Vivid, engaging, densely plotted...

[fajrdrako]

A wonderful review and commentary by Anne Malcolm on Dorothy Dunnett and the Lymond novels which I seem to have missed when it was first printed. An interesting sentence:

Romantic leads tend to come in two types: the d'Artagnans, open-hearted, courteous, valiant and uncomplicated; and the darker, more interesting Athos types, whose virtues are laced with an undercurrent of menace. In Francis Crawford of Lymond, Dunnett has taken the latter type to a dazzling extreme.... At times his light, ironic repartee calls to mind the artfully inconsequential conversation of Lord Peter Wimsey.

But J.R.R. Tolkien never lingered in obscurity for decades... did he? The Hobbit was winning awards when it was first published, and The Lord of the Rings came out in the 1950s, and was already popular and famous by the late 1960s when I first read it.

Too bad Anne Malcolm didn't mention the DDRA.