Act of Oblivion: A Novel

by Robert Harris

Hardcover, 2022

Status

Available

Call number

Fiction Harris

Barcode

12782

Publication

Harper (2022), 480 pages

Description

"1660 England. General Edward Whalley and his son-in law Colonel William Goffe board a ship bound for the New World. They are on the run, wanted for the 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 now, ten years after Charles' beheading, the royalists have returned to power. Under the provisions of the Act of Oblivion, the fifty-nine men who signed the king's death warrant and participated in his execution have been found guilty in absentia of high treason. Some of the Roundheads, including Oliver Cromwell, are already dead. Others have been captured, hung, drawn, and quartered. A few are imprisoned for life. But two have escaped to America by boat. In London, Richard Nayler, secretary of the regicide committee of the Privy Council, is charged with bringing the traitors to justice and he will stop at nothing to find them. A substantial bounty hangs over their heads for their capture--dead or alive...." -- Amazon.… (more)

Media reviews

"Instead, the pleasures of this intelligently crafted novel — the author’s 15th — lie in how deftly Harris conjures a long-ago period likely unfamiliar to the non-royalists among us."
3 more
"Thoroughly enjoyable with some cringeworthy descriptions. Readers will not pine for days of yore."
"This rich and riotous novel, following the search for two of the men who signed Charles I’s death warrant, is also an important book for our own historical moment."
"This further burnishes Harris’s reputation as a talented author of historical suspense."

Language

Original language

English

Original publication date

2022

Physical description

480 p.; 9 inches

ISBN

006324800X / 9780063248007
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