Blog Archives

Lynn Shepherd talks Charles Dickens

Posted on December 7, 2011
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A little over twelve months ago I read Murder at Mansfield Park by Lynn Shepherd and was blown away by the narrative, storytelling and characterisation, so much so the book was one of my top reads for 2010 and to this day holds a special place on my shelf for a number of reasons. Murder at Mansfield Park, published by Corsair, is now available as an E-Book download.

I hadn’t expected to enjoy it, it’s not the sort of book I would normally read but such was its endearing prose I found myself spellbound and if anyone has any doubt about whether the book is for you why not take time and read my review of Lynn’s book or just listen and watch Lynn enthusing about the title in her video.

“When one of the principle cast members is brutally killed, the book moves up a gear and becomes an enchanting murder mystery. Can one class a murder as enchanting?! The grim discovery of the body in a muddy ditch introduces us to an assured thief-taker, or private detective to you and me – Charles Maddox.”

In the second of Lynn’s videos the author talks about her new murder mystery Tom-All-Alone’s – a book inspired by Charles Dickens’ Bleak House – which is published early next year by Constable & Robinson in the UK to coincide with the celebrations marking the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens’ birth in February 1812 – the book also serves as Lynn’s personal tribute to the renowned author who died aged just 58 years old.

If you’d like to learn more then please do visit Lynn Shepherd at her website.…

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11.22.63 by Stephen King – Book Review

Posted on November 6, 2011
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WHAT IF you could go back in time and change the course of history? WHAT IF the watershed moment you could change was the JFK assassination? 11/22/63, the date that Kennedy was shot – unless . . .

Jake Epping is a thirty-five-year-old high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching adults in the GED program. He receives an essay from one of the students—a gruesome, harrowing first person story about the night 50 years ago when Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a hammer. Harry escaped with a smashed leg, as evidenced by his crooked walk.

Not much later, Jake’s friend Al, who runs the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to 1958. He enlists Jake on an insane—and insanely possible—mission to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination. So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson and his new world of Elvis and JFK, of big American cars and sock hops, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake’s life—a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time.

It’s very rare – in fact I don’t think it has happened – for me to finish a book and immediately begin writing a review. Over the past 14 months I’ve read some amazing books, some have moved me to tears, some have made me laugh endlessly and some amazed me in their energetic narrative that will remain with me for years to come, as long as my memory holds! I finished Stephen King’s 11.22.63 approximately five minutes ago and so moved was I with his storytelling and the enforced spellbinding relationship between Jake Epping – otherwise …

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Egypt: The Book of Chaos by Nick Drake – Book Review

Posted on August 7, 2011
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Egypt, 1320 BC

The future of Egypt lies in the hands of chief detective Rahotep when he undertakes a clandestine mission across enemy empires and rogue states to deliver a top-secret letter, written by the Queen to her arch-enemy, the King of the Hittites.

It is a mission from which Rahotep may not return. But he also has a wildly personal motive; to seek out a depraved murderer at the heart of a mysterious and brutal new opium cartel that has emerged within the criminal underworld of Thebes.

His quest brings Rahotep face to face with his own dark demons, which he must conquer if he is to return home in time to save Egypt’s greatest dynasty and his own family from the terror that threatens them all . . .

I’ve always wondered what it would be like to travel in time and armed with a travelling machine courtesy of HG Wells maybe the days of yesteryear wouldn’t appear so far away. If I had such a machine I’ve no doubt that my first choice would have been to travel back to Ancient Egypt – land of the Kings and Queens, the pyramids, the gold and the epic battles for supremacy.

Unfortunately, no such machine exists – that we know of – and we are left with literary accounts, both fictional and historical, to whet our appetite, ensuring our desire for knowledge and discovery is fulfilled. When Nick Drake’s Egypt : The Book of Chaos arrived I couldn’t help but be taken in by the atmospheric book jacket depicting Rahotep – a man who held Egypt’s future in his hands – and the magnificent splendour of hieroglyphics adoring ancient pillars in the background. Even if I didn’t have an interest in Egyptology, the cover art alone would have enticed …

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History in the Court with Goldsboro Books

Posted on August 6, 2011
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Goldsboro Books have officially launched the History in the Court website and advise that tickets for this event, in association with the The Historical Writers’ Association, are now available! So what are you waiting for? Following the great success of Crime in the Court why not be part of History and join David Headley and Goldsboro Books on the 29th September, 2011 for this inaugural event. For more information please read on ….

