Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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128 of 133 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A complex and rewarding thriller, 20 Dec 2006
This is an excellent novel, with convincing characters and a feeling of authenticity about the conditions in Madrid following the Civil War. The story line itself is excellent and exciting, with many parallel threads developing to a conclusion full of suspense and drama. It is both spy novel, and also a love story, but also has great historical interest, showing the situation in Europe at the time, with the risk of Spain allying with the Germans against Britain, and the efforts of British diplomats to avoid this by subtle relationship building with key people in the Spanish government.
I am surprised that an earlier reviewer found the characters stereotyped for I found them totally convincing. Yes, they are people of their time, but their characters are picked out in fine detail and the reader can empathise with them with little difficulty.
The author has conducted meticulous research into the history of the Spanish Civil War and its effects on the various classes of people in Spain. The book shows the great divisions in Spain following the war, and the bitter wounds caused to family and social relationships by the polarisation of the nation into two different sides. I can set this book alongside the very best works of Sebastian Faulkes, John le Carré, Alain Furst etc. This is a very fine book, with a strong story line set in a convincing portrait of Madrid in 1941. Well worth reading.
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
The biter bit . . . , 19 Jun 2007
Oh, dear! Clearly, C.J. Sansom didn't bother checking the final proofs of Winter In Madrid, or he'd have spotted his monumental howler four lines from the bottom of Page 456 when Luis refers to Barbara as "Señora Brett".
But that's not all. Throughout the story Sansom's memory seems to have been buried somewhere out there in the rubble of Forties Madrid.
If not, why has he peppered his manuscript with variations of the same old throwaway words: "Barbara bit her lip" . . . "She bit her lip" . . . "Bernie bit his lip"? After groaning at examples galore, I pondered whether Sansom was having a private joke . . . then I began to dread even turning the page.
If Sansom really didn't notice this jarring repetition, I'm utterly astonished.
If Pan Books' highly paid editors missed it, too, it beggars belief.
Oh, but come on, surely ONE of our national newspapers' illustrious book reviewers picked up on it?
Er, incredibly . . . no.
By the time I reached Page 502, when Bernie "bit his lip" for the last time, I was on the verge of giving up.
And I dearly wish I had.
For the climax turned out to be stultifyingly, lip-bitingly lack-lustre.
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46 of 51 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An oscar-winning movie waiting to happen I suspect., 27 Jan 2006
A top-notch novel I thoroughly recommend. As usual the author has real skill at creating a sense of time and place and the language is faultless. What makes this one so enjoyable is that the characters he creates (there are quite a few leading characters in this novel) fit into their place and time so well. It's a common fault in historical novels that modern characters with modern morals are set uncomfortably in a historical landscape - not so here, it all gels to make a thoroughly believable yarn and you'll learn a lot about Franco's Spain and Britain's efforts to keep him from joining forces with Hitler and Mussolini during WWII into the bargain, the history is always good, pretty accurate and vividly recounted. This would make a great movie with lots of juicy parts for a good cast to grapple with!
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