Steven Price (1)Recensioni

At age fifty-eight in 1955, Giuseppe di Tomasi learns that he has emphysema, and it’s incurable. Give up cigarettes, his doctor tells him. Eat less; exercise more. Follow that regimen, and you’ll have some years left.

But Giuseppe can’t, not because he’s stubborn or addicted to his ways, though he is. (He’s so stuck in his diffidence, he wrestles for months with how to tell his wife he's dying.) Rather, he’s the prince of Lampedusa, the last of his line, and, like many Sicilians of his generation, he believes that the world in which he grew up has gone forever. So why stay in it?

He bears no anger or ill will, only sadness for what has happened to his country since Mussolini took power, the ensuing war, and the striving but damaged Italy that has emerged. Is his acquiescence to his fate passivity or an act of suicide?

No. It’s an existential choice, a key part of which involves writing a book, a testament to leave behind. All his life, Giuseppe has loved literature but written nothing except an article or two. However, in his final months, he pens The Leopard, a novel about an aristocrat who witnesses the Risorgimento, the unification of Italy in the midnineteenth century, and realizes his world is dying.

Years ago, I read and thoroughly enjoyed The Leopard, as clear and penetrating a psychological study of a man, time, and place as you could ask for. Following its posthumous publication, the book became a runaway bestseller, the subject of a film directed by Luchino Visconti, and has earned at least a mention in discussions of great twentieth-century world literature. So when I saw that Price, the author of By Gaslight, a Victorian thriller par excellence, had written a biographical novel about Giuseppe di Tomasi, I had to read it.

I’ve come away impressed by Price’s artistic range and the way he’s rendered his subject as acutely as Giuseppe portrayed his Risorgimento prince. I also salute the courage to write about death, that singular event we all think about but dislike talking about or, heaven forfend, reading about in a novel.

But as someone who has wondered what our world is coming to — and what, if anything I’ll leave behind when I depart it — I can tell you that Lampedusa speaks to me. It’s not only about literature and its creation; it is literature.

To be sure, the narrative is what publishing folk would call “quiet” (about as far a cry from By Gaslight as you can figure), but that leaves room for contemplation. Price brings across his protagonist’s withdrawn nature, his delicacy in not wishing to offend, the tremendous influence his mother had, especially after family tragedies robbed her of her natural vivaciousness, and the First World War, which left psychic wounds in Giuseppe that never healed.

Price is a gifted poet, and it shows in how he weighs every word, not overwhelming the reader with images but carefully selecting the right ones. For instance: “He was a man who had left middle age the way other men will exit a room, without a thought, as if he might go back any moment.” But, if you prefer descriptions of the Sicilian landscape or city life, there are plenty to choose from.

The only thing I dislike about Lampedusa concerns the character of Giuseppe’s wife, Alessandra, known as Licy. (She’s the only female psychoanalyst in Sicily, a fact that Price deploys only occasionally, with great care.) She’s fierce, domineering, slow to forgive, and Giuseppe lives in fear of her.

I get that her remoteness offers part of her appeal to him, and how her controlled passion makes her interesting to someone who wishes to provoke it. But I’m not sure I understand how the bond between the two can be so strong and yet so distant.

Still, I admire Lampedusa, the kind of novel that leaves a deep, firm impression.

Renewed it several times from the library..... just had trouble getting into it and keeping the momentum going. Quit at about 1/3rd read.

Beautiful, poetic and immersive novel about the author of one of my favorite books. Bittersweet, end-of-life story full of magic and memories, loves and losses too great to count or bear. But somehow something lives on even when all hope is lost.

Quite good

This is an interesting novelized version of the last years of Giuseppe Tomasi, the last prince of Lampedusa and author of "The Leopard". He is diagnosed with emphysema and begins thinking about his legacy. The book explores his early life, his time in World War II, his lifelong recovery from war, and his later life after he married. The descriptions are vivid and the tone is sombre.

This may be the only shortlisted book for the Giller Prize that I read before the ceremony. There are a few others that I would be interested in but they have huge hold lists at the library and I'm not wealthy enough to buy 5 new hardcover books. So I can't compare this book to the rest of the candidates but it is wonderfully written and I hope it wins.

Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa was an Italian Prince who grew up on Sicily not on the island of Lampedusa that was his family's birthright. Lampedusa doesn't sound like it was very hospitable being composed of volcanic rock with no source of fresh water on the island. The family's fortunes declined from year to year and when several villas were destroyed in World War II hardly anything was left. Guiseppe had fought for Italy in World War I, was taken prisoner and then escaped just before the Armistice. He made his way back to Sicily where he seemed to spend his time reading and reviewing books, particularly English literature. He travelled with his mother and alone until he met Alessandra Wolff von Stomersee, a Baltic German noblewoman. She was married at the time but the marriage was unhappy; Price hints that the husband was a homosexual. Eventually Guiseppe and Alessandra (nicknamed Licey) married but she continued to live in Riga and Guiseppe mostly stayed in Sicily with his mother. During World War II Licey made her way across war-torn Europe to Sicily. Licey and her mother-in-law did not get along. After the war was over the Princess insisted on living in the bombed out villa where she died. An idea for a book came to Guiseppe after his doctor told him he had emphysema (now it would be called COPD) and that if he wanted to have a longer life he should stop smoking. Instead of following this advice he kept smoking and wrote a book which he called Il Gattopardo. In English the title has been translated as The Leopard and the book is considered one of the finest works of modern Italian literature. But Guiseppe got rejections from two publishers that he submitted it to and he died before it was finally accepted by another publisher.

I have not read The Leopard but after reading this book I feel like I should. Price is obviously a fan and the structure of this book follows the structure of the Leopard. The writing is marvelous and the plot has some interesting devlopments. As a side note Price is married to Esi Eduygan who won the Giller Prize in 2011 for Half-Blood Blues. I hope their mantel piece is big enough to hold all the awards these two win.½

It is such a pleasure to read prose that is so evocative of the time and the people in this novel. Price imagines the life of Giuseppe Tomasi.The real Tomasi writes one book at the end of his life. His novel, The Leopard was published after he died and became very popular. Tomasi was the last prince of Lampedusa. He lived through two world wars and saw the once influential and extensive holdings of his family in Sicily decline. The reader learns about Tomasi's life and that of his family. His controlling mother, and his strong wife play important roles in Tomasi's life. However, the 19th century attitudes to nobility have no place in post-war Italy. The time periods shift between the 1950's and the beginning of the 20th century. I really enjoyed reading this novel and was sad to finish the book. Price's novel has been shortlisted for the 2019 Giller Prize and I see why!

Steven Price is becoming one of my favourite authors. I love his writing which I find so elegant, and he is a master at creating setting and atmosphere. He has the ability to transport me right into the book and he did that many times over the course of this novel. Lampedusa is one of the reading hi-lights of my year.½

I really really wanted to like this book but I could not stay focused on it and kept having to go back and re-read parts. I might try it again later.

For some odd reason, the author chose not to use quotation marks which made this book unnecessarily difficult to read.

I'm at a loss of what to say about this book... its length (700 pages) and detailed writing with historical accuracy makes it an incredible book to read. However, it's not a very enjoyable one.

The book itself moves at a twisted and confusing pace, all at once intense but slow. While this type of writing is typical of the hard boiled detective novel, not really having a true climatic moment, it is extremely hard to keep up over the sheer length of the book. So much of the book is backstory that could've been condensed and did not need to be told through short flashbacks. These scenes are very jarring and occur so regularly that the reader struggles to figure out where in time they are.

Plot choices as well are debatable as one character ends up not dead and the red herring employed ended up being a huge and grotesque coincidence. This part especially left me cold.

Literary choices:
With no speech marks, the book can be hard to read in places. Some description can be seen as speech, etc. I can understand the literary choice of not using quotations marks, but with the sheer length and detail this book has, I do not believe this book fits with that stylistic choice. The book also has far too many characters to keep track of, with names far too similar: Shade, Shore, Shane, Allen, Allan, Foole, Fludd, etc. perhaps this is only an issue for me, but I've read War and Peace and had an easier time telling the characters apart.

Overall if you enjoy historical crime noir fiction, you will probably enjoy this book, but just be prepared for the sheer length, slow pace, and complexity of reading it. Just don't pick it up, read the review on the front cover that compares it to Wilkie Collins and Sherlock Holmes and think you're diving into something completely different.

William Pinkerton, American detective, is in Victorian London chasing down the notorious criminal, Edward Shade. Pinkerton believes Shade to be both the criminal his late father Allan Pinkerton could never catch and a man who worked for and then betrayed his father during the American Civil War. Adam Foole is a con artist in London searching for his lost love, Charlotte Reckitt, who he believes to be in danger. Pinkerton is also seeking Reckitt as his last chance to find Shade.

