speesh's reviews
416 reviews

An interesting little thriller, written somewhat unusually (for me anyway) in a mixture of first person and third person. By that I mean, it sometimes is 'I did this', other times it's 'they did that' and the action takes place somewhere the previous 'first person', isn't. If that makes it any clearer. Probably not.

A good little book. A thriller, even. Our main character gets, seemingly out of the blue, a note, a threat, to pay up a huge sum of money, inside the 48 hours of the title, or suffer the consequences. The fatal consequences. And he soon finds he's not the only one.

Unfortunately, after the original set-up and execution is, executed…there's still about four fifths of the book to go. From there on, there is plenty of going on and plenty to keep you reading, but it's more a labour of love, rather than a stuck-to-your-hands-like-glue, page-turner. Or perhaps it should be 'page-flipper', as I read it on Apple's iBooks. I did think that our main man believed the premise a little quickly and any deeper doubts that anyone (like me) would surely have had in the initial stages, were a little glossed over and sped past I felt. Plus he was astoundingly lucky to have the boss he had, on the raising of the cash front. Plus, he was damn lucky that he got assigned such a gorgeous Policewoman as body-guard (who later seems to be at least part Robocop, the number of injuries she survives).

I could be wrong, but I felt this was a self-published affair. It's a decent effort and worth your time and even a little of your money. I did feel however, that there were a few awkward moments, a few rough edges that surely could have been polished a little smoother by an extra edit and read-through, to push it further into the Thriller genre lime-light. Yeah, that works. I'm giving it a three here, but try and change it to a two and a half on my blog.

At one point in 'The Norman Conquest', writing about the Bayeux Tapestry, Marc Morris says; "No other source takes us so immediately and so vividly back to that lost time."

I'll say exactly the same about this book.

It really is an astoundingly well written and well put together book. Easily the Norman period's equivalent of Max Hastings' 'All Hell Let Loose' and Anthony Beevor's 'The Second World War.' For what it's worth, for me, that's the highest praise I can come up with. As with those two, this really deserves at least 6 stars.

You know what happened don't you? Normans come over, beat Harold at Hastings, conquered us, spoke French, tormented Robin Hood, etc, etc. But wait. Do you really know what happened, or why, or where?

'The Norman Conquest' is packed full of stuff you didn't know. Or thought you knew, but as you will soon find out, had wrong. For one (and I'm not giving anything away as if you read the first few pages in a bookshop while deciding about getting it, you'll come across this); The Bayeux Tapestry. Not a tapestry. Not made in Bayeux. And once that has finished rocking your Norman world, you're ready to read on.

Marc Morris has an open, inviting and encouragingly readable style. He's very honest and critical when discussing the few sources we have for events of this period in an excellent 'down-to-earth', matter of fact style. He's very good at cutting through the reams of ancient hype and he's perfect at reading between the medieval lines of 1,000-year old press releases and spin doctors' erm…spin. History written by the victors and by the losers (sometimes for the victors), has been simmered down and when the mists have cleared, we have Marc Morris' The Norman Conquest.'

This is surely how to write a modern non-fiction history book and I thought the back-cover quote from someone reviewing it in 'The Times' had it about right: "Compelling…Morris sorts embroidery from evidence and provides a much needed, modern account of the Normans in England that respects past events more than present ideologies."

If you have even a passing interesting in reading Justin Hill's 'Shieldwall', James Wilde's 'Hereward' series, Angus Donald's 'Outlaw' series, or James Aitcheson's 'Conquest' series, or even if you have read one, more, or all of the above - think of this as a companion piece. Read 'The Norman Conquest' and you'll get even more enjoyment out of them. Even in retrospect.

I'm thinking it might well be possible that you either like David Downing's John Russell novels, or you don't. I don't know why, but I would imagine there isn't a half-way house here.

I do like them, very much indeed. I'll admit that, on the face of it, it sometimes feels like nothing much actually happens. But that's 'nothing much' if you are expecting a war-time, cloak and dagger, murder mystery, spy cross and double cross novel, in the vein of Len Deighton, Alistair Maclean or Douglas Reeman, perhaps.

Nothing wrong with those of course, but then a book like 'Stettin Station' (and David Downing in general), doesn't need to be one of those. It's much more than that by, on the surface at least, having much less of all that.

