Marius Mules: Book Three Gallia Invicta by SJA Turney

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Caesar has returned to Rome announcing, for the second time, that Gaul is pacified and leaving his
Legions to re-equip and where possible recruit to make up for their considerable losses.
  
The book opens with Galba, Legate of the Twelfth Legion, trying with his three remaining cohorts to garrison the town of Octodurus, capital of the Veragri tribe and holding the pass between Lake Geneva and Cisalpine Gaul.   Having fortified the upper part of the town Galba then faces a revolt by the Veragri and two neighbouring tribes and faced with overwhelming odds extricates the survivors to Eporedia in Cisalpine Gaul.   In Northern Gaul Crassus, Legate of the Seventh Legion, stirs up a hornets nest with his constant raids on the local tribes for food and other supplies.   He steadfastly refuses his officers plea to arrange supplies from Southern Gaul as he fears losing face in the eyes of Caesar.   When he arresta a Druid who arrives to negotiate with him the Veneti leading the other local tribes rise in revolt.

Meanwhile in Rome Fronto, who is on leave and Priscus his First Spear who is convalescing from a crippling leg wound, are recruited by Cicero to guard Caelius Rufus who is being prosecuted by Caesar's enemy Clodius Pulcher.   At this point we are reintroduced to Aulus Paetus whom all other characters in the story believe to be dead.   Paetus was Caesar's Camp Prefect and was found to be spying on behalf of Clodius who had threatened his familly.   Fronto persuades Caesar to use him to send misleading information to Clodius in return for protection for his familly.   Caesar makes this promise then does nothing and when Clodius discovers he has been tricked Paetus' familly is butchered.   Paetus is now in Rome seeking revenge on both Clodius and Caesar.

Clodius case against Caelius is trashed in the Court by Cicero and Crassus Senior but Caelius is still in danger of being murdered by Clodius who now runs the biggest gang of cutthroats in Rome.   As Fronto is recalled to his Legion by Caesar he leaves Caelius in the protection of Priscus who has also recruited a gang to act as bodyguards.

On his return to Gaul Caesar, who had already told the Senate that he had conquered the Gaulish tribes, is not pleased that Crassus had stirred the Veneti to revolt.   However, he cannot dismiss him as he needs the support of Crassus Senior in Rome and so sends the Seventh to pacify the restless tribes of the Pyrenees.   The Veneti avoid a pitched battle with the Romans by using their skill as sailors but eventualy they are cornered and those who are not killed are enslaved.

Priscus writes to Fronto that men loyal to Caesar are being murdered by Clodius gang and that Clodius himself has had meetings with Pompey Magnus and that Fronto's mother and sister were attacked at the market but rescued by an unknown man who walks away without a word.   The man, of course, is Paetus.   Clodia, sister of odious Clodius, has disappeared and Priscus finds her murdered body at the mausoleum of the Paetus familly.

In Gaul two more revolts are put down but Caesar and Crassus are persuaded to leave the tribes on their land if only because they can grow the increasing amounts of food that an ever expanding Rome requires.

Caesar, Fronto and the rest of the senior officers return to Rome as the Legions move into winter quarters to recruit and re-equip.   There they find that Clodius is ever more ambitious and daring as his huge private army rules the streets and an escalating series of fracas lead to a full scale attack on Fronto's home.   It is beaten off but leads to Caesar calling a meeting with Crassus Senior and Pompey Magnus with the intention of bringing down Clodius once and for all.

SJA Turney has given us another first class adventure story set in my favouite historical period.   However, I must admit that I was more interested in the Roman episodes than the battlefield incidents which all seem to end up as a load of Celtic nutters throwing themselves at disciplined Roman sheildwalls and being slaughtered.   Perhaps volume four will show us more of the battle against Clodius and his street fighters.

Petite Mort by Beatrice Hitchman

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In 1963 a film is discovered in a basement.   Entitled Petite Mort it was made at the famous Pathe studios in 1913 and it's star was Adele Rous a young unknown who never appeared in a film again.   A young journalist, Julliette Blanc, tracks down Adele and goes to interview her and the narrative cuts between her interview and re-enactments of the events of 1913.

In 1912 Adele arrives in Paris determined to break into films and is employed in the sewing room at Pathe.   She is spotted by leading director Andre Durand who makes her his mistress then employs her as assistant to his wife Luce who acts in his films under the name Terpsichore.   Adele moves into the Durand mansion in the Bois de Boulonge and Luce appears indifferent to Andre's visits to her room but when Andre is away she seduces Adele who falls in love with her.  

At this time another Pathe director is constantly asking Luce to appear in his film Petite Mort but she refuses and so he uses Adele, a fact that she tries to conceal from Luce.   A further complication is that Adele's young sister, Camille, has turned up also trying to get into films and hopes to use Adele to do this which she does but this is not revealed until the end.   Violence and murder are also on hand to tangle the web nicely and bring the tale to a satisfyling conclusion.

Beatrice Hitchman has written a subtle and entertaining tale which, considering I bought it on Kindle for ninetynine pence, is as good as books ten times the price.   I hope to see more from this author.

The Yard by Alex Grecian

This novel, a debut by an American writer of comic books, is set in 1889 as the Metropolitan police attempt to salvage their reputation following the Ripper murders.

As the book opens the body of Inspector Little of the newly formed Murder Squad is found in a cabin trunk at Euston Station.   Sir Edward Bradford, newly appointed Commissioner of Police, knows that the morale of his force depends upon a swift solution to this direct attack on his men.   Eyebrows are raised when he puts in charge of the investigation Inspector Walter Day recently transferred from the Devonshire force and who has to cope with the resentment of older members of the squad.   Fortunately he is supported by Inspector Blacker and Constable Hammersmith (an unlikely name but the writer is American) who render him the assistance he needs to solve the case.   The character of Doctor Bernard Kingsley is used to introduce the newly developing science of Forensics and makes a major contribution to the plot.   To try to outline the action would result in too many spoilers and so I shall refrain.

All in all Alex Grecian has spun an entertaining yarn which shows much research and attention to detail and is just the thing for a quiet afternoon.

The Racing Factions by Robert Fabbri

On Kindle

This is another of Fabbri's novellas featuring the Crossroads Brotherhood and published exclusively on Kindle.   The Brotherhood operate a protection racket in their neighbourhood and also act as bodyguards for Senator Pollo who is the uncle of Vespasian the hero of Fabbri's full length novels.

The action opens in the Circus Maximus where Magnus and the gang have just won a sizeable bet.   However, the bookmaker, Ignatius, refuses to pay up which is a major mistake on his part.   The rest of the story concerns Magnus organising an elaborate plot to get his revenge.  

This is a very entertaining story if a rather amoral one but by now we should all be used to the attitudes of Rome at the time.   There is also a tendency to portray as appealing characters what are essentialy a gang of vicious thugs but Fabbri is not alone here think Mario Puzo and the American Mafia.

A Clash of Kings by George RR Martin

On Kindle

This is the second volume in the Song of Ice and Fire Saga and Martin manages to keep both the pace and complexity going despite the episodic manner of the narrative with each chapter named for a character and describes their part of the action.   That such a format avoids reducing the reader to vexation is a tribute to Martin's skill in building his characters and matching their actions to recognisable human limitations.   There are no super-heroes here!   Further, Martin's fantasy world is relatable to the real as, for example, the echoes of Lancaster/York of the Wars of the Roses in Lannister/Stark.   Likewise the names that he gives his characters vere only slightly to the fantastical, an aspect that has put me off other similar works.

At the end of Game of Thrones King Robert was dead and his throne claimed by his eldest son Joffrey backed by his mother and her ambitious and ruthless Lannister clan.   Joffrey orders the execution of Lord Eddard Stark which results in his son Robb rebelling and declaring himself King of the North.   King Robert's two brothers, Stannis and Renly, both claim the throne and all the rest of the noble Houses sign up to one or other of the various claimants though their loyalty is flexible to say the least.   On another continent Danaerys, last of the Royal House of Tregaryan is still trying to raise support for an invasion of the Seven Kingdoms and now she has three young dragons to back her claim.   North of the Wall Jon Snow, bastard son of Eddard Stark, is on patrol trying to locate the forces of outlaw King Mace Ryder when he is captured and, under orders of his captain, pretends to change sides.

We are not half way through the saga yet let us hope that George Martin's imagination can keep up the pace.

Huntingtower by John Buchan

On Kindle via Project Gutenberg

It takes courage for a writer of adventure stories to make a retired grocer the hero of a tale of derring do and when his main allies are a troop of scruffy boys from the Gorbals it would appear that he has made his task impossible.   However, John Buchan takes on such a task and pulls it off with aplomb.

Dickson MacCumm has sold his grocers shops in Glasgow to a larger company and, as his wife is away at a therapeutic spa, decides to go on a walking holiday.   With his head full of dreams of romance and adventure from his extensive reading of Scott, Stevenson and the romantic poets such as Browning and Tennyson he sets off and by chance meets John Heritage an aspiring poet.   Together they walk to the village of Dalquharter where they become involved in the rescue from Bolshevik agents of a Russian princess who was entrusted with a fortune in jewels by the Tsar.   Assisted by the Gorbals Diehards, as the gang of young ruffians is known, they manage to defeat the villains without straining credulity beyond bearing.

Despite it's age, it was published in 1922, I found Huntingtower an entertaining read for a fine summers day which is a tribute to the talent of this excellent writer.

Reamde by Neal Stephenson

I first discovered Neal Stephenson some eight years ago when I read his hugely entertaining Baroque Cycle of novels set in the eighteenth century.   This book, by contrast, is as up-to-date as you like.

