speesh's reviews
416 reviews

Why do all good things have to come to an end?

Who said that?

They need a slap. And they need to read The Forgotten Legion trilogy. If ever there was a book you didn't want to end, it's this one. If ever there was a series you didn't want to end, it is The Forgotten Legion trilogy. Couldn't we convince Ben that 'trilogy' actually means 'four', or 'five', or...well, you get the picture.

Here and now, The Road to Rome is, of course, the culmination of Ben Kane's Forgotten Legion trilogy and I don't know if the good Dr. Kane would agree with me, but I'm going to argue that he's saved the best till last.

I raced through this like a scythed chariot charge through massed Roman lines...I tried hard to pace myself, but failed miserably. You see, right from the very first few pages, we are thrown headlong into a pulsating, action-packed and thoroughly inspiring tale (it inspired me to get on the net and order the Hannibal series, for example). A delightfully well plotted tale of betrayal, love and loss, high politics and low revenge. And, of course, the Kane speciality; nerve-tingling set-piece battles and desperate, one-on-one, do or die struggles. He really is a master of both. Whether it's marshalling Caesars forces in huge mixed-troop battles across Africa, or focusing in, laser-like, on grim, no way out thuggery in the backstreets of Rome, Ben can surely have few equals. You feel so much like you're there, I very nearly had to wipe the blood off my hands on a couple of occasions.

While it had been a while since I was last on campaign with The Forgotten Legion and have read several other - excellent as well as not so excellent - novels set in the same Roman period Ben's story is set, as soon as I was a couple of pages into The Road to Rome, I was bang! Back in the Legion's ranks again and was never in a moment's doubt who was who and why and where they were doing what they were doing. I think that speaks very highly of the strong, well-defined characters and thoroughly involving story Ben has created. I really did feel like I had just finished #2 - the characters were so immediately fresh and vital again, rather than it being a year or so since I read The Silver Eagle. And, if you've been fortunate enough to have read The Forgotten Legion and The Silver Eagle, you'll be glad to know that (mostly) all the various themes and threads from those previous two books, are gathered together and brought to satisfyingly satisfactory conclusions. Though, did I detect, a door left slightly ajar for a possible return to the story in the future? Or is that just wishful thinking?

The Road to Rome really is packed full of action, adventure, intrigue, action, adventure, Roman politicking, action and - some more adventure!

Wow! What more could you wish for from a novel, apart from more?

You'll like Zoo Station, if you like Philip Kerr's 'Bernie Gunther' stories or Robert Harris' 'Fatherland'. If you like Alan Furst.

If you like thrillers set in Europe the years leading up to the outbreak of WWII.

If you'd like a tantalizing glimpse into a somewhat forgotten - and in many ways, misunderstood - world.

Zoo Station, the first in David Downing's Zoo series, is a really rather wonderful and absorbing period piece. In essence; a small tale set against a much bigger, darker backdrop. Involving ordinary people doing ordinary things, like just getting on with their lives, during extraordinary circumstances. The 'hero', is John Russell, an English freelance newspaper writer living in Germany in the early months of 1939, obviously just before the outbreak of World War II. Though, as the book further illustrates (and as if you have read anything else about this period, you will know), 'outbreak' is much more accidental-sounding than was actually the case. Through Russell, we see how the Nazi party has infiltrated its way into the minutiae of Germans' everyday life. And not in a pleasant way of course. You don't need to have done, but it certainly would increase you understanding of novels set in this period, if you had read a book like Richard J. Evans' 'The Coming of the Third Reich'.

With hindsight, it might seem a little strange that an Englishman is living in Germany at this time. But he has good reason to be there. His has an ex-wife, a son and a beautiful, actress girlfriend to care for. He becomes involved with the Russians, ostensibly writing articles on typical German daily life, so the Russian people might better understand their prospective allies. But really he's spying. He knows that and thinks that as long as he can keep the Russians where he can see them, he'll be ok. The same with his British allies. As of course, the British also want a piece of the information cake. So Russell in effect becomes something of an unwitting double agent, with no real master but himself and no real loyalty to anyone, apart from to his family. But, being an Englishman more than somewhat integrated into pre-War German society, gives Russell the opportunity to observe, perhaps understand - though without condoning - and maybe react differently to the zeitgeist. Differently to how a typical German person would have. Or would have been able to have done.

