No Graves As Yet, the initial volume in Anne Perry’s WWI series, begins with a cricket match. Somehow that is appropriate because this book took me longer to finish than a long, drawn-out cricket match. The pace is slow and leisurely and the handling of the characters is ever so much more personal than I sense in her treatment of William Monk or Thomas and Charlotte in her two series of Victorian mysteries. In those mysteries, I see a deft presentation of human rights as almost an agenda (the treatment of women as something less than fully human as a way of challenging even modern assumptions, the arrogant assumptions of outdated medicine as a warning against superstitious opposition to research and treatment in the present world, and the political corruption within government and police force as a cautionary observation with regard to human nature then and now). Even though No Graves As Yet deals with the serious issue of pacification with regard to appeasement juxtaposed against aggression and moral conviction struggling against savage sensibilities, one doesn’t get the sense of preaching or politicking. One gets the sense of real people struggling with real issues of faith and reason, right and wrong.For those who know Anne Perry as a genius of conundrum in regard to shaping the jigsaw pieces of a good mystery, the very title of No Graves As Yet might put them off. Perhaps, it is something of a misnomer because there are at least five “mysterious” deaths in the course of the narrative and the reader is expected to determine whether their proximity to each other is coincidental or causal. All will eventually be revealed, but the result is neither as obvious as initially expected nor as mysterious as hoped. For me, this story is a mixed bag. The title of the book doesn’t refer to individual graves. It refers to those rows and rows of white crosses in the graveyards of WWI casualties. I’m reminded of that great Irish folk song about WWI with the verse something like:“But now in this graveyard, it is still no man’s land, A thousand white crosses in mute witness stand, To man’s foul injustice to his fellow man; To a whole generation who was butchered and damned.”Perry didn’t use those lyrics, but since the Irish trouble looms in the shadows of this story and comes to the light on several occasions, she well could have. The good news is that there were many notable lines that she did craft. On one occasion, a discussion concludes with one of the participants asking the minister/professor protagonist (actually, there is a dual protagonist but that might lead to a spoiler) if God sees “saving souls” in the same, mostly humanistic, way that he himself did. It’s an open and profound question about God’s purpose in one’s life that is mostly left open when the protagonist answers, “Probably not, but He is more likely to be right.” (p. 63) One can either take this as a clever warning about assuming we know God’s will beyond doubt or a smug acceptance of the fact that a human could not know the full will of God. Anyone who knows me knows that I took the former perspective, believing that life is discovery and having a faith conviction that part of that discovery is encountering a will and purpose beyond my own limitations.By having a protagonist minister/professor (drawn from Perry’s knowledge of her own ancestor for whom this “hero” is named) involved in the mysteries in this book, Perry is able to speak bluntly about faith. In his personal struggle, Joseph Reavley considers: “Where was the fire of his faith when he needed it? Anyone could believe on a calm Sunday in a church pew, when life was whole and safe. Faith is real only when there is nothing else between you and the abyss, an unseen thread strong enough to hold the world.” (p. 97) That is poetry that truly captures the best definition of faith that I know, “Faith is believing God—even when it looks bad for ‘Him.’” Indeed Reavley gets a chance to speak of his unseen thread when confronted about evil on the very next page. “Trust in what?” Her thin, black-gloved hand sliced the air. “A God who takes everything from me and lets evil destroy good?”“Nothing destroys good,” he said, wondering if it was true, “If good were never threatened, and even beaten sometimes, then there would be no good, because it would eventually become no more than wisdom, self-interest.” (p. 98)Or, as I have said on many occasions, such a perspective would mean that good was as mechanical as a vending machine and that doesn’t have meaning for me. But I should be typing more about this book and less about my belief system. Yet, how can a minister not resonate with a story about another minister? I know I shook my head and conceded the sad truth when I read this statement: “Being a minister means that people tend not to tell you their uglier thoughts.” (p. 128) His statement expresses a heart-breaking reality concerning pastoral counseling and its limits. Another observation that hit home was the phrase “…exhausted by other people’s emotions.” (p. 203) Have I been there?!Another profound moment (again, I apologize for my ministerial sensibilities here) occurred when Reavley spoke of enabling through denial, “…by refusing to see the shadows in him we reinforced them instead of helping him to overcome them.” (p. 200) Two other ideas jumped out at me from these pages. One was Joseph’s inner battle as to whether he had real faith. “For all his proclaimed love of reason, the faith in God he professed aloud, was he a moral coward, without the courage to test the truth, or the real belief in anything but the facts he could see?” (p. 295) I like the delicate balance between faith and reason shown in that question. Another interesting observation dealt with grief. “No one is old enough to hurt alone.” (p. 201) One could substitute a number of adjectives for “old” into that statement and it would still be true: mature, sophisticated, intelligent, etc. As one can readily see, there is much to be gained from this rather introspective novel. One might be rather surprised at my unusually low rating for this novel—given the profundity within. Nonetheless, I feel like the book has pacing problems. I think the protagonist was too reactionary and introspective to be interesting in the long haul. My edition has over 300 pages of what would make a terrific 150 page mystery (even WITH some of the introspection in which I found profundity). If one could offer half-stars, I would rate this as 2.5 because it is just below a book I can recommend and not likely to be as well-received as other books in her oeuvre. In one sense it is more literary than her other work; in another, it might be considered indulgent.
