speesh's reviews
416 reviews

For a book called 'The Last Minute', it's a very long one indeed. Crazy long for what it is. And what it is isn't much. A very slight story. Pretty one dimensional. Some by the numbers CIA people - and you're never going to believe this, but one of them may be a renegade CIA person, told you you wouldn't believe me. There are not one, but two cut out and keep shadowy, global secret organisations. One good, the other pantomime villain bad.

There's also, for some reason best known to the author (and I can only presume his agent had to take a phone call when the author showed him/her this section of the book) a story within a story. One which is actually reasonably interesting. However, it would fit here, in context, if it was a lot, lot shorter. As it is presented here, it just drags the story of the rest of the book out to breaking point. And beyond. A few lines, presented differently, would have put over what he wanted to say about this particular character's motives and why we could (if you're that way inclined) sympathise with them. But I can't see the point of it, as it is here. By the time I’d finished that section, I’d pretty much forgotten what the main story was supposed to be about!

Anyway. The preamble tells you it's about an ex-CIA Man. There are a hell of a lot of them, ex-CIA people, almost enough to start their own CIA, judging by the number that pop up in books I read. Maybe I should go back to the first Century AD (and stay there), there surely can't be many ex-CIA Roman soldiers, or ancient Britons, surely. Erm, yeah,well... and he's had his newborn baby kidnapped, even before he's set eyes or arms on it. His wife was a traitor and must have had the baby somewhere he didn't know about, before she somehow got into a coma...I don't really recall. Anyway, my sympathy was shown the window at this point, as I can't stand kids. Never have done. Don't have any of my own - luckily for some unborn child somewhere - and never will have. So, he's on his own with the worrying and the running and the fighting and the "I'll do anything to get my son back!" Yeah, ok, apart from that then, it is good in parts, but those parts are too widely spread to build up tension or feelings of caring if he gets the kid back or not.

Then there's the ending. And I've always suspected films or books where the baddie at the end feels the need to explain everything to the hero he's about to hideously murder (surely baddies in books and films have realised by now, that why they’re doing the explaining, help for their victim is on the way?). It's basically an admission by the director or writer that he/she has failed with the story at that point. If they think it needs a full explanation. It's distracting and boring because you know the hero is going to get out of the situation because it's the end of the book and if the signs haven't been good enough or clear enough already, for you to figure out what's been going, you don't care. In most cases, it's the final nail in the coffin.

In short - interesting in parts, a reasonable diversion, but too formulaic.

Must be some fifteen to twenty years since I last picked up a Mark Timlin 'Nick Sharman' thriller. And I still can't put it down.

It's hard for me to critiise a Mark Timlin/Nick Sharman book. They've always been right. They’ve always entertained, they’ve always been taughtly written and they're amongst the very few books I decided I couldn't leave the UK without, when I moved to Denmark in 2004. They're all still on the bookshelf over there and they're still amongst the books I recommend most frequently and the books I consciously - and I guess unconciously- compare all other crime-type thrillers against. And most are found wanting.

In 'Stay Another Day', our anti-hero Nick Sharman has been enjoying the simple life, as only people with a simply huge bank balance are able to, on an island in the (Caribbean) sun. Best not to enquire too closely where he got the money, just go along with that there's plenty of it. One of the few people from his old life back in London who knows where he is and how to contact him, is his daughter and she suffenly gets in touch with a request for the kind of help only Nick Sharman can supply. Things go wrong, of course and Sharman finds that whilst he might have been out of circulation long enought to have lost some of his old sharpness, he hasn't forgotten his old tricks, neither has he lost his old ability to attract trouble.

It has to be said that this isn't classic Sharman - or Timlin. The plot isn't good enough and it really doesn't seem ike Timlin's heart was in the project. There are weaknesses where I'm sure the Timlin of the '80's would have tightened up and made stronger. The end is obviously tacked on with a feeling of a rush to be done with the book and the character and to put the pen down. It was like visiting an old friend you lost contact with, or moved away from, and talking about how it used to be, back in the day. Nice enough while it lasts, but that's where those memories really need to stay, back in their day.

Personally, I'd have liked a different ending - more uplifting, maybe. Sharman and for the pleasure he has given me down the years, deserved it. I'd have liked an ending that allowed us to decide what Sharman is maybe up to after all he's been through in his life. But there we have it. It's done. Timlin clearly feels he's done and said all he wants to with Nick Sharman and I have got to thank him for it.

