THOMAS CROMWELL A Revolutionary Life

David Rintoul narrates with remarkable skill and charm, treating the historical references in this audiobook like allusions to old friends. This long, complex, and desultory account of one of Henry VIII's chief ministers, Thomas Cromwell, is thick with references to hundreds of people and places, many obscure. Sadly, Rintoul's familiar chatty style applied to people the listener has likely never heard of plays to the audiobook's faults, emphasizing its frequent obscurity to all but those already steeped in the period. Still, Rintoul, who has a fine voice and likable accent, narrates with great intelligence and feeling, providing character voices and drama where appropriate--as in quotations--and making the parts of the book that are not a wilderness of obscure references into a pleasure that compensates, somewhat, for the work's many frustrations. W.M. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine [Published: MAY 2019]