speesh's reviews
416 reviews

It's been a while since I read a Harry Sidebottom Roman novel. The last was this one's predecessor; 'Lion of the Sun.' So, I was quite looking forward to getting stuck into 'The Caspian Gates.'

However, while it is good, it's not great. Of course, better than a lot of others, but definitely not vintage Harry Sidebottom. Not close. I can only presume the glowing praise printed on the paperback jacket, was for others in the Warrior of Rome series.

It's way too bitty in my opinion. It just seems to wander fairly aimlessly around the eastern Aegean and up into the Caucasus in search of a plot. Finds one, then ends. 'Well, that's that, here's your next mission, off you go.' Reading the paperback, as I did, it actually felt like there was still a good 50+ pages to go, but it was just the Appendix, Historical Afterword, Thanks, Glossary, List of Emperors, List of Characters, the prologue from 'The Wolves of the North' and pretty much unnecessary. You surely know something's gone wrong when you have to include a list explaining who your characters are, don't you? Who are we trying to impress here? Me, or your professor mates? More likely it's to cover over a flimsy plot. That's why I would include all the 'this is based on real history, this' stuff anyway.

Don't get me wrong, I like the 'Warrior of Rome' books and I like Ballista. He's a likeable man. Normal even - for Roman times. Almost as if he could function perfectly well in the 21st Century. He's a well-drawn, sympathetic character, one you could imagine yourself getting on well with. Certainly, his language (and that of his Army colleagues) wouldn't be out of place nowadays. But that's ok, they're tough, barbarian, army - and normal. That's the way these characters in this case would be. Though it may be Ballista seems normal when set against some of the more eccentric characters Harry Sidebottom has put together here. Though only the Emperor Gallienus really seems mad, or devious, enough to be likely to consider sleeping with his horse, maybe.

One interesting thing is, as the narrative flows, the source of the focus shifts. If I can put it that way. It's not just a first person narrative. It feels like it though, like it's coming from the same person. Until i realised that there are, at times, two first persons. Sometimes it is Ballista we're with, hearing his thoughts, seeing the action from his view. Then his companion Hippothous. His thoughts are much more urbane and esoteric. And irritating, if you ask me. I'd have dispatched him off elsewhere at the earliest opportunity, even if he is a good fighter. However, using him to drive the narrative on occasions, is a good way of looking at the character of Ballista, who is and has been the main focus, the 'hero' of the Warrior of Rome series. We see him inside, from his view and outside, as other people see him and the situations he leads the story into.

But it seems as though Ballista just goes with the flow on this one. He's on autopilot. As is Harry Sidebottom. There's an earthquake, so he moves. The new place gets attacked by Goths who are then unfortunately underdeveloped as a plot line, at the expense of frankly less interesting 'barbarians', whom the possibly mad Emperor dispatches Ballista off to negotiate with, instead of exiling him. It maybe that they'll feature in the next one - waiting on the shelf up there *points* 'The Wolves of the North' And this does in the end, feel like a transitional novel, moving Ballista from one place to another, physically and psychologically, ready for the really interesting one (hopefully) next.

Oh yeah, and the really irritating thing with 'The Caspian Gates' - apart from that it does nothing - is Harry Sidebottom's habit of dropping Latin words into the story. Fine, even interesting, once in a while, but not three times every sentence. This, for example: In Chapter 10 (Chapter X, here of course); "The Emperor was in bed with his cineadus when the rain came." No explanation given, no IDEA what the Emperor may or may not have been in bed with. His wife? His supper? His breakfast? His boyfriend? His horse? His boyfriend's horse? What on earth is a 'cineadus'? Maybe i missed it first time round, i don't think so, but it ain't my fault if i did, is it? Fine that that is how Romans would have described certain events or positions or ideas, but meaningless unless you're going to explain the concept in English, and therefore show how the Latin perhaps sums up the concept better, or with a nuance English hasn't got covered. I know this, from having learnt - and using every day - Danish. Some concepts are impossible to translate or explain in the same number of words as English. So don't bother, unless you're going to explain, it's just meaningless, just a random collection of letters, a bad Scrabble hand - and increasingly irritating.

Otherwise, here's hoping the 'Wolves of the North' is better. If it has a plot, it will be.

Is there room in the Roman market for another author writing fiction set in Ancient Rome? When you're as good as this, there is. When your name's as big as Henry Venmore-Rowland - you better create a lot of room.

And he does, he has.