Long before Cecil Court became the home for Goldsboro Books it has a history that makes it the world famous street it is today. Cecil Court was laid out in the late seventeenth-century, filling in open land between St Martin’s Lane and Leicester Square as London spread steadily west. It is still owned by the family from which it takes its name, the Cecil family of Hatfield House in Hertfordshire, who are the descendants of Robert Cecil, created first Earl of Salisbury by James I after he smoothed over the transition from the house of Tudor to that of the Stuarts. History in the Court

Cecil Court may have been “fit for good inhabitants” but we have good reason to suppose that eighteenth century Cecil Court was not an especially salubrious address. The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, fully searchable online, give an insight into life in the street at the time, whenever the inhabitants fell foul of the law. Residents crop up regularly in the trial transcripts, mostly for petty theft but also for highway robbery, forgery and arson. In 1735 Elizabeth Calloway, keeper of a Brandy Shop in Cecil Court where her clientele could be found “drinking, smoking, and swearing, and running up and down Stairs till one or two in the Morning” seemingly over-insured her goods and set the place alight. Her …

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History from the other side by James Aitcheson

Posted on August 2, 2011
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The idea for Sworn Sword came to me while I was in my final year at Cambridge, researching for my dissertation on the Norman Conquest. Although the focus of my study was mainly on the years leading up to 1066, the more I read around the subject, the more I became interested in the turbulent years that followed the invasion as the Normans fought to consolidate their gains and subdue a country rife with rebellion. It is the story of one of those rebellions, led by the dispossessed prince Eadgar, that forms the backbone of the novel.

The narrator of the tale is not an Englishman, however, but rather one of the invaders: a knight named Tancred. This decision to write from the Norman point of view was one that I made very early in the novel’s development. I felt that while the theme of the valiant but doomed struggle of the Anglo-Saxons against their foreign oppressors was very familiar, the Norman version of events both leading up to and in the aftermath of the invasion was not generally as well known, and yet was equally as interesting.

Every story has two sides. One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s insurgent. These sayings are so familiar as to have almost become clichés. Why not, then, give the tale of the Norman Conquest a fresh twist? By blurring the traditional distinction between the ‘good’ English and the ‘bad’ Normans, I could show the period in a different light and try to challenge readers’ sympathies and preconceptions. So far as I could see it was an angle that few authors had taken before, which made this a subject ripe for exploration.

Even so, to get the modern reader on the side of the foreigner is no easy task. Why this should be …

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The Absolutist by John Boyne – Book Review

Posted on June 7, 2011
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How does one begin to review The Absolutist by John Boyne (The Boy in the striped pyjamas)? To say I am, forgive me while I use a World War one descriptive, shell shocked, would be an understatement. Sitting quietly in the corner of the living room merely an hour after finishing the book, subdued lighting my only company and a book jacket design I find hard to tear myself from, I gorge in its simplicity, its effectiveness, its evocativeness. Breath-taking.

The British Army, by the end of “The Great War”, had dealt with 80,000 cases of shell shock – a severe and debilitating trauma by any measure.

September 1919: twenty-one-year-old Tristan Sadler takes a train from London to Norwich to deliver some letters to Marian Bancroft. Tristan fought alongside Marian’s brother Will during the Great War, but in 1917 Will laid down his guns on the battlefield, declared himself a conscientious objector and was shot as a traitor, an act which has brought shame and dishonour on the Bancroft family.

But the letters are not the real reason for Tristan’s visit. He holds a secret deep in his soul. One that he is desperate to unburden himself of to Marian, if he can only find the courage.

