Shoedog, by George Pelecanos
George Pelecanos is a writer with a considerable body of work under his belt, a chronicler of urban crime who has made his native Washington D.C. the setting for most of his work – but I confess I would not have picked up Shoedog were it not for his involvement in immortalising the life of Baltimore as a writer and story editor for David Simon’s The Wire. No doubt this is the thinking behind Serpent’s Tail’s release of Shoedog as part of their Classics series, but get past The Wire connection and this is a fantastic bit of work in its own right. Shoe Dog is Pelecanos’ first non-series novel, a short, concentrated (200 pages exactly) explosion of violence, introspection, betrayal and mayhem – and it’s fantastic.
Constantine is a drifter, a traveller with no roots – but a chance meeting with a Korean War vet named Polk at the side of the road draws him in to the orbit of a criminal gang for a heist of two liquor stores in suburban D.C. It’s all orchestrated by Grimes, a crime lord who doesn’t need the money any more, but who has a hold over every member of the crew (except Constantine) and who can’t see the point of not taking advantage.
The Dream Thief, by Catherine Webb
The Dream Thief by Catherine Webb is the fourth outing for former Special Constable and rather reluctant hero Horatio Lyle. As the industrial revolution races on across England, Horatio Lyle wishes nothing more than to devote himself to assisting modernity and the forward motion of the Empire through his scientific experiments and his passion for inventing. Unfortunately for Horatio, his reputation as a great detective precedes him and, whenever Her Majesty’s Government comes calling, he finds himself plunged into intrigue, danger and life in the criminal underbelly of Victorian London.
London, 1865, and The Dream Thief opens with a nasty surprise for Horatio Lyle and his ward, the almost totally reformed young pickpocket Tess. They discover a young girl exhibiting all the signs of having been poisoned passed out on the doorstep of Horatio’s house. This time there is no need for government persuasion; attacks on the children of his city are not something that Horatio could ignore. Their investigations into the apparent poisoning lead Horatio and Tess to Tess’s former home, a dilapidated workhouse that certainly hasn’t improved during her absence. While an explanation for the fate of the young girl they found is not forthcoming, Horatio and Tess quickly discover that something sinister is afoot and that something very, very bad is threatening the children of the East End.
Forging ahead with their investigation, Horatio and Tess (aided as ever by upper crust adventurer Tom and Horatio’s faithful dog Tate) venture deep into Tess’s old stomping grounds and discover that a terrifying fate has befallen her old crowd of pickpockets and sneak thieves: the children are either ‘wandering the streets like zombies, drooling in the workhouses or plain mad in the asylum.’ It’s not just Tess’s friends who are affected either, children across the district are turning up with their memories in shreds and their minds near destroyed. The only clue left for Horatio to work with is a name, half-whispered in fear: Old Greybags.
The Horatio Lyle adventures have always been a mix of crime and the supernatural but The Dream Thief is by far the spookiest of the series. Horatio [I defy anyone to spend any length of time contemplating a detective named Horatio without imagining a ginger haired fellow taking off his sunglasses to stare at the Miami sun as he engages in a fine bit of 'smell the fart' acting] is a great detective but he is, first and foremost, a scientist who always searches for the rational explanation behind any mysterious event. The mystery of Old Greybags is therefore certainly his most difficult challenge to date. Catherine Webb presents these supernatural elements of the story in a way that is delightfully spine-tingling but still suitable for readers at the younger end of the age spectrum – there should be no nightmares after reading. The mystery element of the story and the methods which Horatio Lyle employs in the course of his investigation are as inventive and convincing as past readers of the series will expect. Webb has certainly done a great deal of research into her characters and the world which they inhabit. There is also a nice amount of humour and friendship to be found in The Dream Thief which should help to keep all readers entertained. All of the familiar characters from Webb’s previous novels are back while she also provides an interesting and moving insight into Tess’s past.
The Dream Thief could be read as a standalone novel but would inevitably provide spoilers for earlier books in the series so that those new to Horatio Lyle might be best off beginning with The Extraordinary and Unusual Adventures of Horatio Lyle and working through the series in order.
Rockers and Rollers: An Automotive Autobiography, by Brian Johnson
Brian Johnson, frontman of perennial rock’n'roll favourites AC/DC is, as anyone who has seen his appearance on the BBC’s Top Gear not so long ago knows, also a car fiend, a racer through and through, so the emphasis in this autobiography is firmly on the automotive side of his existence. AC/DC get plenty of mentions, but mostly in the context of cars and tour buses (anyone hoping for revelations about guitarist Angus Young, for instance, will be disappointed – he doesn’t even have a driving license, so barely figures!).
