Thank you! Rutherfurd is one of my favorite authors. And while there are quite a few folks who would disagree with me, I thought Russka was a really good book, right up there with Sarum and London.

PAM

I remember enjoying Sarum and London although I got rather bogged-down in The Forest about the history of the 'New Forest' in Hampshire, the first of the great Royal hunting forests.
Are the ones about Russia and Ireland as good/better/worth reading?
Deborah, were the Bishop's brothels on the South side of the Thames, in Southwark, a rough area outside the control of the City Fathers?
Did you know that in the UK prostitutes/ladies of the night/floozies do not have to pay income tax because it has always been considered wrong for the state to benefit from 'immoral earnings'! Is the situation the same in the US or Canada?

As far as I know, veer, prostitution is illegal in the USA and those "ladies" very often find themselves arrested for their "work".

PAM

Veer- the site doesn't say were the brothel is were but it does say that they believe Thomas Beckett may have determined some of the rules. The Forest was the first book I read by Rutherford and I enjoyed it enough to want to read more of his work.

No prostitutes are not tax exempt- I don't think anyone in the US is, our IRS is happy to take money from ANYONE. LOL As a matter of fact that is how many of our big time criminals get got- for 'tax evasion'. Like Al Capone, he didn't go to jail for murder, extortion, or all the other horrible things he did, he went to jail because he didn't pay taxes. Birth, death and taxes that's what we all have in common.

It is interesting to me that Rutherford states in the front of his book, that we shouldn't follow his historical writing too closely, that he takes a lot of liberties with history but from other reading I have done he is pretty accurate. I guess he just wants to cover himself in case of criticism. His description of the battle of Boadicea and the Romans was very close to the historical writings I have read elsewhere as a n example.

I enjoyed Russka, though I thought some vignettes were more interesting than others. I've got Sarum in the TBR.

For anyone who read Russka, did you wonder what happened to the sister, Olga (from 'The Duel')? She gets married off and then you hear nothing about her. At least with the others, we find out what happened to them or their descendents, but Olga fades away entirely (or did I miss something?).