William Lowther

My three star rating isn't really a comment on the work itself, but instead a comment on the subject of this book. I get how this was pitched (biography of a guy who built 'superguns') and that sounds exciting. The portrait that emerges though is of a very narrow thinker with a mean streak whose two greatest attributes were an aptitude for artillery mechanics and an unparalleled ability to believe he was an agent of peace while selling weapons into conflict zones. A luminescent example of motivated reasoning that only a bullet could extinguish.

Kind of seems like it helped inspire some of the setting found in Louise Penny's novel 'The Nature of the Beast'.… (more)