Johnson is an enjoyable teller of tales – you can imagine him telling these same stories in pubs and bars around the world, from the first car his dad ever bought (a Wolsey) to the sports cars, racers and luxury motors that the lead singer of one of the world’s most successful bands can easily afford. Be prepared for plenty of blue language and bluer stories as Johnson tells of his life on the road – but there are also touching insights in to the lives of Johnson’s parents (his mum came back from Italy to be with his dad at the end of the Second World War) and his mates.
King Arthur: The Bloody Cup, by M. K. Hume
The final book in this debut series was eagerly awaited by this reviewer, intrigued as to how the author would deal with the later stages of Artor’s life. The fact the novel is “The Bloody Cup” is also intriguing, given the obvious link to the Holy Grail and all the connotations thus attached. This aspect drew out the same concern as was expressed in the review of the previous two novels – that the stereotypical Arthurian legend could destroy the originally of the piece.
Fortunately Hume avoids this pitfall and does not disappoint. The quest for the cup, undertaken by a young and headstrong Galahad alongside the faithful Percivale and the strong and deadly Bedwyr, does not escalate into some laughable interpretation of the legend. Instead it is a sideline to the central plot, and compliments it perfectly.
Read more
A Preparation for Death, by Greg Baxter
Autobiographies are about the big moments in a subject’s life. The joyous, the heart-wrenching, the painful. Autobiographies are lives told from one significant moment to the next. Marriages begun, and collapsed, jobs gained and achievements reckoned, and recognition for it all as a life worth living. Written with a lifetime’s worth of ‘big’ moments to describe in wistful detail, the smaller, everyday filler inevitably falls through the cracks. Such inconsequential and trivial details with no impact on how a person becomes who they are. Despite the insignificance of such details, the daily lives of everyone alive, and we can presume, of everyone who ever lived, are mostly scenes of little impact. The quiet graces between everyone’s autobiographical beats.
A Preparation for Death begins with a collection of these quiet, filler moments. A pub lunch date, a few drinks, walking the streets of Dublin in the rain. Meet Greg Baxter, thirty four year old journalist, English teacher and resident of Dublin. Such a brief description doesn’t serve him, or his book, justice, but any typical summary is impossible. There is no clear through-line. Rather he dips in and out of his life at a whim. Readers aren’t given a summary of his life, they’re dropped straight into it. A Preparation for Death is the kind of book you are almost compelled to discuss in terms of its honesty, it is awkwardly honest to the point of ambivalence towards its creator. He pre-emptively confesses his hectic life, and the likelihood of an early death. Baxter’s life, described in intense detail, is one long self-destructive binge. Alcohol is mentioned with such frequency readers could develop an ill-advised drinking game from it. Women move in and out of the book, seemingly only passing through as if temporarily detouring from their own autobiographies.
Travelling Light, by Tove Jansson
Tove Jansson’s Travelling Light is a collection of short stories designed to provoke. Whether emotions, thoughts, or introspection, each of the stories in turn demands a response from its reader, and their combined power surges through the collection, heightening the impact of each story as it is discovered.
Jansson’s prose is, as always, crystalline and delicate, evoking a sense of icy clarity that makes the heat of emotion, when it does appear, all the more powerful. Her light touch and sure sense of place allow her to evoke entire histories in a sentence, entire places with a word. The humour, despair, loneliness, and connection all lie one next to the other, echoing the realties of life.
The stories follow ordinary people bent on some sort of escape, whether it is from a dull and predictable life, an anxious and disturbing child, or a situation gone mad. Each of the characters that populate her stories are, no matter their efforts at separation, connected to those around them. There are occasional spikes of success, the minutest of victories, where the past is left behind, but, in the end, characters are never truly alone, stalked eternally by the ever present reader. Read more
Eye Of The Red Tsar, by Sam Eastland
At last a new crime series to get stuck into, and a page turner to boot.
Before the Revolution Inspector Pekkala was The Emerald Eye, the Tsar’s personal special investigator, a legend across the Empire. Now it is 1924 and it is the new Red Tsar, Stalin, who plucks Pekkala from a Siberian hell-hole and orders him to discover what actually happened to the Romanovs in 1917. It’s a simple and familiar set up in general and perhaps even in particular: Man has to earn freedom by making deal with Devil. Devil turns out to have more holds than one on Man. Man is in danger from all sides. Man has to stay ahead of both game and Devil.