I found this a wonderful, engaging and involving read. An Englishman in a strange land, just doing the right thing, without fanfare. Acting heroically when looked back on, but only made heroic by the times. It is sublimely written and plotted, really well put together. You can almost touch the atmosphere of pre-War Berlin (I have no idea what the pre-War Berlin atmosphere was really like, but I can't imagine it being far from what is brought out here). It's the little things, the small incidents that do it. Giving English lessons to Jewish children, taking trains to Poland, trips to London, picking his son up from his ex-wife, all give this story its edge over others you might read. It's not exactly what you'd think of if I said 'a real page-turner', but to someone who appreciates fine writing and acute observation, sometimes with an acerbic edge *takes bow*, it was a book I found very hard to put away. The best part is, there are many more to come after this one.

My only beef, would be with the recommendation on the cover. I'm never normally a great fan of 'a wonderful evocation of *insert long, long ago time period here* -type recommendations. I mean, unless they themselves were the character's age during that very same time, how do they know? It's not just about knowing the facts of what went on, that's often the easy part. It's surely about knowing about what people felt at that time and why. And the 'and why' can only come if you grew up in that period, were there and were affected by those special circumstances. A person born today would, when reaching writing/author age, surely have trouble imagining a time when there was no Internet, for instance. Tell someone that TVs used to be only black and white, only one or two channels and were the size of a Shetland pony - see what kind of look you get back. So someone saying it is 'a wonderful evocation of...', is guessing it is, hoping it is and probably should have inserted 'in my opinion' in there somewhere. Having said all that...this, in my opinion and based on what I have read about the period - and with parents still alive who were alive during that period, IS 'an extraordinary evocation of Nazi Germany on the eve of war...', as CJ Sansom says on the front cover.

If you like an absorbing read, a good tale well told and with more to come. This is for you.

First of all.

This isn't the story that was fined as The Hunt for Red October. Don't go reading this expecting to see the film playing in your head.

Second, the title is perhaps misleading. Though on second thoughts, maybe not. Not in the very last section of the book, maybe. You see, it depends on who you think should be doing the hunting. You think you know before you open the book. But it isn't them, is it?

Set in the good old pre-Berlin Wall collapse of Communism, Cold War days, this wants to be a tense, detailed, almost revelatory - if you consider how little was actually known about 'them', by 'us' thanks to the fog of misinformation and fear - tale of fugue and subterfuge, seamanship and stealth. But it isn't. Tense, that is. The film is much more so, but the book just isn't. It's too long drawn out. OK; there are some tense moments, but they're few and far between. I think if you (are old enough to have) read the book before seeing the film, you might well have thoroughly enjoyed both. Maybe you'd think the film actually improved the books dynamics and tension? You'd be right. Having seen the film before just now reading the book, I can certainly see and understand why they did what they did.

While Jack Ryan is to some extents the 'hero' of The Hunt For Red October, it's a close-run thing. There's no one who really distinguishes himself (I can't think of any female characters) here. Except perhaps the Sonar man 'Jones'. It is he who actually finds 'Red October' after all, and if you're thinking of the title from an American perspective, it gives reason to wonder why it's called 'Hunt' and not 'Following Of'. But Jones is 'just' an unlisted man and Jack Ryan is of course Clancy's once and future king. As I thought the above, it struck me that it really didn't fit that other characters praised Ryan to the skies for his contribution. That doesn't work unless you're an author grooming your main character for the future. Then the Russian skipper 'Ramius', apart from setting the whole thing going of course, and some tricky ducking and weaving at the end, also has less of a role than you would have imagined, coming to the book from Sean Connery's 'Captain Ramius' of the film. Understandably really, as you wouldn't get Sean Connery out of bed to play the book's Ramius, that's for sure. Not enough to do. Unless the money was (Scottish) tax-free, I guess.

In fact, I would say the book is more of an ensemble piece. And all the better for that. The main star, rather obviously, is Clancy himself. Not so much for writing the thing, but for the obvious enormous amount of research into all things submarine and naval - on both sides of the Iron Curtain - he clearly did. Just and astounding piece of work when you begin to realise it.

