speesh's reviews
416 reviews

Another one that reminds me of Mark Timlin's 'Nick Sharman' thrillers. And that’s (again) a very good thing. Gritty, clear, precise, nuanced.

The story proper starts in Manchester with the main character, Joe Hunter, warning off some local thugs who are terrorising his half-brother’s wife and child. His half brother meanwhile, has run off to Little Rock, Arizona (USA), with an ex-work colleague. The wife’s not impressed. But wants him back all the same. However, when Hunter gets to where his half-brother is, he isn’t. He’s run off, run away from…well, Hunter needs to find that out, in order to find his brother. Then there’s a serial killer on the loose. One ‘Tubal Caine.’ “Good name,” as Shakespeare would have said. He’s on a cross-country killing spree, quietly going about his business until a stranger stops him in the desert…

Joe Hunter is a vigilante. Not having read any of Lee Child’s books (as yet) who I understand also writes about a vigilante-like figure, I can’t say if he’s like ‘Jack Reacher’ or not. My problem at the start, in the setting-up phases of the book, was that when the first action took place, in Manchester, at night, I thought ‘ok, so he’s got a day job and sorts people out at night.' But no, Hunter seems to be a full-time vigilante. On finding out that his brother’s in trouble, in the USA, he immediately jumps on a plane to Miami, via New York. Unfortunately, lacking a workable explanation, and having experience of trying to book a plane ticket at short notice - and that’s just to go from Denmark to the UK - I’m unfortunately not thinking “Go Joe! Sort them problems out!" I’m thinking "That's gonna cost! Where IS he getting his money from?!" From then on, I’m looking for some sort of explanation for where the - seemingly - unlimited funds come from, rather than romping along with the story. You see? There isn’t really much of any kind of explanation. Not put together as sentences and a paragraph of explanation. Only some hints and half hints of work as a security advisor and money (presumably) from glad previous recipients of his brand of problem solving. Personally, I can’t imagine his previous job, he is ex-Army Special Services, paid enough to, effectively, retire on and not worry about having to stay in eating beans the 4th week until the end of the month. I can go along with the idea of not sitting us down and explaining the whole thing to us, then ‘and now on with the story’, we’re not children. So the idea of drip-feeding us, with more to come (as this is clearly set out as the first in an on-going series from the start), is the way I would like it to be done. However, the information is more than a bit sparse and not full enough to drag my niggling penny-pinching mind away from the “where IS he getting the funds for that from?” Having said all that, once the book kicks off for real, the writing and the style and the rush of the action, made me forget all that until I was finished. That’s good.

The character of Joe Hunter is clearly written to be the big brother you sometimes must have wished you had. Likeable, protective, resource able, honest, trustworthy and ready to dispense justice with his fists or anything else to hand. More of a discussion of the moralistic aspect of all this, wouldn’t have gone amiss. Maybe that’s being saved for later. It did seem a little funny how it’s acceptable the violence perpetrated by the hero, but when it’s the serial killer, the book walks away whistling ‘Dixie.’

The passages/chapters written with the serial killer at the centre, are really well done. Chilling due to their matter of fact ordinariness, I suppose you could put it. How Steven Spielberg does it in ‘Jaws', remember the scenes of happy people, like you and me, enjoying a day at the beach? Only we know there's a man-eating shark out in the water, the people on the beach don't. So it is us doing the work, creating the tension in a way. You know he's a serial killer, but he doesn't act like one. 'Doesn't act like one?' How do I know what a serial killer acts like?! I suppose you're waiting for him to crack and do something dreadful. So the tension is created by your own foreboding. If anything elevates this above the run of the mill, that is it. Made me forget the 'problems' of where Joe Hunter's money is coming from anyway.

And it ends with a “oh good lord, must take a sneak peak, see how many pages there are left, because I don’t think my shredded nerves will shred any more,” spine-tingling climax that does justice to the story and the book - and got me on the internet straight away to track down a (hardback) copy of Joe Hunter #2. If it’s missing anything, it’s a real twist. I thought we were getting one at the end, but while it was a neat solution to the problem, it wasn’t a jaw hits floor moment, that would have finished it off properly and elevated it up to the next thriller level. Having said that, there is enough evidence here, in his style and general level of writing - some weak, even cliched one-liners or responses to other ‘villains’ aside - to suggest he is on his way there.

All in all, many good starts and an extra 1/2 star for Joe Hunter being a fan of Robert E. Howard. On p129 Hunter says: “Poe, Lovecraft, and R.R. Howard were my favourites.” Whilst I haven’t read anything by Edgar, Al and/or Poe - I have read some H.P. Lovecraft and, by Crom and Mitra, any fan of Robert E. Howard is quite clearly one of the select few and destined to be a good friend of mine.

No matter how much I enjoy the ‘Empire’ books, I can’t get away from the fact that Anthony Riches’ Editor is still blind. Like the bat. It’s ok, publishing people, I have bought all the books (so far) in the series (twice, actually, as I have them all in hardback and on Audible) and a decent star count still manages to poke its head above the soup of irritants but…if I were his editor, I’d have (at least) pointed out this quick selection inside five pages, early on:

P 41. ’Scaurus raised an eyebrow in recognition of the younger man’s achievement.’

