David Wolstencroft

A great little thriller of two spies trying to escape death and the politics that brought them into that predicament. Beginning is a little slow, but the rest is fast-paced and entertaining

I can't absolutely remember if I watched episode 10, and thanks to the Guardian recaps I realise I haven't and I have no problem returning the series without having watched it. I find I don't care, and should have realised when I fell asleep during my first viewing of episode 3 that I should have given up then, but no I put myself through several more hours of this. Not my thing.

Louis XIV decides that he's going to create a sumptuous palace in Versailles and discovers that just because he show more decides to do it doesn't mean that it's going to be easy, while dealing with internal politics and external politics and sex, lots of sex. It features a lot of nasty people that I had no real empathy for or eventual interest in. This was a pity as this should be my sort of thing. show less

It was good, but it was just missing that…”something”…I don’t know. It was a bit convoluted, but I guess that was part of the “spy game” stuff. I enjoyed it, I just didn’t love it.

A brilliant debut novel. Wolstencroft takes the spy-thriller genre and re-creates it for a new generation. Suspense, action and even comedy are thrown in the mix in this book, if you've never read a spy-thriller novel before this is probably the best place to start.