With the book, the good stuff happens after Ramius has actually handed over the Red October. That can hardly be described as a spoiler, as the cover on the (first edition?) paperback I have (plundered from the library of a deceased family friend) has; 'Russia's most advanced missile submarine. Brand new...undetectable...and heading straight for the U.S. - TO DEFECT!' Well really, as the really tense, exciting stuff happens after the Russians have in effect defected, with that give-away, you can pretty much skip the first 300 pages I'd say. It is only after that, that the actual 'Hunt' for Red October begins. But you can see why they changed the story structure for the film, especially moving the final phase from post- to pre-defection, as it were.

To be honest, when you think about it; it is hard to criticize or evaluate effectively really. As I can't think now how much work I myself was doing in the imagining of the characters - of Ryan and Ramius especially - and how much I was using the film's/Alec Baldwin and Sean Connery's portrayal (though as Harrison Ford played Jack Ryan subsequently and more often, his face and mannerisms kept appearing in my head). The film director's ideas, as opposed to how good, or how vivid Tom Clancy's book's characterisations were. A bit unfair on Clancy really.

In short, an interesting curio, if you've seen the film. A kind of verbal equivalent to the 'behind the scenes' extras that come with DVD/Blu Rays these days. An interesting exploration of Cold War secrecy and politics if you grew up around the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall - and all in all, probably a more interesting read if you haven't seen the filmed version.

I seem to have read what actually looks to be the follow-up to 'The Thieves of Heaven'; 'The Thieves of Faith.' I seem not to have liked that one. So why read this one? Maybe I thought, he can't possibly do it twice. Or maybe I just wanted to return to the scene of a crime, I don't know.

The plot? It does have one. He needs to steal some keys from The Vatican's absolutely most closely-guarded museum. But that's the easy bit, just the start of his troubles. As that happens about half way through the book, you know Doetsch is gonna have to go some from there on to top it. Or bottom it. And he does. Well, maybe. Well, who cares.

I did read this and enjoy it up to a point. And that point was, where the main villain turned out to be quite obviously The Devil. Yes, him who used to be up there, but is now down here, with us. No getting away from it. It's The Devil. To be fair, the book did have its moments and I rattled through it. But only after a talk with myself, where I managed to persuade myself to suspend belief, just this one (second) time.

To be more than fair, I liked Richard Doetsch's dedication at the front and he means well. But...well, it was all a bit too, much. Too perfect. Too worked out. All the characters were so full-on and written to be demanding of our sympathy, that I came to resent them. You just knew what the main man and his wife would love each other unconditionally. You knew his best mate would be a great bear of a man, who would love him unconditionally. You just knew…well, anyone reading this could guess what the characters' personality was and how they looked, just by Doetsch having written their names down in two columns; 'good' and 'bad'.

And in the 'bad' column would have to be, from a European's point of view, whoever came up with the medical system over there in the USA: Where a guy has to go out and rob the bleeding' Vatican to get the money together to treat his dying wife! That's The Devil, right there. He should have just flown her over to Denmark, while he was down there in Italy and I'd have helped look after her (I work in a hospital) for nothing. 'To whom do I make the cheque out?' 'The what, now?'

I wouldn't doubt for a moment if someone said this had sold by the truck-load. But either there are a whole load of people who don't give a monkey's about what they read, or a whole load of very disappointed people. I don't know if he's written a third one, but I'm gonna stop here. I think, if it hadn't been for the fact that I write this blog, I'd have forgotten about this by the time I'd put it back on the shelf here at Speesh Towers.

I really not sure I know what to feel about this one. Apart from a certain amount of disappointment.

Come on Olen, I know you can do better than this.

To be honest, I'm not even completely sure I know what it was all about. Which is why I'm a little disappointed, as I was tremendously impressed by and thoroughly enjoyed the two previous books of his I've read.

Istanbul Variations really is nowhere near as good as it should have been, based on that previous experience. Nowhere near as mind-bogglingly good and memorable as they were, or this should have been. It's only because I'm holding the book in my hands right now, that I can remember what happened. In fact, I think I feel really rather ambivalent about it. Take it or leave it. As detached from the story as the story seemed detached from me, the reader. There was very little feeling of involvement got out of me, the reader. It was all seemed more than a little 'at arm's length'. Like watching the story unfold while being the other side of a misty window from it. Rather than being in the room with it. If you understand what I mean.

