After the death of Oliver Cromwell Britain was effectively run by a military junta. Richard Cromwell tried to have a new parliament, but the army replaced it with the old purged one, soon nicknamed the “rump”. But the army was not paid, and grew restive, and the country could not afford it. Monck brought his army down from Scotland, and a new parliament was elected, which then voted for the restoration of Charles II. After an initial period of reconciliation a Cavalier Parliament was elected, which took a hard line with republicans and religious dissenters. Charles II lost the confidence of many for his adultery, and also for his foolishness in pursuing an unnecessary and ruinous war against the Dutch.

Like all his other books I have read, it is truly excellent. He manages to remain faithful to his sources, but also to explain things clearly. His description of 17th century naval warfare was concise, and enables one to understand much of the period. It gives a good background for my reading of Pepys’s diary, and a book I had read on the great fire of London. I’m amazed at Hutton’s ability to write so thoroughly on such various topics—paleopaganism, neopaganism, and the Restoration.

For about two thirds of the way through I was going to describe this as wishy-washy, but then it improved towards the end. Perhaps I started it with the wrong expectations - the blurb led me to expect a mystery along the lines of Robert Goddard’s books, and then it began by being geographically impossible - walk a couple of miles from Liskeard station and end up a mile from the sea—there’s no way that can be done, even in a fictitious village.

I haven’t finished reading it yet, but what strikes me about it is that here is a conspiracy novel so much better than “The da Vinci code”, yet apparently with so few readers.

“The da Vinci code” didn’t deserve all the hype it got; this one deserves it more.

Joel Gustafson is 11 years old, and starts going out at night to look for a dog that he saw once. He meets various people, and finds that those despised by the rest of society are among the most interesting. Henning Mankell is known for writing whodunits, but this is not a whodunit, just a story about a little boy.

Enid Blyton, Rider Haggard, with violence and gore. At one level this is an adventure story along the lines of those of H.Rider Haggard’s “She”, except that it takes place in England and has the Enid Blyton trappings of islands, ruins and secret tunnels. A hournalist is invited to an island in the Lake District to write about an unusual mosquito, but its keeper/bodyguard seems rather dangerous.

Reading it for the first time nearly 20 years after it was published is a bit like being trapped in a time warp.

I’ve written more on my blog: Notes from underground: Trapped in apartheid – South African churches

Though basically a whodunit, it’s not a detective story, because the professional detectives show little interest. A small boy is killed falling off a roof, and a neighbour, the emponymous Miss Smilla, thinks it wasn’t an accident, because of the pattern of his footprints in the snow.

Though not a professional or even an amateur detective, she persists in digging up more information until some people are quite threatened by her activities.

In April 1968 I attended a seminar on Orthodox theology for non-Orthodox theological students in Bossey, Swittzerland and at the St Sergius Institute in Paris. It got me interested inm Orthodox theology, and soon afterwards I read The world as sacrament, a shorter version of For the life of the world. It expressed all the things I wanted to say about Western theology, which wass divided between spiritualists and materialists.

I’ve reread the book many times, and it became the foundation of my theological outlook.