Rating: 
Summary: wordy and tiresome
Review: i really wanted to enjoy this book...it was foggy outside, and i was curled up in bed. i typically enjoy gothic, chilling tales and was eagerly anticipating this read. i have to say, much to my chagrin, that this novel was a sore disappointment. while the storyline is complex and developed, it is tiresome and difficult to understand. many obscure references are often interjected which leaves the reader confused and off-track. there is simply TOO much going on in the plot, and there is not enough actually occurring to off-set all the wordy dialogue. in other words, it ends up reading like one longwinded tale in which very little happens. it verbose to a fault and does not employ any stategies of keeping a person entertained. it felt like work. sorry, palliser!
Rating: 
Summary: Worth a second read
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this work. The writer is extremely intelligent and his half Gothic half murder mystery novel touched on a lot of themes. Whereas for me with most murder mysteries I cannot be interested enough to work out who might be the murderer, this novel like Dostoyevsky's uses a whodunnit theme to investigate a number of subjects-faith, the nature of evil and the nature of history or historical truth and keeps interest in the entire mystery alive. what I found frustrating was that I was not so far able to concentrate as to be able to unravel all the mystery of the book even after a second read. The writer cleverly evokes the atmosphere of the time, although I think he occasionally slips in the dialogue, which once or twice comes across as a tad to modern for the end of the nineteenth century, but this does not often occur.I felt that I must be a bit stupid, not having understood everything and stillbeing confused after a second read (I am slow on the uptake about people and teir motivations in real life) and the book can have a slightly depressing effect in that sense. ("Man am I stupid!")But how refreshing to find an intelligent novel, a novel from which one can learn something, a novel which is both an excape and not an escape (you can escape from your surroundings and enter a foggy Gothic world while reading it because it is enthralling but its subject matter is very relevant to today), a novel which is worth reading twice or even three times and for that reason is worth its price more than most novels. If you you like at least two of these writers I think you will like this book: Umberto Eco/Mervyn Peake/ Agatha Christi/Brontes
Rating:
Summary: But What About the Ghost
Review: I usually can't stand mysteries but Charles Palliser's "The Quincunx" seemed too good to pass up...and it was. So, I was really eager to read "The Unburied," even though it took me some time to get around to doing just that. I found that "The Unburied" is a very different mystery than is "The Quincunx." While "The Quincunx" was filled with fast-paced adventure and intrigue, "The Unburied" is definitely a 19th century "drawing room" mystery. A lot of this book even takes place in the drawing room...in front of massive fireplaces, during tea, etc. It is a setting that fits the novel and the story told perfectly. The trouble with "The Unburied," for me at least, is that it can't seem to decide exactly what it is. At first, it seems to be a very Gothic ghost story. Dr. Edward Courtine is an academician who travels to the British town of Thurchester to visit an old friend. In an overly-long opening exposition (one in which I nearly discarded the book), Courtine learns of a 200 year old murder and of a ghost that is said to still haunt Thurchester. Okay, I thought, good. I like ghost stories, as long as they're told with skill and panache. Courtine however, wasn't as interested in the ghost (or in the fact that the people of Thurchester were acting in a very odd manner) as he was in tracking down a lost book on Alfred the Great. At this point, I felt my interest begin to sag a bit, but still, I thought, perhaps the lost book had something to do with the ghost. Palliser is a clever writer and I thought he would certainly tie the two together...eventually. "The Unburied" is a book with more red herrings and false clues, more twists and turns than an Alpine mountain pass and this isn't always good. Not only do we have the 200 year old murder to think about, Palliser gives us a fresh murder to entice and confuse us. Is "The Unburied" about the 200 year old murder and the ghost that is said to haunt Thurchester or is it about this recent murder? The answer is really both and neither. If that makes no sense to you, you'll just have to read the book to find out why. I liked "The Unburied" overall, but I think Palliser made it a little too ponderous, a little too difficult. There's a little too much "telling" in this book and not quite enough "showing." And I think it was a bit overly-long. Even 19th century readers got tired of so much expository material. If Palliser wanted to write a book that returned the reader to the 19th century English "drawing room" mystery, he certainly succeeded. This a book that is very Victorian in flavor and in pace. I really didn't mind this slow pace...I like atmosphere and "The Unburied" simply abounds with rolling fog, gaslights and things that go bump in the night. What I didn't like was the fact that Palliser left so many questions unanswered and led us down so many false trails that we began to lose sight of the real one. If you're a reader who loves a good mystery, who loves a mystery in which it's impossible to figure everything out, and if you have the patience to wade through many red herrings and false starts, then "The Unburied" might be perfect for you. But if you need something a little faster-paced and if you need all the questions answered at the book's end, it might be best to pass on this one even though it is very well-written. I know several people have compared Palliser with Umberto Eco. This is unfair to both authors, I think, as both are very original in style and content. And really, Palliser is nothing at all like Eco! Eco is far more cerebral than is Palliser. Palliser, whose writing is just as good, writes more for the "everyday" reader than does Eco. Overall, I liked "The Unburied," but I did get impatient with Palliser (and with Courtine) at times, and I did want to know about that ghost!
