In A Fifth of November, Paul West describes the events surrounding the English Gunpowder Plot (1605). Instigated by thirteen Catholic conspirators, most famously Guy Fawkes, the Plot was a failed attempt to blow up the English Parliament and King James I. At the heart of West's novel are the trials of Father Henry Garnet, superior of the English Jesuits, who is hidden from the king's henchmen behind the walls of English mansions. Shielding him from...