The Second Sleep
A novel
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3.8 • 149 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
From the bestselling author of Conclave, Fatherland, and the Cicero Trilogy comes a chilling and dark new thriller unlike anything Robert Harris has done before.
1468. A young priest, Christopher Fairfax, arrives in a remote Exmoor village to conduct the funeral of his predecessor. The land around is strewn with ancient artefacts—coins, fragments of glass, human bones—which the old parson used to collect. Did his obsession with the past lead to his death?
Fairfax becomes determined to discover the truth. Over the course of the next six days, everything he believes—about himself, his faith, and the history of his world—will be tested to destruction.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Thriller Award winner Harris (Munich) does a masterly job playing with readers' expectations in this mystery set in 15th-century England. Fr. Christopher Fairfax has been dispatched by his bishop to Wessex to officiate at the funeral of Fr. Thomas Lacy, a parish priest who died in a fall. The assignment seems routine enough, but on reaching the town of Addicott St. George, he finds unexpected questions to answer. When he visits Lacy's library, he learns that the man he's about to inter in consecrated ground possessed numerous heretical volumes relating to an antiquarian society proscribed by the church. Eager to keep things uncomplicated, Fairfax proceeds with the funeral service as if he'd never seen the books, only to have the rites disrupted by an attendee who yells that Lacy's death was not the result of "evil chance." When foul weather delays Fairfax's departure, he finds even more oddities, including the disappearance of the church register and an unsettling letter by a Cambridge professor found in a mass grave, which supports his suspicion that Lacy's interest in the past was more than innocent scholarly curiosity. Few readers will pick up on the fairly planted clues. This is a clever complement to Harris's debut mystery, Fatherland. 75,000-copy announced first printing.
Customer Reviews
Rushed Ending
This book held my interest for the most part—which is the good news. The ending was silly and seemed rushed. Made me regret reading it in the first place. Come on, you can do better than that.
More complex than I expected
There is something about the simplicity of the telling of the story that draws the reader farther into the activity. The youth, naïveté, and idealism of the main character fall away in the span of only a few days. I hope the next book of Mr. Harris is nearly as good. I am about to find out.
Too many inconsistencies
A poor read that goes nowhere.