Henry Venmore-Rowland (so good they named him thrice?) was a new author to me - and reading his biography and looking at his picture, he’s a new author to him as well! He is powerful young, that’s for sure. But, as James Aitcheson (Sworn Sword, Splintered Kingdom, Knights of the Hawk) has proved, age is no barrier to writing absolutely tip-top Historical Fiction. And it isn’t here either.

The Last Caesar is a really good, readable book. An engaging, accessible and maybe even surprisingly confident first effort. If someone popped up half way through and said HV-R was a wizened professor of Romeology at some ancient university, you’d believe them.

The main character, who tells the tale, is Aulus Caecina Severus. He's a likeable chap, just into his 20s as his tale starts. He is writing his story as an older man remembering how it was. So he is able to add some hindsight. Like Alan Dale in Angus Donald's Outlaw Chronicles. But this is much more of a conversational style. He’s writing, it seems, as though this story will be read by a person from the same period, not later generations. So there isn’t the need for so much explanation, as he presumes you know what he’s talking about. It all creates a much more conversational, open, accessible style. There are nods and winks and things taken for granted, as someone would who was writing for people who knew his world, because they were living in it. Makes for a really open and inviting sort of style, I felt.

His story starts with Severus seeing action in Britain, the last days of the defeat of Boudicca. This caught my attention, as I’d just come off the back of an exceptionally good novel by Anthony Riches, set roughly in the same period and part of the Roman Empire. Though his recollections actually begin in the reign of Nero, with his posting to Hispania and his intention to use this as a way to return to Rome a wealthy man. He gets invited to a meeting, which turns out to be a meeting to plot the overthrow/removal of the Emperor Nero. Which puts him over a rather Roman-type barrel really. There’s no real way back after you’ve been to an ‘overthrow the Emperor’ party. The story does, of necessity for staying withing binocular distance of the historical facts, move on to Spain, to France to Germania and the massed Legions of the Rhine. As HV-R points out at the afterword, he sticks close to what facts are known about the year of the four emperors (as he says, the eighteen months of the five emperors doesn't have the same ring), so the journeying and the people met are in keeping with what actually happened.

And given the fact that I can tend to glaze over at the use of too many Roman names and lose track or even interest - in the case of the last Harry Sidebottom I read - in who Severus Aquilla Maximus was or who he's double-crossing (insert Roman word here) with his (insert Roman name of instrument here), this never feels like you really should have paid more attention because I'm gonna be testing you at the end and you'll be kept in after school if you're not 100% correct (hello Harry Sidebottom again).

The Last Caesar is a really good, solid, enjoyable story, with characters that are easy to care about and care enough about to care about what might happen to them in their future. And with enough other, more minor characters, to keep one more than intrigued as to what fate might have planned for them in their future. This book is - as yet - one of two and, as these things usually get written in threes, we can only hope that we shall be spending a lot more time in the exciting company of AC Severus et al. There is a lot of politicking as the action his lead character could have taken part in, is of course limited. So it isn't staggering from one pitched battle to another. But the politicking, the back-stabbing etc doesn't descend into cliche, as you find in some Roman stories, but rather backs up, compliments and makes understandable the characters actions.

A thoroughly coherent, believable and interestingly enticing read. I look forward to getting stuck into the second (and hopefully more) novel(s) from Henry Venmore-Rowland.

First, to say what it isn’t about. Ratlines. To be honest, it would have been more interesting if it actually had been an investigation into these escape routes for ex-Nazis, their workings and that of the Israelis in trying to expose them. If it had been, it may well have been more exciting, more tense and more of a thriller, than what we got from after the half way mark, which boils down to an ordinary extortion and robbery set in Ireland just after the Second World War.

Our main man, Albert Ryan, is a decent man, an ex-soldier. Unfortunately for him and many of his fellow country men's opinion of him, he was fighting for the ‘wrong' side. The English side. This presents one of the novel's (several) interesting points. That the Irish may well have been more anti-British in WWII than they were anti-Germany. A theme echoed and perhaps more fully realised in the situation of the Breton nationalist characters' situation. Where they were so anti-France, that they used the opportunity of the Nazi invasion, to ally themselves with the Nazis against the rest of France. Though they try to excuse themselves from being tarred by the holocaust brush. It is pointed out several times that they can't pick and choose. He works for the Irish government's intelligence services and is set to investigating the murders of several foreign nationals which may or may not be linked to the presence of a successful German businessman/ex-Nazi, living quite openly and participating quite prominently in Dublin's social life in the early 1960's. As his investigations progress, links to Skorzeny become more compelling and more dangerous. He also gets on the wrong side of an Israeli Mossad officer, who contrary to expectations, doesn't want Skorzeny dead and also claims not to know who has been killing Skorzeny's associates.