P.43. ’Scaurus raised an eyebrow.’

P45. ‘Marcus raised an eyebrow at Martos, who nodded in agreement.’

Then the unnecessary repetition habit again begins again:

P45. The Roman smiled quietly at the way in which the Selgovae giant had quietly and patiently become…’

You get the picture. In the main body of the book, eyebrows are raised in a startling, not to say stunning, variety of ways to signify a wide range of emotions. Often at times, like in the middle of a frenzied battle, where one might reasonably suspect a shouted indication of surprise, acquiescence or astonishment might have been a more logical, not to say speedily and easily interpreted, means of communicating the afore-mentioned emotion.

So, we have liberally sprinkled eyebrows that are ‘knowing,’ questioning, ‘imperious,’ ’sceptical,’ and/or ‘note’ things just by their raising. There are eyebrowS raised as the unspoken answer to questionS and characters that have one eyebrow raised while walking along, into forts. Then there are amazed, ‘pitying,’ ’sardonic,’ ‘wry’ eyebrows a-plenty.

But let’s go all the way to the end and take a closer look at Chapter 10.

P332. "‘What’s down there?’
Lupus started down into the shaft.”
Why not just leave the second ‘down’ out?

P333. “The other man raised a sceptical eyebrow.”

P.333. “Marcus nodded, conceding the point.
“We are the point of the spear…”
Why not ’the tip,’ for the second ‘point’ for example?

P335. “…jerking his head for Marcus to come forward past him. Pacing silently past his friend…” I give up.

P347. “Marcus lifted a wry eyebrow…” And that in the middle of a battle!

P353. “Scaurus raised an appreciative eyebrow at the woman before him.”

And in quick succession…

P354. “He (Scaurus again) raised a questioning eyebrow at her.”

P357. “With a sudden start she realised that there were men all around them, rising from the cover of the bushes and trees around the mine’s entrance.”

P359. “…holding it up to illuminate the narrow passageway. Two hundred paces up the dimly lit passage…” We’ve already got the idea there isn’t much light, hence the need for torches?

P365. “Scaurus raised an eyebrow.”

P366. “According to the miners the transfer was carried out at night, when most of Gerwulf’s cohort were asleep guarding the miners.” Why not just ’them’ for the second ‘miners’?

P368. “Albinus raised his eyebrows in reproach.”

P370. “…happy to see Appius clinging to the neck of his father’s tunic and working his gums vigorously on a heavy gold pendant that hung around her husband’s neck.”

P370. “She looked at her husband with a gently raised eyebrow.”

P370/1. “While the senator simply berated his son to take revenge, the Tribune’s ghost was at the same time both silent and yet gorily persistent in his demands, simply scrawling…”

My favourite of them all in this book and unfortunately I didn’t make a note of the page number, is this beauty:

“With a crack of breaking bone and he flopped bonelessly to the ground.” Surely, the noise of a breaking bone would immediately suggest he isn't boneless?

The fact that there are enough of them to be noticeable, is irritating in that it distracts from the/my enjoyment of the book/story. Which is otherwise pretty reasonable. They're still on mainland Europe and have to go sort out a Roman gold mine, discovering fraud on a monumental scale is being perpetrated by errant Roman soldiers. The actual bones of the story are really rather good, with some different variations on the last-minute rescues and unexpected turns of events we’ve come to expect from Mr Riches and his main character Marcus Aquila. I will have to dare to say again, that it is actually the more secondary characters, the supporting cast again, who make the difference. Sometimes, one might be forgiven for finding them a little more interesting, even appealing, in their nature, than the oftentimes straight down the line Marcus.

But (and ‘everything before the but, is bullshit,’ remember that) it’s not ‘just me’ who notices the eyebrows and the repetitions and eyebrows. Other readers have eyes, same as I do (I haven't even got 20/20 vision, for chuff's sake). OK, I was involved in what one could call - at a stretch - the ‘creative arts’ (advertising), down the 25 years or more (before moving to Denmark) I worked in the UK. Part of my job(s) down those very same years, was to spot exactly this sort of thing. So, maybe they do leap out a little more readily from the page than for a regular reader, I don’t know. But, you’ve got eyes, same as me, no matter what job you do or don’t do. Like it or not, I have noticed them - and you have too. I can’t un-notice. I can’t say if other reviewers have pointed it out, I haven’t read any, but what I do know is, is that if they haven’t pointed it out, they’re not doing their job (I can immediately think of one blogger (the one who seems never to have read a bad book) who certainly won’t have mentioned it for fear of not getting sent more publisher freebies). As I buy and pay for my books with my own (hard-earned) money, I can be both immune and more objective.

In the end, is it worth buying? Maybe. If you’ve read the others before it, yes. If you are looking forward to the troop returning to Britannia *raises hand* maybe. If you are becoming allergic to eyebrows shooting hither and thither more often than a James Bond film staring Roger Moore…maybe avoid.