Pinkerton and Foole are driven by injustices, mistakes and losses from their past, but both have an imperfect understanding of what happened which colours their perceptions and their plans to resolve their open wounds. As their lives slowly collide they both realise that what was black-and-white is now shades of grey.

The author paints Victorian London in detail and from various aspects - geography, culture, the lives of rich and poor, the criminal underworld - but always in muted colours shrouded by the ever-present fog. This is a book of unrelenting darkness with few lighter moments. The ending gives release for Pinkerton, but we are left wondering about the other characters we have become invested in, even liked - Reckitt, Foole and his accomplices, Molly and Fludd - which leaves us a little short-changed.

The book begins slowly but gathers pace to an exciting set piece climax. Recommended.

William Pinkerton, son of the founder of the famous Pinkerton Detective Agency, is in London in 1885 hunting for a man his father never managed to find. Edward Shade is a famous thief but virtually undetectable, never having been caught. William has a lead through Shade's one-time lover, Charlotte Reckitt, but Charlotte eludes him by jumping into the Thames River. When her body turns up in multiple pieces in various parts of London, Pinkerton thinks all is lost. Then Adam Foole who wants to find Charlotte's killer contacts him and the two men pair up though neither trusts the other. Foole is as much a thief and conman as Shade ever was.
The main story follows the murder of Charlotte and the subsequent happenings but meanders back and forth in time with vignettes of both Pinkerton and Foole. Much of Pinkerton's story is based on history though the rest is fiction. The author captures the time period well. The action moves from London, South Africa, Chicago, the Wild West, and the Civil War. Edward Shade, the man Pinkerton is chasing, was once a member of his father, Allan Pinkerton's, force in the American Civil War. Both the son William and Edward Shade are greatly impacted by the elder Pinkerton's views toward them and what each of them subsequently thinks of each other.
The author is an acclaimed poet in Canada, and his writing definitely displays a lyric flow of words. This is a long book, over 600 pages, but the writing is brilliant. I did think some of it could have been cut out, but then later I'd find why that piece was needed to make the story whole. It's a complex story, peopled with a diverse cast of characters. Each is fascinating in their own way and add much to the book.
The author made a stylistic choice to use minimal punctuation. Dialog is not set off by quotes, for example. It took me a while to get used to, and I'm not sure I was ever really comfortable with it. It's a conceit that didn't aid reading in my opinion; I can only imagine it had something to do with his style of poetry.
Still, this is a masterwork. In some ways, it reminded me of Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin without the fantastical elements. I'd take a half star off just because of the punctuation choices, but this is a book I'll think about for a long time.½

Thanks to Goodreads and Penguin Random House for a free copy of By Gaslight!

Okay. Combine the writing styles of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Charles Dickens. Add a bit of a Western. Add the American Civil War. Two incredibly complex characters to tie everything together. Imbue it with incredibly gorgeous, atmospheric, poetic writing. And you will end up with a shadow of what By Gaslight is like.

This is an incredible book -- one that demands your attention and steals your mind. I feel like I could reread this over and over, vanishing into the Victorian London gloom, and still pick up on new things that I hadn't realized.

Another experience: looking up information on the book and author after reading, seeing the piles of drafts, the outlines, the tidbits about real characters that inspired the book. I know logically that all books take an incredible amount of effort to bring from idea to print. But does it ever show here.

Highly recommended.

It was a .36-calibre Colt Navy and in Chicago he kept it the way some other men kept secrets: it was the first thing you saw. You saw a gun and there was a man with it like he was on retainer and first the gun said hello and then the man nodded and said hello too.

William Pinkerton is the son of the famous detective agency's founder and a fearsome detective himself. With his father dead, he's trying to find a man his father couldn't; the mysterious thief known as Edward Shade. He's come to London because he's heard there's a woman there who was once Shade's associate.

Adam Foole, a small man of mixed heritage, arrives in England with his small crew of grifters. He's received a letter from a woman he once loved, asking him to come as she's being hunted by a Pinkerton detective. When he arrives in London, he discovers that she's been murdered and so he seeks to join forces with Pinkerton to find her killer.