As he recalls his friendship with Will, from the training ground at Aldershot to the trenches of Northern France, he speaks of how the intensity of their friendship brought him both happiness and self-discovery as well as despair and pain.

The Absolutist is a novel that examines the events of the Great War from the perspective of two young soldiers, both struggling with the complexity of their emotions and the confusion of their friendship.

Set across six parts, the book looks back at two very short time periods – …

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Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford – Book Review

Posted on May 4, 2011
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Hotel on the corner of Bitter and Sweet – if ever there’s been such an endearing title in the last year I have yet to find one – the hotel, The Panama, gateway to Seattle’s Japantown – the bitter, the internment of the Japanese in 1942 – the sweet, an epic love story.

Every once in a while a book comes along that truly touches your heart, whether through a poignant storyline, a narrative so beautiful it takes your breath away or a character so beguiling and powerful you can’t quite put the book down – Jamie Ford’s Hotel on the corner of Bitter and Sweet is one such book.

1986, The Panama Hotel.
The old Seattle landmark has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has made a startling discovery in the basement: personal belongings stored away by Japanese families sent to interment camps during the Second World War. Among the fascinated crowd gathering outside the hotel, stands Henry Lee, and, as the owner unfurls a distinctive parasol, he is flooded by memories of his childhood. He wonders if by some miracle, in amongst the boxes of dusty treasures, lies a link to the Okabe family, and the girl he lost his young heart to, so many years ago.

Adorning the cover is the tagline “The book a million people have fallen in love with” – make that a million and one! There’s something truly remarkable about this book that shook me to my very core. Until I read Hotel on the corner of Bitter and Sweet I was convinced I’d already discovered my top two books of the year but boy has Ford’s narrative well and truly blown that theory to pieces – but the great thing? – this isn’t a title …

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Treblinka: A survivor’s Memory by Chil Rajchman – Book Review

Posted on April 17, 2011
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It’s hard to imagine that a simple decision to lie about one’s vocation and skills could ever save your life – but this is exactly what happened to Chil Rajchman when, recovering from a severe whipping, he was faced with a life or death decision on his first day at Treblinka – although at the time he didn’t realise its gravitas, he held his hand up and declared himself a skilled barber – that one decision, and four others like him, enabled him to survive that first gruelling day.

One cannot stress the importance a document such as “Treblinka: A survivor’s Memory” holds in our history; our very being. Without it, and others of its ilk, we would remain to this day uneducated as to the severity of what transpired in camps such as Auschwitz, Sobibór, Bełżec and Treblinka – to name but a few. The mass genocide, the rapes, the brutality, the starvation, the sheer ignominy of the SS and the Ukrainian “murderers” as Chil Rachjman put it – helped shape our lives ensuring no such depravity occurs ever again – we live in hope.

Chil Rajchman, a Polish Jew, was arrested with his younger sister in 1942 and sent to Treblinka, a death camp where more than 750,000 were murdered before it was abandoned by German soldiers. His sister was sent to the gas chambers, but Rajchman escaped execution, working for ten months under incessant threats and beatings as a barber, a clothes-sorter, a corpse-carrier, a puller of teeth from those same bodies. In August 1943, there was an uprising at the camp, and Rajchman was among the handful of men who managed to escape. In 1945, he set down this account, a plain, unembellished and exact record of the raw horror he endured every day. …

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The Emperor’s Tomb by Steve Berry – Book Review

Posted on April 4, 2011
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When I grow up I want to be Cotton Malone!

There I’ve said it – I feel better now – now that I’ve been true to myself – I am Spartacus – I am Cotton Malone! If only life was that easy and exciting! The world would be a better place and I’d go to work satisfied that I’d made a difference!

Long before I opened Steve Berry’s “The Emperor’s Tomb” I knew I wanted to read it! Not only did it sport an incredibly seductive and colourful book jacket (UK version infinitely better than the US version) but the subject matter was just up my street – adventure, danger, spies, double crossing, an infinite amount of travel and a second hand bookshop owner – not necessarily in that order – what more could a guy want?!