This one I bought on spec, as I don’t usually read this sort of crime novel. But I’m glad I did. Though it does now mean shelling out on a whole new series of books that two months ago were unknown to me. Oh well, la-di-da.

Sorry to go mentioning it again, but…There are several parallels with Mark Timlin’s (utterly fantastic) ‘Nick Sharman’ character already. Apart from the immediately obvious. The same work ethic, the same sense of right and wrong, even when they're wrong and, Tulse Hill, isn’t that where Sharman lived?

Anyway, on with the story…and a nicely woven one it is at that.

(Remember, this is one of the latest in what looks like a long-running/to be continued, series of novels) Our main man, Tom Thorne, has been demoted from Murder Squad to the uniformed branch. Nothing inherently wrong in being in uniform, no matter how many books you read, or tv shows you see, where being demoted to uniform, is akin to being painted yellow and nailed to the town walls. Though not quite so pleasant. I mean, someone’s got to be in uniform, whether they’re on the way up, or down. They’re the people we the public are most likely to meet, so their job is of equal or greater value as this who swan about in their own overcoats and ancient Jaguars…But, for an ex-Murder Squad detective, who has done something really, really wrong (there are hints here, but it’s not necessary to know what, to get the most out of this one, just to know that he has done something wrong, his ex-colleagues are glad to have got shot, and he doesn’t like being back, powerless, as he sees it, pounding the streets). Despite his demotion, his ’nose,’ something that all detectives worth their salt/prolonged series of tv shows, films and/or novels, have, is still working fine. So, when he visits the scene of a suicide, and his ’nose’ starts telling him all isn’t as neat and tidy a suicide, ready for boxing up and tiring with a red ribbon marked ‘suicide,’ as his ex-colleges in the MS would like it to be, he starts getting feelings and into trouble. You see, he can’t quite remind himself enough times, that he isn’t getting paid to get those feelings again any more. He is paid to do, not think.

He won’t let it go. He has a feeling something isn’t right, but he can’t quite put his finger on it, to put it into words. All the suicides are elderly people, and don’t seem to have much else in common, but to Thorne, something isn’t right. He sees a pattern. Or does he? Isn’t he really making something of nothing, just to cling on to imagining he’s back on the Murder Squad. That he’s still important. Not an errand boy?

He could be like all the others and not give a fuck. That’s what they want him to do. But like it or not - and you get the feeling he is on the edge, of not liking it, given the hassle/downward career spiral/grief it has caused him, and of not giving a fuck. He has to go about investigating in his own time, beg, borrowing and stealing time and help from the few people who are willing to help him. But if he’s found out investigating and they’re found out helping him, there’ll be hell to pay.

As the suspicions grow into links and into possibilities into patterns and into evidence, Thorne identifies the killer, but seems powerless to stop him, unless he makes a mistake. Who the ‘he’ is, you’ll have to read it and see. The slow unveiling of the evidence, the way it leads deeper into the case, is very well done. The writing has just the right amount of world-weary ‘I really should know better by now’ pathos, a ‘lived-in’ quality to the character of Thorne and his attempts to come to terms with his new (lower) station in life (he can’t, quite).

There is a passage, the end of a chapter actually, fairly early on, when his suspicions are in desperate need of confirmation, where his deductions lead to clues and he comes across something that confirms he is right to be suspicious, that is really quite superb. Chilling even, in its simplicity, stark helplessness. That’s all I can say. At that point, I thought “now we’re gonna get going into something exceptional.” Whilst we didn’t fully realise the potential of that opening, the rest of the book is still an above average thriller, I’d say.

I did like this one. And that in itself, is quite encouraging. As it actually read a lot like a mid-series novel. Which it is. The idea of having the former plainclothes murder-squad detective go down a few notches - unwillingly - and back into uniform (he could leave but he seems to be Police through and through, almost against his better judgement) is a decent enough idea, and is done pretty well here, even though it has been done a hundred times before. It too felt a little underdeveloped, it could have been looked at more thoroughly. I didn’t get the feeling it was going to be developed any more in the next book, as it seemed as though he'll be back in ‘the warm’ next time out. Plus, the end could have been done a bit better. I did feel a little let down by it. So it’s not a knock it off, but it does feel like a mid-series, mid-table novel.

And can I just postulate that the aside about a colleague known as ‘Two Cats’ surely taken from, or at least very similar to, Reginald Bosenquet’s (sp?) tale about having to report on a story about the cat stuck up a tree, rescued by the fire brigade?

To put it simply; this must surely be the mother and father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle and next-door neighbour of all books about the Kennedy assassination cover up. No doubts about it. If there’s a stone still remaining unturned, bush un-peeked behind, a shopping list uncategorised, it surely ain’t worth peering into or under. If you have even the remotest interest in the killing and the (obvious) cover-up afterwards (and you have a few weeks to set aside to reading this) you need to read this book. I have read many, many books about the assassination of JFK, but I have never read one as thorough as this.

