‘A murder, a verse and a whore the prologue of Bruce Holsinger`s A BURNABLE BOOK draws the reader in and does not let go. ‘John Gower is the perfect narrator and amateur sleuth …Holsinger's research, alongside the energetic vulgarity of a language in flux, delivers up a world where even the filth is colorful’ New York Times Book Review Sansom are inevitable, and justified’ Andrew Taylor, Spectator ‘His profound knowledge of the 14th century provides a wonderfully convincing backdrop… his London feels like a real place, from St Paul’s churchyard to Southwark’s Gropecunt Lane. ‘Holsinger carries the reader to Oxford, Italy and Spain, but the highlight is his description of medieval London with its murky, poverty-stricken streets…enjoyable and intelligent’ Daily Mail ‘An enjoyable story of murder and intrigue in 14th-century London’ Sunday Times ‘This book has almost everything you could want in a historical fiction – rich in period detail and driven by a compulsively engaging and tangled story…The characters are well drawn, the social mores related in unapologetic detail and his multi-layered plot shows a superb storytelling fluency comparable with C.J. ‘This is a rich novel…Bruce Holsinger is a leading American scholar of the Middle Ages and his debut novel combines detailed knowledge of the period with an undoubted gift for gripping storytelling’ BBC History magazine It should be easy for a man of Gower’s talents, who knows the back-alleys of Southwark as intimately as the courts and palaces of Westminster.īut what Gower does not know is that this book has already caused one murder, and that its contents could destroy his life.īecause its words are behind the highest treason – a conspiracy to kill the king and reduce his reign to ashes… The request is simple: track down a missing book. When close confidant, fellow poet Geoffrey Chaucer, calls in an old debt, Gower cannot refuse.

A place of poetry and prophecy, where power is bought by blood.įor John Gower, part-time poet and full-time trader in information, secrets are his currency. A city of shadows and fear, in a kingdom ruled by the headstrong young King Richard II, haunted by the spectre of revolt. A stunning debut historical thriller set in the turbulent 14th Century for fans of CJ Sansom, The Name of the Rose and An Instance of the Fingerpost.

A Burnable Book by Bruce Holsinger