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Read At Some Disputed Barricade (2007)

At Some Disputed Barricade (2007)

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Author
Series
Rating
4.01 of 5 Votes: 1
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ISBN
0345456580 (ISBN13: 9780345456588)
Language
English
Publisher
ballantine books

At Some Disputed Barricade (2007) - Plot & Excerpts

I think Anne Perry is one of the finest authors of historical mysteries I have ever read. She has such a fine sense of atmosphere and really delves into the character's lives, personalities and feelings and places them in the most extraordinary situations where every character is tested almost beyond endurance. Perry also analyzes historical and moral issues with such delicacy and balance that I feel I have a much better understanding of important issues. Of course, Perry excels at character development, but also crafts such interesting and intriquing mysteries that I race through the pages. Her writing is superb and also is a pleasure to listen to on audiobooks.Spoiler alerts!!!!!!!As far as the story itself. . . this book is the fourth of five books about WWI. Joseph, Judith and Matthew Reavley (along with a brief appearance from their sister, Hannah) are siblings that are all involved in WWI. Joseph is a chaplain on the front lines. The horrific battle of Passchendaele is the backdrop of the story. Matthew is an intelligence officer who thought he had killed the Peacemaker in novel 3. His work is just as dangerous as he never knows whom to trust. He discovers that the Peacemaker is still alive and still manipulating things to bring about his own ends. Judith, a young woman of extraordinary courage, is still driving ambulance for the British front lines. We again meet Richard Mason, the war correspondent working with the Peacemaker. Perry adds new dimensions and depth to our understanding of Richard Mason.The basic outline of the story is that a new commanding Major, an incompentent and arrogant officer, is murdered by his own men--men in Joseph's regiment. Joseph is torn between loyalty and justice as he works to solve the mystery.Anne Perry very clearly believes that despite its terrible costs, the British were obligated to go to war with Germany. This is an important theme in the entire series. However, she does not shy away from the terrible costs of war, the incompentence of some of the officers, the brutality and pain of it. She makes one understand fully the devasation of the war which cost nearly an entire generation of men. Nor does Ms. Perry paint the Germans as brutal and evil. She gives a rather intriguing glimpse of the other side during this novel and one fully realizes how frightening it is when rulers with lust for power have the power to drive entire nations to war. And the cost is really terrible. If you haven't read this series, it is important that you read it in chronological order, beginning with the first novel, No Graves as yet.

I am really skimming these Anne Perry WWI books now (one to go!), and the primary merit of this one is that it is shorter than the earlier ones. (And, in a less snarky vein, Perry gives lots of period detail that makes the scene very real, very 3-dimensional. That is her strength in these books. Not plot. Not character. And, dear heaven, not dialogue. And tel me, please: did villagers really give their sons names like TIDDLY WOP in the late 19th century???)Her plotting grows sillier. While the Peacemaker is still trying to bring the war to an end (and for whatever reason, figures it would be better to have England lose than to have Germany lose. Why, exactly?), as usual another murder must be solved by the most exasperating Reavley, Joseph. This time, it's an incompetent and arrogant officer whom Joseph finds dead in no-man's-land. His wound doesn't seem to be battle-inflicted. And, wouldn't you just know it, just as Joseph is thinking he maybe won't mention that to anyone else, nosey-body reporter Mason stumbles along and, for whatever perverse reason, invests the reporting of the officer's possible murder with huge meaning and forces Reavley to report it. And whom else would the commanding officer choose to investigate the murder but, of course, Reavley. And whom do the men eventually court-martialed for the murder choose to defend them? You guessed it!On top of the beyond-suspension-of-disbelief plots (the Peacemaker sublot is equally ludicrous), Perry must think her readers all suffer from severe memory loss. She repeats, repeats, repeats: the dead rats in the trenches; the deaths of the Reavley parents; the taste of tea made in a Dixie can; the rain, how hard it is to steer an ambulance, etc., etc. A good editor could have made this a novella.

What do You think about At Some Disputed Barricade (2007)?

