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parsed(2022-10-04) - pubdate: 10/22
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pub date: 1664859600
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Act of Oblivion

October 4, 2022 | Trade paperback
ISBN: 9780735282124
$25.00
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Description

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

From the bestselling author of Fatherland, The Ghostwriter, Munich, and Conclave comes this spellbinding historical novel that brilliantly imagines one of the greatest manhunts in history: the search for two Englishmen, charged in the killing of King Charles I, by the implacable foe on their trail--an epic journey into the wilds of seventeenth-century New England, and a chase like no other.


"From what is it they run?"
He took a while to reply. By the time he spoke the men had gone inside. He said quietly, "They killed the King."

1660. General Edward Whalley and his son-in-law Colonel William Goffe board a ship in London bound for the New World and an uncertain future in exile. They are wanted for the 1649 murder of King Charles I - a brazen execution that marked the culmination of the English Civil War, in which parliamentarians successfully battled royalists for control. But ten years after Charles' beheading, the royalists returned to power. Under the provisions of the Act of Oblivion, the fifty-nine men who signed the king's death warrant have been found guilty in absentia of high treason. Some parliamentarians, including Oliver Cromwell, are dead; others have been captured, hung, drawn, and quartered. A few are imprisoned for life. But Whalley and Goffe escaped to New England. In London, Richard Nayler, secretary of the regicide committee of the Privy Council, is charged with bringing the traitors back home to justice and will stop at nothing to find them. A substantial bounty hangs over their heads for their capture - dead or alive. Encompassing a period of tremendous upheaval in English history the novel brings alive pivotal moments including the Black Death and the Great Fire of London as Nayler closes in on the exiles. Act of Oblivion is an epic story of religion, vengeance, and of power - and the costs to those who wield it.

About this Author

ROBERT HARRIS is the author of fourteen bestselling novels: the Cicero Trilogy--Imperium, Lustrum and Dictator--Fatherland, Enigma, Archangel, Pompeii, The Ghost, The Fear Index, An Officer and a Spy, which won four prizes including the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, Conclave, Munich, The Second Sleep and V2. Several of his books have been adapted into films, including The Ghost. His work has been translated into forty languages and he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He lives in West Berkshire with his wife, Gill Hornby.

ISBN: 9780735282124
Format: Trade paperback
Pages: 480
Publisher: Random House of Canada
Published: 2022-10-04

Reviews

PRAISE FOR ACT OF OBLIVION:
"Robert Harris never fails to dazzle me.
Whether it's a plotline set in today's world (The Ghost), an imagined future (The Second Sleep) or the distant past (the Cicero trilogy) his research is superb, his characters intrinsically interesting and his writing crisp and elegant. . . . Describing this book as a chase is to do it an injustice. It has elements of social history as well as being a truly moving family tale. Even better, it's all based in truth. . . . You can read Harris as a mystery author or a fine historian with equal pleasure or you can just read him for the sheer joy of it, as I do. This will definitely be one of my best books of the year." --The Globe and Mail

"A remarkably versatile novelist whose settings range from Ancient Rome to 800 years in the future.
A former political journalist, he often explores the darker aspects of politics and its corrupting effects on individuals.... Harris underpins the book with substantial research and writes in unobtrusively effective prose.... This is Harris at his best, which is very good indeed." --The Guardian  

"Read as thriller or gripping history, Robert Harris is at his best in this Civil War page-turner.... Robert Harris is one of the finest thriller writers alive, but what he does best, really, is history.... For a time...things become existential. One episode in the darkness of a cave, where the pursuit comes agonisingly close, could almost be found in a novel by Joseph Conrad. At the same time, and this is Harris's great strength, the cave scene is quiveringly tense. Hollywood-ready.... You could read this as a pure thriller, and it is one of Harris's most compellingly paced to date. You could read it as a piece of intelligent historical immersion. I think it is more; I think it is his best since Fatherland." --Sunday Times (UK)

"A gripping manhunt for the men who killed Charles I... Act of Oblivion is a belter of a thriller. It will be compulsive reading for those who loved An Officer and a Spy, Harris's book about the Dreyfus affair. Like that novel, the research is immaculate. A chewy, morally murky slice of history is made into a tale that twists and surprises. The characters are strong and we care about their predicament. The story stretches over continents and years, but the suspense feels as taut as if the three main characters were locked in a room with a gun." --The Times (UK)

"Harris again turns a historical event into a canny page-turner. . .
Harris humanizes the hunter and the hunted and brings to life an obscure chapter in colonial American history. This further burnishes Harris's reputation as a talented author of historical suspense." --Publishers Weekly

