Poor, poor, poor - Rated 
1 1/2 stars for research
Like many others I bought this book on the strength of the Ruis Zafon and Faulks comparisons. And like many others I am deeply disappointed; and, moreover, feeling profoundly misled. This is truly poor stuff. The author has clearly concentrated his efforts on historical research and failed to create a story or characters that are remotely plausible or believable. That in itself wouldn't be a problem if there was some spark of wit or charm in the dialogue or writing, but there is none. Wooden, bland and dull. How did he get away with 500 pages of this? Was his editor on holiday?
I won't go into the deep flaws in this novel; plenty of others on Amazon have described them adequately. Just don't believe the hype.
Read this book - Rated 
I really enjoyed this. Someone says there is too much 'Histoy' in it but I found that aspect very interesting as I don't know much about the Spanish Civil War and I feel Sansom writes about it in a very available way. I think the story is convicing and compelling, the characters believable and the evocation of the era very well done.
An excellent novel! - Rated
This was the first Sansom novel I had read; it was recommended to me by a friend whose judgement I trust, and I found it to be a gripping read. I shall certainly look to read more of his work.
Some other Amazon reviewers clearly disagree, but I thought that the plot line was robust, the main characters all strongly painted, and the atmosphere of wartime Madrid (and the flashbacks to the Civil War period) well evoked. I can't comment on historical accuracy, but from the little I know of the period it was all certainly believable. And the style and writing led me on to read it in long continuous chunks, which was just as well as I read most of it on plane journeys/at airports.
Thoroughly recommended!
Masterful writing - Rated
Sansom is not strong on good memorable book titles but he's strong on writing style.
For too many decades, there was a `pact of forgetting' concerning the Spanish Civil War atrocities, not least the forced abduction of thousands of children of Republicans; this book is dedicated to their memory.
Madrid, 1940. The Civil War is over and Spain is struggling to recover. While Hitler rampages throughout Europe, Franco maintains Spain's neutrality though he and his government are on friendly terms with their fellow fascists. The British government is understandably concerned about Franco abandoning neutrality. If he should allow the German army into Spain, they would immediately march on Gibraltar and use that stronghold to strangle Allied access to the Mediterranean.
Shell-shocked survivor of Dunkirk, Harry Brett volunteers to become a spy for the Secret Service. The spymasters believe that Harry might prove useful as he knows from his school-days a shady English businessman, Sandy Forsyth, who seems to have the ear of powerful men in Madrid.
Bernie Piper is another of Harry's old school acquaintances. Communist supporting Piper went missing during the war in 1937. Bernie's girlfriend Barbara Clare had been a Red Cross nurse but she's now married to Forsyth and is barely coping with the children in the state orphanages. Then Barbara discovers that Bernie might not be dead, but working in a secret labour camp in the mountains.
The scene is set for several character threads to be intertwined in the traumatised city; indeed, the city itself is almost a living, breathing character thanks to Sansom's ability to evoke a place and time.
The walls of Madrid had ears after the war. Neighbour against neighbour. It only took a few words of denunciation to have you carted off to a labour camp or even shot. Harry found love with the tragic Sofia, another victim of the war. He also helped Barbara search for her ex-lover Bernie while she deceived her husband Sandy. And Sandy was not above deception either.
Every character, no matter how minor, rings true in this book. You feel what they feel. The action scenes are few but they're depicted with great verve and you're there with the protagonists, so vital is the writing.
Sansom captures the deprivation and ugliness of modern post-war urban living. It's squalid and grim, especially in winter. This is an authoritative piece of writing, combining the elements of a thriller, a romance and an historical drama. The political chicanery, the ideological imperatives and the treacherous double-crosses seem very believable in Sansom's hands.
These 500-odd pages are turned very quickly because you want to know what happens next and the last few chapters are tense and suspenseful. After any conflict, there are survivors and they carry the scars for the rest of their lives. The surviving characters in this book are scarred by politicians as much as the violent men with guns.
Historically slightly interesting, but otherwise.... - Rated
I kept reading all the way through to the end of this, simply because I didn't know much about the Spanish civil war. If you already have a certain knowledge of the war, I don't think you'll find much of interest here. Sansom is a decent writer, but I'm not sure he should be writing fiction. He does an ok job of giving us some insight on the different fractions of the war. But mainly this is obviously meant to be a book about people - their emotions and their faith. Secondly it's also a sort of crime novel, and I think Sansom fails at both aspects. He doesn't manage to give you much of an emotional involvement in the characters. There are several tragic incidents during the story, but as a reader I don't really feel like I care. I don't feel any kind of attachment to the people in the book. Especially the main character - Harry - suffers from a total lack of personality. He's just nice (and boring). A few times he has some kind of outrage - at least that's what the writer tells us. But this episodes aren't very believable, and they seem to be restricted to one sentence or statement from Harry. Afterwards there is no indication his usual state of mind has been altered....
As for the "crime story", it just doesn't hold water. He doesn't manage to build up much excitement as we go along, and the little there is, is totally ruined by the lack of logic towards the end. Sansom introduces a couple of "surprise twists" in the last part of the story. And they are kind of surprising - considering they make absolutely no sense at all. I'm not gonna ruin the story for you, but suffice to say people turn up where you don't expect them to turn up. And when Sansom tries to explain why they turn up it - as already stated - makes absolutely no sense!
If you want a quick introduction to the Spanish civil war, this might not be your worst choice. But skip the ending, and don't expect any emotional involvement.
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