I live in Denmark, I have done the last ten years. I have learned Danish and I speak and understand it all day every day. I've read books in Danish. English-written translated into Danish and books written by Danish authors. And there's a difference. You can see, read and tell there's a difference. There's a different way of thinking and formulating a sentence or a paragraph. A different way of putting an idea over. I'm not going to say their world view is different from ours, but having been here for ten years now, I can safely say they often have a different view of what is - and perhaps more interestingly - what isn't important. What IS worth worrying about and what isn't, what can be left to sort itself out.

When I was only a little way into 'Swords of Good Men', I said to the wife (you ask her), that even if the name didn’t give the game away, I’d put a whole load of her money on Snorri Kristjansson being a Scandinavian. Well, he’s from Iceland and f you’re worrying over my definition of ’Scandinavia’; (Wikipedia) *Sometimes the term Scandinavia is also taken to include Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and Finland, on account of their historical association with the Scandinavian countries."). It's in that historical background, the assumptions made of the reader, the way of telling the story...and it's written all over this absolutely superb book.

'Swords of Good Men’ is different. No doubt about it. Firstly, because the action stays in Scandinavia. Snorri’s saga doesn’t follow the otherwise well-trodden (if can ships can be said to tread) path, the 'Whale Road’, from Norway, Denmark etc, to Britain. Which is what, for most people I imagine, pretty much would actually characterise as being ‘Viking'. Here, neatly turning the 9th Century tables, it is Christianity which is the threat coming to the Vikings, from Vikings, in THEIR backyard. Their way of life is under threat from warriors emerging suddenly out of the mists. And they mean to defend it to the death. Get your head round that one for a start.

However, I don’t wish to get all 10th Century medieval on your asses here, with maybe making out like this is some sort of detailed allegorical study of paganism in retreat versus the onrush of Christianity (bringing the word of God ‘at the point of a sword and edge of axe’) that led to the end of the Viking era. It isn’t (really) and luckily for us readers, at least half of Snorri's characters don't know it’s the end and are ready to fight to the death. That’s what in essence is happening here. Odin and Thor and all the other Æsir don't intend giving up without a fight. They are cornered, gathering their forces and ready to strike back using any means they can, over-, or underhand. And the little town of Stenvik is going to get caught in the middle, whether the people of Stenvik like it or not.

The book starts slowly and builds its story - maybe like a film that opens with a long shot, far away, that comes in, slowly getting closer and closer, bringing the events, characters and story to focus. It also stays away from what I usually think of as the 'normal' way of opening, with a huge battle or suchlike. It assumes you're already with the story of the Vikings. That you know the world in which story is set. Yes, people know about Vikings, but the book is comfortable in assuming you’re NOT now thinking Tony Curtis, Kirk Douglas and Ernest Borgnine. It mentions for example, without further explanation other than the name, Hedeby and Trelleborg, both important centres in Viking-age Denmark, but, I think, I've only ever seen mentioned once before in Viking fiction. Two travellers arrive in the town, Ulfar and his cousin Geiri who are traders on their way home. They find the anticipation and foreboding is building amongst the people. What will happen and who will survive when the - unstoppable - storm breaks over them? And then, when the tension becomes nearly unbearable and the storm does break, the book really delivers on its built up promise. With a final battle the like of which I don’t think I’ve read before. A battle so vivid, that it not so much places you directly in the centre, rather that whilst reading, it has you looking over your shoulder and checking for where the next death-dealing, blood-dripping, breast-cleaving, axe-wielding, seven-foot tall marauding berserker Viking warrior is coming from! If it doesn't leave you breathless, get someone to hold a mirror in front of your mouth - you may be dead.

So, there are plenty excellently realised and memorable characters here. There are warriors and witches and where there are warriors and witches, there will be warfare. There are axes, broadswords and narrow escapes (you see what I did there?). There are characters to care about, to be worried about, to trust, to mistrust, to be afraid of, to be intrigued by. And characters you hope you're going to meet again. Soon. 'Swords of Good Men' is just about everything you could possibly want and then some, from a novel about the Vikings. I didn’t want to compare and contrast with other Vikings books I’ve read, or will be reading in the very near future, but this IS different. It’s powerful, wonderfully imagined and presented and I’ve got to admit; it feels like the real thing. If it isn’t in my top three best reads of the year come December, I’ll be more surprised than…well, it ain’t gonna not happen.

And, as I’ve said before, as one of the Vikings in 13th Warrior says: “It’s alright little brother - there are more..” The second in Snorri’s Valhalla Saga, ‘Blood Will Follow’, comes out in *casts runes* June.

