Princess Fuzzypants here: Robert Harris is one of the best story tellers of our time. His books always are riveting and the mixture of fact and fiction is so seamless that the reader can be forgiven for not being able to separate them. That in a nutshell is the essence of good historical fiction.

This book whose title comes from an Act Of Parliament tells the tales of the two sides in the English Civil War. The three main protagonists are a cousin of Cromwell and his son-in-law and Royalist whose obsession was to bring all the regicides to justice. He was toiled with the task but his own personal reasons drives him beyond all reason to search for those who signed the King’s Death Warrant. He is successful in finding all but two who have escaped to America and managed to stay one step ahead of him and his minions for years. But to think that they got off “free” would be incorrect. Haunted and hunted, going from one hiding place to another, they often wonder whether it would be better to be found.

I don’t want to give away too much of the plot as it is too good a story to be spoiled that way. The elder of the “prey” comes to question the actions taken on both sides and wonders if they were correct to kill the King. The younger is a zealot and has no such qualms. Nor does the hunter. His need is more for revenge than justice and in the end, he gets it, just not the way he thought he would.

A cracking good tale on both sides of the Atlantic, I can recommend it highly. Five purrs and two paws up.

This was a really good story, especially so if you like historical fiction and a bit of royal history. The story uses real dates, locations and individuals, except for one. In 1660, two men who signed the death warrant for King Charles I, Colonel Whalley and Colonel Gaffe, who are related by marriage, father in law and son in law, are now on the run with a $100 bounty on their heads. They have made it to America with the support of Oliver Cromwell sympathizers. There is one man who is determined to hunt down all of the individuals who signed the death warrant, this is not so much a result of devotion to the previous King, but rather revenge of a sort due to an incident that happened involving his wife and child and individuals who had signed the warrant. Richard Naylar becomes obsessed with seeing all of the individuals who signed the warrant brought to justice, justice being a very gruesome death. Whalley and Gaffe move from community to community cover vast swathes of mostly unoccupied America, at times spending years living in a cave and in a cellar of sorts under a barn. That they got along for so long and had support is really amazing. The story comes to a satisfying conclusion and there is an afterward by the author that is informative as well. I would highly recommend. Thanks to #Netgalley and #Random House for the ARC.