Customer Reviews

Rose

5 star:		(54)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

After being blown away by the Akardy Renko trilogy, especially the brilliant final chapter, "Red Square," I had high hopes and anticipation for Smith's next novel. What a huge surprise! Pit girls in a turn of the century English coal mining town? Who would have thought one of the finest and certainly most entertaining novels of 1996 would emerge from this premise? Smith is such a brilliant writer, as I write this, over a year and a half after reading the hardcover, I can still clearly visualize the town of Wigan. His grasp of mise en scene is incredible. A historical novel/mystery like this succeeds or fails on the quality of the world the author creates. I believe Smith more than succeeded. In addition, his characters are sharply drawn and memorable and, as usual, he has created a wonderfully strong and independent female character in Rose. What a movie this could make. Memo to Masterpiece Theatre: A six-hour adaption would be greatly appreciated. As I recall, this book sold about five copies, which is just tragic. Read it, you'll have a great experience!

In "Rose", Martin Cruz Smith demonstrates that he has versatility and depth beyond Renko and the Communist Soviet Union, taking on an ambitious and complex tale set in the dark and gritty coal mining region of Victorian England. As with all of Smith's novels, "Rose" is meticulously researched and rich in historical and cultural detail. Unike many popular authors of today who crank out hastily written and thinly developed book-upon-book to maximize commercial gain, Smith writes infrequently and carefully, choosing each word of dialogue and each scene for accuracy and maximum impact.

"Rose" is the tale of Jonathan Blair, a British mining engineer who longs to return to Africa and his African wife and daughter. To earn passage, he is sent to Wigan, a dark and destitute English mining town, to solve the mystery of the disappearance of the fiance of the Bishop's daughter. Smith's tale twists through Wigan in a series of turns - chilling in the bleakness and brutality of this 19th Century coal town and its guarded and mistrustful populace. Blair, suffering and often barely alive with malaria, sweats and feints through a series of beatings, discoveries, dangerous liasons, and ultimate triumph. The characters are richly developed, and as dark as the smokestack-blackened skies of Wigan.

This is a highly unusual, intelligent, and satisfying work of fiction. Like all of Smith's novels, you'd be wise not to miss it.

What is a novel? The easy definition is: "a story that takes you somewhere and teaches you something about human experience." A lot of books do this. Travel books and our grammar school history books do. Tom Clancy books do. Even cookbooks can. But to be a really good novel, a book should teach something factual and unique, and do it with a lot of pleasure for the reader. Take you there and pay you for going. Martin Cruz Smith is my choice for master of painless, fun learning, and this book is a perfect example of his art.

Rose is set in the English coal-producing town of Wigan in the 1870's. The intricate mystery of what happened to a young clergyman who suddenly disappeared takes and holds our attention, while the background of the story gives us the sound and grit and blackness of the coal mining life. Being an old engineer myself, I especially appreciate the author's impeccable easy-flowing explanations of how and why things were. (Why do the coal miners have so many blue scars on their forheads? Why should you never run carrying a lit coal-miner's lamp?)

The common man worked very very hard in previous centuries. From sailors on wooden ships to the subsistance farmers and fishermen: life was damned hard. Coal miners were some of the hardest working of people anywhere. It is a puzzle why the enormous gulf between these incredibly tough common people and their imperious rulers, the upper classes, never caused a revolution like that in France or Russia. Feeling myself almost participating in this work made me marvel at my luck for my present condition, as well as feel a little shamed to think I could never have been able to do what those men and women did. We really are such wimps, nowadays. Hooray for us, I guess.

Rose herself, the namesake of the book, turns out to be the kind of woman that many of us poor males would almost die to have, and we urge our reluctant and imperfect hero Jonathan Blair onward to solve the mystery and get the girl. Yes, it sounds trite put in that way, but Mr. Smith's clean uncomplicated language slyly sucks you in before you notice it. This is one of those books that gets in the way of doing all those important dull jobs we face daily.

If you have the idea that "purring" only has to do with cats, read Rose to discover what purring was a century ago in the coal fields of England.

Jonathan Blair is a mining engineer who wants to return to Africa. However, in order to do so, his wealthy patron insists that he first travel to the English coal-town of Wigan and investigate the disappearance of Reverend John Maypole. Once there he becomes enmeshed with the pit girl, Rose, and the Reverend's fiancee Charlotte as he tries to unravel what really happened to Maypole.

The above description really doesn't do this novel justice. The mystery itself is well done but what really makes this book shine is the suberb writing. I've read many of Mr. Smith's books, and enjoyed them all, but he's really outdone himself in this one. Blair is a wonderful character, richly drawn, full of foibles, but very likeable as the engineer who wants nothing more than to leave Wigan and return to his beloved Africa. Mr. Smith also has a sharp ear for dialog and it truly is realistic. He also paints a wonderful picture of what life was like in a 19th century coal-town. I give this book a 5 star rating, which I don't give out lightly. Don't miss this one.