The book begins in 2010 as Richard Forthrast the black sheep of an Iowa farming familly, is attending the annual familly reunion.   We are then given his back story as follows.   In 1972 Richard had fled across the Canadian border to avoid being drafted for service in Vietnam and used his backwoods skills to make a living first as a hunting guide and then backpacking marijuana from Canada to America using remote hunting trails.   His drugs contact in America is the leader of a motorcycle gang called Chet and when draft dodgers are amnestied by the US government he and Chet use their drug money to renovate a faux French Chateau built by a nineteenth century gold miner in British Columbia to use as a ski resort.   This is successful but not half as lucrative as the online computer game he develops with a Chinese programer.   This brings us back to the re-union and Richard's neice by adoption, an Eritrean refugee named Zula who he invites to visit his ski resort along with her boyfriend Peter an IT consultant from Seattle.   Whilst at the resort Peter meets a Scottish accountant named Wallace to whom, unknown to the others, he has agreed to sell the details of one hundred thousand credit cards that he has hacked from the Net.   Zula returns to Seattle with Peter determined to break off their relationship and so drives to the warehouse that Peter has converted to office/living space to collect her things.   Whilst she is there Wallace turns up demanding a copy of the credit card file as the original has been hijacked and held to ransom by a group of Chinese hackers using a virus named REAMDE.   Peter admits that he does not have a copy and when Wallace tells him that all the hackers are asking is seventy three dollars he says "Pay up".   However, it is not as simple as that.   The method of payment involves playing an online computer game called T'Rain which is the game run by Zula's uncle Richard.   Before they can try to retrieve the files the warehouse is invaded by a Russian gangster called Ivanov accompanied by an entourage of heavies.   It is Ivanov who was really buying the credit cards and he is most displeased with Wallace for losing them.   Needless to say it is all downhill from there.   As if the Russians were not enough in attempting to catch the Chinese hackers they break into a group of Muslim terrorists who are plotting a bombing campaign and we are still not halfway through the book.

I read the hardback edition of REAMDE, one thousand and forty two pages packed with incident and an amazing cast of characters all fleshed out with detail and back story.   What more can I say than this is a thumping good read which kept me turning the pages until forced to stop and got a good bicep work out into the bargain!

The Daylight Gate by Jeanette Winterson

In the days of my youth Hammer Films were all the rage.   As soon as the names Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee appeared one knew that the next hour and a half would be devoted to pleasurable fear.   Now the Hammer brand has been resurected and along with the films a series of paperbacks has been launched and very cleverly leading writers from many genres have been invited to contribute.

Jeanette Winterson has written a very entertaining piece about one of the seventeenth century's most famous witch trials, the Pendle witches.   King James the First had a horror of witchcraft that went beyond anything seen before in England and he used his authority to promote witchfinding throughout the Realm.   He was also ready to conflate Catholicism with witchcraft and as Lancashire was known as a stronghold of the Old Religion it was here that his officers were most tenacious.

Alice Nutter, a wealthy woman who had made a fortune in the dye trade in London, was also known to be an associate of the late Dr John Dee astrologer to Queen Elizabeth.   Dee had a reputation as a magician which rubbed off on any of his associates.   Two women are languishing in Lancaster Castle accused of witchcraft and their friends are convinced that Alice Nutter has learned enough magic from Dee to effect their escape.   They embroil Alice in their schemes and all end up accused of witchcraft and sentenced to death.

The whole thing is very reminiscent of todays trial by television or tabloid with no word or deed of the accused that cannot be twisted to prove guilt.    At least these days it is only ones character that is murdered.

Game Changer by John R Childress

On Kindle

In 1968 Dr Matt Richards, newly qualified, travels to the Lebanon as part of a university mind-broadening scheme.   There he meets and falls in love with a Jordanian graduate who is embittered by the death of her brother at the hands of the Israelis.   The girl is killed in a bomb blast and Richards spirals down into alchoholism.   Thirty years later and just about hanging on to a lecturers job he falls for Kelly Stevens, daughter of an American Senator, who is not happy with the relationship.   At the same time multiple conspiracies are afoot one of which has the Senator involved and after an altercation at a cocktail party Richards and Kelly are forced into a motor accident.   When he comes round he is  in hospital and has had a face transplant.   The new face belonged to an international assasin who had just been murdered by Mossad.   It all goes downhill from there with Richards and a young woman journalist being chased from pillar to post until they finally manage to save the day.

This book is advertised as aimed at fans of Frederick Forsyth however, I do not feel that this is quite up to Forsyth's standard.   Nonetheless it is an entertaining read for a long journey which is as much as one can ask.

Son of Heaven by David Wingrove

On Kindle

This is the start of a twenty volume saga of the future of Earth under Chinese rule.   Wingrove actually started this over ten years ago but his then publisher restricted him to eight, later reduced to seven, volumes.   Fortunately his present publisher, Corvus, is letting his imagination have free reign and, although I read the original books and thoroughly enjoyed them, I am looking forward with great anticipation to this expanded version.

This book opens in 2065 in a Britain reduced to a fragmented and technologicaly primitive state.   The main character, Jake Reed, is a resourceful and honourable member of the small community surviving in the Purbeck area of Dorset in a manner very similar to their Celtic and Saxon ancestors.   Having introduced Jake in his present condition Wingrove then takes us back to 2045 and shows how he and Britain are reduced to this state.   The whole of the technology based society that we will come to know is infiltrated and then comprehensively trashed by the followers of a Chinese would-be warlord.   It becomes obvious as the book progresses that in order to take power he has trashed China along with the West.   Back to 2065 and the Chinese military arrive with overwhelming fire power and Jake is on the list of the secret police known as The Thousand Eyes.   Some of the Brits are allowed to become citizens, the young and fit, following re-education but will Jake and his familly survive?  

Wingrove has created a spine chilling vision of the future and if he can keep up this level of quality writing through all twenty volumes it will be a saga to last as long as his imaginary world.

Furies by D.L. Johnstone

On Kindle

Set in Alexandria in AD38 this is a Roman adventure with a difference and most entertaining too.

Aculeo is a merchant living in the small but privileged Roman community in conquered Egypt.   However, as the story opens he is being made bankrupt and his possessions removed by the bailifs of the moneylender Gurculio.   As his wife leaves for her familly in Rome taking his son with her he is left pondering his future and bemoaning the fact that Corvinus, an old familly friend, persuaded him to invest in two grain convoys both of which sank.   Or did they?   Teaming up with some other investors in the grain scheme he begins to discover the truth behind the disaster that ruined them.   Despite walking down many mean streets Aculeo is no Phillip Marlowe and his chances of discovering more than an early grave are only improved when he meets Sekhet an elderly healer.   It is she who points him towards the villains who are not only behind the fraud that ruined him but also a succession of grisly ritual murders.  

D.L. Johnstone is a new writer to me and I am very glad that I took a chance on The Furies.  

Eye of the Raven by Ken McClure

On Kindle

This is the eleventh McClure thriller that I have read and it is one of his best.

A research scientist is in Barlinnie Prison for the rape and murder of a thirteen year old girl but then a gangland killer who is dying of cancer in a secure hospital confesses to the crime.   The case is passed to Dr Steven Dunbar of Sci/Med, a small hi-tec unit within the Home Office.   Dunbar arrives in Edinburgh to find the police uncooperative and resentful of his presence.   This attitude stems from their mistaken arrest of a mentaly sub-normal man who was later proved to be innocent but by that time he and his mother had committed suicide.   The press, who only days previously had been calling the man a monster, turned on the police and several officers were forced to resign.   Needless to say they did not welcome the case being re-opened.   Despite opposition, sometimes from very senior officers, Dunbar persists and follows a convoluted trail until he solves the case with a surprising but just about believable twist at the end.

Roma Victrix by Russell Whitfield

On Kindle

A sequel to Whitfield's novel Gladiatrix it follows the main characters of the first story as they leave Asia Minor and head for Rome.

Lysandra of Sparta, known in the arena as Achillia, was at the end of the previous book granted her freedom and inherited the gladiator school from it's former owner.   Now in her new role as businesswoman she is struggling against frustration with paperwork and the knowledge that so many people depend on her.   Self doubt combined with boredom drive her to a drink problem and quarrels with those closest to her.   A letter from Emperor Domitian "inviting" her to fight Rome's top female gladiator in the Flavian Amphitheatre (now better known as the Colloseum) arrives and she departs for the capital.   Most of the book from here charts her return to fighting fitness.

Also in the previous book we met Valerian an officer on the staff of Frontinus Governor of Asia Minor, and who is now a Tribune of the Fifth Legion spearheading a punitive expedition across the Danube in retaliation for Dacian raids into the province of Moesia.   The Fifth is ambushed and almost wiped out with Valerian one of the few to make it back.   As the senior surviving officer he is made the scapegoat for the debacle, his property is confiscated and he is told to commit suicide.   Instead he returns destitute to Rome where a former Legionary finds him a job on the security staff at the Flavian thus bringing him again into contact with the gladiatrices.

Whitfield has given us another jolly romp through the blood and guts of Ancient Rome to the delight of those like myself who cannot get enough of this kind of stuff.   More please Mr Whitfield.

The Swarm by Rob Heinze

On Kindle


There are certain species who, at regular intervals, congregate or swarm in order to reproduce.   What would happen if humans should do this?   This is the theme of Rob Heinze's book.

On a small vacation island off the coast of New Jersey all of the population who are fertile suddenly walk trance-like to the beach and indulge in mass copulation ( yes I know it sounds like Club Med) What has caused this behaviour?   I must admit that even after reading the book I am still not sure.   However, I am sure that I found this book to be most imaginative and entertaining to the point where I devoured it at one sitting.

The Swarm is self published which is OK by me as some of the best books I have ever read have been rejected by all the big publishing houses but I do think that it would have benefitted from an independant editor.

The Rise of Robin Hood/The Betrayal of Father Tuck by Angus Donald

On Kindle only

Two very entertaining short novels both prequels to two of Angus Donald's volumes in his Outlaw Chronicles series.