My interview with Steve Berry Here

“Hearing that his old friend Cassiopeia Vitt is in trouble, Malone follows the few clues he has and realises that they are in the middle of something huge, involving Russian and US oil interests and a centuries-old secret. After stumbling across two dead bodies and into the crosshairs of his former boss, Malone finds himself in a race to unravel the mystery of an emperor’s tomb, a sinister society, and a deadly battle between two ruthless men for supremacy in China – and the world.”

My first introduction to the master of suspense – Steve Berry – I wasn’t quite sure what to expect but by the time I’d finished the enticing Prologue I knew I was in for the ride of my life – I was well and truly hooked. Crossing a rickety bridge in the middle of nowhere, our protagonists meet danger head on when disaster strikes. The bridge disintegrates and Cotton …

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White Heat by M.J. McGrath – Book Review

Posted on March 14, 2011
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Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin, Laurel & Hardy and Buster Keaton – not the first thing that comes to mind when reviewing a book set in the desolate regions of the Arctic but believe you me, these famous Hollywood stars of the classic silent era all have one thing in common – they perform almost on a daily basis in Autisaq in the Arctic – more often than not comforting “White Heat’s” protagonist Edie Kiglatuk in her front room.

A well established and published non-fictional author (Long Exile, Hopping), Melanie McGrath is a relative newcomer when it comes to fictional titles – indeed “White Heat” is her first foray into the world of make-believe. Although a terrific and powerful work of fiction, McGrath blends her immeasurable knowledge of the Arctic and Inuit to deliver a novel that encompasses many of the realities and problems faced by the Inuit community – crime, the harsh environment, education (or lack thereof) and political corruption.

In 1953 the Canadian Government relocated three dozen Inuit from their established homes in Hudson Bay – North East of Canada – to Ellesmere Island – a barren and underdeveloped strip of land – with the promise they could return home. McGrath writing under the name MJ McGrath briefly touches on this piece of history in “White Heat” as Edie travels the region in a quest for truth and justice.

“Nothing on the tundra rotted . . . The whole history of human settlement lay exposed there, under that big northern sky. There was nowhere here for bones to hide.

On Craig Island, a vast landscape of ice north of the Arctic Circle, three travellers are hunting duck. Among them is expert Inuit hunter and guide, Edie Kiglatuk; a woman born …

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The School of Night by Louis Bayard – Book Review

Posted on March 12, 2011
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In a perfect and indolent reviewing world (and an the inevitable excuse for brevity) I would sum up Louis Bayard’s “The School of Night” with the following:

“Stunning, simply stunning”

However, a book of this quality doesn’t deserve such an inconsequential review and with this in mind I will continue!

Confession, they say, is good for the soul and the opening line had me vexed!

“Against all odds, against my own wishes, this is a love story. And it began, of all places, at Alonzo Wax’s funeral. “

I would go as far to say it had me stumped. I took a deep breath and lowered the book – I didn’t want to sit down and work my way through a romance novel, it’s just not me. I have no problem watching a chick flick, it’s usually over so quickly, but the thought of sitting down for two days reading a romance novel didn’t exactly fill me with inspiration or should I say desire! That said, people do say – “never judge a book by its cover” – upon completion I would also add “never judge a book by its opening line”!

When I reviewed Urban Waite’s “The Terror of Living” a couple of months ago I remember thinking (and writing) that it would be hard to beat, but after reading “The School of Night” I can say with a high degree of certainty Urban’s debut thriller has stiff competition!

“A shared quest and a mysterious cabal, four centuries apart . . .

When Henry Cavendish attends the funeral of an old friend, the last thing he expects is to be given a business proposition. A handsome sum to retrieve a document that was in his friend’s possession when he died – a letter from Sir …

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A Dark Anatomy by Robin Blake – Book Review

Posted on March 9, 2011
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It’s been a while since I sat down and read a book based in the 18th century but when I received an advanced copy of Robin Blake’s “A Dark Anatomy” – published by Pan Macmillan – I knew, upon looking at the magnificent and opulent book jacket, I just had to read it!

