By April of 1915, as chaplain Joseph Reavley tends to the soldiers in
his care, the nightmare of trench warfare is impartially cutting down
England's youth. On one of his rescue forays into no-man's-land, Joseph
finds the body of an arrogant war correspondent, Eldon Prentice. A
nephew of the respected General Owen Cullingford, Prentice was despised
for his prying attempts to elicit facts that would turn public opinion
against the war. Most troublesome to Joseph, Prentice has been killed
not by German fire but, apparently, by one of his own compatriots. What
Englishman hated Prentice enough to kill him? Joseph is afraid he may
know, and his sister, Judith, who is General Cullingford's driver and
translator, harbors her own fearful suspicions.
Meanwhile, Joseph and Judith's brother, Matthew, an intelligence officer
in London, continues his quiet search for the sinister figure they call
the Peacemaker, who, like Eldon Prentice, is trying to undermine the
public support for the struggle--and, as the Reavley family has good
reason to believe, is in fact at the heart of a fantastic plot to
reshape the entire world. An intimate of kings, the Peacemaker kills
with impunity, and his dark shadow stretches from the peaceful country
lanes of Cambridgeshire to the twin hells of Ypres and Gallipoli.
In this mesmerizing series, Anne Perry has found a subject worthy of her
gifts. Illuminating the murderous conflict whose violence still resounds
in our consciousness--as well as the souls of men and women who lived
it--Shoulder the Sky is a taut, inspiring masterpiece.
