Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

That's how Hilary Mantel describes Thomas Cromwell in the afterword to this tour de force, the second novel in a trilogy that follows one of the men most instrumental in transforming Henry VIII and his reign, the man who dedicated his life to the study of the king and how to fulfill the latter's wishes and desires. After years of rising in the king's service and having to battle with the old guard, the nobles and gentlemen -- "flattering them, cajoling them, seeking always an easy way of working, a compromise" -- Cromwell is now indispensable to Henry. He also is one of the first to realize, within the first 50 pages of the book, that the king's despair at his lack of an heir nearly three years after his marriage to Anne Boleyn, and Cromwell's own frustration with these nobles, can be neatly resolved at the same time. "I have probably, he thinks, gone as far as I can to accommodate them. Now they must accommodate me, or be removed." If you have already read Wolf Hall: A Novel and relished Mantel's ability to capture a period in time now nearly five centuries distant, you may as well stop reading this review immediately and hit the "buy now" button to order this sequel, because the second volume in the proposed trilogy is even better. The focus is tighter - on the nine months or so leading up to the fall and execution of Anne Boleyn -- and once again Mantel recounts the events through the eyes of the consummate politician, Cromwell, who has learned well from Machiavelli and who yet still earns the understanding of readers, if not always our sympathy. Cromwell's motivations and goals may be sympathetic -- he seeks to run the kingdom well, to find a way to school and support male orphans who are abandoned (and who thus will support the female orphans), to mentor educated young men -- even when what it takes to do that makes us squirm with unease. Even when those ends justify the means of getting rid of a queen who has not done her duty. "If she will not go, she must be pushed, and I must push her, who else?" To that end, justice becomes utilitarian: it is not who is guilty, so much as what they may be guilty of, and what guilt is of use to Cromwell, acting on the king's behalf. This is historical fiction at its best. I've been reading novels set in the Tudor era since I picked up Murder Most Royal: The Story of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard by Jean Plaidy more than 40 years ago, and after the deluge of novels set around Anne Boleyn's rise and fall -- many of them pedestrian or thinly-disguised romances in fancy clothes -- had given up on any hope of finding a really good novel in the midst of all the pages written about Henry and his wives. But here it is. Mantel has crafted a novel that is not only about Henry and Anne, but about their era; about the unease that prevails in a kingdom with no legitimate male heir to a dynasty only two generations old and whose reigning monarch has turned his realm upside town by rejecting the pope's rule. She writes about the transformation of Tudor England, as men of ability, knowledge and focus, ranging from Cardinal Wolsey in the first volume to Cromwell and his apprentices (some of whom will outlive Henry) displace the nobility as the king's top advisors, to the disgruntlement of the dukes and earls and their scions. At the same time, Mantel never allows the substance to detract from the fact that she is telling the story of one man; of Cromwell, who rises to power because his elders and betters recognize the unique combination of ability and tenacity. (Here there are flashbacks to Cromwell's earlier life, chronicled in part in Wolf Hall: A Novel, showing how during his days on the continent, Cromwell began working as a common laborer only to be "talent spotted" and brought into the accounting house of a powerful Italian merchant.) One of the criticisms of Mantel's first book in this trilogy was her frequent use of "he" in place of Cromwell, which some readers found awkward. In this case, she has taken pains in some points to address that, replacing a simple "he" with "he, Cromwell" and although there were a few points in the early pages where I was occasionally unclear as to who was thinking or speaking, I quickly found this retreated to the background. Indeed, I began to get a glimpse of what Mantel may be trying to accomplish with this. If Cromwell is as "densely inaccessible" as she suggests in her afterward, then a first person narrative would be too intimate; would give the reader too much insight too early into his actions and motivations. Mantel's style strikes the perfect compromise. Cromwell is the narrator; we are clearly seeing the Tudor court and England through his eyes, and we don't see the thoughts or views of other characters, except through the latters' actions; we are clearly following Cromwell throughout. And yet Cromwell is always "he"; an opaque and guarded individual. Even while we get a glimpse inside his thoughts and actions as if he were addressing a diary, we can never pretend we understand him -- and it becomes all too clear why, as some of his household remind him, his mere presence can terrify people. So his final confrontations with those who stand in the way of the king and his wishes are all the more revelatory. I hadn't thought there was much more to say about the downfall of Anne Boleyn, or much to say about Cromwell: I was very wrong on both counts. I raced through this novel, finding it impossible to put down, and now am a bit irritable that I'll have two or three years to wait to read the concluding episode in the trilogy. That's a real tribute to anyone crafting a historical novel, as I already know what happens to Cromwell himself, when, and possibly why. But now that I have read the first two books in this series, I can't wait to see how Hilary Mantel presents the "why", because I'm quite certain that she will once again present readers not only with a "thumping good read" but a novel that defies all expectations. As Wolf Hall: A Novel ended with an execution, and with a new beginning, so does this novel, and Cromwell must once again find a way to deal not only with his monarch (as he refines his imagined "Book of Henry", a guide on how to deal with the king and his moods and whims) but with an enigmatic new queen and her family. After all, as he muses, "Henry's women come trailing families, he does not find his brides in the forest hiding under a leaf." This novel is a brilliant accomplishment; I'd urge anyone interested in history to read it as a matter of course, and even those who were lukewarm about its predecessor to at least give it a try, as I think it is better, and more focused. (I'd still rate both books as the full five stars, however.) The style, the tight plotting, the characterizations, and Mantel's ability to capture England itself and the mundane details of 16th century English life, are without parallel. This goes straight to the top of the list of the best novels I've read this year, and I can't see how it might be displaced.