I had to, thanks (?) to an eye infection, ‘read’ this with Audible. And very glad I was too. What top notch entertainment it is! So good in fact, I’ve had it read to me twice inside a month - and enjoyed every single Roman minute of it.

We’re back in AD 182, in Roman Britain, in the Roman Legions, at the northern edge of the province of Britannia, in what I suppose could be called no man’s land, between Hadrian’s and the Antonine Wall(s). Not the ideal place to be if you’re a Tungrian Legionarry from Tungria, but most definitely the place to be if you’re a reader after entertainment, enjoyment and excitement. Why not the ideal place to be if you’re a Legionary? Mainly because the people who do want to be there, the thousands of blue-painted local tribes, don’t want you there. And are about to set about removing you. Forcibly. But at least the Tungrians have been there a while, they almost know what to expect and from where to expect it. What then the new arrivals from warmer climes, the detachment of archers (the dealers of those furious arrows?) from Syria - how must they be feeling, strangers in a decidedly strange land?

I would describe 'Arrows of Fury' as taking place very close to the action. It doesn’t mess about and try and cut away, back and forth trying to control a confusing multitude of story threads, in multiple locations and have characters speculating the whole time on what may or may not be happening and to whom, in those other locations. This takes you right to the heart of where the story - and action - is. The sights, the smells, the living and the dying. This is straight ahead storytelling. Drops you in it and gets on with it. However, being a story about Rome and Romans, tension and treachery are, inevitably, never that far from the surface. On either side of the Wall. The Romans may - or may not, depending on which of the Centurians you talk to - have a fugitive from Imperial justice, a traitor to some, amongst their number. Can he be found, can he be kept secret? The native tribes are trying to build up their strength to send the Romans packing, but are led by a man seemingly as intent on removing tribal leaders he sees as rivals, as he is the Romans. Perhaps the interesting difference with 'Arrows of Fury' (and presumably the others in the series I have, but have yet to read) is that the tension is actually created in the form of screaming multitudes of barbarians arriving out of the mist before you’ve had your breakfast. A much more ‘honest’ tension, I feel, than that created by multi-faceted power struggles in the Senate. Just me?

It’s a ‘strong' story. No doubt about that. Strong characters and - understandably (unless you’re one of the delicate ladies who lunch, of the various 'Historical Fiction’ groups on Goodreads who can’t understand) - strong language. Unless you’re gonna go to your grave deluding yourself that Historical Fiction is heaving bodices and essentially ‘Murder She Wrote’ set several hundred years ago, then you’re gonna understand one thing about this type of Historical Fiction. We (those of us reading this now) read in English. We want to read a book set in Roman times. They spoke Latin. We (unless we’re related to Harry Sidebottom) can’t understand Latin. So the people doing the walking the talking the fighting and the speaking, have to converse in English in the story we’re reading. 'Arrows of Fury’ wouldn’t sell many copies (outside of Oxford) if it was written in Latin. So what is happening, is Anthony is writing, in English, in the manner of the Romans. Consider it a kind of translation. Now, we’re dealing with soldiers here. Apart from the Officer, the Equine class I think were the top of the Roman heap, they aren’t going to be all that well educated. And anyway, let’s face it, when down to your last half dozen comrades, with your backs to the burning stockade, with several hundred half-naked, hairy, screaming for blood, painted blue warriors about six paces away, axes red with your friend’s blood about to come down on your head, an ‘oh dear me, we’re in trouble here’, just ain’t gonna cut it. Is it? It is if you read the really childishly naive comments irritating the fuck out of me in several discussions there, but not if we’re dealing with the Roman soldiers on the frontiers of the Empire in Northern Britain in AD 182 in Anthony Riches’ books. Deal with it.

Personally, I’m not gonna argue the toss about wether a Roman soldier would have exclaimed (the Latin equivalent of) ‘fuck me sideways’. I know I would have said that or its Latin equivalent) were I a Roman soldier faced with hoary hoards of blue-painted animals in human guise descending at a great pace upon me, so I’m cool.

'Arrows of Fury' is a gripping story (mostly around the throat) that builds on the previous book - 'Wounds of Honour’ - the first In Anthony Riches’ Empire series, pretty seamlessly. A down and dirty tale of life on the front line, life on the edge at the edge of the Roman Empire. We know the characters, we know the time and the location, we know they’re going to have to get out of tight spots, we just don’t know how. Still, we’re not alone in that… There are (so far) seven books in the Empire series and it would seem like Anthony Riches has hit on a reasonably simple formula. Tell it like it is. Or was.

