The Quality of Mercy / Barry Unsworth 319 p.

I finished this several weeks ago and am sorry that I've forgotten enough already that I won't do this excellent book justice. The story begins with Sullivan, an Irish fiddler just escaped from Newgate prison in 1767 and making his way north. Unsworth's prose is layered and full of detail but never ponderous: in a few pages we know, understand, and like Sullivan, learn where he's going and why, and have a feel for the period and its tensions between personal liberty and property rights. And he keeps the action moving forward too!

Sullivan had been imprisoned for the long-ago mutiny of a slave ship, whose captain ordered the live slaves jettisoned in order to collect insurance payments for lost property. The fiddler and his fellow sailors escape to Florida and establish a settlement, where they and their former slave cargo flourish for several years, only to eventually be found and brought to trial in London. The plot which follows includes coal miners, abolitionists, and the son of the ship's owner, now bent on revenge. Or, perhaps, a change of heart.

I have not yet read Sacred Hunger, to which this novel is a sequel, but I plan to. The fact that I already know the broad strokes of the plot hardly matters given the quality of Unsworth's writing.

Zero Day

Zero Day by David Baldacci  448 pp.

I knew this book was going to be a heavy hitter when, 3 discs into the audiobook, the body count was up to seven, including a U.S. Army officer and his entire family, two of their neighbors, and a police officer in a small West Virginia town. What follows is an investigation by a lone CID investigator, John Puller, with the assistance of a small town police officer, Stephanie Cole. Add to the mix a corrupt coal company, a mysterious government bunker from the 1960s, a motorcycle gang, a possible terrorist threat and you have the makings of a very involved plot. There's an awful lot going on in this book and much of it was a bit far fetched in my opinion, especially the refusal of Army CID to send anyone to assist agent Puller in the investigation while the body count keeps rising. Side plots involving Puller's brother who is serving a life sentence in solitary at Leavenworth after being framed for treason and Puller's famous Army General father's dementia are not fully resolved. However, the ending leaves open the possibility of a sequel. I still prefer Baldacci's Sean King and Michelle Maxwell novels.