I'm guessing (and of course no doubt guessing wrongly), but it seemed like he wrote a full story, then took out a lot of the explanations and plot detail, in an attempt to make it seem a lot more exciting, pacey, lean and interesting. Like it would be a challenge to us, to do some work to figure it all out. But I think he left too much out. Perhaps not to the detriment of the tale. But to the detriment to gaining my involvement, making me care. I kept going back over a section to see if I'd missed the line that would make the difference. Never found it.

What's it about?! Istanbul, 1975, Cold War (eastern) Europe, airport, hi-jack, plane crash, investigation, Prague Spring, treachery, dredging up the past, mind-control…and that's where it left me behind.

However, as I so much enjoyed the others I have read, and because I have a couple more up on the shelf there - I will give more Olen Steinhauer a go.

Fatherland was, it seems, first published 1992. The paperback I have, came out in 1993. How I have managed to avoid this one for so long? As The Who once said; 'I can't explain.'

It is a really compulsive thriller, a detective story - but one with a difference. A huge difference. It is 1964. just before Adolf Hitler's 75th birthday. The Queen lives in Canada, as does Winston Churchill. Though, not together, I don't think. A US President is on his way for a summit with the Fuhrer visit Berlin. Kennedy is his name. Not the one you're thinking. Or that one. I guarantee. So, we are in a bleak, alternative world where the Nazis weren't beaten by the Allies. Russia didn't push the German army back from Moscow and were themselves pushed back eastwards. The war in the east is still going on, still claiming lives and still unresolved. Most of the rest of Europe is now either under German rule or effectively a puppet state for the new Germany the Nazis have created in their image, to more or less do with what they will.

Thankfully, this is just fiction. The more you read, the more thankfully you'll be. I read parts of it and was sometimes glad I could look away and put it down. We owe it to the people who aren't with us, who can't put it down and look away, to continue reading. And remembering the reality.

A body is found floating in a lake near Berlin. Detective Xavier March takes the call and the case, though he knows, even at the outset, he really shouldn't have. He's right. Whilst being a reasonably successful detective and a seeming pillar of the Nazi community as such, March turns out to be actually not all that enamoured with life in the New Reich. But he is in no way prepared for how bad he finds it actually is, under the surface. The tension builds, turns are twisted, suspicion breeds and secrets slowly teased out and exposed. A conspiracy is uncovered and begins to claim its victims.

Fatherland is a thriller on the face of it. Though because of the quality of the writing and the execution and delivery of the ingenious plot, it is much more. And thought-provokingly chilling. Because it easily could have been. Harris calmly and assuredly builds his characters, his plot and themes begin to seem normal and so the book's tension mounts. Almost without you realising. It is really an inspiring master class of writing, that raises the thriller far above its usual semi-disposability. You're not going to forget this in a hurry. Nor should you.

In the end, stepping back, what I think Harris is saying is that we're (still) in essence dealing with common criminals covering their tracks. March says at one point: "'What do you do...if you devote your life to discovering criminals, and it gradually occurs to you that the real criminals are the people you work for?" They weren't supermen, they were little, frustrated men, given the opportunity to do what they wanted without fear of reprisal. Pride refused to countenance an alternative or an end to their twisted Utopia. When reality returned, they merely scurried to cover their tracks.

OK, this sort of 'what if Germany had won?', story-line had been done a few times before Harris - Len Deighton's SSGB springs instantly to my mind, for example. But I doubt very much it has been done any better than this. I'm sure I found the roots of other writers' work here. Surely Philip Kerr and David Downing read this before starting writing their - equally good - stories? I don't know if they did, it's just a maybe. See what you think.

A haunting and moving book. With a finale as affecting as anything I've read in many a long year.

Anyone who reads my blog (plug), will know - from looking at the Goodreads 'Currently Reading' widget there, that it's taken a long time to struggle through this one. A very long time. A very, very long time. You get the picture.

I fully accept it could be me that found this to be a long-winded way of saying very little. I don't know. It's either a polished turd, or a searing condemnation of…something or other. To be honest, I'm too bored to worry about worrying about what on earth he was trying to do with this one.