In fact it made me wonder how many people are swayed by attractive book designs. I know when I choose a bottle of wine I do find myself temptingly drawn to the more attractive label on the shelf – despite a lack of knowledge of the wine’s quality (until tasting!) – I wondered if we approach books in the same manner. Do we select a book purely based on artwork alone?

By going down this decision making road you always run the risk of choosing style over substance – but have no fear – this certainly isn’t the case as far as “A Dark Anatomy” is concerned – a distinguished jacket protects a sumptuous and enveloping narrative.

It took a few chapters to reacquaint myself with 18th century English and all its glorious foibles but once I’d settled down to the language the narrative flowed extremely well. I did find myself pausing momentarily to consult the dictionary, which in turn did cause me to re-read certain sections, but that was more to satisfy my curiosity than a fault of Robin Blake’s writing!

Part of the market spilled over into cheapside, and my street had become established as the poulterer’s pitch, always flapping with birds brought out of their coops and hung my the legs from stall-poles. Amidst all this squawking and commotion I could not see Fidelis anywhere. But since he was a notorious slug-a-bed and my cob had been ready and waiting

…

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Trinity Six by Charles Cumming – Book Review

Posted on February 22, 2011
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The film “The Third Man”, the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (or KGB as it’s widely known in the West) and Katarina Witt all have something in common – although the latter is a tenuous link at best, they are all mentioned in Charles Cumming’s “Trinity Six” – a tale of spies, political skullduggery, cold war secrets and a Russian expert hell-bent on discovering an intriguing truth that has remained a secret for decades.

Way back in the late 80’s I was visiting a friend of mine in California – a US Marine (Ooh-rah)– and I remember calling him a few days before the flight and mentioned I was after a book that had been banned in the UK called “Spycatcher” by Peter Wright – ex MI5 assistant director and operative – who had sold his soul and secrets to make a fast buck. Having secured a copy in the US I remember gorging on the secrets and Wright’s public outing of Sir Roger Hollis who he claimed was a double agent – although this was later disproved. (I still have a copy in my study gathering dust!)

“Spycatcher” was my first introduction to a world of conspiracy and chicanery igniting an interest in all matters espionage in me that has lasted ever since – I can’t get enough of tales of “The Cambridge Five”, undercover operatives in the war, double agents and the ramifications of their actions. Harper Collins recently released “Trinity Six” where Charles Cumming runs with the assumption that not only were there five spies in Cambridge, all discovered by Arnold Deutsch, but adds another for luck – the supposition that there was another double agent allows Cumming to run riot and deliver a breathtaking story that you will never want …

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Afrika Reich by Guy Saville – Book Review

Posted on February 18, 2011
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I’ve always had a fascination for history, an interest my father instilled in me as a kid growing up, at a time when the only history taught in my school was that of the Norman’s and Saxons – I was more of a Great War and Second World War reader – I had no time for the Saxons and my exam results clearly showed that! I would have bitten someone’s hand off to read a book on the Anzacs or the history of The Battle of the Somme – alas we were stuck with Norman Conquest of 1066!

When Hodder & Stoughton sent me a copy of Guy Seville’s debut novel “Afrika Reich” I was immediately struck by a cover design that was so tactile with its velvet like touch it begged to be read! Utilising a dark granite black for its primary colour, the front cover has two vibrant and distinctive red “SS” letters atop of a palm tree and skull.

Set in 1952 in an alternative universe, Hitler has proven too strong for Britain, the European Jews have been deported to Madagascar and a reluctant peace agreement between Germany and Britain has been signed. Despite Japan’s attack on the United States in December 1941, Congress voted to remain neutral in Europe and Asia due to the weakened economy at home. The events all add up to paint a picture of German superiority and dominance.

“1952. It is more than a decade since the Dunkirk fiasco marked the end of Britain’s war and an uneasy peace with Hitler.

In Africa, the swastika flies from the Sahara to the Indian Ocean. Gleaming autobahns bisect the jungle and jet fighters patrol the skies. Britain and the Nazis have divided the continent but now the demonic plans of …

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