prime minister. Since Harris helped Polanski write the screenplay (before the director was arrested in Switzerland), the move stays true to the book. It is worth reading and watching.

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Winnipeg historian and writer Allan Levine is the author of ten books. His most recent book is the multiple award-winning Coming of Age: A History of the Jewish People of Manitoba. He is currently completing a biography of William Lyon Mackenzie King, Canada's greatest and most peculiar prime minister, to be published in the fall of 2011.