Warrior of Rome: Fire in the East

There are many people who are experts on a subject but who cannot turn the knowledge into a readable novel also there are many good writers whose efforts at research are presented in a manner that irritates rather than informs and spoils an otherwise good story. In Dr Harry Sidebottom we are fortunate to have someone who is not only an expert but also a vastly entertaining storyteller. In his first novel Fire in the East he tells the story of Dernhelm, son of Isongrim, Warleader of the Angles who is sent as a hostage to the Court of Rome. At the age of sixteen he is forced into a plot to assassinate the Emporer Maximinus Thrax at the seige of Aquilea. It is he who kills the Emporer by stabbing him in the throat with a stylus. After this the ghost of Maximinus appears to him at moments of stress. Years spent in a successful military career see Balista, as he has come to be known, a member of the Equestrian Order, a Knight of Rome and married to the daughter of a Senatorial familly. In AD255 he is commissioned by the joint Emporers Valerian and Galienus to travel to the province of Syria and organise the defence of the city of Arete, threatened by the forces of the Persian Sassenid King. He is given the title of Dux Ripae, Commander of all Roman forces on the banks of the rivers Euphretes and Tigris and all the lands in between but nothing in the way of manpower. He is promised that the Emporer Valerian will raise a Field Army and come to his aid the following year. On the way to his new command he has to fight a sea battle against pirates and when he arrives he finds his Roman born subordinates less than happy to take orders from a barbarian and the allies who were supposed to provide reinforcements refuse to comply. To add to his troubles there is a traitor in the camp. To tell more would be to spoil a wonderful story for the reader. Finishing this excellent novel could leave one downcast were it not for the fact that we are promised more to come.

Pack Animals

Pack Animals by Peter Anghelides is a novel based on the popular TV series Torchwood and features all the characters in it and the city of Cardiff where it is set. If you are a fan of the programe and it's immortal leader Captain Handsome Jack Harkness and it's ability to fight swarms of aliens without the people of Cardiff noticing a thing then you will love this book. The Torchwood organisation was set up by Queen Victoria after Handsome Jack saved her from an alien assassin and he has been fighting aliens and keeping their technology out of the hands of the rest of us ever since. In this book, however, a piece of powerful technology has fallen into the hands of a youth who uses it to revenge himself for real or imagined slights suffered in childhood with devastating results. If this kind of thing is your idea of a good read OK, if not don't touch it. Love it or hate it there is no middle way with this kind of book.

The Exodus Quest

Last year I read Will Adams first novel The Alexander Cipher and wondered if he could possibly keep up the standard he had set himself in a second novel. In The Exodus Quest he has answered in a most affirmative manner. The setting again is Egypt, the hero is Daniel Knox and his aides Gaille Bonnard and Augustin Pascal who all featured in the Alexander Cipher. Archeologist Knox has his "little grey cells" stirred by discovering the lid of an ancient scroll jar for sale in a street market. This puts him on the trail of an ancient sect and brings him into conflict with the Rev. Peterson, an American Hell Fire evangelist operating an illegal dig near Lake Mariut. Meanwhile Gaille finds herself entangled with Charles Stafford a writer of popular history books full of speculation and outlandish theories. After penetrating Peterson's dig Knox crashes his jeep while being chased by his security men. His friend Omar, an Antiquities Inspector is killed. Knox is concussed and loses his memory allowing Peterson to accuse him of murder. Escaping from the hospital he is chased by both the police and the murderous Reverend. Gaille is held hostage by a corrupt policeman, and together with Stafford and his assistant are held in a cave which is rapidly flooding during a torrential downpour. Will Knox arrive in time to rescue Gaille? Will he discover the hidden tomb? I never knew that archeology was so exhausting. Equally enthralling for me were the conversation pieces where speculation on the origin of the Exodus story and the heretic Pharoah Ahkenaten were explored. Could Judaism really have developed from the monotheism of this iconoclastic ruler. Somehow I do not think that this book will be a bestseller in Israel. However, taken as the entertainment it is intended to be it is first class. It gallops along at a cracking pace and kept this reader turning the pages all day. Fortunately it was raining and I could not be called on for gardening duties.

The Watersplash

Since I started writing this blog I have reviewed eight of the Maud Silver mysteries by Patricia Wentworth and have run out of new ways to praise her work. In The Watersplash we have murder tied to an inheritance in a small country village in the Home Counties. Yes I know that most of her plots follow this kind of theme but Wentworth scores by her skill as a storyteller. The characters are well drawn and their are the requisite number of red herrings in a narrative that carries the reader along with style and old world charm.

Alexandria

I have been a firm fan of historical detective stories since I first read Ellis Peter's A Morbid Taste for Bones thirty years ago and of all the many excellent writers who have followed since Lindsey Davis is one of the best. Her Roman sleuth Marcus Didius Falco is an engaging and resourcful character and over the course of her nineteen books she has introduced us to his aristocratic wife Helena and the rest of his familly which provides background and depth to the stories. Her latest, Alexandria, is well up to her very high standard. Falco has taken his familly on a well earned holiday to Egypt to see the Pyramids, the Sphinx and all the rest of the tourist sites that all well-bred Romans should visit. Falco is offered accomodation by his uncle Fulvius who with his boyfriend Cassius are businessmen of a decidedly dodgy stripe. When his reprobate father, a pillar of the fake antiques trade, turns up Falco suspects the worst. However, thoughts of familly problems are thrust aside when the Prefect of Alexandria asks him to investigate the murder, in a locked room no less, of Theron the Chief of the Library. The investigation leads him into devious plots and quite a lot of personal danger. Could members of his own familly be involved in nefarious activities? Perish the thought! Falco not only solves the crime and saves the Library but manages to take the fair Helena to see the Pyramids. As we say in these intellectual realms this is a bostin' good book.

The Last Gospel

David Gibbins has obviously done massive amounts of research for his new novel The Last Gospel and has used it to produce an intriguing story of a search for a papyrus on which the words of Jesus Christ as dictated to the Roman Emporer Claudius are writen. As in his previous two novels his main characters are archeologist Jack Howard and his friend and technical wizard Costas. The action starts as they dive on a wreck off the coast of Sicily attempting to track the journey of St Paul to Rome. Called to Herculaneum where an earthquake has opened up part of the buried city and provided a unique chance to explore a previously inaccesible villa or it would be if someone was not trying to keep the site closed. Enter the villains and once again it is the Vatican now the organisation of choice for thriller writers since the KGB packed up. Why writers feel that they can portray this collection of elderly priests as a dynamic international power organisation is beyond me. Surely there must be some more convincing power brokers around who could fulfill this role but perhaps it is the powerlessness of the Church compared to other groups that makes them such an easy target. Gibbins plot is backed up by historical facts and sometimes it is difficult for a non-historian to tell where fact ends and fiction starts but it is all very enjoyable nonsense.

Viking: Odinn's Child

Viking: Odinn's Child by Tim Severin is the first volume of a trilogy following the life of Thorgils Leifsson. Born in 999 on the threshold of the millenium year that many thought would bring the end of the world and the second coming of Christ he spends his childhood and youth in Iceland and Greenland his fate always in the hands of others. He reaches Vinland (Nova Scotia) in the train of his malevolent step sister and from there back to Iceland and on to Orkney were he is swept up into the service of the flamboyant Norse King of Dublin. Captured and enslaved by an Irish Chieftain he is presented to a monastery where he learns to read and write. Then he ...... well he goes from adventure to adventure. Never a dull moment in the company of Thorgils Leifsson and when this volume ends he is still only nineteen. Will he survive to old age? Will he survive to reach twenty? There are still two volumes to come so the prospects are good.