I barely finished this book. I have read the 3 books in the series leading up to this one and become increasingly disappointed in each. Perry has a wonderful subject to write about. There are an unlimited number of stories and plot lines she could follow. And when she does what she does best - give the reader a clear view of a world at a specific place in time and at a specific location - the book shines. The detail she provides in her narrative is always impressive.However, this series has an over-arcing plot line about a Peacemaker character who supposedly wants peace for England, regardless of the price. This plot line is completely unnecessary. Each of the books has at least one and sometimes multiple stand-alone mysteries to solve and this lame plot line is superfluous. Unfortunately the amount of space devoted to this comic book villain seems to increase in each successive book. It occupied so much space in this book I wasn't able to simply skip through the pages devoted to it. There were too many.It appears that the last book in the series will focus on this plot. So I won't read it. That is a shame because the primary story she should be focusing on - how the various members of a family survived through the war was interesting and I would like to have known the conclusion to that story.
—Laura

Book 4 in Perry's WWI series, is more human in many ways, and we see more deeply and in some cases endearingly into Joseph Reavley's character, but the mystery itself of an an inept and dangerous officer being killed by some of them men of his command gets convoluted and confusing at times. I struggled some in believing Joseph's choices were all consistent with the character-to-date, and the plots connections to novel 2 in the series made me a bit confused about Joseph forcing his friend Sam fake his own death and disappear as recompense for murdering a journalist who was a traitor. Apparently Joseph never told a soul but Sam that Sam was the murderer, so why exile the man?The Peacemaker storyline is erratic in this one (and contradictory to elements as presented in previous books in the series. So with these gripes why a 4-star? The premise of the mystery and the moral complexity of how prosecuting these men could disastrously impact the war effort in Flanders is interesting. Also Joseph's relationship with his men is warmer and identifiable than we've seen him. His relationship with his former student Morel is developed in a compeling and wonderful way.
—Robin

Okay, die allgemeine Storyline dieses Buchs fand ich gar nicht schlecht, aber die Ausführung? Hmm ... ich habe schon einige Anne Perry Bücher gelesen, und es sind immer die gleichen Dinge, die mich stören, aber ich mag sie normalerweise trotzdem, weil sie spannend sind. Nicht so dieses. Man kann sich von Anfang an denken, was passieren wird, und genauso kommt es dann auch, allerdings teilweise auf völlig seltsamen und unnötigen Umwegen.Dinge die mich stören:- Es wird zu viel Gelaber gehalten. Es ist nichts einzuwenden gegen Umfeld-Beschreibungen oder innere Handlung, all das braucht ein Buch auch, aber nicht in diesem Ausmaß. Die eigentliche Handlung des Buchs hätte wahrscheinlich auf maximal 200 Seiten stattfinden können, 500 wären nicht nötig gewesen, dazu schreibt Anne Perry diese Dinge nicht spannend genug. Ich hatte schon nach der dritten Beschreibung der Kriegswirklichkeit verstanden, dass es schrecklich ist und dass man desöfteren Leichenteile sehen muss, und ich hab auch noch nach der zweiten Beschreibung der Gewissensbisse von Joseph erkannt, dass er Gewissensbisse hat. Das hätte man alles nicht noch 10x erklären müssen.- Jede Hauptperson kann jedem, den sie trifft, sofort anhand der Gesichtszüge den gesamten Charakter ablesen. Der Leser lernt die Personen nicht langsam kennen, sondern die Hauptperson stellt direkt fest, wie der Mensch so drauf ist (anhand der Gesichtszüge!) und dann ändert er sich auch nicht mehr. Das ist sehr, sehr verschenkt!- Die Storyline zieht sich auf seltsamen Wegen hin, und die Handlungen von Joseph sind manchmal absolut nicht nachvollziehbar. Er ist in einem Moment überzeugt davon, dass die Fahnenflüchtigen das Richtige getan haben, und im nächsten Moment hält er es für richtig, sie zurückzuholen. Wie kam dieser Sinneswandel zustande? Man weiß es nicht!Positiv erwähnen muss ich aber folgendes: Das hier ist offenbar das vierte Buch in einer Reihe, was mir nicht bewusst war, bis ich es gelesen habe. Die vorherigen kannte ich nicht, aber es wurde mir von der Autorin genug Backstory gegeben, um dieses Buch zu verstehen, ohne dass sie die vorherigen nochmal komplett nacherzählt hätte.
—Kathi-sass

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