As a Cruz Smith fan who has appreciated the stunning clarity of his images and the realism of his present day locales, I approached Rose with care. Set 100-plus years ago in a place as foreign to Cruz-Smith's Moscow as you can imagine, Rose's story unfolds in the nineteenth-century coalmining town of Wigan, Lancashire. Well, you can only applaud. The grit, dirt, and rough brutality of the life are all there in their expected brilliance, like stones on the bed of a mountain stream. The story - the hunt for a missing man, and the unexpected, enigmatic, unwanted romance that intervenes - develops with moments of sudden violence and erotic passion that catch the reader unawares and fascinated.

It's well-paced, beautifully written, and the scenes below ground in the low-technology coal-pit of 100 years ago, with explosive gas, roof cave-ins, and strength-sapping heat, are just about the best Cruz Smith has done.

On the third reading in as many weeks I kept finding new depth and artistry in a novel that gave me more enjoyment and frankly, awe at the accomplishment, than anything I have read in years.

This book exhibits great strengths but suffers from a story line that is ultimately unconvincing. The strengths are in the author's presentation of characters - especially the main character, Jonathan Blair, an expat who feels more at home in primitive Africa than civilized England and a character who could have stepped from the pages of a Graham Greene novel, and the setting, Wigam, a coal mining town in rural England which is a veritable soot filled earthly hell. Our tour through this seldom portrayed aspect of Victorian England is grimly fascinating and the author's descriptive powers are such that every scene is vividly clear in the mind's eye.

What is not successful, however, is the plot. The initial premise is interesting, but the follow through leaves a lot to be desired. Many significant moments in the story are simply unbelievable (disquise and mistaken identity are creaky plot devices, especially when the parties involved are lovers)and the final resolution of the mystery was, for me anyway, a let down.

Still, I give this book four stars because it was such fun to read just from the point of view of experiencing something completly different. If the story had been as believable as the description of place and character it would have been an excellent, rather than simply good, book.

This is a delectable book. I use that word deliberately. The richness of the prose and character development lead you to savor the writing slowly as if tasting it on your tongue. The protagonist, Mr. Blair, is the most interesting character I've encountered in years! Some readers don't care for the slow pace of this book, but this book is all about building characters and place, and less about fast-paced plot.

I first read this book several years ago and kept it for a re-reading after enough time had passed that I had forgotten the details. I'm 3/4 of the way through for the second time, and I remember that something surprising and amazing is coming, but I don't remember what!

Meanwhile, I'm loving this mystery upon a mystery. What is the secret of the mysterious, vulnerable, and somehow likeable (in spite of or because of his rough edges?) Mr. Blair? What is the secret behind the disappearance of the respectable Curate Maypole? Does the apathy of the town concerning the disappearance of Maypole point to a town-wide conspiracy? What is behind the Bishop's investigation? It's clear he has a hidden agenda and means our Mr. Blair no good! And what is the secret of the two women in the story? Charlotte, Maypole's fiance is angry, cold, and strangely antagonistic to her father the Bishop (she compares him to Saturn, who ate his children). And Rose--who works in the mine, flaunting her rebellion against Victorian England's rigid guidelines on what is respectable work for a young woman--why does she have books in her strangely comfortable home, when the rest of the mine workers live in hovels and can barely read? All of these opposing threads are beginning to be pulled together. Can they all have something to do with Maypole's Home for Women Who Have Fallen for the First Time? (I'm not kidding about that name.) I can hardly wait to find out (or re-remember from my first reading).

This book is really worth your time. I'd love to see a sequel.

I second every favorable review here. What a joy it is to sink into an absorbing tale skillfully told! Blair, the reluctant hero of this tale, is a breath of fresh air: he is both simple and complex, brave and cowardly, base and good - in short, deeply and believably human. You care about what happens to him and that alone would be enough to keep most folks reading - but then the author throws in a host of similarly flawed but fascinating characters, an absorbing mystery that evolves throughout the tale, a little geology, a peek into the exotic and perilous experience that was African exploration in the late 1800s, and the most fascinating character of all: the English coal town of Wigan and the strange, subterranean lives of the people who live there. It's hard to imagine how Smith recreates the sights, smells, sounds, textures & experiences of Wigan with such uncanny clarity in the absence of time travel. Long after finishing this novel you may find yourself coughing to clear your lungs of coal dust, or straining to hear the sound of clogs ringing on cobblestone streets early in the morning. Does anyone else get tired of reading mysteries with transparent plots, stereotypical characters, and improbable coincidences? Pick up Martin Cruz Smith's Rose and let your guard down ... you are safe in the hands of a skilled writer and a gifted storyteller!

I positively loved this suspense-filled book. It's been passed from family member to family member like a virus this winter! It is so addictive, and everyone has loved. It's a mystery-thriller by Smith (of Gorky Park fame) set in 1870s in a small coal-mining town in England. The atmosphere is terrifically rendered, the characters are so realized they stick with you long after you put it down. My wife even went back to reread several passages, just to rediscover some of the more clever exposition with the benefit of hindsight. Maybe the best novel I've read all year.

While written as a misssing person mystery, mystery is merely the vehicle to uncover the terror of mid 18th century coal mining in England and the class warfare it created between the mine owners--interestingly here the owner is a Bishop--and the miners. Fair to both sides and seen through the eyes of a cynical American expert for hire, this novel is beautifully written. As an employee of a British owned company I especially appreciated its very accurate insights into British culture and their strange but very real sense of class envy and class disdain. The best surprise novel I've read in a decade.