Eye Of The Red Tsar may be familiar but it is familiar for a reason. As well as the quality of the writing and the set-up, there are memeorable set-pieces aplenty. The execution of the Romanovs; a snow-bound labour camp deep in a Siberian forest; a couple of calustrophobic trips down a disused mine. Most memorable of all is perhaps a strange dreamlike journey through a fake idealised village being visited by foreign journalists, which is a great piece of research dragged from the archives and made real.
David Wellington: The Book I Would Like To Be Buried With…
“The answer to that question really depends on the context.
Assuming that I am cremated, as I would prefer, I wouldn’t like to take any books with me at all. I’m not in favor of burning books under any circumstances. Not even Twilight.
If I were to be buried in a traditional pine coffin, a circumstance which presumably would only happen if I died anonymously in some foreign land, perhaps a tropical country where bodies are required by law to be buried as quickly as possible, well. It’s unlikely that the kindly folks who bury unknown bodies would waste any more money on buying books for the anonymous deceased. If they did, I hope that some cosmic twist of fate would make sure it was one of my own books that I was buried with. Hopefully – and here we’re getting into the realm of extremely unlikely events – they would also seal the book in some kind of plastic that would last a very long time. The whole point of these improbabilities is that when my bones are eventually uncovered by some future society, the highly advanced energy beings who dig me up will either a) realize that these are the bones of a long forgotten but underrated author from another era, or b) be so confused that I will become one of those unsolved mysteries of history that bother people so much.
In the far more likely, if less sanguine prospect that I was somehow buried alive – that is, if I was to fall victim to some sort of deep, coma-like sleep but a (highly incompetent) doctor mistakenly diagnosed me as, in fact, dead, and the coroner, all the morgue assistants, funeral home director (too cheap to embalm my “corpse”), and family all failed to correct the mistake – then I would like to be buried with a blank book for use when I wake up inside my coffin. Given the conditions that I never obtained in life, i.e., peace and quiet, plenty of free time, and no high speed internet access, I believe I could finally write my masterpiece. Hopefully I would finish it before I asphyxiated.
Alternatively, if all of the above happened but – cruel fate – I was accidentally buried, alive, with a blank book but no pen or pencil to write with, I would at least be able to appreciate the terrible morbid irony of the situation.”
About David Wellington:
David Wellington is the author of seven novels. His zombie novels Monster Island, Monster Nation and Monster Planet (Thunder’s Mouth Press) form a complete trilogy. He has also written a series of vampire novels including (so far) Thirteen Bullets, Ninety-Nine Coffins, Vampire Zero and Twenty-Three Hours, and in October of 2009 began his new Werewolf series, starting with Frostbite (all with Three Rivers Press).
In 2004 he began serializing his horror fiction online, posting short chapters of a novel three times a week on a friend’s blog. Response to the project was so great that in 2004 Thunder’s Mouth Press approached Mr. Wellington about publishing Monster Island as a print book. His novels have been featured in Rue Morgue, Fangoria, and the New York Times.
- Visit David’s website at http://www.davidwellington.net
Win a manuscript page signed by AC/DC’s Brian Johnson [closed]
To celebrate the paperback release of legendary AC/DC frontman Brian Johnson’s automotive autobiography, we have a very special prize: a handwritten page from the original manuscript, signed by the great man himself and framed. The winner and four runners up get copies of Rockers and Rollers too…
Warbreaker, by Brandon Sanderson
Warbreaker is the new offering by Brandon Sanderson, widely known now as the inheritor of the Robert Jordan Wheel of Time saga. Billed as a stand-alone novel it’s a good way for fans of Jordan such as myself to get a taste of what this author can do outside the strictures of someone else’s world, not only in writing style but also in imagination. And to a large degree Warbreaker does not disappoint.
It’s complex fantasy at its best, set in a world dominated by the Halladren empire which has come to prominence in part by its stranglehold over the production and trade of colour dyes. Colour plays a more than decorative role in this world since the subtlety of colour shades also provide an indication (and source) of the magical power each person possesses, magic created from the life force of Breath that each person carries. In this country Breath can be given away, sold or traded and the number of Breaths each person possesses indicates their social status as well as their power. Ruling over this society is an oligarchy of gods who are said to be the Returned souls of people who have died heroically and have agreed to return as a deity to serve their country. At the apex of this system of gods and their priests is the God King, an unapproachable figure with seemingly unlimited power.