I did feel a bit short-changed, when it became clear it was basically about a gold robbery and kind of money-laundering operation. But that may just be me. The style reminded me a little of Len Deighton in SSGB. Which is a good thing. Yeah, the Nazi link, but more the period feel. Neville doesn't go so much in for the descriptions as Deighton does, but there's a real sense of time and place about the writing. The plotting is good and tight, the characters believable and interesting.

As I say, it does raise some very interesting ideas and themes concerning the aftermath of WWII in Europe, in Ireland. Apart from the possibility of Mossad operating unchecked, under Europe's radar in tracking ex-Nazi war criminals, there is the Irish position during and after the war. And the Irish attitudes to those of their countrymen who fought for one old enemy, the English, against a new enemy, the Nazis. There was one conversation, where I got the idea that a thought prevalent in Ireland at the time of the Second World War and when the book was set, would be that the Nazis were an enemy on paper, but the Irish could clearly see they wouldn’t be one that would last too long, so it really wasn’t worth hating them in the way they should the English. The Nazis would soon be gone, but the English had been and would be (unfortunately, in Irish eyes) an enemy for a long time yet. I thought the book suggested an Irish view towards war-time Germany, was ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend'. But it also posed the question of what was the Irish view of those Irish people who had fought for Britain, when they returned to Ireland? And what of Charles Haughey? I'm guessing he's dead, because he doesn't come out of this book very well at all. These really interesting themes are raised, but not for me, developed and taken where they should be. They seemed to be swept aside at the expense of what started out as looking like an intriguing exploration of the Nazi escape routes from justice in Europe, but then became a more traditional-feeling bullion robbery heist.

It got bogged down around the half to two thirds mark in some eventually much too drawn-out, unnecessarily unpleasantly detailed torturing and people basically just moving things on by just questioning other people. I think as a whole, it does all hang together. Just. I could have done with, as I say, with more of an espionage angle, less of a Great Boat Robbery angle.

I think over all I'll allow it hang by its fingertips to a 4. But with reservations. It did grip me - I read it in two days (though I never know if that's good or bad to get so little time out of a £16.99 spend), it is well put together and plotted and it does all make sense with believable characters, believable situations and plenty to keep you thinking about under way.

There's no doubt this is better, much better than the last one of his I read (A Spy By Nature). More coherent, more interesting and without a middle section that sagged like...well, my middle section.

But…there's a but. Well, it's labeled a thriller, but it most certainly isn't. A thriller. Not what I'd call a thriller anyway. It is mostly mildly, to quite interesting and there are a couple of incidents which do come within binocular distance of thrilling. Though when the main man's attempt to have a hotel night porter distracted by some retired, bit-part spy helpers, long enough so he can check the hotel's computer register is the most thrilling part of the first 176 pages, you begin to wonder if I haven't been working from a different dictionary definition for 'thriller' all these years. Maybe I'm calling for a new way of determining if a book is a thriller or not, the thrill percentage in a Charles Cumming book is far to low for it to be labeled a thriller, in my book. The interest evel is ok, but not more than mildly diverting.

And another area where the PR people could once again probably be described as being a little too over enthusiastic, is in the comparisons appearing on the book jacket. Sticking John Le Carre's name on there somewhere will always sell books. Even if it isn't written by the great man. And even, as here, you’re sticking the name of perhaps his most well known/loved character on the back, it probably still works. Which is why they’ve done it. And I suppose you can't blame Harper Collins for highlighting the reviews that bandy Le Carre about. But, and as I noted in my review for his previous one, I think they must have read a different book to the one I read. And le Carre fans, of whatever era, are going to be disappointed and wondering if the ‘Smiley’ mentioned, isn’t actually the name of the neighbours’ dog (as ours’ is).

The thrills, such as they are, are in the first half, and based on the anticipation that comes with the feeling that ‘now...this is going somewhere…’ But are ultimately they’re not there - the thrills - because the book doesn’t get there. Either where you want it to, or where it should. But I'm not wanting to be too negative, as - amazingly enough - there are good parts.

The book actually delivers in part on its reviewers promise mostly in the second half. It is almost tense and mostly exciting, it is about an operation carried out maybe in a more modern style than Le Carre and Smiley's heyday, but in the same ballpark. It doesn't include any giant explosions and international incidents - even though it involves the old enemies of official UK secret services and their French counterparts, it's all stuff that could be swept under the carpet, officially denied and life got on with in an air of mutual distrust even hatred (if you want to look at it as reflecting the real world). So no change there then. The final action is good enough and is well-handled. Maybe it all goes a little too smoothly, and I thought it could have been, if not should have been, expanded by 50 or so pages. It felt a little like 'ok, we'll do this and that, they'll obviously do that and this', let's go - and it all happened the way it had been explained as a plan so there wasn't the need to go into the detail that an Eric Van Lustbader would have. It all felt like Cumming had had the idea for his next book and wanted to get this one done with and out of the way so he could get on with that.