The Rise of Robin Hood preceeds the first book in the series entitled Outlaw and describes - surprise, surprise - Robin's rise to the leadership of the outlaws of Sherwood Forest.   To do this he displays not only considerable martial skill but guile and the instinctive empathy that marks out the natural leader.

The Betrayal of Father Tuck describes the defence of Robin's castle of Kirkton by his brither Hugh and Father Tuck against the forces of the dastardly Sir Ralph Mudac whilst he is away on crusade with King Richard.   Sir Ralph is besotted with Robin's wife and is determined to have her no matter what the cost and calls out all the forces of Nottingham garrison and the war bands of his friends to beseige her in Kirkton.   This story preceeds King's Men book three of the Chronicle.

Though short these stories are well worth reading especialy if, like me, one is a fan of the Outlaw Chronicles.

The Jerusalem Puzzle by Laurence O'Bryan

The follow up to the Istanbul Puzzle and featuring many of the same characters.

Sean Ryan of the Institute for Applied Research at Oxford and his partner Isabel Sharp, a curator at the British Museum, learn that Max Kaiser, an American archeologist whom they met in Istanbul, has been found murdered in Jerusalem.   At the same time Dr Susan Hunter, who was translating the ancient book that they found in Istanbul, disappears also in Jerusalem.   Sean and Isabel set off for Jerusalem to discover what has happened to Dr Hunter.   They are lead to a dig in the Old City, that is causing uproar among the Muslim population, where they manage to upset the archeologist in charge who has enough pull to get them thrown out of Israel.   They sneak back in through Egypt then Isabel is kidnapped.   Behind the plot is Lord Bidoner, who was behind the plot in Istanbul, and whose hedge fund has bought shares in companies that will prosper if a war kicks off between Israel and the Arabs.   It all hinges on archeological evidence which the various religions will find sensitive to say the least.   The dig in the Old City is hoping to find a transcript of the trial of Jesus for example.  

Provided that one suspends ones disbelief (I have a hook behind the door for this purpose) like it's predecessor the Istanbul Puzzle,  the Jerusalem Puzzle is a first class page turner, a real fun read.   The next Puzzle is due for New York.   Bring it on!

The Devil's Beat by Robert Edric

In 1910 a group of young girls in a Nottinghamshire village claim that the devil appeared to them in a clearing in the woods.   Most people regard the stories as lies but the tale spreads and the Assistant Chief Constable asks the Director of Public Law to set up an enquiry to kill the story once and for all.   The Director sends Francis Merritt who has conducted many enquiries on his behalf but as soon as he arrives Merritt realises he is on a hiding to nothing.   To assist him he has the self-important magistrate Webb, the vicar Rev. Firth who is completely dominated by his wife and the local Doctor Nash, the only one who gives him any real support.   The press descends on the village and Mary Cowan, the oldest and leader of the girls, together with her father play it for all they can make from it.   The enquiry, of course, achieves nothing and ends with the tragic death of one of the girls.  

This is a truly remarkable book with it's insightful examination of the characters and their motives.   Robert Edric may never appear on the the much hyped best seller lists or be piled high in Waterstones but his name will always be at the forefront for those who recognise quality when they see it.

Oscar Wilde and the Murders at Reading Gaol by Gyles Brandreth

The sixth of Brandreth's Oscar novels and it is arguably his best as not only has he once again produced an excellent murder mystery but convincingly conveys Wilde's despair as he serves his two year sentence for gross indecency.

At Pentonville prison Wilde is the subject of the malice of the sadistic Warder Braddle who dies in mysterious circumstances after visiting Wilde's cell.   Moved to Reading he is then confronted by Braddle's younger brother an even nastier piece of work.   The prisoner in the next cell, an Indian named Luck, attempts to blackmail Wilde over his acquaintance with a young boy prisoner while the prison doctor persuades the Govenor to allow him to investigate murders that the authorities would rather be written off as accidents.

The best part of this book in my opinion is not the murder mystery, good as that is, but Brandreth's description of the soul destroying prison regime and Wildes reaction to it.   Wildes realisation of what his actions have done, not just to himself, but to his wife and sons is totaly believable.   Brandreth has immersed himself in the work and character of his subject to such an extent that acceptance of the narrative as Wilde's own words is extended without demur.   The book ends with Wilde in exile in Dieppe and only a year or so to live.   Does this mean that this is the last of these excellent books?   Let us hope not!

The Sins of Severac Bablon by Sax Rohmer

On Kindle via Project Gutenberg

Another of Rohmer's non Fu Manchu novels first published in 1914 and with a plot that would most certainly not find a publisher today.

It is inferred in the book that Severac Bablon (is this an anagram?) is a descendant of Jewish royalty but be that as it may he certainly considers that the acquisitiveness of Jewish businessmen is giving the whole people a bad name.   His solution is to force several prominent financial figures to give large well publicised donations to charity and when I say large the sums of fifty or one hundred thousand pounds at 1914 prices cause a sharp intake of breath.   The methods he uses are typical of this type of fiction at the time.   He is always several jumps ahead of his pursuers, is a master of disguise, he has adherants at all levels of society and is always the perfect gentleman.   Such a plot, such a character appear laughable today but the quality of Rohmer's writing overcame any modern doubts and kept this readers attention to the end.

Once again one is aware of the debt modern readers owe to Project Gutenberg who make available books that would never find their way into print again yet are a part, even if some do not wish to recognise the fact, of our literary heritage.

Marius Mules 2 : The Belgae by SJA Turney

On Kindle

Based on Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars the first book followed his campaign against the Helvetii and other tribes of southern Gaul.   Now, desparate for another victorious campaign to silence his political enemies in Rome he turns his attention to the Belgae, a federation of tribes along the Rhine.

Caesar returns to Gaul as the Legions leave their winter quarters and prepare for the campaigning season.   Most of the senior officer corps of the first novel appear again headed, of course, by Fronto.   The first tribe they move against, the Remi, promptly surrender and are granted generous terms by Caesar to encourage others to follow their example.   Unfortunately most of the others are determined to put up some resistance if only for prides sake and the body count on both sides mounts up.   As in the first book it is up to Fronto to try to alleviate the callousness with which Caesar views the expenditure of human life when weighed against his ambition.   A typical example is his treatment of his own Camp Prefect.   The father-in-law of this officer has fallen into debt to Publius Clodius Pulcher, a blue blooded gangster whose squad of thugs have a reputation for violence to chill the blood.   Clodius has political ambitions and has become an enemy of Caesar and is using pressure on his wife' s familly to make Paetus, the Camp Prefect, send information back to Rome.   This plot is discovered  and Caesar is ready to crucify Paetus when Fronto suggests that instead he should be used to send Clodius misleading information.   Paetus agrees to this when Caesar says he will use his familly bodyguards in Rome to protect his wife and children, however, he does no such thing and they are murdered on the orders of Clodius.

This incident is all too typical of Caeasar's attitude to the lives of others, his own men included, and only their background of military discipline and concern for their own famillies keep Fronto and his band of horny handed veterans loyal to their General.

This has been another enjoyable trip through Roman history with brilliant action scenes and well drawn believable characters.   Roll on book three.

Passenger 13 by Scott Mariani

Scott Mariani has written a series of novels featuring an ex-SAS officer named Ben Hope.   Hope has set himself up as some kind of private eye come Mr Fixit and this book, available only in e-book format is the prequel.

Major Hope is recuperating from a gun shot wound received during an operation in Afghanistan.   He attends the funeral of an old comrade-in-arms who has committed suicide by crashing the plane he was piloting taking eleven other passengers and crew with him.   His daughter is sure that he has been murdered and asks for help.   As she has very little evidence that he can go on, not to mention the wound he was carrying, Hope is reluctant to get involved.   The young lady runs off in a huff and is mown down by a van whose driver gets out and checks her pulse then drives off.   The van has no number plate which leads Hope to the conclusion that something is up.   No fool our Major Hope!   He flies to the Cayman Islands where he indulges in multiple mayhem until finaly sorting out the villains who unfortunately happen to be Senior Intelligence Officers.   It comes as no surprise that his resignation is accepted.

Mr Mariani has written a first class bash-crash page turner of a thriller and if this is the prequel I shall be on the lookout for the subsequent books.

Scorpions Nest by MJ Trow

Another of the excellent series of historical thrillers featuring the playwright Christopher Marlowe in his guise of agent for Sir Francis Walsingham.

Marlowe is despatched to Rheims where the Catholic Church has founded the English College as a seminary for exiled English priests.   Walsingham suspects that this is where Mathew Baxter, the only surviving member of the Babington plot, may be found.   Using the name Robert Greene, his rival at Cambridge, Marlowe infiltrates the College but finds himself faced by a series of murders that have taken place there.   In order to discover the whereabouts of Baxter Marlowe finds himself investigating the murders.   He is assisted by Solomon Aldred, a Walsingham agent masquerading as a wine merchant, who has been established in the town and supplies the College which enables him to gain contact with Dr Allen the Principal and Dr Skelton his deputy.   Walsingham also sends Thomas Phellipes, his code breaker, accompanied by Professor Michael Johns, late of Corpus Christi, and a former tutor of Marlowe.   With no one at the College appearing in their true identity and the body count rising Marlowe finds himself indeed in a "Nest of Scorpions".

These Marlowe stories are Trow's best since the outstanding Lestrade series.   Hopefully more to come.

The Last Caesar by Henry Venmore-Rowland

Set in the time known as the "Year of the Four Emperors" Venmore-Rowland has written a very lively novel of political intrigue and life threatening action.