Dead in the Family, by Charlaine Harris
Charlaine Harris’ tenth Sookie Stackhouse novel Dead in the Family delves even deeper into the life of Sookie and the vampires, shapeshifters, werewolves, fairies and other creatures which surround her. The magic of Charlaine Harris is that she has succeeded in creating a world where nothing shocks the reader, is unacceptable or unbelievable. After the introduction of vampires into mainstream society Harris manages to introduce werewolves, fae, maenads and demons without so much as batting an eyelid, and the reader accepts their presence, as the mythology surrounding the novel encloses them.
Most readers of Harris that I have spoken to admit that the paramount reason for reading these novels is for the escape factor they offer and the fun of the world she creates: this is not ‘literary’ fiction, however Harris is talented at executing the dark romance plot. Dead in the Family follows Sookie after her injuries and the death of many of those around her during the fae war. When a werewolf Basim discovers the scent of two fae on Sookie’s property and is killed the next day, Sookie must discover the significance of this death and the burial on her own land. She must also deal with the arrival of Eric’s maker Appius Livius Ocella and his ‘love child’ Alexei in Bon Temps and the threat their presence has on her relationship with him.
Living Souls by Dimitry Bykov
Living Souls is set in a projected mid-twenty-first-century Russia, a country that has seen the value of its vast oil reserves plummet due to the discovery of Phlogiston, a substance that mysteriously (and cleanly) powers the rest of the world, but is unobtainable on Russian soil. Indeed, oil is so abundant and so worthless that the people are forced to fashion revolting synthetic food out of it.
This economic apocalypse underpins a ludicrous civil war between rival factions that both claim descent from ethnic groups who historically began to influence Russia before the turn of the first millennium AD. The Varangians, Swastika-wielding, Odin-worshipping militarists, in thrall to a soldiers’ rulebook and a cult with seven distinct levels of initiation, trace their lineage from Viking traders, raiders and settlers; the Khazars, Southern Russians bolstered by Jews and liberals exiled from Moscow, hark back to the Khazar Kaganate, a Caucasian kingdom that flourished between the 7th and 10th centuries AD, and converted to Judaism around the turn of the 9th. The novel opens a year into the war, when bloody fighting has given way to a stalemate of marching and feinting, with all operations focused on the legendary Deguino, a village which, despite being overrun by units from each faction in turn, remains miraculously stocked with all the food an army could wish for.
Kevin Brooks
Kevin Brooks was born in Exeter, Devon, and he studied in Birmingham and London. He had a varied working life, with jobs in a crematorium, a zoo, a garage and a post office, before – happily – giving it all up to write books. Kevin is the author of seven critically acclaimed novels including Martyn Pig, Lucas, Kissing the Rain, Candy and The Road of the Dead. His last two books Being and Black Rabbit Summer are both published by Penguin. His latest novel is iBoy, out now. He now lives in North Yorkshire.
iBoy, by Kevin Brooks
Read our interview with Kevin Brooks
Kevin Brooks’ iBoy is, as are all of his books, a tense, well plotted, often humorous, and always thought provoking young adult novel. Technology, teenagers, crime, friendship, and loyalty weave together in a story that shows what strengths lay at the heart of true friends and what power information can hold.
It begins with Tom, an ordinary young boy living a tense life on a London housing estate. Raised by his grandmother, who scrapes nearly enough money to survive out of writing novels, Tom struggles with typical teenage worries: will he get the girl he likes? How little coursework can he do to get by? But Tom goes to meet Lucy one normal afternoon and wakes up days later with an iPhone shattered and embedded in his brain and powers beyond even the dreams of a teenage boy.
Suddenly, Tom has access to all of the information floating around the web and all of the information connected in any way to the internet, to all of conversations, voice mails, and texts that make up the communication of modern life. Tom is swamped with information and access, drowning in the minutiae of the everyday. Eventually able to go home, his new found super-information-highway powers lead him to discover that his accident was a deliberate attack, and that Lucy has also been swept up in the violence and rage that flow out from the estate’s gangs. Read more
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon
Fourteen year-old Brenna McIntosh, a student at Great Cornard Upper School in Suffolk, wrote this review for a class competition – and we think you’ll agree she’s a worthy winner…
There is much written about autism as a clinical disorder, but very little narrative exists from through the eyes of a person with autism or Asperger’s Syndrome. In The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon introduces us to this world through his character, fifteen year old Christopher Boone. Part detective story and part documentary on the autistic condition, this book blurs the boundaries of fiction and actual experience in a way which is both interesting and engaging.