The main man, Kell, despite the daft name, is an interesting character. Cumming has hinted at some baggage there and I'd like to see him in other stories. He reminds me a little of Jeremy Dunns' 'Paul Dark', maybe a little more ordinary (he's never going to be in charge at SIS for example, is our Kell), though as I don't know where A Foreign Country fits in Cummings' great scheme of things, I don't know if I'll meet him again.

All in all an ok to good read and I can recommend it more than the last one. Still not up with where the reviewers seem to have been with it, but getting there.

I think I must have read most of the current 'big guns' (or should that be 'big ballistae'?) of modern Roman Historical Fiction. I usually try and read one or two of other genres, or at least periods, inbetween, just because I'm afraid of them all blurring into one if I don’t. Until this book, Robert Fabbri was a new, sometimes difficult to spell correctly, name to me. Afterwards, and I’m really glad I made the effort to get hold of 'Vespasian', as I found it a thoroughly enjoyable, well-written and rewarding read.

We’re back in the first Century AD. This time, in the area of countryside around Rome. Vespasian is 16 and is living on the family farm with his mother and father. His ambitious mother and father. They mean well, I suppose, his mum and dad...though they are mainly ambitious that Vespasian and his brother do well, for the sake of the family and the family name. Vespasian’s elder brother Sabinus, has just returned home from his first period away with the army. Vespasian has been running the family estates, and is actually quite good at it. However, Mum and Dad have other plans for Vespasian. He must do his bit for the advancement of the family fortunes and so his next rung on the Roman social ladder, is that he too must join the army. So, the 16-year old Vespasian journeys with his brother to the big city (not many bigger at the time, of course), to the centre of the world, to Rome. Here, Vespasian and his brother are to seek help with their advancement from their uncle. They also get valuable lessons in how to (hopefully) avoid the many pitfalls involved with said advancement in Roman social society. Luckily for me - as endless backstabbing and double-dealing Roman-style talking usually sends me walking…not everything goes according to plan. Vespasian soon finds himself, mostly unknowingly, caught up in someone called Sejanus’ machinations in trying to depose the ageing Emperor Tiberius. Vespasian has to get the hell out of Dodge and past the Praetorian Guards, in something of a hurry. He finds an escape route, by taking up a relatively (hopefully) obscure position as Tribune somewhere out on Rome’s Balkan frontier. But troubles find him even out there. Though they are at least troubles of the sort - attacks from local tribesmen, presumably not too keen on being another Roman frontier province - that can be solved more easily with a sword and a shield. A kind of problem solving Vespasian, (still only 16, I checked) is showing he has both the aptitude - and sometimes surprising for a 16-year old - the strength, for. In the meantime, he has of course, being 16 and a riot of Roman hormones - some things don’t change - has fallen in love. With the ‘wrong’ girl. With a slave girl. Fortunately later on, she might actually be the right girl, when…well, you’ll have to buy the book(s) to find out.

‘Vespasian’ (the book) I found inviting, informative and thrilling. Often all at the same time. Vespasian (the character) I thought was sympathetic, understandable and therefore believable. I also found Robert Fabbris style of writing very accessible, with the relevant nuggets of Roman information needed for full appreciation of the background to Vespasian’s situation, Roman society of the time on the whole, really well handled. Presented in a much more natural, and lighter, way than some writers. Prof H. Sidebottom, is an example that springs naturally to mind. Not as in your face, as H. Sidebottom can often be. Reading his last one, I felt like I hadn’t done my homework properly. Robert Fabbri’s way of writing seems a more flowing, natural style and lets the story work without it stopping and starting and where were we now before I had to try and pronounce/try and understand that/yet another difficult Latin word? I actually found myself enjoying how Robert Fabbri writes about the Roman social scene and the myriad of potential pitfalls they seem to have had waiting for them on their way to the top. I didn’t think I liked that sort of thing, but in Robert Fabbri’s hands, it feels fresh and interesting. As a whole, I thought ‘Vespasian’ was well planned and executed, a nuanced picture of a Roman going places, interestingly informative without ever being over powering and above all, very readable.