• Mlle Alice, pouvez-vous nous raconter votre rencontre avec Avant la Tourmente? "Ayant lu, à mon grand désespoir, toute la saga des Pitt d'Anne Perry, il me reste à découvrir ses deux autres sagas. J'ai décidé de commencer par celle des frères Reavley, qui non seulement est la plus courte, mais dont la période historique me plaît moins aussi, gardant le meilleur pour la fin."• Dites-nous en un peu plus sur son histoire... "Juin 1914, les quatre frères et soeurs Reavley apprennent subitement la mort de leurs parents dans un accident de voiture. Mais Matthew a reçu un coup de fil étrange de son père la veille et décide d'enquêter sur ce qu'il a pu se passer et qui semble les impliquer dans un complot qui aura des répercussions mondiales, rien que ça."• Mais que s'est-il exactement passé entre vous? "Je m'étais préparée à ne pas être aussi charmée par cette série que par les fabuleux Pitt! Je l'ai assez dit, la guerre, ce n'est pas mon truc! Dans ce premier opus pourtant, on retrouve tout ce que j'aime: une famille anglaise complexe et attachante, avec l'histoire et les traditions qui font d'un anglais un anglais... Et puis surtout, l'histoire se déroule entre Londres et Cambridge et là encore, Anne Perry me fait rêver, me donne l'impression d'y être vraiment, me permet de m'évader. La guerre quant à elle, reste à distance pour le moment! Et même si je crains que l'on ne puisse plus l'éviter dans les prochains tomes, pour le moment je suis séduite!"• Et comment cela s'est-il fini? "Les fins d'Anne Perry sont généralement soignées et en général, apportent toutes les réponses aux questions que l'on se posent. Si on lit les suivants, c'est parce que l'on s'est attaché aux personnages et non parce qu'elle utilise des feintes de série télé pour vous obliger à vous précipiter sur la suite. Ici, c'est un tout petit peu moins le cas, tout n'est pas complètement résolu. Mais cette série ne comprenant que 5 tomes, l'auteur l'a vraisemblablement traitée de manière un peu différente et de toutes façons le résultat reste le même: je veux le tome suivant!"http://booksaremywonderland.hautetfor...
What do You think about No Graves As Yet (2005)?
This book is about an English family living near Cambridge as events are leading up to the first World War. The parents are suspiciously killed in an auto accident as they are delivering a very important document to their son in the Intelligence Service. The document vanishes. No one knows exactly what the document is except that the father said that if it fell into the wrong hands, it could destroy England! As events in Serbia unfold, and as nations line up on one side or the other, most of the English don't see that it will affect them. At the same time, a brilliant Cambridge student is murdered. Most of the story follows this murder and investigation, rather than world happenings. I wanted more about the document, which seemed to take a back seat until the very end of the book when it was finally revealed how it would destroy England! Only at the very end, does the author tell how England is forced into the war. I understand that this is the first in a series of books about this family and their role in World War I. I hope the next one is a bit easier to feel excited about.
—Cherie
Anne Perry is so good at creating the atmosphere of tragic transition; the point in the story (or in history) in which you know something terrible and life shattering is about to happen, but the innocent folks of the past (and the guilty ones too) have no idea. So we have England just at the edge of WWI, and deaths, and a plot, and the washed golden light. I do miss my favorite characters from the Pitt and Monk novels, who by this novel must surely all be dead. The characters in No Graves Yet are sympathetic and faintly clueless and determined to do good or evil and often confused by it; the descriptive writing is sheer delight, and the plot very...well, this plot was very structured, and I saw the structure pretty quickly (which meant, yes, I thought I knew who done it and then was properly twisted aside). It's kind of like laying a trail of bread crumbs and then...wait, you really you had a wolf following youBut I digress. Perry's fans will like this one, I do, and I will look for the next in the series as well.
—Kathy
It starts out well enough, with a car accident that kills two people, a missing document outlining a devastating conspiracy theory and two brothers who suspect that their parents death was not an accident. I was actually looking forward to Joseph and Matthew teaming up to solve the murder of their parents. Instead, once the funeral is over they both go back to their respective jobs; Matthew to London and the Secret Service, and Joseph to his teaching job at Cambridge, where he is distracted by the death of one of his students. From there the plot moves so painfully slowly I almost gave it up a few times. Everything that happens from here on out is purely guesswork. It is not until the final pages that things start to fall into place and some truths are revealed, but not all. I was disappointed when the document was finally found and the terrible conspiracy theory finally revealed but what are they going to do about it? Nothing it seems and who was behind it all? Apparently that is material for 5 more books, but I'm not interested enough to read them.
—Beth
