Simon Toyne - Sanctus

With a lot going on finding time to read has become quite difficult. Setting aside an hour at bedtime normally results in about three pages of reading before falling asleep – such is the current slow rate of reviews. That said, the quality of books I’m reading at the moment seems to be going up and Simon Toyne’s first book is no exception.

I must admit that it was another slow starter and I seem to have a developing dislike for books which set the scene for the story without using their central character. Sanctus follows the story of Liv Adamsen and she isn’t introduced until page 20. The first 19 pages outline what happened to Brother Samuel, a monk living at the Citadel in Turkey. While there is nothing really wrong with this approach, it made it harder for me to connect with the main characters.

So yeah, it’s a slow builder that takes a while to get going but the story telling and character development is really good throughout. It is a very slow build up but the last 200 or so pages really pick up the pace as the action builds.

I can’t really say a lot about the story as there are lots of twists and turns and it’s definitely worth reading. However there were a few things that I questioned during the 470 page novel.

The first of these occurred on page 120 where a credit card was used to receive a payment. Now I’m pretty sure that a credit card cannot be used in this way. Mind you, I’ve never had a credit card that’s been in credit before and I don’t even know how I would go about even doing it. It also seems a very strange way of organising a payment considering the many other ways there are to make secretive payments. In fact, I’m not even sure why you would draw attention to the payment method.

Also on the very next page, there is a reference to drinking a, ‘bucket of black coffee.’ I don’t know what it is with Americans being stereotypically portrayed in every single book going as drinking coffee all the time and seeing coffee as way to combat tiredness. This isn’t really a criticism of Toyne but a build up of frustration at many different authors.

Also, this isn’t really a criticism but the narrative style changes towards the end to be more like Lee Child where the use of full sentences is abandoned to build the pace. Like I said, not a criticism but I did notice it even though I was aware of its intention. I also think that narrative styles should remain consistent. I didn’t like the Lee Child style at first but at least the novel stuck to what it was doing throughout. I also think it wouldn’t have had that much of an impact on the pace if it had remained in the same style narrative, as evidenced by other books.

Everything about is really minor and totally subjective. Sanctus is a great read and I’m looking forward to getting stuck in to the next two books in the series.

Sanctus by Simon Toyne was published by HarperCollinsPublishers in 2011. RRP £7.99 (Paperback)