Before you start though, if you’re looking for a description of what happened on the day, you won’t find it here. You might, deep inside, come across a name - or two - for who did the actual trigger-pulling and the killing, but what you will actually find, laid unarguably bare, is the conspiracy behind the events of the day, before and afterwards.

If you’ve seen the film ‘JFK’ with Kevin Costner as Garrison, Joe Pesci as David Ferrie and Tommy Lee Jones as Clay Shaw, you’ll be pretty familiar with the bones of the book. She says she began writing it as a biography of Jim Garrison, but found she needed to go deeper into his thwarted investigate. There is still a life of Jim Garrison, of sorts, but of course, that life, once he launched the investigation, was totally consumed by it. He does go on, once his case had failed, but he could never escape it.

There can’t be many who don’t think there was a before and after conspiracy. It could well be *laughs* that you believe the Warren Commission. If you believe the Warren Commission, you're a bigger fool than you're trying to make me out to be. A commission is an admission of failure, or unwillingness, to get the case to court. It was a way to sweep the whole thing under the carpet. The Warren Commission was set up so the true crime would never get investigated. It beggars belief that the only court case in, for the USA at least, the biggest crime of the twentieth century, was left to a relatively obscure local attorney. And then forced to fail. Then...nothing. How fishy does that sound? No wonder there are conspiracy theorists. Only, once you’ve read this book, they’re not theories - they’re facts.

She proves successfully (for me) that there was a conspiracy. And who, which ‘organisation,’ was behind it. Then how it was covered up. From, amongst others, at least one very surprising source. However, if there is a problem with the book, it is that there are so many names, so many connections, so many FBI agents, CIA agents, ex-CIA agents, CIA agents pretending to be ex-CIA agents, pro-Castro, anti Castro groups, pro-Cuba groups that were actually anti-Cuba groups, anti- Cuba groups that were…well, you get the picture - that they do actually become a little meaningless. Added into that people who seemingly changed sides like they changed their socks, then it’s hard to keep up, make sense of, or form anything other than a general impression of what was going on. You just have to trust that she has control of what she’s trying to do with it all. I can understand why she wants to prove in every way shape and form that she’s on the money (to head off the ‘yeah, but…’ cottage industry of conspiracists), but the hundreds of names, their links and interrelations do tend to lead to a little confusion at best. Not being a Kennedy scholar by profession myself, or about to write a thesis on it, so unable to devote the man-hours and bits of paper with diagrams and lines on them necessary to take all this in - it becomes difficult to continue to take in after a point.

But, after reading such a thorough, unbelievably thorough, account of the evidence, it’s hard to see how anyone could come up with any other kind of scenario, or a name not mentioned and/or discussed here. I've got two more JFK assassination books sat on the shelf waiting to be read - I'm wondering now if it's worth bothering.

It's one of those that right from the off, makes it very clear that you are, at some point or other, going to be introduced to the murderer. The story never follows the murderer, never tells the story from their point of view - like ‘Dead Men's Dust,' for instance. So, at some point along the way, you will guess who it is. Before Harry Hole, in my case. I’m not saying I’m specially clever or anything, but I have read enough of this type of book to recognise when I’m being lead up the wrong garden path and so my mind tends to wander off looking for the right one. As yours does. Or, you think ‘well, they’ve not been in it much, so chances are it's them.' There’s part of the problem with the book in a way, it is, underneath all the life in Australia, the telling of ancient Aboriginal stories and parables to illuminate the way, the alcoholic Norwegian detective, just another one of ’this type of book.’ Is it better than all of ‘them,' though? That is the question the hype over him being the ’new Stig Larsson’ would seem to want you to answer with a resounding ‘yes!’ My answer is more of a cautious, on a knife edge ‘maybe.’

I enjoyed reading it, he tries a few tricks and effects with the writing style and presentation and he's clearly wanting to make some sort of statement about the treatment of the original Australians. But it is, in the end a ‘whodunit’ that tries its best to lead you a merry dance. Though, as you read they are about to trap 'the murderer' but know - from the amount of pages (or in my case listening to the audiobook version, the number of hours) left - it can't be who they, at that point, think it is. Obvious really. And a huge problem for any writer wanting to do that sort of thing, I imagine.

So, a fair bit of the final phase is taken up by the murderer painstakingly explaining to Harry - in reality those of us reading who haven't figured it out - exactly how they did it. Never a good sign. Always a sign of the author not really being sure he has communicated in the preceding book, what he wanted to do, or not crediting the audience with having figured it out.

I must admit i didn’t find an awful lot to like about Harry Hole as a character. I didn’t think he worked that well with the ‘minor’ characters here. Even his relationship with the girl, felt more than a little strained. In fact, the minor characters were the more interesting. Especially the Aboriginal ones. Maybe that was the intention? But surely, the intention was to make them part of a whole and not to outshine the main character. He felt as cold as a winter’s night in Norway.

So. The start of a trilogy (or more). That you can tell by the pages of 'tell me something about your past' conversation between detective and girlfriend. Is it enough to get me buying the next one? Is it enough to get me finding out what the next one is called? Is it enough to get me thinking I would get the most out of it/them by reading them in chronological order? I don't know. Maybe over the next few weeks it will settle in a bit better than it is settling in right now. Right now, the jury is still out.

