Open Letters on THE PLOT AGAINST PEPYS

The Plot Against Pepys, by James and Ben Long, is featured in the August issue of Open Letters Monthly in an extensive review by Thurlow and Zach Truman, another father-son duo:

"As thoroughly researched and engrossingly told an addition to the broad roll of Pepys literature as the reading world has seen in many a long and fallow month. The Longs are to be congratulated for not only delving deep into the depths of Restoration politics but emerging with a thrilling story to tell...

(The Plot Against Pepys) is the next best thing to stepping directly into Pepys’ complicated world just as attacks from all quarters were beginning to make it come apart... (The Longs) tell their own chosen story with a verve even non-specialist readers will find infectious."

The Trumans draw from a quote from Claire Tomalin's 2002 biography of Pepys in which she suggests that Pepys' then untapped account of his wrongful imprisonment and trial "has all the raw materials for a novel by Defoe."

"Lacking as we are a modern Defoe," the review concludes, "we should all be grateful for James and Ben Long: their account, though perhaps no Moll Flanders, will do just fine."