Aulus Caecina Severus has completed his necessary time with the Legions serving with distinction in Britania during the Boudica revolt.   His next step on the Cursus Honorum is to serve as Quaestor in Hispania Baetica which he looks forward to as a quiet and lucrative term of duty before returning to Rome for the next step on the road to the Senate.   However, hardly had he settled in to his new post when he is sent for by Servius Sulpicius Galba, a former Consul, and Govenor of Hispania Terraconensis.   When he arrives Galba tells him that he is going to lead a rebellion against the despised Emperor Nero and he wants Severus to go to Gaul and supervise a fake uprising which will be used by Galba's supporters in Rome to undermine Nero.   Severus sets off but finds the planned uprising a shambles and the leader incompetant.   Security is non-existant and it seems that the secret plans are common knowledge leading to the Rhine Legions moving south to counter an uprising that was never more than a sham.   The upshot of this is that despite his frantic manoevering he ends up leading a Gaulish war party in an attack on Roman Legions with hundreds killed in the process.   Somehow he manages to talk his way out of this and, Nero having commited suicide and Galba being proclaimed Emperor, he is appointed Legate of the Legion Four Macedonica an unprecedented promotion at his age of just twentynine.

Unfortunately Severus' dream of seeing out his four years in command of the quiet Rhine frontier before returning to Rome for another plum job are shattered by the growing paranoia of Galba.   Since attaining the throne he has grown more and more suspicious of everyone around him and especialy those who helped him in his conspiracy.   He orders Severus back to Rome to face a charge of corruption which Severus knows can only end one way.   Galba's behaviour is now causing grave misgivings amongst the officers of all the Legions and some are now pushing for the Govenor of Germania, Vittelius, to seize the purple.   Severus now throws in his lot with this new conspiracy.

Thus endeth the first episode in the saga of Severus.   As this book is based on historical records and the details of real people and their actions the old phrase "you couldn't make it up" comes to mind!

A Soldier Erect by Brian Aldiss

Brian Aldiss made his name as a writer of science fiction but in the nineteen seventies struck out with a trio of comedy/erotic novels of which this is the second volume.   In the first volume "A Hand Reared Boy"  the "hero" Horatio Stubbs is introduced in all his sweaty desparation to encounter sexual experience.   He runs away from home to London in the hope of finding more opportunity for sex in the wicked city but ends up signing on as a regular soldier.   Another act of desparation.

This volume is set in 1944 and Horatio is a wireless operator with the Royal Mendips sent by ship to join the Fourteenth Army in India.   His unit is designated for training and acclimatisation prior to being sent to Burma to confront the Japanese.   This comprises the long central section of the book as Aldiss gives a wonderful account of the boredom inducing routine enlivened by expeditions into nearby towns in a hunt for beer and women.   The beer is easily come by but in India the squaddies only hope of female company is in the brothels all of which are out-of-bounds to British Other Ranks.   This, of course, does not deter Horatio and he takes every oportunity to risk either disease or arrest or both.   One thing is clear and that is the unsatisfactory nature of these couplings.   Horatio satisfies his lust but never finds the love that his romantic nature craves.

The final part of the book is a marvellous description of the relief of Kohima with Horatio and his mates slogging through miles of muddy jungle lacking food water and sleep until they finally acheive their objective and the Japanese begin to retreat.   As one character points out if the Japanese had simply bypassed Kohima the Fouteenth Army would have been unable to prevent them from driving right into India.  

This is an excellent and entertaining depiction of men in war and either Aldis actualy served in this campaign or he is a much better writer than he is given credit for.   Or possibly both!

The Orchard of Tears by Sax Rohmer

Sax Rohmer is famous for creating one of the outstanding villains of early twentieth century fiction, Dr Fu Manchu.   However, although "The Orchard of Tears" sounds like a perfect title for one of the evil Doctor's vile plots it is instead - well what - I am still pondering this.
The book, set in the First World War, concerns a captain in the Irish Guards whose life is saved by a sergeant and who then in turn brings back the dying sergeant under fire losing a leg and winning a VC in the process.   A wealthy man he determines to provide for the sergeant's widow and daughter and travels to the rural village where they live.   There he discovers that the cottage where they live is on the estate of a friend of his, a famous writer, and that the daughter is not only very attractive but posessed of great artistic talent.   He arranges for her to attend art school in London whilst at the same time persuading his writer friend to start a new philosophical/religious movement.   He falls in love with the girl but, this being before the Beatles, he does nothing about it and gets killed on the Western Front.   The writer publishes the book outlining the new philosophy to great acclaim and ends up with the girl.
This all sounds frightfully vague, not to mention implausible, but, of course, this book is almost one hundred years old, it was first published in 1918, and reflects very different cultural standards.   The important thing is that it was well enough written to keep me reading up to the end and provides the modern reader with a fascinating insight into the attitudes of our forebears.
It is available to download free from Project Gutenberg.

The Forbidden by F.R. Tallis

A novel of demonic possession is unusual in these days of contemptuous dismissal of anything pertaining to the supernatural and it is brave of Frank Tallis to attempt it.   In less skilled hands it could have been a crude shocker but Tallis writes with subtlety and intelligence and uses extensive research to produce a vastly entertaining story.
In 1872 Paul Clement, a young doctor, travels to Saint Sebastien an island in the French Antilles to practice at a mission station.   He is befriended by Doctor Tavernier who has worked on the island for many years and become an expert on tropical diseases.   Tavernier has also immersed himself in the culture of the island and one day informs Clement that a relative of his manservant has been turned into a zombie.   On Clement rejecting such a suggestion he takes him to a ceremony where the unfortunate man is killed by the local Bokor or witch doctor.   Returning from this gruesome ceremony Clement is accosted by the Bokor who says that he will send his soul to Hell if he reveals what he has seen.
Clement returns to Paris where he is fortunate to be taken on as an assistant to Guillaume Duchene a leading experimental physiologist and a pioneer of using electric shocks to re-start the heart.   Duchene notes that several of the patients who have been brought back from a state of clinical death report that their soul left their body and journeyed to a place of light wherein they felt a great feeling of peace.
A former pupil of Duchene, Jean-Martin Charcot, is head of the Salpetriere hospital and working on "hysteria" as mental illness was then described and is also interested in "out of body" experiences.   Clement takes a post under him and one night persuades a colleague to take him to the point of death with anasthetic and then revive him using electric shocks.   Whilst clinicaly dead Clements soul does leave his body but not to a place of peace and light but to the very depths of Hell.   Returning to conciousness Clement reveals nothing of his experience but from then on he is haunted by what he has seen.   Shortly afterwards he is introduced to, and falls in love with, Therese the wife of a senior colleague and begins a torrid affair.
This affair which began as an expression of love degenerates into violence and depravity as Clement is taken further under the influence of the demon who has followed him from Hell.   Clement has introduced Therese to morphine and this added to the violence Clement inflicts on her undermines her health although her husband appears not to notice.   During this time Clement has made the acquaintance of Bazille, a pious man who is bellringer at the Church of Saint Sulpice.   Bazille makes it clear that he is concerned for the health, mental and physical, of Clement and eventualy persuades him to meet Father Ranier an exorcist.   Clement takes part in an exorcism during which Father Ranier is killed but the demon is captured and imprisoned in a sphere of crystal whose safekeeping is to be Clement's lifelong responsibility.   He decides to leave Paris and takes a position as household doctor to a wealthy familly in the south but the demon has not given up and it will take another exorcism before Clement is free.
This is a stunning novel full of pace and invention and despite it's fantastical theme this reader  never felt that his leg was being pulled beyond endurance.   Frank Tallis is an excellent writer as his "Vienna" novels have shown and maintains his standard in this change of genre.

The Nesferatu Scroll by James Becker

James Becker takes us back to the good old glory days of Hammer Films with this story of modern day vampires.   This is not a complaint, I loved those films - still do!   Becker has skilfully blended the vampire legend into a hunt for a serial killer set against the background of the romantic city of Venice.
Angela Lewis, a curator of pottery at the British Museum is on holiday in Venice with her husband Chris Bronson a detective with the Metropolitan Police.   During a trip to Isola di San Michele, the cemetary of Venice, they discover a vandalised tomb from which Angela is convinced that the occupant was thought to be a vampire.   Whilst taking photographs of the tomb she discovers a small book which she takes back to their hotel.   At the same time the police arrive as the body of a young woman has been found on the island.   Returning to the island later Chris and Angela discover three more bodies of young women in another broken tomb and only Chris Bronson's fluent Italian and his Met warrant card keep them out of custody.   At the same time more young women are being abducted from the streets of Venice and taken to an island in the Lagoon by a secret society who believe that they can gain supernatural powers by becoming vampires but when they kidnap Angela Bronson is soon on their case and shows his own supernatural powers.
This is just the thing for a lazy afternoon or yet another hold up at the airport.

Witch Hammer by M.J.Trow

I first started reading Trow when he was writing the excelent series featuring the Sherlockian character Inspector Lestrade.   These books were remarkable not only for the sense of place and good plots that are essential for a Holmes pastiche but for the dry wit that gave them a style of their own.

The Holmes revival ceased when the EU suddenly extended post mortem copyright to seventy years from fifty and Trow began a series of novels featuring a schoolmaster named Maxwell.   I must admit that I never took to Maxwell.

Trow has now begun a new series featuring the playwright Christopher Marlow who, had he lived to write more, would in my opinion have equalled or even exceeded the reputation of William Shakespeare.

Witch Hammer is the third in this series and finds Marlow, having left Cambridge, determined to make his name as a playwright and to avoid further entanglements with Walsingham and his spy ring.   On the road to London he meets the company of players known as Lord Strange's Men.   Lord Strange, the wealthy son of the Earl of Derby is accompnaying them to a performance at the home of Sir William Clopton near Stratford on Avon.   The Manor of Stratford is owned by Sir Edward Greville who has his eye on the Clopton estate and intends to take them by force on the grounds that Clopton is a Catholic.

Any firther description of the book would become a "spoiler" and so I will simply recommend it to anyone who likes a good historical thriller.