For an old Cold War spy (novel-reading) warrior like me, I really can’t resist books that come with recommendations like, “The thinking person’s John le Carré” and especially when it is described as an “old fashioned spy story.” Drawback is, many of the ones I go through with that their outside, can’t deliver on the inside.

With 'The Whitehall Mandarin’, Edward Wilson delivers. It’s a dramatic step up from the bright shiny, trashy, 'me-too’ thrillers one sees so (too) many of. There’s a depth of ambition, an understated confidence, an assurance and understanding of nuance, that makes it simply a delight to read. I was hooked (lined and sinkered) from the first page and kept spellbound to the last.

The story begins in 1957, though is still feeling echoes of the Second World War, 1948 and one Lady Penelope Somer’s time in Malaysia. She later becomes the first woman to be Permanent Under Secretary of State - effectively head - at the Ministry of Defence and is also the character around whom the story ultimately revolves. However, she’s not the story’s main figure, dare I say. That honour goes to William Catesby - he’s the one with most page-time here anyway. He shares his name with one of English history's most infamous traitors, Robert Catesby (I didn’t know that either), one of the ringleaders of the Gunpowder Plot of 5 November, 1605. That slight ancestral problem aside, our Catesby is an SIS officer who, as his colleagues - on both sides - frequently point out, is a working class lad from a nondescript East Anglian fishing village, with slight socialist tendencies that are now somewhat at odds with his chosen profession and especially the social circles in which he now operates. He is, as opposed to his not so illustrious predecessor, employed to track spies and traitors down, rather than recruit them. Although, hmmm…maybe…Anyway, as the story begins, we do indeed find him working to uncover a traitor. An American one. One the scientists and Naval officers he’s recruited, think is passing their information on to the Americans. Their information is being passed it on alright - but to the Russians. And that first double blind, is it a double - or triple bluff - should set you up nicely in the frame of mind to wrestle with the twists and tangles the plot will have you tied up in later. Catesby and the British SIS roll the American and his network up and pass him over to the US authorities, who bundle him off back ‘home’ to the States for further ‘processing.’ End of problem. Except it isn’t. It’s just the start. And becomes a problem on both sides of the Atlantic and all the way over to the far East.

It is a beguiling and entrancing tale, that weaves itself deftly in and out of the main events and political flash-points of the late ’50’s and ’60’s. From the fall-out after World War II, the start of the Cold War, the Bay of Pigs ‘debacle’ (depending on where you saw it from), to the Cuban missile crisis, the assassination of JFK, the Profumo affair, the Paris riots and on to the disaster that was the corporate sponsored mess of the Vietnam War. A war the biggest superpower in the world couldn’t hope to win, but didn’t dare admit it. Especially to itself. The story snakes and twists its way along the corridors of power and through seedy parties in stately homes full of people who should know better, but had enough influence that they really didn’t need to worry whether they needed to care, to end up amid the jungles of Vietnam and finally, the minefields of Whitehall. Phew! There is undoubtedly a lot going on in and a lot to take from this wonderful novel. Primarily, I thought anyway, how an individuals idealism has to be sacrificed to ‘realpolitik’ when national strategy becomes involved. The price paid by individuals caught up in the great game - those further down the pile, as well as those at the top. That ‘realpolitik', as the book says a couple of times, derives in part from the mantra; ‘our enemy’s enemy is our friend.” When expedient reality intrudes on political ideals - as many of the characters, from Catesby to Cauldwell, to Miranda to the USA and Vietnam, find out. Often at the cost of a ‘Faustian pact with Satan.’ (I knew studying Christopher Marlowe at school would come in handy one day!).

The book treats you like an adult, WITH an attention span, is one way I thought of it whilst under way. It’s not all laid on a plate for you and you will have to rewind a few times to make sure you got it right. OK, just me then...It manages to be both modern and timeless at the same time. By being set in the past, dealing with past events, he has a chance to concentrate on the fears and contradictions bound up in what surely was the ‘golden age’ of spying. Without doubt, spies operated on a higher intellectual plane back then (in the books, anyway). Look nowadays, at the ‘Bourne’ films and their “get me eyes on him people, now!” - shouts person in control centre, to some nerd just out of college employed to press buttons. In 'The Whitehall Mandarin', technology is dependant on having enough coins in your pocket for the phone booth, hoping the people in the flat opposite can’t lip read and remembering the appropriate colour of drawing pin to leave in a park bench. American intelligence agencies might be rushing headlong into the future, but thankfully, the British secret service still reminds me of the well-meaning likes of Monty Python: “Can you keep a secret?” “Yes!” “Well you’re in then!” And if there’s one thing the book’s final premis is based around, it’s the British aristocracy’s ability to do just that. Keep a secret.

