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| In Pale Battalions | 
| Author: Robert Goddard
Publisher: Delta
Category: Book
List Price: $12.00
Buy Used: $0.99
You Save: $11.01 (92%)
New (33) Collectible (1) from $6.71
Avg. Customer Rating:  17 reviews
Sales Rank: 97209
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 368
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.8
ISBN: 0385339208
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780385339209
ASIN: 0385339208
Publication Date: May 29, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More.
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Product Description
Six months after her husband's sudden death, Leonora Galloway sets off for a holiday in Paris with her daughter Penelope.At last the time has come when secrets can be shared and explanations begin...
Their journey starts with an unscheduled stop at the imposing Thiepval Memorial to the dead of the Battle of the Somme near Amiens.Amongst those commemorated is Leonora's father.The date of his death is recorded and 30thApril, 1916.But Leonora wasn't born until 14th March 1917.
Penelope at once supposes a simple wartime illegitimacy as the clue to her mother's unhappy childhood and the family's sundered connections with her aristocratic heritage, about which she has always known so little.
But nothing could have prepared her, or the reader, for the extraordinary story that is about to unfold.
From the Paperback edition.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 12 more reviews...
 Good historical mystery July 7, 2008
I enjoyed following the different characters through the twists and turns of this story set in WWI-era England. Really kept me guessing, and kept me interested through the different threads of the story.
 Brilliant, epic novel. December 1, 2007
This book is vintage Goddard, and the best of his books to be published in the US so far (his other two greats, Painting the Darkness and Past Caring, have not yet been published stateside). "Into the Blue" is also great, but trails behind "Battalions".
This novel builds layer upon layer of intrigue, murder, blackmail, suicide, and other secrets, making for a finely crafted mystery...certainly one of the best I've ever read. The mystery has consequences that span several generations and the resolution is deeply satisfying.
Exceeds expectations November 2, 2007
This being my first book by Robert Goddard, I was unsure of what to expect of a British author whose name I wasn't familiar with in the thriller genre. Tucked in with the "written for the screen" thrillers that populate the bookstore shelves,this lyrical mystery caught my eye in part due to its setting during World War I. The mystery, not just surrounding the murdered guest, but of the main characters' pasts, was intriguing and thought provoking. I highly recommend this stylistically sophisticated thriller.
Brits suffer thrugh WWI again August 23, 2007
British heroes suffering the horrors of the first WW have become quite a popular theme in recent mysteries. Supposedly dead heroes who in fact opted out of the suffering have also become common. Still, Goddard adds a sexy, imperious femme fatale to spice things up and the plot takes off from there. Not bad.
A wonderful variation on a familiar theme August 13, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is the story of a woman's search for the truth about the identity of her parents and the circumstances of her birth and early childhood. It is certainly not the first book I've ever read on that theme, but it is the best.
The woman, Leonora, was born during the first World War. Her father was a war hero who died in the murderous killing fields of the European slaughter. But wait a minute: the dates - her own birth and her purported father's death - don't match up. What is the real truth?
Leonora remembers Olivia, her witch of a step-grandmother, and and of course remembers what Olivia told her about her origins. But there wasn't much detail there, and Olivia was so spiteful that anything she said had to be taken with a grain of salt. And over the course of her life, Leonora manages to piece together the truth. Maybe.
Leonora learns some of the stories by virtue of her own research, and some other things she learns accidentally when she is contacted by people who were in a position to know SOME of the story. It is that word "some" that makes this book so fascinating. No single individual or set of documents is able to produce a logically consistent explanation for everything that happened. There is always at least one loose end. But Leonora persists, and finally, as an elderly woman, she believes she has pieced together the whole story.
The book is told flashback fashion, as Leonora relates the entire story to her daughter Penelope, who is by now a grown woman. And it can't escape the reader's attention that almost every bit of information Leonora has acquired has come to her as part of an oral history, related by someone who might have his or her own axe to grind. Once we come to the end, however, the bits and pieces hang together logically - in fact, brilliantly logically, as they always do with Goddard. Somehow the uncertainty about whether we really have the entire truth seems to make the ending more satisfactory, not less.
For me, one criterion for evaluating a book is: does each page make me want to read the next one? Perhaps more than any other writer, Goddard answers that question with a resounding "Yes." He is simply the best writer I have ever read for constructing complex plots that fit together logically with no holes. This is as good an introduction as any to his impressive talent.
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