By Gaslight is a Victorian novel in all the best ways. It's full of the stinking atmosphere of Victorian London and the novel is one that is simultaneously page-turning and taking its time. There are long digressions into both men's pasts, but as they are exciting pasts and shed light on their motivations as the novel moves forward, it never feels like lost time. Steven Price immerses the reader in the complexities of both men's lives, so that even when they are in direct conflict, one can't help but hope for the best for both men. The novel is also Victorian in its large cast of colorful characters, from spiritualists to child pick-pockets to Civil War spies. The writing reminds me of Mary Doria Russell's Doc in its ability to create warm, breathing characters. It wears its length lightly and I was sorry to have turned the last page.½

I love historical suspense novels especially ones that take place around the time of the infamous Jack the Ripper, give and take a few years.
The story itself is simple enough. William Pinkerton is trying to continue his famous father's work by tracing a thief by the name of Edward Shade. Pinkerton is assisted in this endeavor by Adam Foole.
This novel is so grand in scope and very rich in detail so much so that sometimes it made me lose interest in the story. Information overload? It could be that it is one of those books that you do not binge read but take time to dip into now and then until it is finished. When I did finish the book I was glad I had read it so I think it is one book to take your time with and just enjoy slowly. It is one of those rare books to be slowly savored. Highly recommended to anyone who loves vivid historical mysteries.

At 731 pages, this is a doorstopper of a book. I usually hesitate to read such lengthy tomes for fear of wasting my much-treasured reading time. I finally decided to take the plunge because this novel was nominated for the 2016 Giller Prize. I understand why it made the shortlist.

This is a great example of Victorian detective fiction. Set in 1885 London, it tells the intertwined stories of two men. William Pinkerton, son of the founder of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, is in the city looking for Edward Shade, an elusive master criminal whom William’s father never managed to arrest. Now that his father is dead, William has picked up the chase. He manages to find Charlotte Reckitt, a supposed acquaintance of Shade’s, but she takes a fatal jump into the Thames; then, to William’s surprise, her dismembered body washes up.

The second protagonist is Adam Foole, a thief and con-artist, who also travels to London to find Charlotte, a woman he loves though he hasn’t seen her for a decade. He contacts William and the two become allies in searching for the truth about Charlotte’s fate. The two men eventually come to realize that their lives have overlapped in the past, especially during the American civil war.

This book is a mystery thriller; there are certainly a number of questions that need to be answered: Who is Edward Shade? Is he dead or alive? Does he even exist? Why was Allan Pinkerton never able to find him? Why does William become obsessed with finding Shade? How/why did Charlotte, after her leap into the river, end up dismembered and with shorn hair?

Suspense is abundant. Besides the questions, there is danger for both men. There’s a cat and mouse game that will have the reader cheering for one side and then another. Foreshadowing is used frequently: “It was, he would reflect later, a most impressive performance” (645) and “it was a thing he had felt before and he knew by this that something that day would go wrong” (672). Dramatic irony is also used: the reader knows what William and Adam are hiding from each other.

The author excels in creating atmosphere. There are detailed descriptions of perpetually foggy and grimy cobblestoned streets. Scenes are set in soot-filled fog and dank alleys and opium dens and séance parlours and filthy sewers. One can see the squalor and smell the stench and feel the cold rain.

There are several lengthy flashbacks to the pasts of both William and Adam. It is clear that the two were shaped by their pasts. William’s troubled relationship with his father certainly influences his behaviour: “William feared him and loved him and loathed him every day of his life yet too not a day passed that he did not want to be him” (151). Adam had a more difficult childhood and his experiences, including his relationship with Charlotte, motivate his actions.

Characterization is a strong element. Both protagonists are fully developed. They are flawed people but they have redeeming qualities. There are several minor characters like Molly and Japheth Fludd who also capture the reader’s attention.

I found this an engrossing read. The flashbacks sometimes slow down the pace, but they are important in explaining characters and events in the present. Themes are not always developed strongly, but the book is a very entertaining read that would make a great movie.

Please check out my reader's blog (http://schatjesshelves.blogspot.ca/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski).

By Gaslight by Steven Price is an atmospheric victorian mystery with an intriguing premise and fascinating characters. William Pinkerton, son of the namesake agency’s founder and quite famous in his own right, pursues a criminal who eluded his father; the notorious Edward Shade, a man whom many think dead and some think doesn’t exist at all. The key to picking up Shade’s trail may be Charlotte Reckitt. Pinkerton and English gentleman Adam Foole are both pursuing her for their own reasons. Along with Foole’s giant accomplice, Flood, they search the gaslit corners of London from its highest echelons to the lowest imaginable locales for clues to Charlotte’s whereabouts and fate.

By Gaslight is heavy on the atmosphere. Price’s background as a poet is on ample display with lyrical and beautiful phrasing throughout. The story is filled with descriptive and memorable language both of place and of character. The narrative bounces from the search in 1880s London to the American Civil War 20 years earlier. The time spent in the civil war gradually shines more light on Pinkerton, as well as Shade, lending greater understanding of the events of 1880.

