Tag Archives: thriller

#BookReview ‘The Pinnacle’ by Abir Mukherjee @radiomukhers #thriller #India

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‘This was India. They did democracy different here.’ The Pinnacle by Abir Mukherjee starts at a fast pace and races to the last page. Having just finished a long detailed historical novel, this speed made me feel as if I’d overdosed on caffeine. But I stuck with it because I’m a big fan of Mukherjee’s Raj-era crime series. Abir MukherjeeThe Pinnacle is set now in Mumbai, it’s a million miles from 1919 Calcutta. Two wealthy actors, American husband and Bollywood star wife, live a beautiful life in a luxury apartment with soaring views across the city. But reality is different from the image. George Abercrombie wakes on the sofa after a drunken night out to find his wife Sweety Sahota dead in their bed. His servant Amit isn’t answering his phone, their maid wants to make breakfast for her mistress and Sweety’s American PA will arrive at any moment. George panics. What follows is like the Winston Wolf scene in Pulp Fiction.
The Pinnacle is a rollercoaster puzzle ride of politicians, gangsters, blackmail, extreme wealth, extreme poverty and misogyny. We see the action from three viewpoints, George, manservant Amit and PA Gemma. But who do we believe, are we seeing the truth or a curated reality. George and Sweety, after all, are actors. Who killed Sweety? Who is the blackmailer and why? Where is Sweety’s jewellery and laptop? Who did she visit earlier in the evening of her death? Who has most to lose, and who is the boss of the boss of the boss? I guessed quite early and then doubted my first instinct.
In the Wyndham & Banerjee books, Mukherjee focusses on the hypocrisy and arrogance of India’s colonial occupiers, in The Pinnacle the same behaviour is seen amongst the rich. None of the characters are likeable but perhaps my favourite – simply for her name and her zebra sofas – is Roxanne Bunglewalla, daughter of the Pinnacle’s owner. When George enters Roxanne’s penthouse for the first time, he thinks, ‘Roxanne Bunglewalla’s place was best viewed through sunglasses, ideally with the lights off, seeing as it was decked out in more gold than the US Olympics team and Jay-Z put together. It was like King Midas had come to Mumbai, got hammered with Louis XIV and then both of them decided to enter the interior design business for a bet.’ Mukherjee is a master of the funny one-liners.
Fast-paced, good fun. At times the pace was so quick I lost track of things, but Mukherjee is in control of the story throughout and I soon picked up the thread again. I read it quickly in two days.

Here are my reviews of the Raj-era Wyndham & Banerjee crime series, also by Abir Mukherjee:-
A RISING MAN #1WYNDHAM&BANERJEE
A NECESSARY EVIL #2WYNDHAM&BANERJEE
SMOKE AND ASHES #3WYNDHAM&BANERJEE
DEATH IN THE EAST #4WYNDHAM&BANERJEE
THE SHADOWS OF MEN #5WYNDHAM&BANERJEE
THE BURNING GROUNDS #6WYNDHAM&BANERJEE

If you like this, try:-
‘Before the Fall’ by Noah Hawley
‘Gone Girl’ by Gillian Flynn
‘Beautiful Ugly’ by Alice Feeney

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE PINNACLE by Abir Mukherjee @radiomukhers https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-9Vq via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Nicola Cornick

#BookReview ‘Evil in High Places’ by Rory Clements #crime #thriller

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I always eagerly anticipate sinking into the second novel of a new series. While the first one introduces characters, sets the scene and context, the second is about action. Evil in High Places is second in the 1930s German thriller series by Rory Clements featuring maverick police detective Sebastian Wolff. And it’s brilliant. Rory Clements Munich 1936. The Winter Olympics are coming to town and a famous actress inconveniently disappears. Wolff is told to find her and be quick about it because Elena Lang is not just a beautiful actress, she’s also the mistress of Hitler’s right-hand man. When a body is found, Wolff is told to make it go away and keep it absolutely secret until after the Olympics are over. Wolff’s job is complicated by the company that Elena keeps; Bavarian aristocrats, senior SS officers, Unity Mitford and assorted foreign hangers-on who like to party. Their sense of entitlement, the wealth, their arrogance is overwhelming and threatening. Wolff, an outsider who struggles to give a convincing Heil Hitler salute, persists in asking awkward questions of powerful people. Another complication is the second case that lands on Wolff’s desk. A local SS officer has been found shot in a local forest. This also must be kept secret during the Olympics. Wolff, who believes in the law, finds himself keeping secrets and hiding bodies. He keeps his suspicions to himself, they could get him killed.
The sub-plots power along nicely too. Will Wolff and his girlfriend Hexie ever get married? How will Wolff’s son Jurgen react when a letter arrives from Berlin. Jurgen’s mother Ulrike, who left Seb when Jurgen was a baby, is coming to Munich and would like to meet up. And why does Wolff’s sergeant Hans Winter volunteer for a difficult dangerous undercover job in Dachau prison camp? All the action takes place in Munich and Garmisch-Partenkirchen, location of the Olympic events and a film shoot, so the the book is populated with film stars and famous athletes.
This is a dramatic, twisty, exciting thriller with a likeable, decent hero operating amongst wolves. Rory Clements is a favourite author for me; he writes reliably unpredictable, exciting, well-researched thrillers, steeped in wartime Germany.
Next in the series is Invitation from a Dictator.