’The Whitehall Mandarin’ certainly hits the sweet spot of style and substance, dead centre. Its messages come from the situations and mistakes of the past, but as those mistakes are still being made today, it is clearly still relevant, in the here and now. It all makes 'The Whitehall Mandarin' an absolutely captivating read and a delight of anticipation to return to after being away. It’s superbly well-paced, with a balanced structure that not only helps to increase the reading pleasure, but must have been a joy, not to mention fantastic fun, to plan and then write. The feeling of satisfaction when Edward realised it was all going to come together, is only to be jealous of. Yes, there are some weighty themes from some of recent history’s pivotal periods dealt with here, but the book always seems to remember to be an enjoyable experience. And it is unquestionably exciting, not to mention extremely tense, as you try and make sense of all the clues, the lies and half truths, the double or triple bluffs, the what-ifs, buts and maybes, that lead to an almost breathless rush to try and keep up with Catesby as he nears the point of unlocking the story’s final secrets. I’m thinking that this will be the book I’ll be measuring all my other ‘thrillers’ against in the future. And most will be found wanting.

For sheer fun on the reader’s side, the post-WWII, Cold War generation of spying will surely never be equalled and I admit I purred like the cat that got the cream throughout reading 'The Whitehall Mandarin.’ In contrast to many others, this is a modern spy novel that does deserve to be compared with the greats of yesteryear on its cover. You really shouldn't let a book of this calibre, this level of satisfying enjoyment, pass you by. Do whatever you can to get hold of a copy. Have sex with a teddy bear if you have to - better still, go to a bookshop and buy one, how old fashioned is that?

I’m going to have to come right out and say it - I’m a huge fan of Angus Donald’s ‘Outlaw Chronicles' series. And ‘Grail Knight’ is, in my humble opinion, his best yet.

I’m also a huge fan of Angus’ Alan Dale. Especially he ‘old’ one, the narrator, at the start and end of the books. The books hinge on Alan. He is the main character. He is doing the remembering and the telling of the stories and they are from his point of view. The old Alan writes with such pathos and feeling as though only now can he understand what the young Alan doesn’t always. About what he got mixed up in - and had to fight his way out of - and about Robin Hood and his own relationship with him. I, for one, would think there is mileage in a book solely of ‘old’ Alan’s reflections and his life ’now,’ the period when he’s recounting the tales of his youth. Check out the vivid, almost Disney-esque descriptions of Sherwood near the start and tell me that couldn’t hold its own throughout a whole novel. There you go.

‘Grail Knight’ was set up nicely in the previous book, ‘Warlord' and gets going from the off. But not how you’re thinking. Not with a ‘Hey! Let’s go look for the Grail!", from the start. It’s more subtle than that. The story casts out several strands, builds seemingly in other directions but then comes together to coalesce (if strands can coalesce) into that noblest of Middle Ages quests. But the reasons and the thinking behind the quest, from the characters and Angus here, are if you’re up for it, very interesting.

Of course, in the period the book is set, the Middle Ages, it is impossible to avoid talk of religion. It was, it seems, much more a part of peoples’ daily lives, than we can possibly imagine. In Angus Donald’s ‘Outlaw’ series, there are often what seems like the equivalent of two religions they didn’t understand, fighting for control over their lives. Christianity maybe the ‘official’ religion, but people, out in the fields and forests, still need the help found in an older religion. Many have replaced faith in the gods and goddesses of the fields and the trees and the pools, with faith in other, newer kinds of equally inanimate objects that may or may not have had some connection with the new, one God. Which is how the book starts, with Alan trying to make sense of people putting faith in an ordinary-looking old flask they say was given to their priest in a dream. But which Alan knows he bought for a few coins in France, when he needed something to drink from. The book is in some ways an interesting exploration of who is right. The Grail of the title is nothing special to look at either. Angus goes for the idea that it was a fairly ordinary bowl, used by Jesus and the disciples at the last supper to mix wine in, but then held His blood, or drops thereof, at the time of His crucifixion. It is only special because of what it is believed to have contained. As is Alan’s flask. The Grail, many people believe, has power because of what it contained. Alan believes his flask could have the power he wants it to have, for the same reasons.