The plot moves doggedly forward as clues propel the characters together and apart and gradually shine light on the central mystery. The mystery is as much who is Edward Shade and what is he to the Pinkertons as it is where might he be. There is almost an excess of language with so much time spent on descriptions that the plot can at times suffer and makes the book feel overlong. One nagging thing for most of the book was that the obsession by both Pinkertons with finding Edward Shade seemed to lack sufficient motivation. This lack balances throughout on the knife’s edge between intriguing and annoying, with a little too much time spent on the latter side. In the end, Price manages to weave all the various threads together into a satisfying and thought-provoking conclusion.

Price has a knack for uniformly interesting characters both major and minor. Charlotte Reckitt may be the most interesting, and perhaps tragic, character of all.

The audio version of the book is narrated by John Lee who does an outstanding job with the material. He brings to life the lush descriptions and makes each character distinctive and easy to recognize. The voices for the Pinkertons didn’t sound very midwestern American, but I’m not sure what an 1860s or 1880s midwestern accent really sounded like. Lee added to the enjoyment of the material, which is an important factor given that the audio is nearly 24 hours long. His pacing and accents added to the mood and mystery of the material.

Fans of victorian mysteries and lush, descriptive language will enjoy this book.

I was fortunate to receive an advance copy of this book.½

So Much Promise

By Gaslight by Stephen Price is set primarily in London, 1885 and features William Pinkerton, son of Allan Pinkerton, founder of the famous detective agency.

The long novel is rambling, sprawling and labrythine and I can't help feel the author was self indulgent in writing what ends up being an unsatisfying historical mystery.

What starts off being a very good yarn could have been exceptional with a more active editor. The prose drives the narrative always forward leaving the reader breathless and oftentimes perplexed. There are too many extraneous details and blind alleyways. Sometimes we don't come back to a plot thread until so long afterwards that I have completely forgotten the names and details. The novel also weaves back and forth in both time and place again leaving me a bit disoriented as the changes were very abrupt

Many readers encountered difficulties with the lack of punctuation, specifically the lack of quotes to indicate dialogue. I didn't find it an issue, however, I question the author's motives beyond it being a mere affectation.

The language is often brilliant but the novel tends to be overwritten.

Some sections are very powerful: under the London sewers; the Civil War hospitals; and the Battle of Malvern Hill from the balloonist's viewpoint.

It irks me that By Gaslight so badly needed an editor and a 25% reduction in length because when it's good, it's really brilliant. I often loved the writing, language, atmospherics and characterizations. But when you can't even remember the storyline or individuals because the previous events happened some 400 pages ago, that's just bad. It could have been 5 star with some discipline and humility½

This is not an easy book to read because of its length and its complicated storyline. I almost gave up one third of the way but then a plot twist kept me interested.
William Pinkerton is the youngest son of Allen Pinkerton, the founder of the famous detective agency. In this fictionalized account, it is 1885 and William is in London, trying to locate the evasive Charlotte Reckitt and Edward Shade. Two timelines,1862 during the American Civil war and 1885 in London, outline the stories of the main characters, the Pinkertons, Edward Shade and Alan Foole. The story bounces between the two time periods and it can be confusing. Pinkerton is pursuing Edward Shade who was a young understudy of his father's during the civil war and disappeared behind the Confederate lines during a major battle near Richmond, Virginia. This pursuit was an obsession of the Pinkerton senior and William continues it shortly after his father's death. The descriptions of life in London in the winter of 1885 are a character onto themselves as they provide an ambience of cold, dampness, fog and dreariness. The slums, poverty and destitution create an atmosphere that is very tangible.
Many other characters fill the pages to make this a very compelling read as it is extremely well written. One you get used to the absence of quotation marks for conversations, to the time periods and the various characters, it is worth the effort

Following detective William Pinkerton and shadowy underworld character, Edward Shade, “By Gaslight” dives into Victorian England. At 700 pages, it doesn’t just dive, it lolls at one end of the tub with a thin trickle of hot liquid running in until the hot water heater has been depleted and the entire tub has gone ice cold. Given the extreme (!!!) number of references to soot, grime and dirt there’s a hefty ring around that tub as well.

I don’t necessarily object to 700+ pages. I’ve read and enjoyed many similarly hefty door stops before. The lack of punctuation especially quotation marks she said, also isn’t a disqualifier. And I’m all for atmospheric! The author clearly can write a beautiful sentence, polished to a glorious shine. (Not so enthusiastic when 'atmospheric' is shorthand for repetitive and florid descriptions. Remove at least half of the endless recitations on soot, dirt, fog, mist, coal dust, etc and the book comes down to a more manageable 400 pages or so.)

