We are all more or less familiar with the events of the French Revolution. The King and the royal court are decimated and a revolutionary government installed. With the prime enemy destroyed the revolutionary leaders turn on each other. As readers we know this will happen when we begin the book  the question is how will Hilary Mantel bring the story to life.

Mantel focuses on the lives of three key revolutionaries – Maximilien Robespierre, George Jacques Danton and Camille Desmoulins. We meet these three in childhood, when they are born in provincial France. As their careers develop they find themselves in Paris where sedition is in the air – the hated Royal family with their extravagant court life, the broiling streets of Paris and the law courts, cafes and newspapers where the momentum for change is galvanised. The three main characters emerge to play their distinct roles. Robespierre is a persistent stoic who is a master strategist. Danton is physically impressive and a natural leader with a weakness for women and a tendency to line his pocket when the opportunity presents. Desmoulins transforms from a stammering sissy to an orator and polemicist of both power and charm.

How well Mantel conveys the behaviour of powerful people. She shows how these men persuade, charm, cajole and when necessary threaten and destroy. She concocts pungent speeches and puts them into the mouths of her characters. When describing events that unfold quickly she dispenses with narrative linking and tells the story entirely through dialogue building the sense of urgency. She drops factual morsels into the text to give context – the price of bread, life expectancy in France and the price inflation of wheat. She gives her characters private as well as public lives – there are intimate moments with their wives, concerns for their children and their wider families that point to their motivations in pursuing power.  Mantel varies the style and perspective - we read letters, extracts from newspapers, committee reports and secret notebooks. All these layers build a story that is exciting, tragic and subtle.

Hilary Mantel is simply a wonderful writer and this is plainly a great book .