Blimey! That took a long time. A long time finishing and a long time starting to do anything. When I was (hurrah!) done, all I could think was- it came, it was there and now it’s gone again. And it felt to like it got longer each time I picked it up.

I really couldn’t see what the point of the book was. I couldn’t see what the aim of the book or the story was. Usually it’s fairly clear from the start, or from the blurb on the inside, or the back, so you’re in the frame of mind to measure it against that premise. For good or bad, I read this on the iPad and iPhone, without the blurb, so I just went straight in. And it didn’t capture me. I didn’t find myself caring about any of the characters. Not him the main man, the name escapes me, not Nike...what'sit, not the Caliph or any of them. My eye and mind skated around the book in search of something to get a grip on. Without finding anything.

It seems to be set in the First Crusade, with, what might be a Greek envoy from the Holy Roman Emperor, or someone or somewhere, on tour in the Middle East of the 11th Century, ending up going here and there and finally taking part in the capture of Jerusalem in 1099.

It was s a new style on me. One that sags for the first third, then picks up. And then doesn’t.

But, if nothing else, it wins this years most ridiculous, no one anywhere has ever or would ever - outside of a book - think of this simile : “my soul was trembling like a broken sword.” Do broken swords ’tremble’? Maybe they do.

What is it with novels and people’s soul? I mean, outside books, the church and the odd Deep Purple song, when did you ever hear anyone discuss their soul, with you? Down the pub? At work? I don’t think so. And, of course, the longer ago a book is set, the more a discussion of one’s soul, is taken as being both ‘what they got up to’ and an indicator of the story being ‘set a long time ago.’ He relies on us believing, like he clearly does, that a person’s soul is an important indicator of their character, their suffering or their, well…we’re obviously supposed to read it as some deep, probably meaningful, insight, the mere mention of someone’s ‘soul.’ Has your soul ever felt ‘twisted,’ by the way? Have you ever ripped something from ‘the very depths' of your soul? Has your boss ever said that he/she didn’t want you to go to somewhere, Jerusalem in the First Crusade, for example? THAT would feel like he/she had ‘ripped out part of (your) soul.’ (though, watch out, as Jerusalem is a ‘loathsome city' that will wrap itself ‘tight around (your) soul', if you’re not careful). Didn’t know that? It was obviously possible back then. Even common, by the looks. Something modern life has left us unable to feel, clearly. Peter Bartholomew (the madman who tried to lead the Crusade, but wasn’t born high enough), on the other hand, “plucked a string that resonated in all (their) souls.” Just think what we’re missing nowadays!

There's page after page of people, prophets, priests, recounting, reciting and answering straightforward 'yes' 'no' questions, with paragraphs, pages, yards, hours of religious 'all shall be revealed to those who can see'- type nonsense babble. Really wearing. Doing nothing, going nowhere. I don’t doubt that this sort of thing used to go on, especially as they thought they were in the ‘End Of Days' (though more because they wanted to see 'The Lord Himself,' than any real, indisputable evidence of His Return) and looked for the signs to fulfil some idiot or others' prophecy of such. It would, like the book, try the patience of a saint. And I’m no saint.

I’ll giver it two stars ‘cause it was long and he’d clearly spent a lot of time on it.

Well, there’s a thing. I’m wondering if I haven’t read ’Library of The Dead’ by Mr Cooper and thinking not. I know I have read ’Secret of The Seventh Son,’ when it turned out ‘Library’ and ’Seventh Son’ are one and the same. Somewhere along the line, the title got changed. In which direction, I can’t say. Though a guess would be that ‘Library of The Dead’ is the up-dated title, as it were. Anyway, that wasn’t half bad and introduced us to Cooper’s hero, one Will Piper. ‘Book of Souls’ finds us again in Mr Piper’s company, in what is a really rather splendid sequel to the aforementioned ’Seventh Son’ (or ‘Library’).

He has to spend a fair bit of space at the start explaining the set-up, for those who may not have read the first one. A fair bit of space because there’s both a fair bit that needs explaining, but maybe he also needs a fair bit of space, because he needs to go into some detail, as the set-up, on the surface, is rather unbelievable. It will help if you’ve read what we experts are calling ‘Will Piper 1,’ but I should think you’d manage alright without having done so.

So, that set-up, then? Look away if it begins to get a little like shit from China - far-fetched: Some time, way back in the mists of history, the seventh son, of a seventh son, on the seventh day…in the year 777, etc, was born. Was seen as being a little what some nowadays might euphemistically call ’special.’ He began writing dates, lots of them, non-stop, in many different languages. These dates turn out to be births and deaths from that date onwards. Somehow or other, he impregnates a girl, has another son, who also starts writing, monks take over, years pass, more boys, more dates, hundreds of books filled, huge library built underground at abbey on Isle of Wight. Suddenly stop at a date in the future, forgotten when, but soon-ish, no idea why. During Second World War, books discovered, over to USA, stored in Area 51 (is it?) Catalogued, used for guessing when USA can take advantage of catastrophe (etc). Men turn up at Piper’s door, as he used to work at hush-hush establishment and they suspect, rightly, he has stolen a copy of the database. The very rich (very rich) one of the men, is on the list, with a death date in a couple of days. Wants to find out something or other, has discovered one book is missing from library, is for sale at auction house in London. They want to buy it. As does CIA, or NSA, or super secret intelligence agency. Chaos ensues.