In 'Stettin Station' the third of the John Russell novels, we've now reached 1939 (I'm trying to read these in chronological order, I think that's probably the best way to do it). Our 'hero', our main character, guide and narrator really, John Russell, has returned from a trip to the USA and is now Central European correspondent for one or more American newspapers. Amongst other things. As we know, he has a German son, from a previous marriage, and is of English-American parentage. The Germans take advantage of his various connections, commitments and knowledge and force him into working for them - spying on the Russians. Who also get Russell to work for them, spying on the Germans. Both sides seem to know he is working for the other side. It all means, that one way or another, Russell can travel, more or less unhindered, throughout Germany and much of Eastern Europe. He sees what is happening to the eastern countries annexed by the Germans, and he gets a very good idea of what their future might be under the Nazis. In the midst of witnessing this inexorable slide into war and more, he also gets involved in trying to track down a friend's Jewish niece. Just by being a decent guy. But it leads him and girlfriend Effi, into a situation where they find they need to put their lives on the line.

How can I put it, the sense of what I get from these books? Of course, they are beautifully written, perfectly paced, full off nuance and flavour, and an absolute pleasure to read. But there's more. More subtlety. I think it is the environment around John Russell and through which he tries to weave his way, which gives the 'excitement' to his story. He is, despite all the mentions above of 'spies' and travel and so on, a reasonably ordinary man not doing a whole lot more than trying to be a decent reporter, a good father and a loving boyfriend. His being these things and being there in the middle of the build-up to the world-wide catastrophe that was the Nazis and World War II, is what makes the stories so fascinatingly un-put-downable. I think what the John Russell novels boil down to, is that they are a written 'snapshot' of this most important, traumatic time. Just being alive and in the middle and trying to find an ordinary path through, is enough to make anyone's story an incredible one. If things like this hadn't actually happened, you wouldn't believe it, if someone made it up. Incredible.

Let's face it, if you're going to subtitle your novel 'the shocking secret of World War II', it'd better be shocking. And a secret. And it does mean you have to put together a novel to deliver the reader the knockout blow of said secret. Here, I'm afraid, while the secret certainly should have been shocking (and would be, were it true), when it finally came to it, I'd already pretty much guessed what the secret was and wasn't all that shocked. And felt a little let down that I wasn't.

The story is that Ben Peters, an American working in Paris in 1940, is to drive a car, a Bentley, loaded with a fortune in platinum. Pretty much the whole of France's monetary resources, to Portugal. There, he is to rendezvous with the British, who will sail/fly him to safety. However, in return for their help, the British have decided he should also take a passenger or two. A Frenchwoman and her young son. Simples. But as the journey progresses, the pursuers and body counts pile up, it becomes more and more clear that the platinum isn't the most valuable thing Peters has in his Bentley.

The secret of why the Frenchwoman and her son are so valuable, is the 'shocking secret' of the title. I'm actually not sure that Mr Robbie, wouldn't in fact like us to be slightly confused by the title and subtitle of the book. Confused enough to wonder if this isn't a non-fiction book and that what the secret is, is/was actually real. It's just that by the time the secret is revealed (if you hadn't sussed it before), the qualms you have over the not quite sharp enough dialogue, quick but limp romance and how on earth they could have driven a Bentley over so many rough, war-strewn French roads and over so much rough Spanish terrain, without losing so much as an ounce of the platinum hidden in various crevices of a pre-war Bentley - kind of obscure and therefore dilute the 'revelation.' Well, they did for me anyway.

It was a fine effort, I enjoyed reading it and it has many good ideas and a plot that actually hangs together more than most. A little let down by the execution though, as I mentioned. But don't let that put you off, as others on Goodreads have obviously found this to be a very good book, giving it an average score of over 4 stars, if I remember rightly. So it's probably just me. To be honest, I found the writing and evocation of war-time Paris, to be more convincing than the chase which takes up much of the book once they're out of the city. I felt the writing from then on could and should have been a bit sharper, a bit more polished. If you're going to get someone on the front cover saying ‘An action adventure story in the tradition of Ken Follett and Robert Harris with the cutting edge of a Tom Clancy or W.E.B Griffin wartime thriller’, you have to make sure you deliver. And this, in the end, didn't quite. This cutting edge felt a little blunt.

I think reading a classic Len Deighton must be like watching one of the old master painters in action. There's the preparation, the background, the deft brushstrokes, building up layer on layer of colours and nuance in perfect harmony. And then you finally take a step back, reveals a masterpiece.

Or maybe it's like watching a master magician? There's slight of hand, deception, concealment and finally slapping of the forehead 'oh, you got me!'

That apart...