‘Vespasian' looks like the start of an engaging, convincing and well worth following all the way, Roman saga.

Martyr is a really good, well worked, evocative and thoroughly convincing journey back to the late 16th Century Elizabethan England and the time of Shakespeare. John Shakespeare, actually. Will’s older brother. John isn’t an actor or playwright, he’s a detective. Though this is of course set before there was a Police force, he is more of a private detective, working for the Lord Walsingham trying to keep England, and in particular Good Queen Bess, safe from the threat - real and imagined - from Philip the King of Spain, his armada, Catholics in general, the Inquisition and traitors of an assorted, generally foreign, nature.

In the aftermath of the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, Shakespeare starts investigating the really rather grisly murder of a young women, who may or may not have been mixed up in intrigues she probably shouldn’t have been mixed up in. Shakespeare is on legitimate Royal business, but even so it’s not all plain sailing. Shakespeare has unwanted competition in his investigation. Everywhere his investigation takes him, he seems to be one step behind the unscrupulous and ruthless Richard Topcliffe. A man with his own private rack down in the family torture chamber is to be avoided at all costs, especially but not necessarily, if you’re a Catholic. Topcliffe has his own agenda and has dressed up petty ruthless revenge in ‘I’m doing the Queen’s business more than you are', Royal finery.

England has been and is whipped up into a frenzy of Catholic-hating and traitors, real or imagined, are around every corner, under every bed, in every house or country pile, either murdering people in most foul ways or hiding for days in their stinking priest holes. And there is a plot to murder England’s potential hero of the hour, Sir Francis Drake. The thought, unspoken but felt by all is, that if he dies, England will be open to Spanish - and even worse, Catholic - invasion.

Clements does a really good job of evoking the mood and the tension of the period. As well as conveying the all suspicion and noble ends to justify really rather unpleasant means. And while on the subject of unpleasant - we get shown around the stinking streets of London, into the veritable hell-holes and corrupt pits that were Elizabethan prisons, and a tour across the south of England down to Plymouth in a desperate race against time to rescue Sir Francis Drake. Mostly to rescue him from himself, it has to be said. As a character, John Shakespeare is perhaps a little too idealistic, even naive for his time. Which makes him a thoroughly likeable character for our time, even if like-ability was necessary - he is the brother to William for goodness’ sake! Worth reading about for that alone (I know he’s made it up, btw).

If you wanted to look outside the confines of the book and see where the themes are today. It is in the suspicion of people’s with a different culture to ours’, who do things differently and also have the temerity to think they’re right, have God on their side and we’re wrong. You can see it in your newses every day, can’t you? Even 'Catch 22', sometimes - as in the thoughts of how far is it needed to go to show your loyalty. If loyalty is behind the means, does it excuse the means? Can you be more loyal because you are prepared to be more ruthless? Does hesitancy through decency and humanity, show weakness? Fortunately - for those locked up these days, the prison system is a little better, certainly cleaner, and your well-being while inside doesn’t depend (entirely) on how much money you can pay the gaoler to keep the other prisoners off your back and your hands out of the thumbscrews.

I didn’t know at the time of reading, but ‘Martyr' is apparently the first in Clements’ series of novels about his fictional detective and brother to William, John Shakespeare. And this bodes very well for the series. I’ll be reading them.

High flying, high finance, high society, high jinx. Low down dirty double-crossing dirty tricks. That’s what you expect from a Bourne thriller - and that’s exactly what Eric Van Lustbader delivers. Time and time again.

I like these 'Bourne’ thrillers so much, that I am able to forgive almost anything that does - or sometimes doesn’t - happen in them. I’m even prepared to (well, almost prepared, I suppose I should say) overlook the constant ‘punching in’ of telephone numbers. One just doesn’t punch a number in. No. Anyway...

‘Imperative' begins (well, a little bit after the beginning really) with fishing a man with memory loss and no identification out of the water. This time though, in contrast to the first ever Bourne book, it's Jason B., doing the fishing. Story moves on and the shocks and thrills mount and it soon turns out that (even) the President of the USA wants Bourne dead. I suppose you know you’re really up against it when the good ol’ POTUS wants you dead, eh? The rest of the story? Well, there’s not much you need to know, except it delivers. We have Russians, the Israelis - in the form of Mossad (as friends and foes) - Mexican drug lords and more. You can pick it up, but don’t expect to be able to put it down again anytime soon. I seem to have read this one a little out of sequence, but it really doesn’t matter. Enough of the whys and wherefore’s are explained to make it all readable without having read the previous, and without getting in the way of the enjoyment of the present.