Rating:
Summary: What a Waste
Review: I wanted to like this book. I really tried to. I liked its atmosphere -- it was almost like M.R. James, or the ghost stories of Benson or Arthur Conan Doyle. It also had something going for it that I admired: it had no graphic sex scenes, no gratuitous bad language. It was written as a good Edwardian storyteller might, and it was extremely well written, so far as the actual prose. Where Palliser goes wrong is that he tries to juggle stories set in three periods (actually, four, but the meat of the book has three): the immediate, Victorian story; a tale of Alfred the Great, conncted with a manuscript the hero is searching for; and a mystery set in the time of the English civil war. All fascinating periods. Unfortunately, the stories are integrated by clumily and at length through interminable dialogue scenes. And the three, in the end, simply aren't well integrated (especially the English civil war theme). Furthermore, Palliser goes off on tangents. For instance, there's a pointless discussion early on between two characters on Christianity, and I suppose the hero's point of view is Palliser's (though I don't know him and don't know this to be a fact). Like most non-Christians when presenting a fictional argument between a Christian and a non-Christian, the Christian starts of petulant and ends up hypocritical; and he never argues from orthodoxy, and seems to have the weakest grasp on what he believes (which may be true of most American Christians, but it also helps the author undermine that faith without actually learning anything about it that might give him positive responses). There's little action, which is a shame, because the book has a great setting. He has good characters, a good setting, three good stories ideas in which to run parallel themes, and a good handle on the English language . . . and yet it never gels. Nor does it seem particularly creepy. A minor caveat: the murder takes too long to happen, and, as a spoiler, the murderers are never well integrated in the plot, either. Now, one of my favorite writers, the extremely atmospheric John Dickson Carr, sometimes took his time about having the actual murder, but he did it with pinache, and he never introduced characters from the outside to do it. Overall, this book never quite ends up as the sum of its parts.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing and over-rated
Review: I'm surprised this book is compared by the publisher to sublime THE NAME OF THE ROSE and THE MONK. It's really quite thin gruel, packaged as something substantial. Despite the references to fog and dark corners and such, the Gothic atmosphere was barely present, and while the multi-layered plot is quite ingenious, the clues are so incredibly obvious in a few places (if you've read more than a handful of mysteries), I felt embarrassed.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Short Story Masquerading as a Novel
Review: If you're looking for a new take on the Victorian Christmas ghost story (as this novel claims to be), well, this may not be the book for you. Palliser takes his time setting up this tale, in which the ghosts are more figurative than anything else. The first 200 pages or so are filled with plot lines that seem to go nowhere and tales that have you moving from the 9th to the 17th to the 19th centuries. Quite confusing, and, frankly, rather dull. Had this been a short story, it would be quite good, but as a nearly 400 page novel it is simply tedious.
Rating: 
Summary: DULL
Review: In all fairness, maybe I should not review this book, because I did not finish it. I only got half way through. From reading the cover of the book, I expected The Unburied to be suspensful and have me on the edge of my seat. I kept hoping it would get better, but every page became harder and harder to get through. The monolouges and naratives rambled on forever and did not go anywhere. I felt cheated of a good story and out of the money I paid for this book.
Rating: 
Summary: How many secrets can be crammed into a small town????