So, what Alan has to wrestle with is the, to him, absurdity, though sometimes the necessity, of trusting in or believing in, something you know cannot be what it seems others want it to be. During the novel, as events unfold, his view doesn’t exactly change, but he becomes more understanding. If someone thinks something can or did do what they said, who is he to contradict their belief? Alan, while having absolute faith in something, someone, he has never seen but has been told controls every aspect of his life, struggles to understand others’ faith in something they can see, right in front of them. Is it the ‘real' grail they find? It is if enough people believe it is. It is, even if you’re the only person who believes it is. It is if Robin Hood tells you it is what you’re looking for. Interesting.

‘Grail Knight’ is an excellent, all-action, full-blooded story on - at least - a couple of levels and one which will reward you richly however you come at it. There is derring-do, there are narrow escapes against impossible odds. Nemeses are confronted, cultures clashed. Other varieties of Christianities looked at. There is remorse and redemption, friends measured and tested and some found wanting. There are other shocks and plenty of ‘endings’ (for various characters and not all of the at the point of a sword kind) a-plenty too, especially in the second half. Angus makes some very brave decisions on his characters’ behalf (you may need to set your face to stun on a couple of occasions). But they are the right decisions, as there can be no doubt now that Angus OWNS Sherwood, Robin and all.

If there was one way I think Angus could improve the series, it would be to have more tales set in England. His characters have ranged far and wide down the five books and I think that it is time to take them back to their mythological roots. He has reinvented the characters, yes, but he should be wary of taking them too far away from what it could be argued, people know and love about them. I have no idea what the storyline for ‘The Iron Castle' is, but if that too involves foreign travel, so be it. The next one then should be set in England, in Sherwood (and not in caves) and feature the sherrif, or someone similar.

As I’ve tried to say, 'Grail Knight’ is a beautifully planned and executed novel. Richly imagined, I would think is the way reviewers would describe it. I really couldn’t have enjoyed its thrilling and rewarding tale if I’d tried. If you thought that with book number five an author could perhaps be forgiven, that it might even be understandable, for taking his or her foot off the gas, eye off the ball. Then with Angus, you need to think again. ‘Grail Knight’ will be a tough act to follow, but then I’ve thought that sort of thing with Angus before. I thought ‘King’s Man’ would be difficult to follow, but he proved me wrong and I’m so much looking forward to being proved wrong again, when Alan and Robin - and some of the others from Sherwood - return for book six ‘The Iron Castle’ - very soon.

An odd little animal, this. This is an excellent way to ease yourself into Ben Kane’s best-selling ‘Hannibal' series proper. Which is what I’m doing.

However, calling it a ‘short story', does suggest it is more of a completeness than it actually is. It is like a sketch, a series of incidents and ideas that could possibly be further developed into a novel, if Ben had wished. Though, what it seemed like to me to be most like was, an outtake. A passage that didn’t make the cut - for whatever reason - to the final book. If ’Hannibal’ were a film (now, there’s an idea) released on DVD or BluRay, then this would be in the elongated not released in cinema’s director’s cut version on the second disc.

It’s also more about Mutt, than Hannibal or even Hanno (and brief though my time with him was, it was long enough to build up a liking for the character). The Carthagenians - and remember, they’re not Romans - are on the afore-mentioned patrol through Cisalpine Gaul and stumble across some of the afore-mentioned Gauls. The wrong type of Gauls, as it turns out. Their bacon is saved by the right kind of Gauls and they get taken to sample Gaulish hospitality (stop thinking of Asterix!). Then they themselves run into a Roman patrol. And there is ends. One minute here, next minute gone.

It’s a thoroughly entertaining, teaser for Ben’s Hannibal series and while I have the whole series (so far) sitting poised to be read on the shelf over there *points over there* I may have inadvertently done the right thing here. I listened to the Audiobook version. So now reading this I have the very wonderful Michael Praed’s voice in my head for when I get stuck into the proper thing. And that, based on this, is a very good thing.

I’ll recommend it as a good taster for the main Hannibal course, but no more.

'Secret of the Seventh Son' really is much, much better than the last one (or two) I read by Glenn Cooper. So much so, it wouldn’t surprise me to find out this was actually written by someone else under the name 'Glenn Cooper.' Maybe 'Glenn Cooper' is just a made-up umbrella name for a group of writers and 'Secrets of the Seventh Son’ is by the good one in the team.

Erm, actually, and perhaps not surprisingly, on closer investigation, SotSS, seems to be the first by our ‘Glenn.' I can only guess, that his agent said after he delivered this one, "what else have you got?" And in the kitchen cupboard drawer- under ’The Tenth Chamber’, was - amongst others - ‘The Devil Will Come.’ He’d have been better of with finding the shopping list in that one’s case. But that’s just me.

