Reviews for Fall of man in Wilmslow

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In 1954, DC Leonard Corell finds the body of Dr. Alan Turing in his bed, apparently a suicide. Turing, the British mathematical genius who played a major role in cracking the Nazi Enigma code machine during World War II, had recently been convicted of homosexual acts and removed from government service. Corell's math background helps him investigate whether any state secrets had been compromised. It's the era of the Cambridge Five spies in England and the McCarthy hearings in the United States, and Turing's role in both countries is under close scrutiny. Lagercrantz interweaves the historical events of Turing's life with the fictional Corell's investigation, shifting point of view among various figures. While -Lagercrantz's premise is intriguing, Corell is full of insecurity and self-pity and dwells on it far too much. In fact, he doesn't really investigate much nor act decisively. The depiction of Turing is done well, but there is little mystery present, and the writing resembles a 19th-century character study. VERDICT Readers who relished the Swedish author's acclaimed sequel (The Girl in the Spider Web) to Stieg Larsson's trilogy and its vividly drawn protagonists will be disappointed in his passive treatment of his characters here.-Roland Person, formerly with Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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