Review: In October 2002 I started reading The Unburied after picking it up, along with The Quincunx, from a local bookstore...deciding to indulge in the thinner, double spaced Unburied before I dived into Quincunx, and get a taste for the author. Like another reviewer here, I read perhaps 150 pages before I put the book down. It didn't seem to be going anywhere...and was dryer than the bones of a corpse uncovered in the second half of the book. In September 2003, I picked the book up again, and gave it another chance...and read it in four days. There are far too many plot twists to reveal in fully reviewing this book...plot twists that unfold like a stone wrapped in a blanket; the soft, fuzzy layer that we put over events too painful to deal with peeled away to reveal the coarse, jagged stone of truth underneath. The storyline: Edward Courtine arrives in a small Victorian town at the behest of his boyhood school chum, Austin Fickling, after more than twenty years of separation. Courtine arrives with dual purposes; that of reviving his friendship with Austin and finally laying to rest a two-decade old embroilment between them involving Edward's young wife....but not what you would think; and to search the library of the Cathedral that Austin teaches at for an ancient manuscript which might shed new light, and possibly disavow previously documented stories of Alfred the Great, Courtine's favored historical figure. Austin extends this invitation for unscrupulous reasons; hinted at by his late-night meanderings through the darkened streets and back alleys surrounding the Cathedral and nearby houses in the Upper and Lower 'Close' as they are called. Courtine is drawn to an old inscription, purportedly shedding light on another mystery of the town; that of the rivalry, fight, death, and disappearance of two figures from the town's history involved in the restoration of the Cathedral long ago. Further enhancing the cloak of gloom and doom already loured over the town is another murder, that of one Mr. Stonex, who resides in the house next to the stone bearing the inscription that Courtine reads....only minutes after Courtine and Fickling finish having tea with the man, a notorious recluse who only opens his doors three times per day, to allow the entrance and exit of his housekeeper, and to take his evening meal. All of these plotlines are woven together in a 400 page treat which invites comparisons to Umberto Eco and other scholarly authors. Charles Palliser manages to tell a breathtaking tale of murder and duplicity; of grief and despair; of horrors of the body and the mind; and not once was it all too graphic, or at all undigestible. Charles Palliser has created a dark, gloomy Victorian mystery with The Unburied....well worth the time to read...even if it takes other readers longer than the four days it took me.
Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece of lies and deceit
Review: In this book the author has spun an intricate web of manipulation and murder. A mysterious invitation, unsolved murders, a lost ancient manuscript and secret ambitions all form an integral part of the story. This book is like a maze, an ultimate search for the truth along twisted pathways with new surprises at every turn. The ending is impossible to guess although all of the pieces do fall perfectly into place. It is worth it read this book again and try to look for the clues that the author has sprinkled throughout. A deeply atmospheric book, the author has done a superb job of recreating a small, Victorian cathedral town and all of its mystery. Some have compared An Instance of the Fingerpost to this book. In my opinion, there is absolutely no comparison. The Unburied is far superior to the dry, dull An Instance of the Fingerpost. Indeed, most mysteries seem dull and boring compared to this tour de force. Never to be forgotten by me or any other mystery fan.
Rating:
Summary: Victorian Mysteries
Review: More than a simple Victorian pastiche, The Unburied is something of a conversation between eras and viewpoints in the tradition of A.S. Byatt and Umberto Eco. Clearly out of his depth historian/narrator Dr. Edward Courtine effectively shares his interest in the past of the English cathedral town of Thurchester even as academic skullduggery, past betrayals, and ghost stories swirl about him. For a timid academic, Courtine makes a surpringly charismatic protagonist, his account inadvertently making clear his limitations as professor and detective as events outpace him, his historical excursions into Thurchester's past fascinating, and his hinted upon past with old school chum Austin increasingly intriguing. The Unburied stumbles only toward the end, where it devolves into a fairly straightforward murder mystery, the solution of which is far less interesting than our narrator, who is abandoned in a surprisingly ineffective use of the Wilkie Collins' tradition of using multiple narratives to wrap up a mystery. But despite the lackluster wind-up, this is an atmospheric and entertaining story, using styles of another era to great effect.
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