Sanctus by Simon Toyne

In Sanctus Simon Toyne takes us into Dan Brown country with a secretive religious order protec ting a secret in a hollowed out mountain in southern Turkey.   Supposedly the founding group from which the Roman Catholic Church has sprung their purpose is to guard "The Sacrement".   Exactly how a group that was founded several thousand years BC is related to the RC Church is never satisfactorily explained but as the Vatican has become the conspiracy novelists villain-of-choice since the KGB was re-branded I suppose we have to put up with it.
The story opens when a member of the inner circle of the order goes rogue and throws himself from the top of the mountain stronghold into the laps of a group of tourists in full view of the TV cameras.   The order are unable to prevent the Turkish Police from taking away the body but use their considerable influence to frustrate any enquiry.   Naturaly the Abbot, CEO of the order, has a squad of ex-soldiers on hand when he deems some of the rough stuff is necessary.   Unknown to the Order the dead monk has a sister in the USA who is a journalist and she is soon on her way to Turkey to claim her brothers body and find out why he died.   At the same time there is another group, headed by an ex monk who managed to leave the Order and stay hidden, who are also after the corpse in order to fulfill an ancient prophecy.   Yes, another one of those!
I hope that I am not sounding too dismissive of this book as, of it's kind, it is very well written and I enjoyed it bearing in mind the necessity of disbelief suspension.   I think that my problem is that over decades of reading my disbelief has been suspended so often that it is now in the region of the International Space Station.   Never mind,  one does get a wonderful view from up here.

Flashman on the March by George Macdonald Fraser

Volume twelve of the fictitious memoirs of Sir Harry Paget Flashman VC is as funny, bawdy and gloriously politicaly incorrect as the preceeding eleven.   Fraser's magnificent creation continues to reveal the truth behind his gilded reputation as a hero of Victorian England in that cynicaly droll style that makes this series of books a joy.
Flashman is desparate to get out of Trieste to avoid a squad of Prussian hardmen looking to administer retribution for his seducing a young noblewoman.   His old schoolfriend Speedicut, now a diplomat, asks him to convey half a million Maria Teresa dollars to Abyssinia to pay the army of Sir Robert Napier who is there to rescue British citizens held captive by the Emperor Theodore.   On arrival at Napier's camp instead of the fare back to England that Speedicut promised he finds himself recruited for a foray behind enemy lines.   Napier needs someone to travel to the south of the country to meet the Queen of the ferocious Gala tribe and persuade her to block Theodore's line of retreat.   His guide is to be the illegitimate half sister of the Queen, a beautiful young woman who is very soon sharing Flashman's blankets.   This, of course, does not prevent our hero leaving her to drown when it comes to saving his own neck.    The Queen of the Gala also proves suceptible to Flashman's charms but on the point of getting her agreement he is kidnapped by her sister who has survived the river.   She is on the point of revenging herself in a most painful manner when Theodore himself turns up with a squad of Amazons and Flashy is saved again.
Fraser's description of the battle of Magdala and Napier's victory against what should have been overwhelming odds reveals that not only is he an excellent writer but that the depth of his research would do credit to a professional historian.
Anyone who is of a mind to indulge in Flashman's adventures, that is anyone who enjoys a good chuckle, would be advised to start with volume one entitled simply "Flashman".   All of the series are still in print and if there is any justice writing of this quality will be in print for some time to come.

Tyran: Destroyer of Cities by Christian Cameron

There are currently many writers of historical novels who can put together a story which holds the attention with exciting battle scenes and heroes contrived into, and out of, perilous situations but there are a few who can take the genre to a higher plane and Christian Cameron is one of the select.  

Destroyer of Cities is the fourth volume of the Tyrant series which is set in the devastating period following the death of Alexander when his generals fought like rats in a sack to take over his empire.   There are two main contenders when this novel opens, Ptolemy who controls Egypt and Antigonus One-Eye who is master of Asia.   Athens is allied to Antigonus though most of Greece is controlled by Casander and the Greek islands- Cyprus, Crete and Rhodes- are, as they say, up for grabs.   Ptolemy has troops on Cyprus but both sides are determined to take Rhodes a center of the all important grain trade.   This is where Cameron's hero, Satyrus King of the Bosporus, comes in for his kingdom depends on the sale of grain and as Antigonus already controls Athens, one of the main grain markets, for him to have Rhodes as well would leave Satyrus having to take any price Antigonus cared to offer.  

Demetrios, son of Antigonus, at the head of a huge army is already threatening Rhodes and so Satyrus leads his grain fleet into Rhodes harbour and sells to the "boule" as the ruling council is known.   The boule is divided by factions, the oligarchs who want to do a deal with Antigonus and the others who want to preserve their independance.   Panther, admiral of the Rhodian fleet, is of the latter faction and asks Satyrus to stay and help organise the defence.   The oligarchs manage to get a delegation to Demetrios to negotiate surrender but he is not interested as he sees himself as the new Alexander and wants to conquer Rhodes to prove the point.   Against all the odds the Rhodians commanded by Satyrus hold out until Demetrios has to pull back and although a face saving formula is worked out he has suffered a setback that will mean that his dream of conquering Egypt is over.

Christian Cameron brings to his novels a wealth of research and blends it unobtrusively into a narrative peopled with characters who draw the reader into their story.

The Lion's World by Rowan Williams

For a middle aged lecturer in English Literature to write a series of childrens novels set in a fantasy land would seem to be a pretty harmless thing to do but the reaction to the Narnia Chronicles of C.S.Lewis is both startling and revealing.   Startling in the ferocity of the attacks on both the work and the writer and revealing in that this ferocity is directly related to the perceived success that the books are supposed to have in putting across a Christian message to young people.   Despite the current opinion that religion in general and Christianity in particular are not to be taken seriously the books continue to sell and the attacks continue with unremiting venom long after Lewis' death.

A defence of Lewis and his Narnia Chronicles was long overdue and no one is better qualified to put it forward than the former Archbishop of Canterbury now Master of Magdalene College Cambridge.   I do not intend to summarise Williams' arguments as often summarys are misconstrued or miss the point altogether but rather to urge the reading of this short but excellent book.

The Colours of Space by Marion Zimmer Bradley

On Kindle via Project Gutenberg

This is one of the good old fashioned science fiction stories from the days before SF writers thought that they had to be fantasists/philosophers.   It has spaceships and aliens and super warp drives all the things that we expected in a space adventure when I was a lad.   True it also has the "if only we all knew one another better we would all live together in peace" line that was standard practice back in the fifties and no we did not believe it then either.
Many centuries in the future man has travelled to other solar systems and colonised them but with great difficulty constrained as they are by Einsteins dictum that nothing can travel faster than light but then a new species from another galaxy turn up who have mastered the warp drive.   These people, the Lharis, keep the secret of warp drive to themselves and corner the market in interstellar travel but a group of humans are determined to penetrate their security and learn the secret.   One young man is subjected to radical surgery to enable him to pass as a Lhari and take a position on a star ship.   During the voyage he cracks the secret and learns to love the Lharis and they all live happily ever after.
Well, that is the kind of SF that was the regular diet of my youth and this story provided a pleasant few hours of nostalgia.

Marius Mules Book One The Invasion of Gaul by S.J.A. Turney

This is the first of a series of novels based on the subjugation of Gaul by the Roman Legions under the command of Julius Caesar.   The first volume covers the campaign against the Helvetii and Caesar's pursuit of them into the west and the territory of major Gaulish tribes that are nominally at peace with Rome.
Turney makes his opinion of the Divine Julius quite clear, he is not a great general but a politician on the make and if that requires provoking the Gauls into a war with all the suffering that entails he is ready to do it.   He also appears indifferent to the losses inflicted on his own men which conflicts with much of the later legend that was built around him.
Other writers of Roman adventures set their stories among the lower ranks but Turney's main characters are the senior officers on Caesar's staff, not that they are averse to getting in the thick of the action if needed.   Turney is very good at showing the pressure under which those responsible for the conduct of the battles labour and the way that politics can intrude even when men are fighting for their lives.
Turney's main character, Fronto, is Legate of the Ninth Legion.   A bluff professional soldier he has turned his back on the prospect of political office that his senatorial familly expected of him which is why he has no illusions about Caesar.   His fellow officers are all rounded characters well drawn and believable with the hard drinking cynical attitudes that soldiers affect to get through the dangerous bits.   The action scenes, of which there are plenty, are well written as are the descriptions of the difficulties of getting large numbers of men into action in place and on time.  
I enjoyed this book so much that I have bought the three following volumes.   All I need now is the time to read them.

The Sky's Dark Labyrith by Stuart Clark

In the sixteenth century the Church of Rome was riven by the theological schism known as the Reformation.   Taken aback at first the Church lost ground to the Lutherans especialy in northern Europe but towards the end of the century it began a fight back lead by a group of intellectual priests known as the Jesuits.   The Jesuits were determined to take on the Protestants not only in theology but also in art, music and natural philosophy or science as it is now known.   At this time astronomy was dominated by the ancient theories of Aristotle and Ptolemy who said that the universe was static and unchanging, a theory that theologians of all churches felt fitted in with the teachings of the Bible.   Anyone, such as Copernicus, who suggested that the stars and planets moved or that the earth was not the centre of the universe was likely to be accused of heresy which often lead to a painful death.

At the end of the sixteenth century a Danish nobleman, Tycho Brahe, was appointed Mathematician to the Holy Roman Emperor and used his position to make the most accurate observations of the stars to that date.   Despite being employed by a Catholic monarch he took as one of his assistants a Lutheran mathematician Johannes Kepler.   Kepler used his mathematics to prove from Brahe's observations that the planets were moving and that the sun was the static object not the earth.   At the same time the Vatican's astronomer Galileo came to the same conclusion.   As on so many other subjects science and theology were in conflict and Galileo was prevailed upon to recant.

