PositiveThe Washington Independent Review of Books....an engrossing novel, by turns dark and funny, incisive and tender ... Murray’s language is gorgeously devastating, succinct and muscular, hefting multiple meanings ... Murray shows perfect pitch in dialogue, along with an uncanny ability to define character, provide exposition, and develop the plot, sometimes all within the same sentence ... This reader found the earlier sections of the book more compelling than the last section. The politics of world war and the Irish rebellion are explained more sketchily than the politics of colonialism, and the story itself feels somewhat rushed. But these are quibbles. Valiant Gentlemen is a book to be savored slowly.
