Product Description

'To keep quiet about something so important ...well, it's almost a lie, wouldn't you say?' When Father Anselm meets Kate Seymour in the cemetery at Larkwood, he is dismayed to hear her allegation. Herbert Moore had been one of the founding fathers of the Priory, revered by all who met him, a man who'd shaped Anselm's own vocation. The idea that someone could look on his grave and speak of a lie is inconceivable. But Anselm soon learns that Herbert did indeed have secrets in his past that he kept hidden all his life. In 1917, during the terrible slaughter of the Passchendaele campaign, a soldier faced a court martial for desertion. Herbert, charged with a responsibility that would change the course of his life, sat upon the panel that judged him. In coming to understand the court martial, Anselm discovers its true significance: a secret victory that transformed the young Captain Moore and shone a light upon the horror of war.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4415 in Books
• Published on: 2009-07-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Review
'Impressive ... Brodrick captures brilliantly the sickening nature of the soldiers' task in having to execute one of their own ... He uses this emotive material to its full potential, spinning out an interior drama that is every bit as gripping as the events themselves ... Brodrick tells his story skilfully, pacing it well, building up the tension and revealing just enough to keep the pages turning ... There are some brilliantly evocative and poignant descriptions of the trenches ... He has succeeded in telling a passionately human story about a most inhuman moment in history' Irish Times 'Sensitively wrought ... Brodrick's exploratory novels are refreshing and restorative, his style is thoughtful and precise; his integrity powerful. You feel better for having read them. Maybe you are' Spectator 'The horrors of Passchendaele in 1917 run through this exquisite novel. Just how much can a man take before he must simply walk away? And what kind of strength enables one man to lay down his life for another?' Matthew Lewin, Guardian 'Brodrick writes very well about inner movements of tension and realisation. This is an ambitious book in the way that it balances these profound questions with an intricate and pacy plot, and in its scope, tracing lives spanning nearly a century' Scotsman 'A powerful addition to the ranks of memorable World War One fiction' Metro 'Brodrick is undoubtedly a fine storyteller ... [Father Anselm] is a compelling protagonist' Matt Thorne, Sunday Telegraph

About the Author
Bill Brodrick was a Franciscan friar before leaving the order to become a practising barrister.

Customer Reviews

Spiritual healing
Brodrick's latest novel finds another investigation worthy of the ability and insight of Brother Anselm, a monk previously trained as a lawyer. It's an understanding of not only the law but the deeper motivations of the human spirit that is required in A Whispered Name, and what greater mystery could there be than the personal events and upheavals endured by young men and boys under the command of unfathomable laws in the trenches of WWI?

A mysterious visitor to the Larkwood monastery reveals and unknown aspect to the life of one of its oldest inhabitants, the founder of the monastery itself, Fr. Herbert Moore and his part in the sentencing of a young Irishman, Private Joseph Flanagan, charged with desertion during the battle for Passchendaele in 1917. Fr. Moore however is now dead, leaving the events and incomplete accounts of the incident shrouded in secrecy. What drove a young Irishman to fight alongside the English? Why did he risk an unknown, perhaps personal mission that could see him dishonoured and shot for desertion? And why are the pages of his trial containing the final judgement incomplete?

Caught up in complicated military legal procedures, the events distorted by unreliable and incomplete accounts, Anselm's investigation seems to be an impossible one, "looking for meaning in the one place it cannot be found". Yet this is precisely the strength of Brodrick's work. The writing is again brilliant, the author masterfully creating the conditions of the WWI trenches, but more than that, capturing the deeper complexities of memory and human behaviour caught up in exceptional circumstances.

If there could be one minor quibble, it's in the actual account of what occurred remaining one step ahead of Anselm's investigations, the story drawn out at length as he gradually puts together the pieces of the puzzle. But yet again with Brodrick, it's the process of discovery that is just as important as its revelation. Anselm's role is an important one that few are as well placed to approach as that of the lawyer-monk - to give testimony to a terrible incident in one of the darkest chapters of modern history, honour the memory in the present day, and fulfil the role of "tending a fire that won't go out". Brodrick's great ability is to turn this into a profoundly moving human and spiritual experience.

A very moving WW1 novel
This is the first William Brodrick Novel I've read and I've discovered a wonderful and moving writer.
The events of "A Whispered Name" are set in the trenches of WW1 where a young Irishman Joseph Flanagan is facing execution for desertion. Some 70 years later Father Anselm researches the sad events leading up to this pitiful moment.
While the plot moves along at a gentle pace, the horror of war is starkly laid out. There are no bad guys, even the officers sending this poor chap to death are viewed in sympathetic light. What I loved about the story was the strong undercurrent of spirituality which seep through every paragraph, yet without preaching God and church, more about the reality of goodness and the search for what is right.
Brodrick has created a novel that is both tragic and heart warming, capturing the slaughter of WW1 and the search for peace of mind.
That argument for faith and religion have taken a battering of late - with Dawkins, the religious right, the battles in the vatican and CoE all persuading the intellect to steer well away, Broderick is reminding us that maybe we should think again.

Intensely moving and satisfying
A Whispered Name is the third in the Father Anselm novels and although I really enjoyed William Brodrick's first two, this one is the best yet. Filled with all the intrigue of an old mystery which reaches into the present,its unsolved questions still carry consequences for the present, and Anselm seeks to bring peace to troubled souls in searching for the answer. But his historical perspective is fleshed out with contemporary events on the ground back in the Trenches of the first world war providing a rich, moving and intensely poignant read. It shows how events can have consequences far beyond the present and hold echoes for generations. It is really a book about the human spirit and how young men fared under intense conditions, in situations they were neither trained for nor could have expected to encounter. Their fear, courage and conscience followed them down the years and left long reaching shadows.
This is a masterly book, and one that kept me awake at night and left me reluctant for it to end. Not always an easy read, but a most satisfying one.