The Wool Pack

Judicious cutting for this excellent abridgement give Cynthia Harnett’s Carnegie Medal winning The Wool Pack a well-deserved lease of life. The meticulous details of the many stages of the wool trade and the complex social hierarchies of all those involved in it are not lost. But the story is driven at a greater pace than in the book making it a thrilling adventure of smuggling and shady dealing with the enigmatic Lombard merchants as well as a marvellously evocative historical novel. Jamie Glover conveys the enthusiasm and anxieties of the young narrator Nicholas Fetterlock well, capturing both his youthful exuberance as a young sleuth and his tenderness as he meets his child bride. (3 hrs, abridged)