Otherwise? You can tell the English character - he's the one calling people 'mate' in every other sentence. Mexico City is both a whirlpool and has a beating heart inside the same paragraph. Yeah, I guess I’m willing to overlook those as well.

If you want a book that keeps you on your toes the whole time, where you should always expect the unexpected, then this is more how a good thriller should be than many you’ll read. Confusing yet intriguingly interesting at the start, as the pieces are assembled , then becoming clearer in the middle as the pieces fall into pace for Bourne - and you. As the problem becomes clearer, possible solutions pop up, on the page for 'Bourne and in your head. I like that in a book. And I’m pretty sure this is the kind of thriller the people quoted on the backs of Charles Cummings books think they’ve been reading.

"The truth, it struck him, was like that, revealing itself, if at all, only by its effect on something else.”

How good is this book? Let me count the ways…etc.

Beautifully written, a wonderful evocation of a much maligned and partially forgotten time - apart from those who lived through it, I guess - and tense and thrilling and intriguing and all that and more.

The period between the two great Wars (in Europe I should perhaps hasten to add) has interested me for a number of years now and is reflected in many of the books I read. I’m talking the period from, say, 1919, to 1940 (I know WWII started in 1939, but there was at least a feeling of it 'all being over by Christmas', for at least a year). I think it began when I read a book called 'Forgotten Voices of The Holocaust’ (by Lyn Smith) about Jewish people's recollections of their lives before and of course during, the Second World War. I was maybe somewhat strangely, most affected by their descriptions of how their lives were in Europe, that is to say Germany and Eastern Europe, before and in the early years of the rise of Nazism and Hitler. A quite - for me - overwhelming sense of loss of promise and innocence, described by the people themselves in a matter of fact way. They describe their lives and you, the reader, get this overwhelming feeling of sadness at what was lost, the potential their lives held and all that they, and we, lost. Of course, we now know what happened after the incidents and memories they describe and the feeling is almost physical, the coming of Nazism and the war is a huge black cloud on the horizon. Unstoppable and moving towards us as we read their words. But the sunlight before the storm, the quiet and the innocence of the lives and times described, is what really intrigued me. I knew (as much as I can ‘know’ without having been there) about what happened in WWI and more about what happened in WWII, but the period I between, away from the events surrounding the Nazi party and its rise to power, were a mystery to me. And still are. I guess I'm trying to pin down and experience the ordinary person’s feelings Was it a 'thank god that's over, thank god we'll never have to go through that again. It's all alright, it's going to be better now.’ Seems like it should have been. That must have been the feeling that existed in many parts of Europe, for Jews and non-Jews. For how long? On the face of it and taking the stock market crash into consideration, the best part of 10 to 15 years. It's a feeling I'm after, a mood and an atmosphere, nothing physical, I don't want to collect artifacts. I want to get the mood absorbed. Luckily there are many great books dealing with this period. To that list, I’m adding 'The Ways of the World.’

The quote at the top, describes how the book works, I think. On the face of it, a simple problem. The father of a couple of landed gentry gentlemen has died in Paris in 1919 and the two brothers have to go over, complete the paperwork and bring their father’s body back for burial. But how did he die? Was he killed. If so, why? One brother feels the need to find out, the other doesn’t see why. Better for the family and the smooth hand-over of family power (to him) if there’s a quick resolution to the French Police’s investigation,with no awkward questions asked. So life can go on in its time-honoured, thoroughly stiff upper lipped, British way. Luckily for us, with the brothers' arrival in Paris, the story starts unfolding, like unravelling a piece of origami. from what it is, to what it was. That’s my go at describing how the story happens. New avenues and ideas appear as the logic is followed. He died. How? he fell? Where? He jumped? But how could he have got in a position to just jump? So, was he pushed? Slowly unfolding and unfurling and revealing its plot, the book takes us forwards, sometimes a little backwards in the timeline of the family. We’re constantly moving, but almost without seeming to. It is written with such elegance and poise, teasing out the facts necessary to understand - even solve - the plot, that you read it almost mesmerised, but never alienated, by the subtle cleverness. Read it yourself, see if I’m right.

What it’s also about, I dare say, is the start of the modern spy industry. The change-over from being a great game, played by well-off aristocratic gentlemen with largely nothing else to do but indulge themselves in games they could afford, to the modern nitty-gritty, down and dirty selling of state secrets, ruthless spy masters and the ideologic espionage world we know from the second world- and cold- wars.

I wasn’t familiar with Robert Goddard’s work before this book and I think, from looking at his website, this is the first of his to be not set in the here and now. The Ways of the World was a stunningly good read and an absolutely wonderful way to start my 2014 book reading.

