A well written book that kept you on the edge of your seat. It was funny, sad and frightening and extremely interesting especially learning something about the Basques and their struggle. I could not recomend this book highly enough and cannot wait for her next book.

Others have noted that Learner's a bit like Dan Brown. True. But she's a darn sight sassier and she doesn't faddle around: she gets straight to the point and clings to it like a clingy thing without veering off to look at the scenery. In Sphinx she proved that her attention to detail and her eye for accuracy would win her readers who like their stories researched, dissected and resurrected until they blow your head off with the determination of a spider monkey. She also proved that she can produce heroes and heroines for our times who, even though they might look as if they've stepped off the set of One Million Years BC (all flowing locks and steely jaws), are the sort who you'd trust your wallet to in the chip shop while you go and get cash out of the wall. The Map crosses continents, time scales and international diplomacy with a story that starts in the darker ages with a bit of a public burning and flips through the Spanish Civil War to an England of the fifties where the population are still fighting the second world war. At least that was the feeling then, and Learner deftly defines a time where although rationing is all but gone, the post-war honeymoon has well and truly ended, leaving everyone fighting for themselves. So ... terrific. She develops a through line and sees it satisfactorily off to an unexpected denouement that binds together and leaves us thirsty for the next one. Her bibliography, displayed at the termination of the book like family jewellery, shows just how far this exciting, witty and intelligent writer will go to get the truth for her readers. Brilliant.

The Map is a page-turning thriller, but it's also a very atmospheric and well researched journey through the Spanish Civil War, Spain under Franco, the Basque country and its people, all seen through the eyes of a great hero who is a vulnerable, thinking person's Indiana Jones. And there's some romance thrown in for good measure.