It's about the only successful slave rebellion ever. Which took place in Haiti (the French colony of Saint-Dominge, as it was) in 1791 - 1804. This book, I think, is set at the start, in 1791. Basically, we follow the progress of a French Doctor, through the French, the Haitian side of the island, before during and after the Slaves' uprising.

It's written, I think, in a style he feels is appropriate for the era (I'm guessing it's a man. You never know with a name like Madison). So a kind of Jane Austin-style, if she was writing about people being skinned alive. Well, I'm sorry, but some of the descriptions of what went on, are unnecessarily gruesome. Absolutely unnecessarily graphic and downright disturbingly horrible. I've yet to find out if these sorts of things actually went on and the descriptions are based on fact or not. And I'm not going to. But, they did absolutely nothing to advance the cause of the novel. It descended in parts, into the worst sort of gratuitous slasher, cheap horror-movie blood bath. Horror for horror's sake with an attempt to dress it up in the tattered trappings of a serious work. Yes, I can understand that the slaves were highly likely to exact their revenge on their ex-masters and you could hardly blame them for doing what they did. But stretching it out, time and time again, page after page is just badly done. And then, if this stuff isn't based on actual incidents, on hard documented fact, and he's making all this up - then you're one very sick man, Mr Bell. Or Ms Bell.

I came very, very close to knocking it on the head. Many, many times.

I know it's always easier to be negative that positive, but I really am struggling to find anything positive to say about this one. Oh yeah, I got it free. Phew!

That's it. If you're in the market for this sort of thing, you're probably going to appreciate it a lot more than I did. To be honest, I found the historical time-line at the back more interesting and readable than what preceded it. Probably, the Wikipedia page on the up-rising would read better.

Am I ok in saying this is an excellent read? A thoroughly tip-top thriller? One of the very best?

Credibility...Meet window?

I hope not. I don't think so. In fact, I'm sure not. Because this one did exactly what it says on the tin and thrilled the whatsits off me. Why on earth do we read books, if not for pleasure? And reading this one is as pleasurable an experience as they come.

But first, a word of warning: Don't read the summary on the back. In my view, it gives away way too much of much too many important plot turns for my liking. I didn't read it myself, until I was coincidentally 3/4 of the way in and all the points mentioned had passed. I didn't read it myself as I bought this book, knowing full well what I was getting into (as surely do most people with anything Bourne-related?). So I was able to enjoy the swallowing of red herrings and denouements, hook, line and sinker (yeah, that works).

Really, this is as close to a 5 Star review as one of these things is ever going to get. I'm not going to try and tie myself up win knots trying to convey the plot. And you know what you're getting, writing-style-wise. There were only a couple of places where I had to partially suspend belief, with a whispered, as the Welsh say; 'there's lucky', under my breath.

Eric Van Lustbader is not Robert Ludlum (but then, who is?). He's certainly in the style of, and doing an admirable job in picking the baton up, keeping the flame alight, etc etc. No one can match Ludlum for economy and clout, but Eric comes very close. That's high praise, in my book. Though in trying to analyse the differences between the two, I became more convinced that the further the series has gone on, the more Eric's own style has come through. Almost to the point where I think they should drop the 'Robert Ludlum's...' on the cover. Obviously, the marketing department aren't going to do that, but there is no doubt here, that this is Eric Van Lustbader's Jason Bourne now. Bourne, born again.

Earlier in the series - and the films, which are more or less the first three books - the questions Jason Bourne was asking could pretty much be boiled down to "who am I?" I think he was really asking, or at least the questions should really be interpreted as "what is my name?" Nowadays, in these later books he's more struggling to find his personality. His question is now "what kind of person am I?" Or, "what kind of person was I?", as he's now Jason Bourne. Not who he was originally. Before he was Bourne. If you can say that.

And with all this 'Prism' and listening to phone calls, reading of emails and generally keeping an eye on all of us; the Bourne books and films are beginning to look like more like documentaries!

Now this is more like it. A well-written and wonderfully intriguing tale of (just) post-revolutionary Russia. Full of incident and clues and what might be clues and what might not be clues. You never know.