Anyway, here we have the FBI hunt for a serial killer with an irritatingly random modus operandi and a religiously undertoned historical mystery thriller ensues. That turns into a race against time, manhunt-type suspense thriller. There, I think I’ve about covered it all.

It holds the attention, even with some darting to and fro sometimes just months, sometimes back to the 8th and 9th century. It’s an intriguing enough plot, at least up until around half way, when it becomes reasonably clear what’s going on. But even then, there are some big surprises and enough unexpected twists to keep me going to the end. Oh, and there’s an alternative - and reasonably plausible - explanation for what might really be hidden at Area 51. If you believe there is something hidden there. Or that there IS an Area 51...

'Will Piper' is a decent, solid sympathetic character. An FBI suspect profiler with a believable back-story (as CNN might say. Often). Actually, a level of believability I’ve not encountered too often in books of this ‘me too’ religious secrets thriller sort. Style-wise, it put me in mind of one by Michael Connelly I read. An attention to and description of, believable character detail that had me thinking I should me taking more than mental notes, as it’s as sure as whatever that some of this is gonna come in useful for solving the case, both for the character and for me.

There are a couple of other unexplained, perhaps fortuitous “there’s lucky!" circumstances or coincidences, but not enough to get in the way of enjoying the book as a whole. One does need to spring over (as we say here in Denmark) the idea that only the male genes are passed on to sons from their fathers. That only male children are born in these special circumstances - I don’t remember there being any mention of girls being born. You’ll know what I’m on about if you read the book

I'd also like to find out why the Isle of Wight. Having had countless holidays on the IoW in my younger days, I knew that the book's medieval passages in 'Vectis' were on the IoW. I think he's got some relationship with the UK somewhere down the line. For an American, he's clearly got a practiced ear for us English, you can tell that from the sections, the dialogue especially of the parts set in England and even the section with the Scottish people ring very true. Though I'd have used 'pal', instead of 'mate.’

All in all though, a vast improvement (actually I suppose it was more a 'good start', as this actually came first) on the others I’ve read of Glenn Cooper’s.

This was a really excellent book, that might start off slowly and studied and have you wondering where all this is going, but really gets underway in the second two-thirds and makes up for all the ‘what’s this all about then?’ of the first part. It then delivers an exciting, thought-provoking final climax.

Anyway…

It is about one Vlado Petric, a Bosnian ex-Policeman, who escaped from the troubles and is now working on a building site in Berlin. He is found, tracked down and recruited by some Americans who work for the War Crimes Commission in The Hague. They want to send him back into the former Yugoslavia to track down a suspected war criminal called Pero Matek, who has gone to ground and integrated himself in the Bosnian business and, of course, the black market community. In between times, Vlado is contacted by an old soldier called Haris (who may even have been Petric’s wife’s lover, while she was still in Bosnia, waiting to join him in Berlin). Haris has information about one of the war criminals who has also found his way to Berlin. Things get a little out of hand, Haris and a friend kill Popov and call on Vlado to help dispose of the body. Then, wouldn’t you just know it, but Popov is high up on the War Crimes list and they are doing all they can to track him down. They suspect he is in Berlin, but can’t seem to find him. Petric is taken to The Hague, briefed and then sent into Sarajevo, where he tries to make contact with Matek. Matek escapes, but a relative of Vlado’s turns up some photographs which blow up all Vlado thought he knew about his and his father’s past, in his face.

The book finally hinges on Matek’s relationship with Vlado’s dead father and how this colours Vlado’s pursuit of him. The more Vlado finds out about Matek, the more he learns about about his father and his own past

Don’t worry, when you’re reading the book, it is much easier to understand the twists and turns than I’ve made it above.

I must admit to having some doubts in the start, that it wasn’t as immediately captivating as I remember Dan Fesperman’s ‘The Arms Maker of Berlin’ as being. But give it time and you’ll be hooked and if you’re anything like me, you’ll be glued to it. The story builds slowly, picks up the pace in a very satisfying manner, revealing its secrets (and sorrows), moving from the Balkans to Italy via the Second World War and the mayhem of revenge that was the break-up of the old Yugoslavia. Looking back, I can see how well paced it actually was, making the most of a pretty melancholy and reflective storyline and showing the near impossibility of either fully understanding or solving the situation in the Balkans as it was or is now. I thought underway, that you would have to go back to the time when the first caveman from one side of the mountains, hit the first caveman from the other side of the mountains, to be able to point to who started ‘all this’ and get away from the endless “we’re gonna do this to you in revenge for what you did to us” “well, we’re gonna do this to you in revenge for you doing that to us…” and so on. No-one’s is able to say; “Stop! Forget all that’s happened before, let’s start again.” They’d be shot. And would need revenging. If that’s a word.

