A Good Deliverance - Toby Clements

''The most enthralling kind of historical fiction.'' HILARY MANTEL ''Fresh, wholly original . . . a delight.'' THE TIMES''Vivid and amusing.'' SPECTATOR ''Very enjoyable.'' BIG ISSUEFrom the author of the Kingmaker series, an epic and intimate tale of adventure, myth and the creation of one of literature’s greatest stories.Warwick, 1468. One drowsy summer afternoon, Sir Thomas Malory – politician, courtier, outlaw, renowned author of Le Morte D’Arthur – is seized from his garden and dragged to Newgate Prison for reasons unknown.Shivering in his foul-smelling, filthy old cell, Malory mourns his misspent life as he awaits the execution bell. But when the locking bar lifts, he is greeted by a boy of about twelve winters: the gaoler’s son. Giddy with relief, Malory seizes the opportunity to recount his deeds to an audience.So begins a prison confession of a perilously exciting life full of sieges, battles and court intrigue. A Good Deliverance is the captivating tale of a man at odds with his past and the events that inspired him to write the first great work of prose fiction in English.Praise for the Kingmaker series:''Enthralling, honest . . . the past, here, is imagined with ferocity, with hunger to engage.'' HILARY MANTEL''Clements is so convincing on the detail of his characters'' lives that it is difficult to believe that he never walked in the brutal, messy world he conjures up on the page.''THE TIMES''Magnificent. A historical tour de force.''BEN KANE