A good first effort, with an interesting main character and a well-developed supporting cast. The last quarter of the book becomes extremely confusing as the author tries to tie up all the plot lines. The coincidences required for this would put Dickens to shame. ( )

The process of aging, inching towards death, shrinks a life, distilling it down to its most basic. The mind returns, effortlessly but urgently, to the defining moments of one’s life. And so, Agnes, a survivor of the Nazi death camps, returns to the days of her youth, picking through them, reevaluating them, and recording them in two school notebooks, purchased on the way home from the doctor’s office and her final death sentence. Slowly dieing of a degenerative neurological disorder and daily losing control of her body, Agnes archives her past on the thin notebook paper, hoping to explain herself to her family before it’s too late. As she begins to write, a former Nazi SS officer appears at a local priory, claiming the ancient right of sanctuary. The two enigmatic people, a cool, aloof grandmother and a suspected war criminal, are inexorably tied together by a mysterious past, one which threatens to redefine not only their lives but the lives of everyone they have touched.

The 6th Lamentation, a brilliant patchwork mystery, examines the nature of human perception. Every event, every spoken word captured on the page reshapes itself in the eyes and understanding of each different character. All of the people trying to flesh out the events of their past touch a different piece of the elephant, remembering and describing their lives in drastically different ways. And their misunderstandings lead them to fatal errors in judgment about each other and about the true nature of what transpired amongst them.

William Brodrick populated the novel with wildly fascinating, natural characters, filled with the common contradictions of human living. Among these characters, Anselm, a barrister turned monk, stands out. His faith is tenuous and alive, subject to the whims of everyday life but able to sustain him, even when he is unaware of its power over him.

As the mystery of the novel progresses, Brodrick attacks it from every angle, leading the reader to the same misjudgments that befall the characters in the book. The result is a captivating and dynamic story, woven in layers which catch the eye differently depending on the angle of view. On rare occasions, Brodrick confuses the narrative slightly with the complexity of his style, but drags the reader back to the story’s thread with a quick summary from one of the players. Ultimately, Brodrick’s intricate mystery overpowers neither the story nor his message. Rather, it serves to carry the story along, exhibiting ever more complex and disparate views of the past. Thus, the story’s conclusion is all the more sobering, with some characters finally reconciling themselves to the truth of their past and others trapped forever in faulty judgments, pursuing them to fatal ends. Brodrick reminds us that, as life necessarily winds down, reducing us, reconciliation depends upon constant and honest self evaluation.

4 ½ bones!!!! ( )

This is a very literate thriller and a fascinating story of Paris during the Nazi occupation. The story starts with the elderly and terminally ill Agnes in London taking about her past for the first time to her grandaughter. Agnes was a member of a small group of young people in Paris who were smuggling Jewish children to safety. The group was betrayed but by whom? Agnes was sent to a concentration camp and her own small baby lost. The culprit, an SS officer, named Eduard Schwermann, was given sanctuary by a Catholic church in France in the war and the church assisted him to escape to Britain. Why did the priory help him? That also puzzles Vatican officials and when Schwermann is exposed 50 years later and seeks sanctuary in Larkwood Priory, a Catholic church in England, Father Anselm is chosen to investigate. But things are not as they seem and the reader is led through a maze of deception and intrigue to the final stunning conclusion. ( )

A page-turner, who-did-what-to-whom-when taking place both in present day Britain and in 1940's France. Main characters include a lawyer-turned monk, a young woman and her grandmother dying of a tragic disease, and a former Nazi on trial for war crimes against the Jews. Others include a butler (of course, this is a british novel), an angst-ridden artist, and enough others to warrant a character list. Both entertaining and thought-provoking. Do we ever really know the truth about the past--even the pasts of those we think we know best? ( )

Good plot - but a little overwritten and cumbersome ( )