I've read a few dry runs over the last few months, but this is at last, the real deal. A modern spy thriller with enough background depth, invention, style and substance to stand comparison with some of the besr of yester-year. A real page-turner and not loaded down with blather and unnecessary flannel. Speaking of which, this is quite probably the novel the reviewers quoted on the backs of recent Charles Cummings books thought they were reading. Their quotes of fulsome praise could be grafted onto the back cover of ‘Ratcatcher' and not cause any embarrassment to either party.

'Ratcatcher' is how a spy, or espionage thriller really should be. Old fashioned in attitude, in the way the story is approached, modern in execution (this is just my way of thinking, I'm perfectly prepared to be led off in the old straitjacket to the funny farm if enough of you disagree). Old fashioned but modern as well, in that several of the enemies are Russian. The Iron Curtain has been bought by the oligarcs, I suppose. If reviewers then, are going to throw words like ‘John' and ‘Le' and ‘Carre' about, they might as well get it right and throw them in the direction of excellent books like ‘Ratcatcher' and not half-baked efforts like 'A Spy By Nature' and the larger part of 'A Foreign Country.’

So, the ‘Ratcatcher' of the title, is the main man of the book, one John Purkiss. He works for the British Secret Services and catches ‘dirty’ spies. Dirty ‘rats.’ Those spies who aren’t playing by the rules. Though of course, that would seem to me to be rule number one in the spy handbook - not to play by the rules. Oh, well. Anyway, a former highly placed British spy, ‘Fallon', has gone rogue and gone missing, unbeknown to Purkiss, who thinks he's in prison for killing Purkiss’ ex-fiancée (a rather traumatic event for Purkiss, as he witnessed it). Fallon suddenly appears, photographed on the streets of the Estonian capital Talinn. Interest is piqued, because it is the eve of a historic Estonian/Russian summit, where the respective Presidents are to meet and seal an agreement. Along with Fallon, there also surfaces a really rather unsettling rumour of a plan to disrupt said historic summit in a way that could plunge Europe, along with most of the rest of the world, back into the dark days of the afore-mentioned Cold War.

Purkiss as a lead character felt fully-realised and with a past and motive for the present that was plausible, believable and above all, interesting. Actually, the book as a whole reminded me of Jon Stock’s books and his lead character Daniel Marchant. And that’s a good thing. I think Jon Stock would have probably gone a little more balls-out in the final conclusion, but Ratcatcher is probably the better for not doing so.

‘Ratcatcher' is a really rather excellent, well planned, well worked and thoroughly enjoyable thriller. There are plenty of twists and unforseen turns to lift it above a lot of the ones I read which fall back on the unlikely use of technology to paper over what was achieved in the good old days with nous, leg-work, chalk marks on the wall, or even just ‘gut-feelings.’ Whilst no one actually says "you bastard, Regan (or Purkiss)", it felt sometimes like they might have wanted to. Tim Stevens is clearly a writer who knows his way round a spy thriller, and a writer I will look forward to reading a lot more of in the future.

A thoroughly enjoyable, maybe slightly alternative look at the possibilities surrounding the first couple of weeks of the Norman Conquest, leading up to and including the Battle of Hastings. It is a novel, so fiction, but thanks to the fiction and non-fiction reading around the events of 1066 I've done by accident and design over the last few years, I can see that 'The Last Conquest' does weave very plausibly in and out of the facts as they can be determined and offers some very workable ideas, or interpretations, for what might be the reality behind at least a couple of the legends. In my opinion, I should hasten to add. As I wouldn’t want in any way shape or form, like to present myself as anything approaching an expert in the field. That is in there so I don’t get involved (again) in a thread elsewhere, about what amounts to a ‘fact’, when discussing a period with so relatively few of them available. Me asking an (I think an) author for at least one of them (and failing to get a reply other than what amounts to ‘everyone knows’) in response to their ‘it didn’t happen like that’, didn’t seem to sit well. Oh dear, how sad, never mind.

Anyway…'The Last Conquest's story begins with the Normans landing and coming ashore at Pevensey in Sussex on the 28th September and then covers the first weeks of their preparation, scouting, defense building and, well, basically waiting. Waiting for Harold and the English to turn up and settle matters. At first they don't know where he is, then they hear he's had to fight the Vikings up near York. But it takes a while until they are sure if he's won. Or lost. Maybe the Vikings have done their work for them. Maybe it’ll be the Vikings that make their way south to fight them for the throne. If the Vikings under Harald Hardrada actually know the Normans have landed at the other end of the country, that is. When the Normans do hear Harald Godwinson was successful in defeating Harald Hardrada, even before, they decide to sit and wait. But try to make sure when he does come their way, he comes the way they want him.