For all that, it fairly races along in the early stages and is proves quite a gripping read. That is even despite the fact that the bad guy - even though the bad guys/ruthless agent is in-situ, front row of the auction, presumably with more than enough funds available to out-bid on the book, thanks to the imperative nature of the Govt’s desire to get the book back - gets out bid by our good guys. On the phone. From Piper’s home in New York. How did THAT happen?! Ok, so the bad boys lose the auction. Then play nice guys, letting some young office boy take the book they wanted so bad, over to New York. Why didn't they just steal it off him, in London - or New York? No, they wanted to ‘see who is behind it’, who out-bid them. A bit thin as they’ve got evidence it is Piper and have bugged his phone, etc. But they wouldn't have needed to do that if they had just taken the book. But then they wouldn’t have been able to get the link to Will Piper, you see. The ‘office boy’ turns out to be a British Intelligence operative, but not a very good one as he is soon overpowered on his arrival in New York. But not like you and I would have planned it, i.e. BEFORE he delivered the book, no, they wait until after.

From this uncertain start, it turns towards being a treasure hunt. After clues to something or other are found in the back page of the ‘missing’ volume. This of course means he can incorporate flashbacks in a slightly different way to most books’ (of this kind) flashbacks. Not badly done at all. And, of course, it allows him to set the action not only in the country of my birth, but the county, Worcestershire. And not far from where I was born as well. All good.

Well, despite having veered close to preposterous, its preposterousness actually reads a lot more convincingly preposterous, than several others I’ve read of this ilk, of which, a few spring immediately to mind - ‘The Rule of Four,’ for example.

Nevermind. It is written in a good, flowing, energetic way, so that my brain can forgive him (nearly) all the above, while my eyeballs rush headlong into the next, on later reflection, unlikely situation. It is actually really rather difficult to put down, as they say. It kind of loses its way a little towards the end, several things happening and it doesn’t feel like the same sense of purpose there was at the start or in the middle. The end does have several ends, as I suppose it has to, given the premise. But my explanation for why…well, you know, is the more obvious one, easily figure outable if you think logically about it.

Actually, if you don’t try thinking too much about the plot, you’ll probably enjoy the book just fine.

There’s action a-plenty in ‘Rome’s Executioner (Vespasian II)’, on and off the pitch. Ranging from the outskirts of the Roman empire in Dacia in AD 30, to the very centre of power and those who hold it or want it, in the eternal city itself. From full-on combat at the point of a sword to daggers in the back in the dark of Roman side-streets and back alleys. All in all, just what you want to find in a book set in Roman times. However (the good sort) what elevates this one above - the most of - its competition, is the sparkle, invention and wit Robert Fabbri imbues his characters and their stories with. It manages to hold my interest and rapt attention, even in the (totally necessary) political skullduggery set-pieces back in Rome. No mean achievement that. Robert Fabbri really does seem to hit the right balance between intrigue, politicking and action in this series and Vespasian himself, is developing into a very interesting character indeed.

Along with the battles and brawls, intrigue and dirty-dickery, there are also interesting comments on the state of Roman ‘civilisation’ and the intricacy of its politics woven subtly all the way through. As well as thoughts on those pre-Christian festivals that just so happened to take place at the end of a year, involve the giving of gifts and celebrating the birth of a god…To compare it with another long-running Roman series, the ‘Empire’ books of Anthony Riches (of which I’ve just passed #7), I’d have to say it comes out easily on top. Better written and plotted, even after only having read two of them, that’s clear (though to be fair ’The Emperor’s Knives’ does show a lot more ambition on Riches’ side than has previously been evident). However, some things are clearly taken as read, by writers of books set in the Roman period - Greeks are obviously all homosexual. Here, as a character called Magnus says, “And it’ll be sometime before he can chew on a decent Roman sausage again; being Greek, he’s partial to sausage, if you take my meaning?” Seems Robert Fabbri’s Romans share much the same opinions of Greeks as Anthony Riches' boys over in Britannia.

And, though in a different way to the Empire series, you’re going to need a strong stomach while reading 'Rome’s Executioner.’ There, it’s mostly about what happens on the battlefield, but ‘Vespasian II' is warts and all Roman depravity. Prepare to have your mind - and stomach - tied up in knots trying to follow all the ins and outs of who is trying to stab who in the back trying to out - or second - guess an aged Emperor who has clearly gone stark staring, raving, yip-yip, barking at the moon mad and can - and does - do whatever his skittish mind takes a fancy to. As you would.

