Martin Cruz Smith has an amazing ability to make me stay up too late reading. This isn't one of his Russian books featuring police inspector Arkady Renko (which are splendid). It's set in 1872, in a coal town in England. I found his historical setting believable. The characters may have been a bit shallow, but I was reading too fast to notice. I think his books have gotten better over time (as one would expect) and this one was published in 1996. ( )

Don't recall this book ( )

A beautiful story set in the coal mining region of England. ( )

Very well written and the 19th century coal mine setting adds much color to this book. ( )

This is a good period-piece mystery set in Wigan, England in 1872. It describes the adventures of Jonathan Blair, an African explorer of questionable reputation (because he flouts the conventional wisdom about the virtues of colonialism) who is forced to investigate the disappearance of a minister of the church in the town of Wigan; forced in the sense that he is broke, and the promise held out to him is: solve the mystery and receive passage back to Africa to continue what he loves: geological exploration. He is an outsider, and worse a meddler, in a closed, tough town and as such he is a target for beatings and even death.

The mystery deepens, involving the highest classes of the town including the clergy and in particular the headstrong, distant, cold daughter of the bishop who controls the town and, he thinks, Blair too, as well as a firey, sensual, sexual pitgirl named Rose. The description of social conditions and in particular the awful conditions for the workers strikes me as accurate (I recall George Orwell's book, The Road to Wigan Pier, which also detailed the harshness of life for so many in a mining town). It is hard to see how any thinking person (from today's perspective) could be anything other than a socialist given the conditions of work and life, the callousness, the almost complete disregard for safety and health of the workers.

A good story, a good pace, well written and with a good ending. An enjoyable read.