The opening short, sharp sections, reminded me of news bulletins. The sort based on ‘this news just coming in…from our reporter on the spot’ The sort of little snippets of gossip, based on overhearings and assumptions based on very little fact, which is actually what they had. Or didn’t. Because they couldn’t just ring up someone nearby where they wanted to know, or see it on the news at 6.00. ‘This just in…Harold has won at Stamford Bridge.’ In our modern world of instant communication, the internet and maps to hand wherever we are, it makes it difficult to think yourself back into the mind of an 11th Century person. With guesswork passing as maps and hard evidence actually rumour, based on often false deductions or just plain old-fashioned superstition and reading of body language. This feeling your way forward through a kind of fog of false information, Coates puts over very well indeed. The Normans (and the Britons really) could only be sure of what was going on in the area where they could patrol and at the start of the book, this is the area around Hastings and up to Senlac Hill, where the battle actually took place. Harold? Well, no one knew where he was, what he was doing or with whom. And neither did the Normans. You build up an idea of how little of an idea people, especially the ordinary local people that is, the people who would, perhaps, be most affected - had of what was going on. Snippets of information trying to put together pieces of a jigsaw for which no one had the final picture.

The book structure is excellent. A bubbling confusion of information coalescing into a plan and a waiting, leading to a final battle. Like how it must have been for the Normans with boots on the ground. Normans. If you know anything about the Norman Conquest, you'll know it was really The Norman and Others Conquest and that William was only a Duke, of a reasonably small province in what is now, but wasn’t then, France. He had to assemble and accept help and supplies, from wherever he could. That meant a lot of mercenaries, nationalities, opinions and of course tensions to keep a lid on. And a lot of money promised to all of the above. So, as the Norman scouts venture forth, putting out feelers and trying to discover what on earth is going on beyond the perimeter of their fortress, they naturally come into contact with the locals. This contact, its effects on both sides and its bearing on events leading up to the battle, is where most of the book takes place. In essence a series of domestic dramas set against the background of the Battle of Hastings. Which is sensible enough for the author, as it is the area where he/she can speculate and write their own drama, without having to shoehorn their ideas into the mould of what we actually do know happened. Now, to be honest, it does sometimes become a little disjointed here. Darting around, back and forth in time, often within the same paragraph, can make me wonder if I've got hold of the thread. And when you worry you haven't, it becomes more of a task to keep thinking 'who is he then, I thought I had his number’, than enjoying the story. I must admit that I more than once found myself mixing my Glberts and my Ralphs. I think I got control of the situation by the end. But then to be fair, the end section, the final third was just so perfectly done, I really didn’t mind the head scratching from earlier.

The final battle, the Battle of Hastings, does arrive, along with Harold, his Housecarls and the rest of the English, in the final 100-odd pages. Coates begins it as a kind of overview, of the tactical positionings and movements of troops and moves the action closer and closer to individuals fighting their way towards Harold and the apple tree at the top of Senlac Hill. It is, as befits the most pivotal event in English history, a fantastically good read. He does seem to write as if, while Harold was directed to the battle site by William, by stopping short, as it were, the English were actually better positioned when it came to deploying forces for the battle itself. Having visited the battle site, at the now cunningly titled 'Battle', I can 'see' how the Normans had an uphill fight in more ways than one. Of course, a familiar theme here: what did happen in the battle? I think I'm right in saying, no one really knows except it started, and it ended with William in the winners’ enclosure. But, it absolutely could have happened this way. It seems entirely logical to me to present it as happening the way Coates has it. Fits the facts as we have them. A simple plan of "we're up here, they're down there", of moves and probes like a chess game, an arrow and a smashing through the defences, then a hacking and a killing and a monumental upheaval of history. It could well have happened this way, it’s as valid as another theory (apart from the one saying the battle didn’t take place where it did). So why not?

If you're looking for a non-stop, action packed, blood and thunder variant of the Historical Fiction genre, then you're looking in the wrong place. It's more of a slow burner than that. I will admit to having had some doubts, some issues, underway, but in the end I found myself enjoying it more and more. By the end, as I'd become at ease with the characters and the style, I was sad to have finished, but glad because I'm looking forward to what may well be a follow up (as it could well be set before the events in this book, I'm not too sure what kind of animal is yet). Which I've taken the precaution of pre-ordering. So a tentative 3, finishing strongly with an action-packed 4.