SS-GB is set in 1941 and the book opens with a 'copy' of an 'official' German document. OK so far. It's just that it is in fact 'the instrument of surrender…of all English armed forces in United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland including all islands.' This happened in February 1941. It's now November. Churchill has been executed. King George VI is in the Tower of London - and not as a visitor. The SS are now running the province of England. And to make matters worse…there's suddenly a murder case for Superintendent Douglas Archer of Scotland Yard to solve. A routine one, a black-marketeer murdered in London, of the open and shut kind, it would seem. But if the case is so routine, why have the Germans, Himmler himself no less, sent an SS Standartenführer Huth over from Berlin to take control? Huth is a thoroughly nasty piece of work, confident to arrogance and especially irritating if you're the nice General Kellerman, with a taste for all the trappings of the English aristocracy and are trying to run Scotland Yard as your own little fiefdom. But as the story progresses, one begins to wonder who is outmanoeuvring who here. It all boils down to a trial of strength between the German Army and the up-starts, as they see them, at the SS and SD. And Archer, a thoroughly able and professional Policeman, gets caught in the middle. His professionalism means he will solve the case, no matter who does or doesn't want him to. And the 'doesn't' doesn't always come from where you might expect it to.

SS-GB builds up with matter of fact, nothing unusual about this, description of how things are in the wrong kind of post-war Britain. Deighton has created a thoroughly believable world here, with all the sights and sounds - and smells - brought vividly to alternate life. He describes a horrendously war-torn Britain, its population bombed and blitzed into submission and run (rings round) by the Germans. As it would have been, had it been that way. But, look under the surface, as Archer with the help of his rather more typical, flat-footed colleague Harry Woods is forced to do as the investigation progresses, and we find that perhaps not everyone has actually surrendered. What Len Deighton has created here is not just a look at how things might have been, a simple description of the situation - as he imagines it - would suffice there. He has created a rather more subtle, layered and nuanced look at both the German's inner power struggles and the British attitude to 'getting on with it' no matter what. It is a world that I found myself so taken in by, that I sometimes had to almost tell myself it didn't really happen this way.

If I had to try really hard and pick a nit (and it really feels like telling Leonardo Ms Lisa's smile should be a little brighter), it would be that the main man Douglas Archer does seem to have got used to working for Germans and integrated into all things German, very quickly, given that this novel takes place only a matter of nine months after their victory. I could well have missed the bit that said he was (previous to being a Policeman) a German scholar or spent his formative years in Germany, but it was one little thing that bugged me (see the link with 'nit' there?)

Other than that, SS-GB is a classic partly because it is a great idea well executed and partly because (published first in 1980) I think you could probably argue, that this one kicked off the whole range of 'what if…' novels of the 'what if the Germans HADN'T lost?' variety. I stand to be corrected on that one of course, but even if SS-GB wasn't the first, in my opinion it's certainly the best.

As befits it's late '60's setting (you can't get much later '60's than 1969 I guess), this actually IS a real old-school, page-turning "spy thriller in the tradition of Len Deighton and Frederick Forsyth." As Len Deighton also wrote a lot of cookery books, I'm guessing the person writing the blurb on the back was thinking more of Deighton's spy thriller work, rather than one of his recipes for pasta sauce. Having said that, this is a succulent, spicy blend of thrills and spills, seasoned with deadly assassinations and brought to the boil in London, Italy and Istanbul.

Am I over-egging the pudding? Not at all.

Enough!

OK.

The start of 'Song of Treason' follows on almost directly from where the very excellent 'Free Agent' left off. Paul Dark - a spy with more skeletons in his closet than he has closets - is still haunted by his actions in London and Nigeria, but looks to be getting away with it. As you might reasonably think, were you about to be promoted to a position at the top of the British spy/counterspy world. It's all going quite manageably, if not totally stress-free, until a trip to St. Paul's Cathedral. You'd have thought even a spy would be safe there, for goodness' sake! Nope. Not if you're Paul Dark, have worked for British intelligence AND the KGB for years and have, along the way, amassed enough enemies on both sides of the Iron Curtain to fill the afore-mentioned, Christopher Wren-designed edifice. Twice over.

So, in a what you might call a carefully and deftly plotted novel - were you a blurb writer for a really excellent thriller book - the Cold War suddenly becomes a little too hot for our man Paul Dark. What we then get is a frenetically-paced, down-hill when someone has cut the brakes to your ('60's) sports car, adrenaline-rush of a read. Even though you do need to hold on tight while reading, understanding and then contemplating the sheer audacity of the 'stay behind' theme. In fact, I really liked that there was, amongst the murders and last-ditch rescues, also plenty of substance to get your teeth into. Plot possibilities kept on popping up in my mind. I do love a book where you sometimes end up staring into space thinking; "what if he's not who they think he is, what if they're working for them and not them, what if it's a double, or triple, bluff - then that means that the whole business with them was..." All that.

