Virginia-born Kevin Powers' civil war saga has the necessary grit but too many characters seem to flit in and out from what feels like a completely different novel. Virginia-born Kevin Powers' civil war saga has the necessary grit but too many characters seem to flit in and out from what feels like a completely different novel. In George's 1950s storyline, the reader also meets Lottie, who will try to assist him in his questing odyssey. He again is vividly drawn, a moralistic martinet with a stern sense of right and wrong and a savage willingness to dispense summary justice, and a final showdown with the loathsome Levallois seems inevitable. And Powers' novel certainly evokes a grim sense of what it must have been like to suffer the barbarity of enslavement.

Source: Irish Independent May 13, 2018 10:30 UTC