The end of the sixteenth century saw the application of mathematics and geometry to astronomy with Brahe commisioning the manufacture of instruments that enabled the most accurate measurements of the motions of heavenly bodies that had ever been acheived.   Galileo supplemented these observations with his own using a telescope for the first time and despite opposition from theologians, Protestant as well as Catholic, the Aristotelian concept of the universe as static was doomed.   Clark also makes it clear that Galileo was neither imprisoned or tortured as many Protestant and Marxist writers have averred in their desire to blacken the reputation of the Catholic Church.

All in all a very entertaining and informative read.

Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas

On Kindle via Project Gutenberg

This is the sequel to "The Three Musketeers" and in my opinion is a more enjoyable book.   All the quartet from the previous novel are reintroduced this time to cope with the machinations of Cardinal Mazarin, an Italian of such reprehensible character as to make them long for the good old days of Cardinal Richelieu.
Anne of Austria, the Queen Mother, is Regent for King Louis the Fourteenth and is very much under the influence of Mazarin which causes a group of nobles to form an opposition party known as the Fronde.   D'Artagnan as a lieutenant in the Musketeers must support the Queen which also means Mazarin whilst Athos and Aramis are with the Fronde. Porthos is persuaded to join D'Artagnan though neither are keen to support anything to do with Mazarin. Into the plot comes a young man who is the son of the infamous Lady de Winter who was executed at the behest of the Musketeers in the previous novel.   Needless to say this young man is bent on vengeance and contrives to cause the quartet a heap of trouble before he is overcome.
Twenty Years After is an excellent book that I had intended to read for years but never got round to and I can thank a dose of the 'flu for finaly bringing me to settle down to it.
As the saying goes they don't write them like that any more which is all the more reason to cherish them now.

Come like shadows by Simon Raven

Out of print and picked up in a secondhand bookshop - yes there are still a few.

Twenty years ago I discovered Simon Raven and read every one of his books that I could get my hands on.    Unfortunately this was a difficult prospect even then as, like many quality writers, one edition was all that his publisher would risk.   It is still possible to come across a volume in one of the increasingly rare secondhand shops, charity shops are only interested in recently printed mass market stuff.  
"Come like shadows" is one of a series of novels that Raven entitled "Alms for Oblivion" and wove stories around a range of exotic characters.
This novel concerns Fielding Grey, a novelist ex soldier, who is hired by an American film company to work on a script based on The Odyssey.   He travels to Corfu where the film is to be shot and all is well until a team of academics from the University, one of whose trust funds is putting up the money for the film, arrive to check on progress.   They reveal that the University had been taken over by the students, this being the early seventies, who were incensed that Homer only wrote about Kings and warriors and were demanding that working class characters be introduced.   The students insist that one of the actresses, a Vanessa Redgrave type, be given supervision of the script and the producer gives Grey the job of ensuring that her intervention causes least possible harm.  
This, like all Raven novels, is excellent.   His subtle prose brings acceptability to highly coloured characters and situations and wafts the reader along like a Rolls Royce limo and produces the same feeling of being somehow introduced to a higher plane.

The Killing Way by Anthony Hays

Set at the Court of King Arthur this story owes more to Ellis Peters than Thomas Mallory.

Ambrosius the High King of the Britons has called a meeting of his Lords to select his successor.   It is well known that he favours Arthur his most competant general but on the eve of the meeting a young girl is found murdered outside the hut of Merlin, Arthur's friend and counsellor.   That this is intended to blacken Arthur's reputation and sabotage his election is obvious to him and so he asks Malgyn a crippled ex soldier to investigate.

Like the late Ellis Peters Anthony Hays prose style tends to stroll rather than race to it's conclusion but nonetheless this is an entertaining read.

The Istanbul Puzzle by Laurence O'Bryan

Starting out as a Dan Brownish search for ancient artefacts it then turns into a conspiracy thriller concerning a lethal virus.   By the end I was unsure who was supposed to be doing what to whom and why and I cannot help the feeling that Mr O'Bryan was as much in the dark as I was.

London is being torn apart by Muslim demonstrators following a police raid on a mosque.   Sean Ryan, an American working in Oxford, learns that a collegue has been murdered in Istanbul and flies there to investigate where he is instantly targeted by assassins.   Rescued by Isabel Sharp from the British Embassy (the love interest) they survive numerous adventures before the climax in London.

I cannot escape the feeling that Mr O'Bryan originaly intended this to be about a Muslim plot to take over Britain until someone (his publisher?) decided that it was too much of a risk to go ahead.   The result is that the reader is left with a conspiracy without a satisfactory explanation for it's existance.

Newton's Fire by Will Adams

 Will Adams has a well deserved reputation for fast paced, all action global conspiracy thrillers usualy combined with well researched links to historical events.   Newton's Fire is a fine example of this genre and kept this reader turning the pages and compensated for being trapped indoors with a terrible cold and even worse weather.
Luke Hayward is a Newton expert who is contracted to find some missing manuscripts.   Little does he know that he is on the fringes of a world wide conspiracy that includes big business, the Vice President of the United States and a group of extreme Zionists in Israel.   The idea is that the Zionists would destroy the mosque known as the Dome of the Rock and start an all out war with Israel's Arab neighbours.   The Vice President is a member of an extreme evangelical church who believe that such a conflict would presage the second coming of Christ and so she puts all the resources of the American secret service at the conspirators disposal.   Hayward and a handful of friends manage to frustrate this terrifying prospect and the best part is that the book is so good that by this time I has forgotten how prepostorous the whole thing was and happily rolled along to the death defying conclusion.
Just one more thing (as Columbo might say) chapter twelve contains one of the best descriptions of our so-called Special Relationship with the USA that I have ever read.   Worth the price of the book for this alone!

The Chosen Seed by Sarah Pinborough

This is the final volume of the "Dog Faced Gods" trilogy and it is a fitting climax to a remarkable series.   Pinborough is not the first writer to attempt to combine the supernatural with a police thriller but I cannot think of anyone who has done it better.
Although the book can be read alone the reader will only fully appreciate the story if having read the previous two volumes - "A Matter of Blood" and "The Shadow of the Soul".   With this in mind it is very difficult to give a summary of the plot without effectively spoiling it for the reader therefore I will refrain.   All I will say is that I recommend obtaining all three volumes and then settling down to one of the most entertaining reading experiences it is possible to get.

                                                            ENJOY!

Silk Road by Colin Falconer

At the end of the Crusading era the Christian kingdoms of Palestine are clinging on by their finger tips despite the fact that they have managed to arrive at some sort of compromise with many Muslim rulers based on commercial expediency.   Suddenly the Tatar hordes of the sons of Genghis Khan explode into the area destroying the centuries old civilisations of the Euphrates valley as they go.   The Grand Master of the Templars decides to contact them to see if a pact can be arranged against their mutual enemy the Saracens and sends a French knight, Joseran, as his emissary.   The Pope decides to send a Dominican Friar, William of Augsberg, as a missionary to spread the Gospel amongst the Tatars and Joseran is made reponsible for his safety, not an easy task as William's fanaticism leads them into otherwise avoidable dangers which task Joseran's wit and courage to the limit to recue them.   The Tatar leader at Aleppo sends them on to the Court of the Great Khan north of modern Beijing, an immense journey over freezing mountains and baking deserts.   On the way Joseran meets and falls in love with Khutelun, daughter of a Tatar Khan, which leads to more trouble and then when they arrive near the Tatar capital a civil war breaks out.   Sometimes you just know that the whole mission was a mistake!
Don't get me wrong this is a rip-roaring adventure story well researched and well written that will be enjoyed by male readers and quite a few female readers too.

Warlord by James Steel

Despite being blest with fertile soils, ample rain and plenteous mineral wealth the Democratic Republic of Congo is a poverty stricken shambles.   Under the corrupt reign of President Mobutu life for the ordinary citizen was hell on earth, their property and their bodies at the mercy of anyone with a gun and a uniform.   For the people of Kivu Province the situation was made worse when thousands of Hutu militia from Rwanda crossed the border fleeing retribution for their massacre of Tutsi tribesmen.   The central government, barely in control of the western half of the country, virtualy wrote off Kivu and left it to the rival militias.   However, the province had huge mineral wealth including the rare earths so badly needed for modern electronics and so a group of Chinese businessmen came up with a revolutionary solution, they would lease the province from the central government.

Alex Devereaux heads a military solution company (they don't like being called mercenaries these days) and having just finished a lucrative job is looking forward to a long period of rest and recreation when a Chinese businessman, Wu Fang, arrives to offer him a contract to supply a battalion of fighting men to provide the security in the new state of Kivu which the Chinese are setting out to create.   Wu Fang and his partners are putting up six billion dollars for infrastructure projects and to put mining in the province on a sound commercial footing but without Alex establishing law and order it will all be in vain.   The Chinese have a local politician called Rukuba to front the operation and Alex, intrigued by the sheer scale of the plan agrees to set up the security.   Needless to say that although Alex and his experienced professionals make mincemeat of the amateur thugs of the militias there are other forces at work that will bring the operation to a halt.

As readers of my blog will have noticed I am an historical novel fan and very rarely read a book set in the present day but I am very glad that I took the time to read Warlord.   The majority of the book is taken up with descriptions of the planning and execution of the military operations against the militias and what excellent descriptions they are.   Is James Steel an ex-soldier?   I think that he must be as he takes the reader through the intricate details of setting up the operations and coping with the interferance of politicians, journalists and NGOs all of whom have their own agendas.   This book kept me up until the early hours as I just could not put it down!   Highly recommended!

