This is Les Roberts' first book, introducing us to Saxon, a private investigator who is also an actor. His secretary calls him one night after her husband has been shot at outside the home of renowned author Buck Weldon. Saxon agrees to look into it and it becomes apparent that the target of the attack was most likely Buck Weldon himself. It wasn't the first attempt on his life, which prompts Saxon to investigate further. Also prompting him to investigate further is Buck's beautiful daughter, for whom Saxon has fallen utterly and hopelessly in love.

This book is somewhat reminiscent of the Elvis Cole books by Robert Crais, although Saxon is not quite as pithy in his dealings with clients, nor as cool. The story moves at a good pace, but it contained no real surprises. Those that were meant to be earth-shattering revelations were telegraphed and I easily figured them out long before they happened. All in all this is a quite enjoyable book, yet didn't contain anything that made it stand out from the many other private investigator books out there.

In this carefully structured and precisely documented book, Robert Muchembled, a professor of history at the Université de Paris-Nord, traces the development of obéissance over the course the fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries. The focus of the text is crime, punishment and social order in the comté of Artois and its capital Arras, with frequent examinations of the nearby Low Countries, France and the United Provinces. Muchembled also includes a significant amount of quantitative evidence which successfully meshes with the text. It is clear that Muchembled aims to explore how a small, privileged ruling class was able to coerce loyalty and submission from the masses for such a long period. At the same time, one uncovers a multi-faceted thesis which asserts there is a strong link between punishment and the development of the centralized absolutist state. Using the longue durée technique of the Annales school of social history, Muchembled shows the long term shifts in power. First, one witnesses the shift from private vengeance to legal recourse and subsequently, one observes localized justice yield to the supremacy of royal authority as a result of the local power structures inability to provide satisfactory security. Over the course of the period 1450-1520, Arras undergoes a frightening crime wave and a simultaneous increase in destitution. At the same time, the local power structure or échevinage is not able to cope with these events. Muchembled argues the échevins' failure to maintain a sense of order and security forces the people to turn to royal power. The bourgeoisie becomes progressively more inclined to cede the sovereignty of their city to a wider authority in order to gain greater security. The next major shift in power from the local level to the monarchy occurs during the years 1580-1640. This period is dominated by a fear of witchcraft and heresy. The King is viewed as God's appointed leader on Earth, therefore witchcraft is the antithesis to royal authority. The religious connection serves to cement the legitimacy of the royal justice system according to the author. Justice becomes the real and visible presence of monarchical power. Muchembled persuasively argues that there is a link between crime and punishment, and the consolidation of royal power. Also, the book is well written and uses smooth language which facilitates critical reading despite the abundance of complicated statistics. However, there are many confusing points in the text where it is very challenging to determine if the author is making claims about Arras, Artois, the Spanish Netherlands or the whole of France. At the same time, Muchembled frequently strays from the structure of the book. For example, in the chapter devoted to the years 1580-1640, Muchembled gives an unusual amount of attention to events that occurred in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This creates an unnatural break in the flow of the book. Muchembled is undoubtedly an excellent authority on early modern Artois and its environs. At the same time, his assertion of a link between the people's desire for security and the development of absolutism is equally cogent and interesting. His longue durée approach with an emphasis on a small yet dynamic geographic area also lends legitimacy to his claims. He also provides an excellent reminder to the modern reader that absolutism was not totalitarianism. Despite the dramatic shifts in power, the absolutist state never fully infects the life of every citizen. Regional differences and customs remained. Le Temps des supplices: de l'obéissance sous les rois absolus is a formidable work of social history. It portrays in detail the path from sovereign cities to the absolutist state. In addition, Muchembled shows the shift from regionalized power structures to a system where power diffused from the center to the periphery and the King served as the centerpiece. However, the keystone to these changes is the development and evolution of crime and punishment. The bourgeoisie's desire for security is paramount to the advent of centralized states and absolutism.