What I do find so disappointing is that -- having stuck through the excessive length, wonky and intrusive punctuation, and ceaseless descriptions of the same ol' grimy fog -- we're left with a 'meh' ending, telegraphed well in advance. Others seem to be much more taken with this one than I. You may find it a delightful frolic in an English spring-fed pond. Just don't say I didn't warn you when the fog and grime roll in. (2.5 stars out of 5)½

This book is a 2016 short-listed Giller prize book. I read it for that reason, and I did enjoy it. Steven Price's 1885 London is very realistically described and the book is a ficitionalized account of some real people. The main protagonist if William Pinkerton, son of Allan Pinkerton, who was a Scotsman living in the States in the mid-1880's. Allan Pinkerton started the Pinkerton Detective Agency which played such a huge role in the colonial United States. The Pinkerton detectives were known for almost always getting their man, and Allen's legions of agents were out and about all over the U.S. tracking down bank robbers, train robbers and spy networks throughout the country. The Agency played a big part in the American war between the states as well. This book is set in London in 1884 and 1885 and it folllows William tracking down his father's supposed nemesis, Mr. Edward Shade, throughout gaslit London. Shade and William Pinkerton share a somewhat common past dating back to the war between the states. William has been carrying on with his father's business since his passing and Shade is firmly entrenched in the European underworld. The book moves fast from beginning to end as William's noose starts to tighten around Shade's neck. The descriptions of the life and the sights and sounds of 1885 London are very realistic. The tension as William closes in is satsfyingly tight. But what brings this book down to 4 from 5 stars for me is the unsatisfactory ending. Nothing is really solved. I also found that the book was a little long for what the storylline required. But, nevertheless it is a good book and worthy of being on the Giller prize shortlist. The best part for me was the history of the infamous Pinkerton Detective Agency.

It's difficult to write a good review for this book without getting long winded. So I decided to hand out some advice instead. This is a long, dense book, packed with atmosphere and plot. It is rich and detailed. It needs to be read slowly and thoughtfully. If you are not a patient reader, this may not be the book for you. If you are a patient reader, you will be rewarded with an incredibly well written story that takes you back and forth in time and sends you to the mines of South Africa, the battlefields of the Civil War and the streets of Victorian London. The story fits together chapter by chapter and even paragraph by paragraph. (The minimal use of punctuation is a bit annoying, but you adjust to it soon enough) It will take you a long time to get to the end of this book, but when you get there you will be sad it is over.½

Price's words here are dark, mysterious and filled with unique references to mythology and classical literature. But there is also something introspective in the lines. Something almost indescribable yet something that we all feel.
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Set in our current time lines, this story starts out as any ordinary day. 68 year old Arthur Lear makes a trip into town to visit a coffee shop and his favorite tobacconist. At the coffee shop, the shop owner Anna Mercia serves customers while keeping an eye on her 10-year old son Mason who is supposed to be working through math problems at a table in the shop. It is a school day and while Mason is in the shop instead of joining his classmates for a field trip to the local museum, Anna's older daughter Kat is at her school.

Against this backdrop of normalcy, a massive earthquake hits the region, with devastating results. Covering a period of five days, the reader steps into a world where suddenly the only help immediately at hand is the help of fellow survivors. Survival instincts take hold - both altruistic, in coming to the aid of total strangers and more sinister in nature - and builds with the shock, fear, the lack of trust, and the desperate search for missing persons.

I was literally blown away by this one. The overall writing style and Price's tenacious grip on the reader was reminiscent of my experience while reading Jose Saramago's Blindness last year, another novel that I highly recommend. With a perfect balance of nail-biting tension, descriptive prose and moments for reflective thoughts from the characters, I found this to be a vivid, and haunting accurate portrayal of the scramble for survival in the aftermaths of massive devastation. Not only is Price able to capture the scenery and the devastation with sharp effect - loved the description of the earthquake as it hit - he has also crafted complex characters that shift before the reader as they try to adapt to the alien environment they now find themselves in. The icing on the cake for me is that this novel is set in my hometown. For the average reader with no understanding of the city, this story will still come across as an apocalyptic set in "any town". For people with a local understanding, the subtle local references that were scattered throughout the story were great 'extras' to an already great story for me.

Overall, my favorite story so far this year, hands down.