From the outset we are aware of Christopher’s world of facts:
I decided that the dog was probably killed with the fork because I could not see any other wounds on the dog and I do not think that you would stick a garden fork into a dog after it had died.
His description is without emotion or horror. It is just something that he has seen. From this point on, Christopher begins to embody his detective companion Sherlock Holmes through a systematic and logical approach to solving the crime. Not by choice, it is the only way he knows how. However, this is not the only trail that Christopher follows. In a twist of fate towards the end of the book he finds himself following a much more personal lead through an accidental discovery.
The Secret Hour, by Scott Westerfeld
Scott Westerfeld’s Midnighters series begins in The Secret Hour, and it begins with Jessica Day, a reluctant import from Chicago, unhappy with her family’s sudden move to this tiny town, unhappy to be all alone in such a strange place. Bixby is even stranger than Jessica realises, though, and she has walked into a war that has gone on for millennia.
That’s why the blue time was created, Rex said. A few thousand years ago, when the darklings were being pushed into the deepest forest by steel weapons and fire, they created it as a sanctuary for themselves…the lore says that they took one hour from the day and collapsed it down to an instant so that human beings couldn’t see it anymore.
This “secret hour” strikes at the heart of humanity, hiding some of their most dangerous enemies away in darkness and silence. These darklings have survived by being the most cunning of their kind, the most dangerous of their kind, and the most determined of their kind, and humanity has no idea they even exist. Except for a few, a very few, the “midnighters”. Born during this secret hour, at the minute when time folds in on itself, they can roam the streets of Bixby during the blue time and discover talents that are their protection and a temptation to the darkness that hunts those around them. Read more
Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
In reading most reviews of Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson, you would think it is a depressing book. Many of the reviews and commentary suggest that this is an existentialist book focusing on the hopelessness of life. I must not have read the same book because it struck me as one of the most hopeful things I’ve read this year. Anderson famously influenced the literary giants of the American canon: Hemingway, Faulkner, Gertrude Stein, and even Ray Bradbury. His stoic realism perfectly portrays the tragic and the comic that make a whole American life what it is.
It is not really a novel so much as a collection of short stories about a small Midwestern town. The stories circle around George Willard, the sort-of main character. As the novel progresses, the focus spirals more and more on Willard. The book becomes about his process of realizing he is a man, deciding how to love a woman or if he even wants to, and wrestling with his longing to leave his small town and make it big. Anderson makes George’s story the story of all of us. It’s not just about leaving a small town and making something of yourself, it’s about the worthiness of that endeavor.
Win a set of Serpent’s Tail Classics
Thanks to the lovely people at Serpent’s Tail one lucky Bookgeeks reader will win a set of Serpent’s Tail’s beautiful new Classics series, comprising: We Need to Talk About Kevin, by Lionel Shriver, Shoe Dog, by George Pelecanos, Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley, and The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa. The books all have new introductions specially commissioned for them, and they’re a wonderful taste of some of the best that Serpent’s Tail has to offer.
We Need To Talk About Kevin: Lionel Shriver’s Orange Prize winner went on to sell a million copies worldwide. This new classics edition has a specially written introduction by Kate Mosse.
Shoedog: George Pelecanos’s own favourite among his novels. Written before The Wire made him famous, and long before the forthcoming series on New Orleans, Treme. With a new introduction by the BBC’s Mark Lawson.
Devil in a Blue Dress: One of the first African American gumshoe detectives, and later played on screen by Denzel Washington. Where it all started for the great Walter Mosley. The Classics edition features a new introduction from Wire in the Blood’s Val McDermid.
The Book of Disquiet: Existential European literature which has long been acknowledged as a masterpiece. With a new introduction by William Boyd.
To win this great set of books, answer the following question:
Q: Which detective is the lead character in Walter Mosley’s Devil in a Blue Dress?
No more submissions accepted at this time.Terms and conditions
- Closing date for entries: 1st August 2010.
- Open to residents of the United Kingdom only.
