Company of Liars Book

While it's always wise to choose your travelling companions carefully, such considerations really are of the utmost importance when your journey is necessitated by the need to flee the plague. It's an important lesson but it was really only hammered home after reading Company of Liars. In 1348 plague, or indeed plagues, has arrived in England and the country is being rapidly thrown into chaos as people, rich and poor, struggle to protect them and their own in a land that is quickly running out of provisions and patience. Camelot, a heavily scarred semi-blind peddler in fake relics and trinkets, realises the danger that the plague brings before most and decides that he will journey to a remote shrine in the north to wait out the winter and hopefully escape from the ravages of disease. More comfortable travelling alone but compelled by compassion, Camelot unwillingly finds himself the leader of a motley crew of nine who are all seeking to escape the plague and leave their personal demons behind. Camelot's disparate posse is made up of handsome Venetian musician Rodrigo and his wilful pupil Jofre, surly conjuror Zophiel, painter Osmond and his pregnant wife Adela, one-armed storyteller Cygnus, quiet goodwife Pleasance and her most recent charge, a spooky rune-reading girl named Narigorm. Hilarious consequences do not ensue. Whatever pace the group travel at, they are always outrun by the plague and are increasingly unwelcome in villages and towns where the local population are struggling to keep themselves alive without having to cope with the additional burden of outsiders. As the threat of plague and pestilence closes in around them, the nine travellers begin to turn on each other and the body count begins to rise. Company of Liars is an excellent book. I'm often wary of historical novels due to the difficulty of striking the right balance between fact and fiction and the frequently excruciating attempts at bodice-busting romance but this book is an absolute peach. Karen Maitland clearly knows her stuff, the research and reconstruction of the period that has gone into Company of Liars is phenomenal, but most importantly she is a wonderful storyteller. The sense of dread begins to build from the first page and continues throughout the story as the characters begin to experience a catastrophe that changed a nation and trudge slowly on towards their own destruction.