To be honest, reading this sometimes felt a bit like watching an episode of 'The Saint' (the good version, with Roger Moore), with its exotic, late-60's European locations, a trip to Istanbul and some decidedly dodgy Italian carabinieri. Couple that with the non-stop action of the brutal style of new-Bond (Casino Royale onwards - you know which bit I'm on about) and I think you've got the idea of how good a 'Song of Treason' sounds.

The story does have a couple of, shall we say, 'fortuitous' turns - stay away from Englishmen running towards you, you Vespa-riding Italian youth! And clearly, the way to get past the Vatican's Swiss Guard is of course to have no identification on you at all, but to shout loudly "I'm with British Intelligence!!!" (probably in a Roger Moore accent and (probably like Roger Moore would) have a beautiful girl in a white dress behind you). But then once you've got your breath back at the end, I can absolutely recommend staying on and reading the very interesting 'Author's Note'. If you follow Jeremy on Twitter, you will know of his interest in and mastery of all things clandestine and secret and if nothing else, this final section of the book proves truth is indeed a good deal stranger than his excellent fiction.

That feeling that one day you're gonna want those hours back. The hours you spent on this one after the first time it was clear that this one turned on nasty people, with tails. After you immediately then thought, 'well, how do they sit down?' 'Do they only 'mate' with others with tails?' 'How do they find them?' Etc.

That.

You can dress it up all you like with scenes set in the Roman period of Nero's Emperorship (yes, he was as well), or sections based around (yes, him too) Christopher (though acting more like Philip) Marlowe and of course, his fantastic play 'Dr.Faustus'. Which, coincidentally, I studied at school and can actually still quote, for example "for the vain pleasure of four and twenty years, hath Faustus lost eternal joy and felicity". Which I think of often, now that I live in Denmark, because the Danish method of counting, from twenty onwards, is 'one and twenty, two and twenty, three and twenty, four and twenty...' and so on. You can dress it up all you like but what you've still got is a tale, set in Italy, in Rome, of a Nun who used to be an archaeologist, called in to investigate a find in the catacombs, of people, from the time of the birth of Christianity, who have tails. And because they are skeleton remains and it's obvious they have tails, so they are boney tails, you wonder again, 'how did they sit down?' What kind of trousers have they got on, that must clearly hide the fact of the afore-mentioned tail?' Why are people with tails all, always nasty? Because they have tails?' Instead of getting yourself involved in the book, in what I guess he would really want you to get yourself involved in.

To be brutally fair, there are passages that work well, that pack a punch, that at least make you curious about what might come next. And any book that has Christopher Marlowe in it, is worth having a look at (no, he wasn't. Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare). There could have been some other interesting angles developed. Actually, the sections involving Marlowe and Nero are reasonably interesting. But as such, are a missed opportunity to make the sections, the main part of the story, set in the here and now, more powerful. The story in the here and now is a bit of a let-down in comparison, and the book kind of peters out into a disappointingly run of the mill, race against time to prevent disaster.

Read if it's one of the three books you have with you on your desert island. Otherwise, don't.

I'm struggling to see what the point of this one was. It didn't seem to be about anything much, though it desperately wanted to.

Sometimes it seemed to be wanting to be Dan Brown, sometimes a Robert Ludlum, sometimes Michael Connelly.

Sometimes it seemed like it might be going into interesting areas, then it didn't. But there was always a long way between any interesting revelations and when they came, they really weren't that interesting.

I think it was about some mad Italian mobster trying to get his hands on a map to the whereabouts of some Templar treasure under the streets of Naples. About the FBI or CIA or Some Other Agency, running an operation to stop him, some professor and The Vatican getting involved and an FBI sketch artist being mixed up in it all. I think. How all that lot was supposed to hang together, I'm not sure, because I'm not sure it did.

The lead character, given this is subtitled 'Sydney Fitzpatrick #2', wasn't up to it either. She was there, but not really developed very much and the main man who might be working for this that or the other Govt agency (I kind of lost count really) 'Griffin', was much more interesting. By comparison, that is.

Then the end, when it finally came, seemed to be a mixture of side-stepping because it knew it really wasn't worth the bother of going through the previous god-knows how many pages (I read it on my iPhone) and getting it over quickly because it wasn't worth…and the other.