- Entry to the competition is by completion of the above form only. Anyone submitting multiple entries will be disqualified.
- The winners will be selected at random from those correct entries received before the closing date.
- Only the winning entrants will be contacted by Bookgeeks. Our decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.
- The winner’s name(s) may be published on the Bookgeeks website after the closing date of the competition.
- The competition is not open to Bookgeeks and their families, or to employees of Profile / Serpent’s Tail and their families.
R.B. Russell: The Book I Would Like To Be Buried With…
“I’d like to take my old battered Corgi paperback The Hill of Dreams by Arthur Machen. (I would probably have taken the Collected Aickman if Simon hadn’t beaten me to it!)
Machen’s The Hill of Dreams was given to me to read at a time when I was immersed in Camus, Hesse and Sartre, and I read it as an existentialist novel; the story of an artistic outsider who has problems coming to grips with the world around him. What astounded me, though, and set it apart from the other authors I’d been reading, was the great beauty of the language. I found the novel hard-going that first time, but each re-reading has been a joy.
From The Hill of Dreams I went on to Machen’s Tales of Horror and the Supernatural, which baffled me completely. Why would an existentialist write horror stories? Machen, though, doesn’t really fit into any categories. His work suggests that there is more to the world around us than we may ordinarily perceive, and sometimes this revelation offers us great beauty, at other times great horror. An apparently banal marriage may conceal a wonderful, mystical love (A Fragment of Life), or the depths of evil (The Inmost Light). The Hill of Dreams, though, is Machen’s masterpiece, from the resonant opening through to the profound, echoing last line.”
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About R.B. Russell:
R.B. Russell is the author of the short story collection Putting the Pieces in Place and the novella, Bloody Baudelaire (both Ex Occidente, 2009). His second collection, Literary Remains (PS Publishing, 2010) is recently published. Russell’s stories have appeared in The Best Horror of the Year, Supernatural Tales, Postscripts and The Black Book of Horror. He runs the Tartarus Press with his partner, Rosalie Parker.
- Visit his website at: http://www.tartaruspress.com/russell1.htm
- Visit Ex Occidente Press
- Read a review of Literary Remains at Bookgeeks
- Visit PS Publishing
Warrior of Rome: Fire in the East, by Harry Sidebottom
In to the cut-throat, blood-soaked arena that is the world of so-called swords and sandals historical fiction comes Harry Sidebottom – gasp as he beheads an opposing novelist who was armed only with a trident and a net; swoon as he eviscerates a ravenous lion; marvel as he hacks his way through the throng. Fire in the East is the first of Sidebottom’s Warrior of Rome series, published in 2009, and with the third, Lion of the Sun, about to hit the bookshelves he is clearly doing something right. The secret of Sidebottom’s success starts with his day job: he is an Oxford don, specifically Fellow and Director of Studies in Ancient History at St Benet’s Hall; he’s also Lecturer in Ancient History at Lincoln College. You’d say that makes him fairly well qualified to write this kind of a book.
The second clever trick is picking a period of Roman history about which very little is known: the ‘Great Crisis of the Third Century AD’. By avoiding the well-trodden ground of the Roman Republic and the early Emperors, Sidebottom introduces us to a genuinely surprising storyline, set in a Roman Empire which has been beset by civil wars, gets through Emperors at an appalling rate, is no longer invincible on the battlefield and which has assimilated barbarians from all corners of the Empire in to its military and its civilian administration. One such is our hero, Ballista, a former slave from the German tribe of the Angles who has risen to a position of trust in Rome’s military affairs; he has slaves of his own, including a Greek secretary, an irascible Celtic manservant strongly reminiscent of Patrick O’Brian’s Killick, and a Hibernian bodyguard (which, as another reviewer has pointed out, makes this a tale of an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman!).
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The Bookgeeks Interview
Simon Kernick
Simon Kernick is one of Britain’s most exciting new thriller writers. He arrived on the crime writing scene with his highly acclaimed debut novel The Business of Dying, the story of a corrupt cop moonlighting as a hitman. However, Simon’s big breakthrough came with his novel Relentless which was selected by Richard and Judy for [...]
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Latest Competition
Five copies of John le Carré’s Smiley vs Karla Trilogy to be won
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was one of the big film releases of 2011, and to celebrate its release on DVD we have five copies of John le Carré’s Smiley vs Karla Trilogy to be won – consisting of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley’s People.
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