The Eagle of the Twelfth by M.C. Scott

This is the third in a series of novels telling of the career of Pantera, by appointment spy and assassin to the Emperor Nero.
The novel opens as Pantera has been sent to Parthia disguised as a merchant and accompanied by two soldiers he has picked  from the Legion Fifth Macedonica, Cadus a centurion and Demalion a squadie with a knowledge of horses.   In Parthia the King Vologases has been overthrown by Vardanes  who, to consolidate his reign, was pushing for a war with Rome.   Pantera has been sent to effect regime change.   He does.
On their way back to rejoin General Corbolo Pantera reveals that he has been ordered to return to Britain but that Cadus and Demalion have been transferred to the Twelfth Fulminata a Legion with a terrible reputation.   To make matters worse the Twelfth has been removed from the command of General Corbolo and given to Gallas, a politician whose only concern is his own advancement.   Corbolo has struck a deal with the Parthians that no Romans would cross the Euphrates but Gallas promptly takes the Twelfth across which leads to them being virtualy wiped out.
Demalion, now a centurion, is one of the few survivors and is instrumental in rebuilding the Legion but no sooner have they accomplished this than they are put under the command of another incompetant and lead to anihilation in Judea and this time they face the shame of losing the Eagle.
During the battle who should turn up advising the Hebrew King but Pantera.   Has Nero's number one agent turned traitor or are the plots becoming deeper and darker?   Will Demalion and the one other survivor of the massacre be able to rescue the Eagle?   Will Pantera come to their rescue?
Manda Scott has written another ripping page- turning yarn about the era that I love and the best part is that the next volume in the series has just come out!

The Eye of Osiris by R. Austin Freeman

On Kindle via Project Gutenburg

I have always enjoyed detective stories set in the Victorian and Edwardian eras written by modern authors and it is interesting to contrast their style with the authors who began and developed the genre.   Such a one was R. Austin Freeman whose main work was published in the first three decades of the twentieth century and acheived great popularity.   His detective, Dr John Thorndyke, was both a doctor of medicine and a barrister and his cerebral approach to detection lead to his being classed as a "rival to Sherlock Holmes".   Like Holmes his cases are always narrated by a third person and in "The Eye of Osiris" this is a medical practitioner, Dr Paul Berkley.
Berkley is acting as locum in a practice in Fetter Lane off Fleet Street and visits one Godfrey Bellingham, a gentleman in reduced circumstances.   Through Godfrey he learns of the mysterious disappearance of John Bellingham and how the lawyer, Jellicoe, who drew up and is executor of John's  will is attempting to have him declared dead and to exclude Godfrey from inheritance.   Berkley takes the case to Thorndyke, not least because he has become enamoured of Godfrey's daughter Ruth, and Thorndyke begins an investigation on his behalf.   When parts of a human skeleton are discovered in the area where John Bellingham was last seen it would appear that Jellicoe is home and dry but Thorndyke's ability to see past the obvious means that the truth is brought to light and that justice is done.
I found this a very enjoyable book with a good plot and the author playing fair by presenting all the clues to the reader.   Some modern readers may, however, be put off by the writing style.   Like all writers of his era Freeman is very wordy.   I think that this can be partly put down to the elaborate manners and courtesies of the age which would not tolerate the terse conversations which are found in modern novels also that those who could afford to buy and read books then would appear to have had a higher standard of literacy than is found today.   As this can be downloaded free from Project Gutenberg I would recommend any lover of detective stories to give it a try.

The Final Winter by Iain Rob Wright

From Kindle

This is a very fair example of the novel of the supernatural, which is not my favourite genre as they are often very similar and strain to produce the thrills.   Wright, however, has managed to produce something rather more original than the usual run.
The whole world is being smothered in a blanket of snow, even the tropics and the deserts crouch under arctic blizzards.   In a pub called The Trumpet (this must be in the West Midlands) the main character Harry watches the reports on the bar TV until the signal finally fails.   Keeping him company as he tries to drown the grief of losing his wife and son to a traffic accident are Steph the barmaid, old Graham an ex soldier, Nigel a lorry driver and Damian the local gangster.   As the power is cut off and the snow falls relentlessly they are joined by the staff of the local supermarket who report seeing creatures so frightening that they are disbelieved by the others until events prove their veracity.  
Further description of the plot would merely spoil a good few hours read for anyone ready to take a chance on an unknown writer.

The Breath of God by Guy Adams

The Breath of God I am pleased to report is a Sherlock Holmes pastiche and not a parody.   Adams introduces the supernatural into the story and although this could have looked out of place I feel that in the light of Conan Doyle's later adherance to Spiritualism this is not so.
The story opens with young man-about-town Hilary de Montfort running for his life through the streets of Mayfair until being found dead in Grosvenor Square.   Sherlock Holmes is brought into the case by "psychic doctor" Dr John Silence (a creation of Algernon Blackwood) who pursuades Holmes to travel with him to Scotland to meet Aleister Crowley.   On the train they are joined by supernatural investigator Thomas Carnacki (a creation of William Hope Hodgson) who, with Dr John Watson, fights off a supernatural attack.   At Crowley's manor of Boleskine they are joined by Julian Karswell (a creation of M.R.James) and together they fight off a massive supernatural attack in a scene reminiscent of Dennis Wheatley's The Devil Rides Out.   Crowley, by the way, actualy existed.   He was a member of a group called The Golden Dawn who fancied themselves as Magicians and indulged in all kinds of fancy rituals.   Crowley was also a dedicated self-publicist and was no doubt delighted when the Daily Express called him "The Wickedest Man in the World".  
Altogether I found this an excellent addition to the "New Sherlock Holmes" genre, a thoroughly enjoyable read.

The Churchill Memorandum by Sean Gabb

 From Kindle only

I am not normaly a fan of alternative history fiction but as Sean Gabb has written such excellent historical novels under his other guise as Richard Blake I gave it a try and am so pleased that I did.

The Churchill Memorandum is set in 1959, but not as we know it as Mr Spock might say.   The 1914-18 war has taken place as has the Russian revolution and Hitler and the Nazi Party took power in Germany but America has retreated into isolation under a puritan dictator.   Britain still has the Empire and the good fortune to keep Churchill out of Downing Street, Lord Halifax has suceeded Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister whilst Harold Macmillan is Foreign Secretary and Edward Heath is Home Secretary.   Enoch Powell is at the India Office.   In the mid Thirties Hitler is killed in a motor accident, Goering takes his place and cuts a deal with the Jews thus Germany and not America becomes the sponsor of the Jewish State in the Middle East.   Churchill writes his memorandum following a series of meetings between Halifax and Goering where they combine to keep Russia coralled between Germany in the West and Japan in the East whist America will be encouraged to remain in isolation.  
Anthony Markham is an historian struggling to create a niche for himself as an expert on Churchill and retrieves pages of the Memorandum on a trip to America.   At New York airport he encounters a Major Stanhope who forces his company on him through assisting Markham witha problem with airport officials.   Back in England his neighbour, Dr Pakeshi, rescues him from gunmen who force their way into his flat to get their hands on the Memorandum.   From then on Markham finds himself fleeing for his life befriended and/or beaten up by a range of characters until he finds himself a key player in a plot to overthrow the government.   Along the way he finds himself in and out of the the company of the likes of Harold Macmillan, Michael Foot now leader of the British Communist Party, Edward Heath, Kenneth Tynan, Roy Jenkins, Dennis Potter, Robin Day and Nicholas Kaldor.   Enoch Powell is described by Gabb as having a Midlands accent!   Not really Mr Gabb.
To get the best out of this book some knowledge of recent British history, both political and cultural, is a great advantage but even without that Sean Gabb has written a really enjoyable addition to the alternative history genre.   For what it is worth I recommend it.

Devoured by D.E. Meredith

I am in two minds about this book, on the one hand it is a nicely convoluted murder mystery on the other it travels the well marked path of vice-ridden aristocratic villains aided by corrupt coppers of which we have had more than sufficient of late.
The central characters are Professor Hatton and his morgue assistant Roumonde, pioneers of the new science of forensics.   They are called by Inspector Adams of Scotland Yard to the scene of the murder of Lady Bessingham, a society hostess who is also prominent as a patron of expeditions to discover new plant species.   Lady Bessingham is also no stranger to controversy where the new discoveries of science clash with the doctrines of established religion.   The crime appears to lack a motive until one of the young scientists, a naturalist, that she has sponsored reveals that a parcel of letters that he had sent to her is missing.   These letters detail the conversations that he had with another naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace revealing his revolutionary theories on evolution.   Lady Bessingham would have been prepared to publish these theories regardless of the public outcry that they would have caused.   Would preventing this publication give someone sufficient motive to commit murder?   Roumonde clashes with Inspector Adams over the investigation, or lack of one, of a young girl whose body has been brought in to the morgue having been found murdered in an East End alley.   This is where the aristocratic villains and corrupt coppers come in.   Adams, like most Scotland Yard detectives of the time moonlights as a private investigator.
Despite my moan about aristocratic villains (where there no middle or working class villains in Victorian London?) I enjoyed this book.   Mrs Meredith has constructed her plot well concealing one of her muderers effectively until the final chapters and including the requisite number of red herrings.   In addition she writes well and has done her research into the period which kept me turning the pages and, as one who reads solely for pleasure, that is all that one can ask.  

