The Splendid and the Vile didn’t quite hit the same for me. It’s not a bad book, and the research is clearly solid, (Larson is clearly always doing the most in the archival digging) but it just didn’t have the same kind of momentum or story arc that made his other books so engaging.

This one focuses on Churchill during the Blitz (and I am a self proclaimed Churchill hater after reading Dead Wake, so maybe I’m too biased for this book), which sounds like it should be full of drama, but it ends up feeling more like a collection of well-written moments than a cohesive story. There’s no real central mystery or rising tension like in some of his other books, it’s more of a detailed snapshot of a year in Churchill’s life, with a lot of side characters and diary entries thrown in.

If you’re really into WWII or Churchill, there’s definitely some interesting stuff, although it is still not as definitive of history as other Churchill books. But if you’re picking this up hoping for the narrative punch of The Devil in the White City or Dead Wake, you might find this one a bit slow. It’s fine, just not as compelling as his best work.