As with a lot of the series these days (does no one ever write one-offs any more?), I find myself asking: “do you need to have read #1?” Here, I’d say maybe not really, but it will help increase the enjoyment. All I thought was that the relationship between Vespasian and his brother Sabinus, does perhaps need a glance at #1, otherwise, you can certainly begin here, no problem.

So, and despite a(n interesting) new twist on the eyebrow raising device, so beloved of Roman period writers, here we have Secundus raising a ‘monobrow,’ I really enjoyed the book and rate it very highly indeed. In my view, the Vespasian series along with Douglas Jackson’s ‘…of Rome’ series are the best of the many Roman series I’ve read. ‘Vespasian II’ is up on the podium of the top three Roman novels I’ve read so far. In fact, it will have to be the best, most convincing, most captivating Roman-period book I’ve read since ‘The Lion and the Lamb.’ I’ll admit, I actually found myself holding my breath at one point. (P117) and I’ll go along with another of the book’s characters’ comments that “This is more fun than arse-licking back in Rome…” Then, as now, I guess. Go away and start this series now, if you haven’t already, I’m sure you’ll agree.

It is said the eyes are the windows to your soul. Anthony Riches seems to take that (a little too much) to heart in his ‘Empire' series. Any emotion can be expressed from surprise to anger and all points in between, by a narrowing of the eyes and/or a raising of the eyebrows. So, what does that make the brows then? The venetian blinds to the soul? It’s worth musing on, because, that’s what you do here. The story tries to pop up now and then, but stands no chance against the absolute blizzard of eyebrows shooting hither and yon, from every character in every situation. Mid-pitch battle, in blood-thirsty, backs against the wall, life or death situations, are my favourites. “Just a moment, seven foot tall screaming barbarian, I need to look at my comrade and raise an inquisitorial eyebrow. All done. Now, where were we…?” But, not so fast there - a new way of expressing ALL emotions is introduced in ‘Vengeance.’ The raising of BOTH eyebrows! “Oh my good god! He’s raising BOTH eyebrows at me - the absolute fiend!” And, it’s not just confined to the Legions in ‘Eagle,’ there has also been a rather virulent outbreak amongst the barbarians as well. Nothing can stand in the way of the POWER OF THE EYEBROW!

Yeah, yeah, anyway, what’s it about, apart from rampant brow-raising?

It’s the sixth in the Empire series and if you’ve read the others, you’ll know exactly where you are with this one. The good news is, that we’re back in Britannia, back up on Hadrian’s Wall. I felt that the previous one (‘Wolf’s Gold’) wasn’t as good for the shift in locale away from Britannia. All those bloody foreign barbarians raising their eyebrows - how dare they! Our favourite enemy, Calgus, is back, despite being mostly a cripple since his run-in with our hero, Marcus Aquila (though, shhh…he’s ‘Corvus’, to you) and (at least one of) his two swords in a previous book. This time, Calgus is attempting to control the barbarian forces from the shadows behind the throne, as I suppose it could be described. Then, there is more than a little chaos in the Roman forces, on both sides of the Wall and our Tungrian (not ‘Hungarian,’ as my spell-check tries to put) cohort is sent to clean up - as only they can. In fact, they’re sent into the wastes (if you were a Roman, ’Home’ if you were a photo-Scot), beyond Hadrian’s Wall. They journey even beyond the Antonine wall, on an impossible mission to rescue the Sixth Legion’s Eagle - an important symbol of power for both the Legions and the barbarians. All good so far. But the name of the (until Marcus and pals get there, obviously) impregnable barbarian fortress where the Eagle is being held and worshipped? ’The Fang.’ Oh dear. There, right there, MY eyes become the windows to MY soul - and they’re laughing.

The first Empire book was good. No doubt about that. It was a blast of new, fresh interest in a scene I thought needed it. But as the series has gone on, I realise - that that was it. He shot his bolt early and the rest have been - so far - on reflection, a disappointment, an unfulfilled promise. Here, there’s some good stuff about a Roman soldier having been captured and tortured by the barbarians, but then having escaped and survived in hostile territory, hunted day and night by warriors who turn out to be women. He goes to the edge of madness, but is the only one who can get them to the entrance of the fortress, so has to be trusted. That and the passages following the Romans coming back from the fortress (I’m not giving anything away! You KNOW he’s gonna get out with the Eagle, the trick is still making it put you on the edge of your seat), is good. Good enough to make up for the bad? They eyebrows? Not quite.

And don’t get me started on the repeating of words, from one sentence to another. Where another (see what I did there?) word could and should have been suggested by an editor who is clearly BLIND (and even that is to take the responsibility off Anthony Riches, who shouldn’t have written it in the first place). For goodness’ sake, I’ve seen TWEETS where an author has apologised for repeating a word - and that’s inside 140 characters!

My star count has been reflecting my (waning) enthusiasm for the Empire series and going down as the ‘sequence’ has progressed. I’m afraid that this one struggles to make it the two, but I’ll be generous - for the marshes sections (and despite the eyebrow raising there in) and I’ll give it three.