Legionary by Gordon Doherty

Downloaded from Kindle

As the title suggests this is an adventure story set in the Roman Empire but this time it is the Eastern Empire with it's capital in Constantinople.   The northern frontier is the river Danube and throughout it's length Gothic tribes are pressing to break through.   As if this were not bad enough the Empire is riven with religious controversy and the members of the Senate are more concerned with manoeuvering against one another for personal advantage than overseeing defences that are short of men and equipment.  
The leading character in this story is Pavo, a youth forced into slavery when his soldier father is killed on active service leaving his familly destitute.   Bought by a Senator, who is also a leading figure in the conspiracy against the Emperor, Pavo endures years of brutality until he is sent to the border to join Legion XI Claudia which, like the other units, is under strength and badly equiped.   At this point I must say that the device used to accomplish his move requires industrial strength suspension of disbelief.  
Despite it's weakness the Legion is ordered to take back the Kingdom of the Bosperus, now known as the Crimean Peninsula, which was lost to the Goths who are themselves under pressure from the Huns.   At the same time in Constantinople the Archbishop and some Senators are plotting to unseat the Emperor and are in contact with the Huns who they fondly believe can be used to effect this.   How they plan to control the Huns afterwards is not revealed but perhaps they had not thought that far ahead.   Needless to say Pavo and his mates in the Legion manage to surmount all the obstacles and inflict a defeat on the Huns.  
I have to say that in plotting, characterisation and narrative Doherty is a long way behind the likes of Simon Scarrow and Christian Cameron but nonetheless has produced a pacy "Boys Own" story that I was happy to read to the end which I would not have done if I was not enjoying it.

Hunter's Rage by Michael Arnold

On the front cover of Hunter's Rage there is a claim that Captain Stryker is "the Sharpe of the Civil War" and for once the publicity is matched by the product.   In Captain Innocent Stryker Michael Arnold has created a character that evinces credibility whilst pulling off  the requisite death-defying adventures.   One has the feeling that, like Sharpe, Stryker is patrolling Helmand Province at this moment so much does he have the feel of the dogged squadie who will battle to the end or die trying.  
In this, his third adventure, Stryker ambushes a squad of Parliamentary cavalry and makes off with the arms cache that they were guarding.   Colonel Wild their commander is determined to exact revenge and pursues Stryker and his men across Dartmoor.   Already hampered by the cartload of weaponry Stryker's troop then pick up a young woman whose coach has been attacked by brigands.   The woman, Cecily Cade, is sought by Parliamentary Intelligence for secrets that she holds bringing more danger down on Stryker and his men.   The book ends with the battle of Stratton, a real event, that is as incredible as any writer could invent.
What appeals to me about Arnold's series over and above the excellent plots and writing is that, unlike other writers covering this period, he does not try to be on both sides at once.  
Stryker is fighting for the King!

Sword and Scimitar by Simon Scarrow

There have been several novels based on the 1565 siege of Malta published during the past year.   I am not complaining about this as the siege was an epic of courage and endurance and deserves to be remembered.   I am pleased to say that in my opinion all the novels that I have read have done justice to the subject.   Simon Scarrow, resting his Legionary heroes Macro and Cato, weaves a story around the siege of love, jealousy, betrayal, redemption and courage with all the skill that we have come to expect from him.

Sir Thomas Barrett is a young English Catholic who has joined the Order of St John on the island of Malta and serves under Jean de la Valette on his galley as he raids the Moorish corsairs that prey on the coasts of Italy and Spain.   On one captured galley they discover Maria, a young Italian noblewoman who is being held for ransom.   Thomas and Maria fall in love and, as he has sworn a vow of chastity on joining the Order, he is expelled.   Twenty years later a messenger arrives at his home in England recalling him to duty.   De la Valette is now Grand Master and, being warned of Sultan Suleman's intention to attack Malta and wipe out the Order, he lifts Thomas's expulsion as he needs every knight to come to the Order's defence.   The messenger, however, has been observed by the spy network of Sir Robert Cecil and Thomas is summoned to London where he is questioned.   To his surprise Cecil is happy for him to go to Malta but only if he takes as his squire one of Walsingham's agents.   This agent has his own mission to perform on the island which he steadfastly refuses to disclose to Sir Thomas.  
This is just the opening couple of chapters after this Scarrow's skill with intricate plotting allied to his first class description of action scenes had this reader trapped as effectively as the knights within the walls of Malta.  
If I am allowed one small quibble it is that, like too many historical novelists today, Scarrow will insist on putting modern sentiments into the mouths of characters who would not dream of expressing them.    

Kingdom by Jack Hight

This is book two of a planned trilogy on the life of Saladin the Saracen general who is more highly regarded in the West than in the Middle East on account of his being Kurdish.   I have previously read Jack Hight's novel of the siege of Malta (called Siege would you believe?) and also the first of his Saladin books and enjoyed both of them so why did I put this one down after reading about a quarter?.   After some thought I have come to the conclusion that it is because Hight has been trying to be on both sides at once.   Now I fully understand that writing a book about conflict between Christians and Muslims in the Middle East can be a daunting task full of pitfalls these days but trying to ride two horses simultaneously has always been a recipe for displeasing both sides.   Perhaps others who have read this book will disagree ,  well that is alright.    Reading a book is always subjective and one man's meat etc etc.   I shall look out for the final volume of this trilogy and who knows I may change my mind.

The White Company by Arthur Conan Doyle

On Kindle via Project Gutenburg

It was for historical novels such as this that Doyle wished to be remembered rather than the detective who he tried in vain to kill.   I had read this when I was a boy and could not resist the chance to re-discover it and I am pleased to say that to me it stands the test of time.   The story concerns a young man who was put into a monastery as a boy with the proviso that he must leave on attaining his twentieth birthday and spend a year in the world at large before deciding to take the vows that would commit him to the monastery for life.   Returning to his familly home he is spurned by his brother and turned off the familly farm.   By chance he falls in with a group of soldiers who are heading for France to join the "White Company " under the command of a famous knight, Sir Nigel, and fight under the banner of the Black Prince.  
I enjoyed this book but perhaps not quite as much as when I read it so many years ago.   The dialogue was the main problem.   Written in the style that all authors of the nineteenth and early twentieth century used to convey "ancient speak", until it was taken to the point of self-parody by Jeffrey Farnol, the contrast with modern historical novelists was most marked.   However, this will not prevent me from reading the sequel, Sir Nigel, or any other of Conan Doyle's wonderful novels.

Requiem by Ken McClure

Ken McClure is the author of many medical based thrillers and Requiem, written way back in the nineties, is typical of his style.   The book opens as a prominent surgeon is operating to rectify a young woman's facial deformity however he dies before completing the operation.   His female assistant takes over but botches the job and the main thrust of the story concerns the lengths that the hospital will go to in covering it up.   In addition to this the main character,  a journalist called Kincaid, discovers that other patients are dying in circumstances where the expectation would be survival if not complete recovery.   This all turns out to be the work of a "Right Wing" conspiracy.   Why are all these fictional conspiracies "Right Wing"?   All my life all the conspiracies that have been uncovered have been "Left Wing",  the Cambridge Spies for example.   Could it be that all those revolting students from the Sixties are now senior executives of publishing houses and insist that their writers make any conspiracies "Right Wing"   I have read several of McClure's thrillers and they have all been entertaining enough for me to recommend them to others but he has made a great mistake in attempting to introduce politics into what should be merely an amusement.

Ellie Quin: Beneath the Neon Sky by Alex Scarrow

Available only on Kindle

In this third episode of Alex Scarrow's Ellie Quin saga the girls with their friend the shuttle pilot Aaron Goodman are trying to make enough money to leave for another planet by taking tourists to the Arctic.   Edward Mason the man who geneticaly engineered Ellie and who is supposed to be dead, turns up on Harpers Reach to keep an eye on her but at the same time Deacon with his two assistants, Leonard and Nathan, plus three mercenary gunmen has also tracked her down.   Alex Scarrow has really got into his stride now with this story putting Ellie and Jez into dangerous situations and getting them out again but without straining credulity more than is acceptable.   His writing is first class and keeps the pages turning, or should I say the Kindle screen flicking, at the breathless pace one expects from this kind of book.   Were it still around I am sure that the old "Adventure"  comic of my youth would sign him up like a shot.               

The Hound of the D'Urbervilles by Kim Newman

The late Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is rightly acclaimed for creating the first great private detective Sherlock Holmes but perhaps has not been given sufficient credit for also creating the first super villain, Professor James Moriarty.   As Sherlock Holmes was always accompanied by the faithful Watson so at Moriarty's side would always be found that blackhearted bounder Colonel Sebastian Moran.   Doyle did not write a great deal about Moriarty and even less about Moran often their names are merely mentioned as an aside during discussion of another case.   Kim Newman has decided that it is time to rectify this and so gives us the memoirs of Moran.   Presented in seven chapters each entitled with a variation on a Holmes case,  A Shambles in Belgravia for example, the stories are original not just parodies but do include Holmesian characters such as Irene Adler.   Newman presents Moran's narrative in the self-deprecating, slyly cynical style of the man of the world who has reached the "don't care" age just prior to shuffling off this mortal coil.   Above all it is laugh out loud funny, his annotated version of "The Ballad of Mad Carew" is a classic but is only one example from a book full of black humour.   I had thought that George MacDonald Fraser had cornered the market in this kind of thing with his Harry Flashman books but Newman has shown that he is a match for the old master.

The World According to Ellie Quin by Alex Scarrow

Available only through Kindle.

This is the second book in the Ellie Quin series and Scarrow is getting into his stride and the pace of the story is picking up.   At the end of book one Ellie had finaly made it to the City of New Haven and promptly been mugged and left destitute.   Into her life rides a saviour in the shape of Jez, a street-wise pole dancer at a seedy night club.   Both girls have an ambition to get off this backwater planet but their every attempt to raise themselves above subsistance level seems doomed to fail.   In the background Scarrow runs a second story line which must surely become more prominent as the tale progresses.   The Administration, the self- appointed government of the human occupied part of the galaxy, has discovered that due to the genetic pattern of the embryo from which Ellie was born she poses some, as yet unspecified, threat to them and they send their top assassin Deacon to dispose of her.   As the book ends the girls, unaware of the danger that is approaching, team up with Aaron, the shuttle pilot who rescued Ellie in book one, in a money making venture that they hope will provide the cash to take them off the planet.

This story is classed in the trade as "Young Adult" but I have found it very enjoyable which is all that matters!