It's competently enough written, but lacking excitement, enough tension and pay-off. More of something to measure a proper historical secrets chase novel by than a good one in itself.

'James Douglas', apart from being a Scottish friend of Robert The Bruce in the 13 and 14th Century, is of course the alter-ego of the really rather super Douglas Jackson (I'm guessing that THAT is actually his real name!). James Douglas comes out to play when Douglas Jackson takes time off from his day-job as the purveyor of all things Roman and legionary, writing books like Hero-, Avenger-, Defender- and indeed, Sword of Rome (tbc).

The Excalibur Codex, for new readers, is the third of James Douglas' thriller novels featuring art historian and all-round thinking man's action man, Jamie Saintclair. The Doomsday Testament (2011) and The Isis Covenant (2012) introduced us to the good Mr Saintclair and his knack for being in the right place at the wrong time on the trail of various long-lost artistic relics. The Excalibur Codex takes it from there. But, if you haven't read the first two, that's ok, this one is self-contained enough and you can go back to the others just fine after reading this.

The first two books have been action-packed, but also with plenty for the brain to get its teeth into along the way. Likewise The Excalibur Codex. It begins with a huge, sit up straight in your seat and pay attention, James Bond movie opening-style bang, which is, as you'd expect from Douglas Jackson, extremely well choreographed and well written. It reminds us, if we needed reminding, that another of his strengths is the brutal battle scene. And this opening is a battle scene. It's not for the faint-hearted and I can well understand someone who maybe gets hold of a copy, perhaps from their local library (without the 'I've paid for it so I'll finish it!', inner voice urging them on), stopping half way through the first couple of chapters. That's fine. But when I read something so convincingly 'real' as this opening, my first thought is "why didn't I hear about this on the news?!"

Having said that and hopefully without coming over all PC and Jane Green on your asses, I did feel some of the (as the opening event develops) graphic detail could have been toned down a little. Just a little, Without taking the edge off it. By the time the bit I'm thinking about came in, the 'job' of shocking us into submission had already been done. It was a bit unnecessary and didn't fit with the overall style of the rest of the novel. The only other quibble I have with the start, well more the later parts of the first half of the book, is really a result of this opening action. I did feel Saintclair recovered a lot more quickly than I thought he would have, given his emotional attachment to the person/people involved. I'm not saying he should have worn sackcloth and ashes for the rest of the book, or gone around babbling in a daze, but he did seem to get 'back in the saddle' a little more quickly than I would have imagined he (and I know I) would have done.

Also, I thought Douglas could have dealt with the Cologne - and other - bombing(s) he set up, a little more thoroughly. I'm not wanting the graphic detail as I said, but setting it up, then the characters hearing about it third hand in passing while they're in Madrid, then rushing on with the high-ranking Nazi's story, diluted it almost to the point of me forgetting all about it.

But these are really rather minor quibbles, when set against the tremendous enjoyment one gets from the rest of the book. And maybe more to do with me than the book. So, there you have it - a very powerful opening and we're well set for the rest of the story. And that is? An old friend of Saintclair's gets him to help with the decoding and interpretation of a German war veteran's mysterious last will and testament. The codex of the book's title, in particular. In short, they need to find the sword Excalibur. Yes, that one. It was last seen being used for an ancient ritual at a castle somewhere in East Prussia during the early days of World War II, a ritual that involved Reinhard Heydrich and many other top Nazis. Saintclair's search for clues and answers swiftly takes him (and us!) from England to Germany, to eastern Europe, over to Spain, the USA and eventually up to Scotland. Scotland - where most myths seem to start and have their end, according to historical adventure thriller writers. Well, those I seem to be reading at the moment at least.

I said it in my review of the previous James Douglas/Jamie Saintclair thriller, that his descriptive passages set during the second world war were/are 'simply stunning'. Here he does it again. Really effortlessly evocative and once again, for me, the highlight(s) of the book. Having said that, when Saintclair is on 'home ground', so to speak, in Scotland, you can really feel, through the wonderfully expressive prose, James Douglas' passion for the land and the people there. I have been to and driven along the route Saintclair takes to Scotland on many a fabulous Scottish holiday, and though it is at least 15 years since I was that way, I could 'see' the route and the towns and villages in my mind as he travelled and I read. Superb.