I've no idea if Sam Eastland is in any way part-Russian, but I can imagine after reading this one, he just might be. He really does capture what I can (also) imagine must have been the optimism shot through with (possibly) typical Russian fatalism. Of the promise to the ordinary Russian that the revolution gave, but that became not just a struggle to survive the suspicion, the culls and the secret police informers, but a struggle to survive.

It is presented in rather a nice way, as what are really two stories, running side by side. The one, is an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the Romanov family, the Tsar of the title and his family, and of course, his treasure - if it exists, if it ever existed - that is taking place in the here and 'now'. Then the other, is flashbacks of the former life of the titular Pelukka, 'The Eye of the Tsar', from his childhood in Finland, when Finland was a part of the Russian empire, his work for and close relationship to Николай II, Николай Александрович Романов, that's Tsar Nikolay II, Nikolay Alexandrovich Romanov, to you and me, to his first 'encounters' with Stalin and his particular brand of Communism in post-Imperial Russia. It's perhaps not giving all that much away, to say Pekkala comes off second best. By a long way. For a long time. Each narrative interweaves and illuminates the other and you really get a good feel for how Russia was and was developing, in the years following the revolution.

'Eye of the Red Tsar' is much better than The Red Coffin, the second one in the series. Which I read first. Though that might have been a fortunate, happy accident - quite possibly the right thing to do. I did feel 'Coffin' was a little lacklustre, and I could well have said 'ok, this is where I stop. I'll get off the Inspector Pekkala train here thanks.' I can well imagine a few people will. However, there was at least enough that was intreguing in 'Red Coffin', to make me search out 'Red Tsar.' Having read this one, I'm ready to reappraise the whole thing and am looking forward to seeing if Sam Eastland can get it back on the rails with 'Siberian Red' and others.

I think I'm gonna have to swim against the tide here. Or at least against the tide of (what are quite possibly reviews for the hardback version) reviews on the cover and inside of my paperback.

Far from "Eerily good" or "wonderfully assured, tautly written, cleverly plotted", I found this really struggling to make 'so-so'. For me, as well as The Kinks, it's 'a mixed-up, muddled-up, shook up' mess.

It starts out alright, with the main man Alec Milius being recommended for a job with the Intelligence services. He then finds work with an oil company exploring out somewhere and is involved trying to sweet-talk his American rivals, who also may be more than they seem. Both sides are playing at something they aren't and I think both sides know it. It's just that it goes on and on and on and on in the central part of the novel. I kept thinking "enough already, he's taking the bait, he's going to take the bait, let's get to what the cover says are the "gripping" bit(s)." But they never came. What we do get a lot of are unnecessary details and what I presume are the author's opinions on everything from New Zealand bar staff, to FHM, The Times, the Civil Service, cooking ravioli 'pillows' , and a lot more stuff and nonsense really way too mundane to bother with. A few pages of that and a few lines covering the rest would have done. Then on to the cloak and dagger stuff. But no. Problem is, when I'm seemingly through this middle bit and it looks like we might be getting back to, or down to the nub of it, I've forgotten what the original set-up was. Or if there was one. I can't remember now just exactly who he's supposedly working for and why. Or if there ever was a why. Or who.

Then the final part, where he is really finding out how it is to be a spy, well it read well at the time. However, on reflection and in the cold light of day, it is all a bit of a damp squib. Not really worth wading through all that went before to get to. I thought of one particular plot twist that could have been worked in at the end that really would have upset the whole apple cart and sent me scurrying back to re-read the previous hours of wining and dining. It would have fitted with a lot of the personal trauma Alec Milius is going through right from when we first meet him. But it wasn't to be…though, maybe Charles Cumming is being really fiendish here and my idea (which could be his, of course) will come out in later books? There seems to be at least two more with Alec Milius as hero, maybe more, so maybe it's for me to read more and find out? Milius will need to sharpen his act up a hell of a lot though.

After reading and thoroughly enjoying 'The Trinity Six', I really expected a lot more from 'A Spy By Nature'. But I got a lot less. Less plot, less suspense and tension and less of a story. The only more I got, was more fill, padding and 'flannel' - as an old boss of mine used to say. I think this is essentially a short story padded out to 500-odd pages. A back of an envelope plot stretched to breaking point. And beyond. And then some.