Criticise my grammar and writing all you like, but I clean toilets in a hospital. Writing or editing isn’t MY ONLY JOB!

I couldn’t have enjoyed this book any more if I’d tried. Believe me. If you’ve ever been a fan of, or even ever heard someone say they’ve been a fan of the classic Spy Fiction writers, then this is for you - and them.

I’ll admit I wasn’t totally taken by ‘A Spy By Nature,’ though I thought ‘A Foreign Country’ was much more like it, if not entirely there. However, with ‘A Colder War,’ in my Charles Cumming experiences so far, the cover blurb does actually seem to have been written about the book contained within the dust jacket. This is bang up to date in themes and story line, but is clearly rooted in the proud tradition of the old spy-school of writing. I don’t think I’m doing CC a disfavour there, as this stands up to the comparisons incredibly well and takes his writing - for me at least - into exciting, new can’t put it down, can’t get over how good it is compared to the previous ones, can’t wait for the next one, territory. I can see now, that they were leading up to this tour de force. CC has taken the best bits from the previous Thomas Kell outings, pulled the strings taut, cut out the fat and flannel, added in ‘Moscow Rules’ and shaken it all up with modern technology and a healthy dose of ’NOW.’ And out comes ‘A Colder War.’ Maybe the title is a reflection of his self-confidence, in calling it ‘Colder’ as to what his aims for the book are/were? To out-do the Cold War classic novels of le Carré and such like? It’s probably more an indication of the re-shaped spy landscape there is out there, modern terrorists are not playing nice, like the old-school fellows of the past…but, as here, the protagonators in the background, are still the old school - UK, USA, Russia.

I don’t know about that, but I do know it stands shoulder to shoulder with the best of them and head and shoulders above the trashy, flashy American versions of spy novels there are so many of. Only Edward Wilson’s ’The Whitehall Mandarin’ is in the same ball-park at the moment for me this year. Oh yeah, I thought Tim Steven’s excellent ‘Ratcatcher’ and central figure of John Purkiss, was operating in something of the same area as Cumming’s Thomas Kell. Look, I seriously doubt I’ll read a better, more entertaining, more tense, more satisfying spy novel/thriller, in a long, long time.

As mentioned above, ’A Colder War’ reunites us with Thomas Kell, the hero of the previous Charles Cummings novel I read: ‘Another Country.’ He is a ‘disgraced ex-agent’ he’s been “cold shouldered by the Secret Intelligence Service eighteen months earlier, (and) been in a state of suspended animation ever since.” With a foot in two camps (in and out) kind of, this gives Kell an amount of outsider perspective to the fun and games going on inside British Intelligence. However, Kell does desperately wants to be back ‘in.’ In favour, back in the ‘game,’ in from The Cold. His wife has become his ex-wife and his local boozer is becoming his home, when a call from his ex-boss Amelia Levine, brings him crashing back into The Warm. Again. As it was Kell she called on previously, when she was having a little trouble on the family front, you may recall, in ‘A Foreign Country.’ There is a cynicism, or a realism, despite Kell’s longing to be back and while he tells himself: “You’re back in the game…This is what you wanted. But the buzz had gone.” The ‘buzz’ soon comes back as well. Wallinger, the British Head of Station in Turkey, has died in a plane crash and Levine wants it investigated - the (possible) catastrophe explained and contained. Kell is sent to Turkey, uncovers doubts surrounding the crash, with tentacles reaching out into the whole of MI6’s operations in the region. Then suspicions arise (‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’-like, given there are four candidates in the frame), that there is a leak. But, is it a British or American mole? That’s the question Kell and colleagues need answering fast, before the Russians come in and clear up. People aren’t who they say they are, don’t do what they say, don’t say what they do or who they work for. Ah yes, it’s just like the old days, hoorah! Haven’t said: “Oops! You shouldn’t have told them THAT!” out loud in a long time.

Thomas Kell has developed into a thoroughly believable lead character. I’m not going to say admirable, or likeable or sympathetic even, but he is believable. His background, his reasons and reasoning, his actions and his thoughts, all are rock-solid believable. Nothing stretches the imagination, nothing makes you think ‘ok, I’m not gonna go along with that being his motive, but let’s see where it goes before we pass the salt around.’ Nope, he is refreshingly and objectively jaundiced, if that’s even possible. He’s been right royally shafted by the The Service in the past, but still desperately wants to be back inside, though that doesn’t mean he has to like himself, or them, for it.

From there on, the story goes every place you would wish it to, though without ever being predictable. The writing is economical and effective and I was held hanging the whole time - constantly trying to guess what was next. I was (nearly) always wrong. It’s a read it a little bit more, read it propped open with the jam jar at breakfast, read it on the bus and miss your stop, think about it all day, try to explain your theories underway, in Danish, to your Danish colleagues, good. Really. This is gonna be a hard act to follow and no mistake. But I think, on the evidence of this (and I have my own idea of how he can do it), Charles Cummings is the man to do it.

Anything else of this genre I read from now on, will have to stand comparison to ‘A Colder War.’