S.J. Parris - Heresy

Rating: 4/5

Review:
An enjoyable read

Like many other reviewers, I enjoyed this book. The plot has been very adequately summarised elsewhere and I agree with what many others have said - that it's a good murder mystery with a rich and well-evoked Tudor background. It has a few flaws but certainly not enough to spoil my enjoyment.

I thought the choice of Giordano Bruno as protagonist was a bold move because he was a real and significant figure in the great revolution in scientific thought of the late 16th century. This brings some risks to the author in that historical detail needs to be more accurate than if she had created a wholly fictional figure - the debate between Bruno and John Underhill depicted in the book did actually take place, for example - and it is greatly to Ms Parrish's credit that she manages this very convincingly. Given the real Bruno's historical significance (and his ultimate fate, chillingly hinted at in the closing pages) I would have liked a bit more emphasis on the importance of the scientific "heresies" of the time to the religious debate, but this might just be a foible of mine. Parrish does portray the religious upheavals and terrors very well and weaves them convincingly into the plot.

Parallels with modern issues of tolerance, religious fanaticism and violence and the ethics of counter-terrorism are not clunkily signposted but are plainly there. They lent some of the discussions real weight, and they form an aspect of the novel which I thought was well done and thought-provoking.

Comparisons with Sansom? Well, yes - they're inevitable and Parrish compares very well. I think it's fair to say that if you like Sansom then you'll like this just as much. Parrish manages a similar effect to Sansom's with language, by the way: she manages to use modern language in slightly more formal patterns to convey a sense of the manners of the time without resorting to a lot of verilys, forsooths and the like. It works very well and only the very occasional word or phrase seems jarringly out of place("paranoid" or "it's down to you," for example).

I didn't find the whole book an absolute page-turner, but it's an enjoyable read and is more than just another historically-set thriller. Recommended.