Review of Jemahl Evans 'Of Blood Exhausted'
Keep Your Friends Close and Enemies Closer It was a treat to begin 2019 with a new Blandford Candy tale by Jemahl Evans . 'Of Blood Exhausted' is the third picaresque novel, following the adventures of Sir Blandford Candy during the English Civil War, who joined the parliamentary side almost by default. The novel opens in 1720, with Candy as an elderly curmudgeon, being invited to meet Sarah Churchill, though most of the novel is set in London in 1644-1645, along with a trip to Amsterdam . The picture of Parliamentarian London is evoked by pox doctors, assassins,spies swordmasters, and menacing characters such as the Black Bear and the Burned Man. Certainly not the New Jerusalem preachers were hoping for. It is soon apparent that Blandford Candy is a Parliamentarian by instinct and feeling, not prone to sanctimonious or puritanical whimsy. A description of parliament is hardly idealistic, rows of honourable and dishonourable MPs are depicted as