Havoc, in Its Third Year Book

A penetrating and ambitious historical novel, Havoc, in Its Third Year is an ingenious, often deeply unnerving narrative of seventeenth-century England that speaks directly to the fanaticism and fears of today.

The time is the early seventeenth century, as the quarrel between Royalists and Parliamentarians turns toward civil war, and that between Catholics and Protestants leads toward bloody religious tyranny; the place is a town in northern England, set in a grim landscape swept by crop failures, plague and rumors of war, in which rigid Puritans have taken over government and imposed their own rules.

At the center of the novel is John Brigge, the Coroner and a Governor of the town, though not by any means as convinced a zealot as his fellow governors have become. Married and deeply in love with Elizabeth, who is pregnant with their first child, he has a guilty secret to hide in his affection for Dorcas, his wife's ward — a secret which, in the world of religious prejudice and extremism toward which England is moving, can be lethal.

Determined to obey the law, rather than prejudice and the need to make an example of an Irishwoman accused of murdering her own infant, Brigge draws upon himself the hostility and suspicion of the powerful men who have been his fellow governors and who now set out to destroy him in the name of morality.

Brigge is both sympathetic and deeply vulnerable. He genuinely loves Elizabeth and longs for their child to be born, but he is also deeply attracted to Dorcas; he is, however guardedly, of "the old faith" and does not hesitate to hide a priest; he favors the wretched vagrants who infest the roads, seeking shelter and a bite to eat,and employs one of them on his farm. He insists on finding out the truth about the Irishwoman's baby, despite the fact that everybody has already decided on her guilt. In short, without intending to do so, John Brigge offers himself up as a victim by refusing to cooperate with the political and religious masters of the town or to subordinate his own conscience to their demand for rigid obedience and piety. Even his own clerk Adam, whom he regards as a son, turns against him in the end in a struggle that will almost cost Brigge his life and that sends him out into a cold and dangerous world, having sacrificed everything he once held dear, stripped of his power and authority, but made heroic by his commitment to love, truth and human feelings.

Havoc, in Its Third Year is a novel of great power, drama and terror, at once a love story and a superb work of historical fiction. It confirms Ronan Bennett's reputation as a masterful creator.

Publishers Weekly

Bennett (The Catastrophist) pens an evocative, somber account of a man facing a crisis of spirit and conscience in early 17th-century England, when "men of property were gripped by fears" and decried the poor, the immigrant and the unemployed as spreaders of crime and sin. Upstanding town coroner and governor John Brigge, a man of "the old faith" who "lived with signs and saints," is called to investigate the death of a baby allegedly murdered by the child's own mother, Katherine Shay, a proud Irish Catholic woman. She denies not only the crime but the right of her Puritan inquisitors to try her. Brigge, struck by the young woman's refusal to quietly accept her fate, begins to believe that she may indeed be innocent. But because the townspeople have already decided she is guilty and have sniffed about Bennett the secret airs of a papist he understands that his own fate will hinge on whether or not he goes along with those who claim to work for the benefit of God, even as they serve their own selfish ends. Marvelously told, with memorable characters, powerful dialogue and description, and subtly drawn parallels to contemporary issues, this is one of the more rewarding historical novels to come along in some time. Agent, David Godwin. (Sept.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.