PositiveThe St. Louis Post-Dispatch... beautifully written ... isn’t perfect. It’s too long (and that’s with small type; the British edition is 912 pages), and the middle section is too slow. One can credit the widespread speculation that Mantel was reluctant to bring about her ingenious protagonist’s end ... But the book makes for compulsive reading; if it doesn’t win its author her third Booker Prize, there’s no justice. Most of its historical interpretations are right on; Mantel nails the characters of Norfolk and Sir Thomas More ... The title is apt: There are mirrors of many kinds to be found here, and the light breaks through in sometimes unexpected places. The first-person account of Cromwell’s death is an amazing piece of writing. It closes the story of an extraordinary man, occasionally sympathetic but more often not, very much of his own time, but speaking to ours across the centuries.
Ann Leckie
PositiveSt. Louis Post-Dispatch\"The second person can be a little off-putting at first, but Leckie uses the device skillfully. Parts of this book move slowly, but Leckie’s examination of power, politics and governance is fascinating and well-conceived. The conclusion comes in an explosion of events. As in the beginning of the story, words matter at the end.\
Sara Paretsky
RaveThe St. Louis Post-DispatchThe plotting and pacing are first-rate. The storyline, given today’s political climate, could hardly be more apropos. Fallout is hard to put down, and one of Paretsky’s best.
Robert Coover
PositiveThe St. Louis Post-Dispatch'All stories is sad stories,' says Huck Finn in Huck Out West, and as author Robert Coover tells his tales, the world inhabited by Huck — and Tom Sawyer, Becky Thatcher, Jim, Huck’s Lakota friend Eeteh and a host of other characters in this picaresque novel — is frequently downright tragic. Still, as in Mark Twain’s originals, the darkness is lightened by humorous wordplay and self-deprecating comedy ... The story roams and ambles, but it always catches up with itself. It comes to a head in the summer of 1876, as the United States reaches its first centennial. It’s not an optimistic tale, but it is consistently entertaining.