"
Moving between England and America (to which several of the regicides fled), it is at once a gripping thriller and a meditation on democracy and republicanism." --The Guardian, "Seven Big-Hitter Books for Autumn" list

"Gripping . . . thoroughly enjoyable. . . . [This] deeply researched story is the author's brilliant reimagining of real historical events, with sympathetic characters and a compelling plot." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"If you like your page-turning popular fiction at the more intelligent end of the spectrum, you could not do better than this." --The Telegraph

"Three cheers for Robert Harris, an author who can always be relied upon to serve up novels that perfectly balance intellectual heft with pulse-raising entertainment." --The Daily Mail

"A riotously enjoyable and thoroughly modern manhunt. . . . Act of Oblivion is a book rich in the illuminating details that bring the past to life. . . . There's a delicious sense of being in the hands of a master, of watching as the pieces of the narrative puzzle fall into place. Act of Oblivion is a fine novel." --The Observer

"Fast-paced yet wonderfully detailed." --The New York Times
 
"Act Of Oblivion . . . marries painstaking research with vivid historical recreation and leaps of imagination." --Daily Express

"Robert Harris' novels are known as page turners, and Act of Oblivion takes this signature feature to the next kinetic level. . . . Aside from the fast-paced prose, a feature of Harris' novels is thorough historical research. Act of Oblivion is no exception. . . . There are many electrifying scenes in this fast and furious historical thriller that keeps the reader in suspense until the last page." --The Sydney Morning Herald

"Act of Oblivion delivers a galloping adventure, with a novel of ideas craftily packed into its saddlebags. . . . Act of Oblivion offers well-staged hideouts and escapes, ambushes and skirmishes, amid a wilderness adventure that recalls The Last of the Mohicans." --The Wall Street Journal

"Harris delivers a gripping, well-paced tale rich in color, suspense and adventure." --Star Tribune (Minneapolis)


"This is by far Harris's best book since An Officer and a Spy, which dealt with another great national division: the Dreyfus case. He has produced a ripping page-turner that breathes all the complexities and moral nuances of the Civil War period." --Financial Times
 
"Harris's new chase thriller is a tour de force." --i Paper (UK)

"Robert Harris brings his signature storytelling power to an exciting manhunt through colonial America. Act of Oblivion pulls off historical fiction's greatest challenge, transporting readers into the heart of a formative era with momentum and suspense. A twisty labyrinth of espionage and intrigue." --Matthew Pearl, New York Times bestselling author of The Dante Club and The Taking of Jemima Boone

"Robert Harris is, simply put, masterful." --Karin Slaughter, New York Times bestselling author of Pretty Girls

"I admire Robert [Harris] boundlessly for his originality as well as superb narrative skill." --Max Hastings, author of Inferno

"Robert Harris is a master at creating, in sinewy prose, vivid characters at odds with each other. . . . Harris plants the reader directly into the time and place of the story. . . . We feel the heat of the fire of London and lurch with the waves during a wild storm at sea. Act of Oblivion is the work of a magnificent storyteller at the height of his game." --Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction Judges Panel

"It will come as no surprise to readers familiar with Harris' work that this is a splendidly written historical novel. Harris really is a joy to read. . . . Another top-flight effort from a master storyteller." --Booklist

"Harris . . . demonstrates his talent for bringing history to life with a taut new tale of faith and vengeance. . . . The raw emotions of the characters and the issues that drive human dissent make this a worthwhile read." --Library Journal

"Harris, deft as ever, weaves a hefty amount of historical fact into the narrative--politics, religion, colonial life, family ties--as well as themes of forgiveness and reconciliation." --New Statesman

"Act of Oblivion is more than just a page-turner. . . . Harris's denouement goes for theatrical effect and down-to-the-wire suspense." --London Review of Books
 
"Harris skilfully weaves pieces of his characters' pasts giving the story depth and credibility. His research is comprehensive. . . . Act of Oblivion is a clever novel, building slowly and showing more than the hunt for two fugitives." --Sunday Times (South Africa)

"Robert Harris is the master of the high-quality historical thriller. History is not simply a backdrop in his novels, but an interlocutor with our own age. . . . Harris displays an impressive grasp of the historical context without taxing his readers by showing his 'workings.'" --Church Times

"There is satisfaction in the well-made novel, and Robert Harris's Act of Oblivion. . . [is one of the] best-made and therefore most enjoyable new novels I read this year." --The Scotsman

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