There is something of the Slavic soul in this yet British author. No doubt Jasper Kent he read during his youth spent on the benches of the prestigious faculty of Cambridge, the great novels of Russian literature, escaping from his physics problems by reading War & Peace. Certainly there is more than one step between the work of the great Tolstoy and this first novel but here we find some of this fatalism, this indolence, this melancholy so characteristic of the characters in Russian literature. And it is up to the use of multiple nicknames assigned to the characters (reference perhaps unintended but undeniable to Tolstoyans of characters) who wants to give the feeling that one is in the heart of the tsarist empire. However it does not feel immersed in 1812. Russia Despite attempts of the author I have not felt, for example, intense cold that struck the Great defeated Army. I have not contemplated over the vastness of the country in which the French came aground; Distances are certainly mentioned, but the paths are almost so fast and so easily that one does not really take the measure. Alas, it is not however a historical book and the arrival of the French army of invasion, then his debacle, are finally only the backdrop of a most unusual story. And in this sense the author is doing rather well. Certainly there is relatively little inventiveness, all the drama springs are known and no real surprise appears, but the story proceeds easily failing lead us on a wild adventure. Kent plays more on psychological fiber than action, an area where we feel the least comfortable. The throes of his hero, however, have an interest. By against certain interest in the subject which, although enjoying a current fashion to the fantastic and supernatural moves far enough away from the general public such guns this time to demonstrate originality. Without that have fascinated me I finally had a good time playing with this novel. He lets me feel that there may be better to go to reach the summits of the genre but I also think that many would have done much worse and would have fallen into the trap of fantasy at all costs. So it is an author that I will follow and that I will enjoy meeting.