A thoroughly enjoyable, rewarding read. The only thing keeping it from a 5th star, is - being a novel/thriller by an American author, there of course has to be (at least) one occasion where someone ‘punches’ a number in to a mobile (or just about any other type of) phone. There must be some sort of law. The 20th Amendment to the Consti-bloody-tution or something. You go check. See if I’m not right.

It must be hard to write any kind of book, fiction or non fiction, set in or around Germany during the Second World War and not at some point come up against the situation of whether 'they’ knew about what was happening to the Jewish population. The ‘hero’ of David Downing’s wonderful ‘Station’ series (you really don’t have to read on any further now, do you? You can guess this is going to be (another) good review, eh?), John Russell has, as in the previous two books, both become aware of something of what is/was happening and has tried to help. That’s not to set him up as an example of being better than ordinary Germans - mainly because he’s English/American - he’s just offering his help, such as it is, to people he knows, in a time of great need. As I’m sure anyone reading these books would hope that they would, were it them in his position. In ‘Stettin Station’, it looks like he is going to find out where all those trains full of Jews leaving Berlin railway stations in the dead of night are going and why. It seems fairly certain that a lot of people, ordinary people, knew something was happening, but the ordinary person didn’t/couldn’t see the whole picture/realise the whole horror of what was being done in their name. They knew people were being taken away and didn’t come back. They perhaps didn’t believe they were being killed as the reason for them not being seen again. Indeed a lot of Jewish people thought their friends were being resettled, happily in the east. They often had postcards from them saying how happy they were as evidence.

But how does John Russell report what he knows?

‘Stettin Station' begins in November 1941 and John Russell is still clinging on to his journalism job, reporting to various American and English newspapers, on goings on - officially and unofficially - in the German capital. He can’t abide or believe the official announcements he and his fellow reporters are fed by the German propaganda ministry, but he daren’t rock the boat too much or he’d risk being kicked out of Germany (if he’s lucky) and thus losing contact with his girlfriend and his son Paul. German troops have blitzkrieged their way to the gates of Moscow (the ‘Gates of Moscow’ are mentioned so often in the books I read on WWII, I’m guessing there were actually once some gates at the start of Moscow city limits?) and look both imperious and unstoppable. As unstoppable as the United States’ entry into the war looks too - Pearl Harbour happens during the book’s timeline. This will mean Russell must leave, or stay as a ‘guest’ of the Reich. Either eventuality will take him away from those he loves most. Through his film star actress girlfriend Effi, we see how the upper strata of German society functioned. Through his son Paul, a German youth being indoctrinated as all German youth were, we see how the regime worked from the bottom, up. Russell is in an unenviable position. Though as he realises more and more, the people who would envy his position are those Jews on the trains heading east. Those who actually arrive wherever it is they’re going, anyway.

It is almost a waste of time trying to review these John Russell and Effi Koenen books, they’re all uniformly excellent it would seem. ‘Stettin Station' is absolutely no different. It is an amazingly rich and detailed glimpse back at life in Berlin in the Second World War. Lord only knows how David Downing has amassed such knowledge. History books will tell you what happened and when, but these books tell you what it felt like and how ‘normal’ life sounded, smelled, touched and tasted. It goes far beyond ‘information’, it is the knowledge of someone who was there at the time. Or has invented time travel. It is as if he himself has only recently returned from Berlin in 1941 and is writing the stories whilst the experiences are fresh in his memory. You feel you can almost reach out and touch Nazi riddled Berlin of 1941. But you are also perhaps very glad you can’t.

It’s quite extraordinary and no mistake. Brilliant book, incredibly good series. Buy them. Read them.

(The question of whether the ordinary German in the streets knew what was going on, is looked at here, partly though John Russell’s late night meetings with his contact at the railways. The question has also cropped up in at least one of the pervious ‘Station’ books. It is pretty clear - to me at least - that the books’ position is ‘yes’, they knew more or less what was happening, but chose to look the other way, giving the Nazis prone to the worst excesses, carte blanche. For an idea of how much the Allies knew and when they knew it, you should head in the direction of Martin Gilbert’s ‘Auschwitz and The Allies’ or the incredible ‘The Holocaust’ also by Martin Gilbert).