Charles Palliser

Dr Courtine, an unworldly academic is visiting an old friend in the Cathedral town of Thurchester in the late 1870s. On his first night he is told the story of the town ghost, a legend deeply mired in the medieval intrigues of the Cathedral when two prominent churchmen met their deaths in unexplained circumstances. The story of dark deeds in the ancient close captures Courtine¿s donnish imagination, and he is also embarking on some amateur sleuthing of his own ¿ attempting to track down an elusive 11th century manuscript to prove his theories about the life of King Alfred. Suitably distracted, Courtine becomes the unwitting witness to a terrible crime committed on his own doorstep ¿

The Unburied

Sarah Escorsa

I must say that I almost stopped reading this book when I was halfway through because I thought the plot was taking much too long to develop. But I kept on reading because I somehow felt that it would get better and it did:) I think it took me over a week to read the first half and about 2 days to read the second half! What bothered me at first was that I just couldn't figure out when the story was taking place and kept wondering if it was the 18th or 19th century (either there were very few clues in the book about that or I just didn't see them). I thought the first part of the book was a bit tedious (I didn't find much interest in Dr Courtine's research) and expected the book to be more atmospheric and gothic. On the other hand, the second half of the book is a real page-turner and I really enjoyed reading it:) The plot becomes much more interesting as the mystery thickens and the pace picks up a lot!

I think that the main problem with this book is that Palliser overdid it: too many plot lines that take the narrative nowhere, too much time spent going back and forth between the 9th, the 17th and 19th century, too many characters that are irrelevant to the story...

The Unburied

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