I just finished reading Lindsey Davis’s Rebels and Traitors. It’s a historical novel set during the English Civil War of the 1640s and 1650s.

I’m a huge fan of her Marcus Didio Falco mystery series, set in the Roman Empire during Vespasian’s reign. They are wonderful reads, funny, engaging and full of historical detail.

Unfortunately, Rebels and Traitors misses on the first two of those. It is full of historical detail, overly full, reading much of the time as academic history, though without the footnotes. Sometimes it seems as though she felt compelled to provide much more detail than was necessary to propel the plot forward. Or perhaps it was that the civil war and the protectorate was the story she wanted to tell, and could think of doing it in no other way than through historical fiction.

Only rarely does the comedic genius she shows in the Falco novels come to light and the characters are almost all wooden, their dialogue stilted.

Still, there are some interesting bits. She attempts to provide as broad a view of the historical canvas as possible, telling the story through the eyes of participants who fought on both sides, and including characters who were Levellers and Ranters as well as the more likely Cavaliers.

Here’s an example, though, where history may be more interesting than fiction.