Secrecy - Couverture souple

'A novel rich as the past it conjures up, weaving a story as playful and disturbing as the strange wax sculptures that its hero gives life to.' --Sarah Dunant

'Thomson's novels have met with a remarkable uniformity of critical acclaim... Delivered via Thomson's habitual Rolls-Royce prose, Secrecy builds to a page-turning climax' -Guardian

'This is a book that scores top marks for atmosphere, for the way in which the smell, and look , of pre-18th century Florence is conveyed, for the cinematic sense of menace that lurks round every street corner, every candle-lit arras, and every formal garden. The description of the method by which Zummo works for 30 hours to take a plaster cast of the corpse, and the depiction of the final object, with its own hair, and glass eyes from Murano, is chillingly brilliant and sinister. A superb depiction of a pre-Enlightenment world, shimmering with superstitions, repression, and incomprehension, and a plot that really is masterly.' --Financial Times

'Rupert Thomson's bewitching narrative is suffused with the stuff of dreams and nightmares. It's also intensely atmospheric, and Thomson is as superb on changes of light and weather as he is on Florence's architectural gems.' -Daily Mail

'An impressive historical adventure written in an accomplished prose ... Thomson excels in suggesting a strong sense of place ... He is also determinedly inventive, succeeding in finding new ways to describe weather, nature, and the workings of the human mind ... this is a rich and intriguing work by a writer in command of his material. There is a pleasurable phrase to be found on every page.' --Literary Review

'Scene after scene trembles with breath-stopping tension on the edge of bliss or dread. No one else writes quite like this in Britain today. Newcomers to his work who open this box of secrets will hurry to snatch others from the shelf.' --Independent

'Thomson richly and compellingly imagines the life of the Sicilian wax sculptor Gaetano Zummo ... [it is] in his eye for the gothic and uncanny that Thomson excels.' -Sunday Times

'Like a luxurious art-house film, seducing you with its beautifully paced, beautifully framed images ... If this easy, elegant prose is nothing more than surface, then it is gratifying that Secrecy also has depths, even chasms ... I don t doubt there is research here, but it is Thomson s subconscious that rules the past in this book, and I bend the knee before it.' --Independent on Sunday

'Thomson transcends genre pretty effortlessly. He doesn't scrimp on the many satisfactions of a historical novel and he provides an unstintingly gripping thriller plot into the bargain. But what lifts Secrecy to a more rarefied level altogether is the visionary imagination that overlays the scrupulously worked structures those genres demand. It informs the brilliance of Thomson's characterisation, from the morbid monomania of a tormented Cosimo, to the brutish, coiled savagery of the Dominican enforcer Stufa, to the ghostly sadness of a neglected child. Along with a particular poetic gift for laying the exquisite alongside the visceral, it enables him to evoke Florence's peculiarly sinister magic to perfection, and to thread together the real, the historical and the purely imagined with such loving attention that I defy readers to see the join. Indeed, the join becomes irrelevant.' --Guardian

'Thomson's writing is pitch-perfect here. His prose is as clear and limpid as water, his ear finely attuned to the timbre of the period though mercifully free from archaisms, his characters drawn with subtlety and wit. The details are pin-sharp, but sparing enough not to weigh down the story. Instead, there is a mesmerising quality to the unfolding of the narratives and a sense of ellipsis that keeps it hovering on the t --Paperback review, Independent on Sunday

'This is a fast-moving novel with a growing sense of dread, set in a world where the beauty of religion and the arts can't hide the rot within' --Irish Times

I had left my hometown of Siracusa in 1675, the rumors snapping at my heels like a pack of dogs. I was only nineteen, but I knew there would be no turning back. I passed through Catania and on along the coast, Etna looming in the western sky, Etna with its fertile slopes, its luscious fruits and flowers, its promise of destruction. From Messina I sailed westward. It was late July, and the night was stifling. A dull red moon, clouds edged in rust and copper. Though the air was motion-less, the sea heaved and strained, as if struggling to free itself, and there were moments when I thought the boat was going down. That would have been the death of me, and there were those who would have rejoiced to hear the news.
 
I was in Palermo for a year or two, then I boarded a ship again and traveled northeast, to Naples. I hadn’t done what they said I’d done, but there’s a kind of truth in a well-told lie, and that truth can cling to you like the taste of raw garlic or the smell of smoke. People are always ready to believe the worst. Sometimes, in the viscous, fumbling hours before dawn, as I was forced once again to leave my lodgings for fear of being discovered or denounced, such a bitterness would seize me that if I happened to pass a mirror I would scarcely recognize myself. Other times I would laugh in the face of what pursued me. Let them twist the facts. Assassinate my character. Let them rake their muck. I would carve a path for myself, something elaborate and glorious, beyond their wildest imaginings. I would count on no one. Have no one count on me. I was in many places, but I had my work and I believed that it would save me. All the same, I lived close to the surface of my skin, as men do in a war, and I carried a knife on me at all times, even though, in most towns, it was forbidden, and every now and then I would go back over the past, touching cautious fingers to the damage. It was in this frame of mind, always watchful, often sleepless, that I made my way, finally, to Florence.