I have down the years, read fairly widely on the history of Germany, pre- and during-World War II (I also read a lot in my youth, about the legend of and the search for, evidence of the 'real' King Arthur actually) and clearly a lot of mysticism and unexplained, mystical happenings have been, can be and are, dropped in the ideological black hole that was the Nazis. But James Douglas' ideas are more convincing than many I've read. If I may be so bold, I would actually really like to see 'James Douglas' write a thriller completely set during the Second World War. Maybe the latter stages, amidst all the fire and confusion, the smoke and the sound. Maybe Jamie Saintclair's father or grandfather, or mother(s) for that matter, could have been mixed up in something or other back then. I think he could do a really good job there. Certainly enough to get mentioned amongst the David Downings and Philip Kerrs of that world. Just a thought.

I tried to be sceptical to start with, I was unsure if he could do it again, but I'm more than pleased to admit I enjoyed The Excalibur Codex almost as much as is entirely legal. I began each reading session with, as the great Greg Lake once sang 'excited eyes' and was only disappointed when there was no more to read. And I managed to go through the whole book without once thinking of the 'Excalibur' film.

It's been a while since I read the previous one in this series, 'Standard of Honour'. I did actually enjoy the first two, even if I do remember thinking that the jump between one and two was a bit much and 'Standard of Honour' seemed to lose a lot of the momentum built up in 'Knights of the Black and White.' Having said all that, I couldn't really remember what happened in the second volume, I'll admit, but it didn't seem to matter. And I'd forgotten what happened at the start of this one by the time I'd finished, so no great loss.

Yes, there's once again way too much talking and discussion and general dialogue and way too little of...well, pretty much anything else. Sure, it starts well, with a bang of a start in the first few pages, but after that, very little. Really, you might as well wade through the Templars Wikipedia page, if all this is going to be about is their final days and dissolution. The lack of anything other than flannel, is surprising though, as the book covers a reasonably tumultuous event, namely the French King's destruction of the Templars. The very first Friday the 13th. October 1307.

Sir William St. Clair and the other Templar-folk who get forewarned of their impending doom, are (unfortunately for those action-lovers amongst us and typically for this book) not around when this happens. Having received a tip-off to set sail a few hours before, they watch the event from out at sea off the coast of La Rochelle. Even later in the story, the now disbanded Templars turning up late for one last ride to save the day by chasing off the English at Bannockburn, is related as a chat, after the event, between Sinclair, Robert the Bruce and various aristocratic friends. I mean, look at Robert Low's trilogy covering the self-same period on Robert The Bruce. I haven't actually read them (yet), but you're not telling me, looking at those covers, they're sitting around in front of roaring log fires talking? As they do here. So all we get are hours of fat-chewing before and after. Generally, all the way through, all we get is talk, talk, change of scenery, talk, talk, change of people, talk, sail to Scotland, discussion, talk. Etc. Reminded me of later 'Wheel of Time' nonsense. That's not good, by the way.

Then some of their 'conversations', many actually, are not between characters, as characters might have had the same conversations if we weren't reading what they were saying in real life. What they say, is clearly aimed at us. Imparting knowledge that surely the character knows, and the character doing the telling, knows they know. But we - the reader don't know. So it's really us that is being told. And that makes it over long, forced and stilted. Like reading a bad Wikipedia entry.

So what else could it be? A romance? A very long-winded one, if it is. You know from the off, in the first few pages where the two meet, how it will end. That is telegraphed in the usual way - they can't abide each other. So of course they're bound to fall in love. The older, stuck in his ways, monastic (and more importantly, life-long celibate) Templar fighting monk and the headstrong, newly widowed, baroness with a whole load of boxes crammed full with gold coins, Scottish noble-lady. Their 'romance', which isn't actually underway until the final hundred pages, develops as the Templars society crumbles. That's what this must be about. Romance and new beginnings. Yes, the lead up to and the realisation that it must be love from Will Sinclair's side, is nicely and deftly done. Though, I remember feeling that the moment of admission on his side, the end of anticipation on her side and the joy on both sides, could have been more forcefully written. But you can't have anything, when Templars need to sort out stocks and supplies and … At least we do get a marriage. Well, that'll please those who think Historical Fiction is only written about luv between people wearing funny, old-fashioned clothes. Hello Amazon and Goodreads!

To again be more fair than this deserves, when you strip out much of the endless detail about how to run a Templar community on a previously almost deserted Scottish island, then it is pretty well-written. The descriptions of Scotland are lovely and clearly written by a Scot living abroad. But that's too little to affect the overall meandering. And with that stripped out, you'd have very little else.

Could have been a lot better. Should have been a whole lot shorter.