Read my review of MUNICH WOLF, first in the Sebastian Wolff series.

And here are my reviews of the Tom Wilde WW2 thriller series, also by Rory Clements:-
CORPUS #1TOMWILDE
NUCLEUS #2TOMWILDE
NEMESIS #3TOMWILDE
HITLER’S SECRET #4TOMWILDE
A PRINCE AND A SPY #5TOMWILDE
THE MAN IN THE BUNKER #6TOMWILDE
THE ENGLISH FUHRER #7TOMWILDE
A COLD WIND FROM MOSCOW #8TOMWILDE

If you like this, try:-
‘Waiting for Sunrise’ by William Boyd
‘Blow Your House Down’ by Pat Barker
‘Wolf Winter’ by Cecilia Ekback

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview EVIL IN HIGH PLACES by Rory Clements https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-92L via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Abir Mukherjee

#BookReview ‘A Cold Wind from Moscow’ by Rory Clements #thriller #ColdWar

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Eighth in the Tom Wilde World War Two thriller series by Rory Clements, A Cold Wind from Moscow takes a post-conflict step towards the Cold War. This is a tale of a top secret nuclear scientist, a South London criminal gangster and a Russian hitman. Rory ClementsCambridge 1947. Life is returning to normal for Professor Tom Wilde after the war. He is teaching history again at Cambridge while his wife Lydia is a medical student in London. On a freezing cold day, he stops at the greengrocer on his way to work. In the window is displayed a rarity; a perfect fresh peach. Wilde buys it as a treat for his son, Johnny, then goes to his rooms where he is expecting a visitor from London, a man he met once before during the war. But when Wilde opens the door, Everett Glasspool is dead with an ice-axe buried in his head.
This is a transitional story set at a time of post-war stasis as global political tension pivots to the Soviet Union. Daily life in England is difficult, in some ways harsher than during the war. And the Arctic-like weather doesn’t help. Wilde finds himself drawn back into security circles where there are old familiar wartime faces and fresh ones, such as his boss at MI5 Freya Bentall. Freya fears she has a traitor on her team and charges Wilde to follow three of her officers. Then a nuclear scientist, who has evidence about the leak of secrets, goes missing. The trail leads Wilde into London’s criminal underworld and also to his old friend Geoff Lancing who is now working at Harwell, the atomic energy research establishment. Who is selling nuclear secrets to the Russians? Is there more than one traitor? And can Wilde find the missing scientist before the Russian hitman?
The end is intriguing, setting up what promises to be another Tom Wilde book. A really pacy read. Very enjoyable.

Click the title to read my reviews of the other books in the Tom Wilde series:-
CORPUS #1TOMWILDE
NUCLEUS #2TOMWILDE
NEMESIS #3TOMWILDE
HITLER’S SECRET #4TOMWILDE
A PRINCE AND A SPY #5TOMWILDE
THE MAN IN THE BUNKER #6TOMWILDE
THE ENGLISH FÜHRER #7TOMWILDE

And from the Sebastian Wolff series:-
MUNICH WOLF #1SEBASTIANWOLFF
EVIL IN HIGH PLACES #2SEBASTIANWOLFF

If you like this, try:-
‘Blow Your House Down’ by Pat Barker
‘Wolf Winter’ by Cecilia Ekback
‘Invasion’ by Frank Gardner #4LUKECARLTON

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview A COLD WIND FROM MOSCOW by Rory Clements https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8E5 via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Barbara Erskine

#BookReview ‘Beautiful Ugly’ by Alice Feeney @alicewriterland #thriller #mystery

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Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney has so many twists and surprises it feels like an infinite tangle of mobius strips. I read it quickly, thinking I knew what was happening. Sometimes I guessed right, sometimes I was wildly wrong. Alice FeeneyAuthor Grady Green is having a brilliant day until his wife disappears. He doesn’t know if she’s dead or alive, kidnapped or washed out to sea. Abby, a journalist, has been receiving threats related to newspaper stories she’s written. Grady is trapped in a nightmare turmoil of grief and hope, unable to accept Abby is dead, unable to sleep, always hoping. A year later he is ill, not writing, out of money and he keeps seeing Abby everywhere. He thinks he’s going mad. His agent, in a desperate attempt to help him write another bestseller, sends him to a writer’s cabin on a remote Scottish island. Grady likes being alone, that’s when he writes best, so he agrees.
Once the action moves to the Isle of Amberly, Beautiful Ugly becomes a closed room mystery. On the ferry over from the mainland, Grady sees Abby again. Although he starts to feel a little better he still isn’t sleeping, despite copious alcohol and pots of the local herbal bog myrtle tea. He sees things, he hears things; or does he? His only companion is his dog Colombo. Amberly is completely isolated. No mobile or internet signal, no landlines, an occasional ferry to the mainland. His writer’s cabin is in the woods, miles from anyone, and is creepy. The local residents, all 25 of them, are rather strange. And there are rules. No visitor may drive a car. Only residents are allowed to communicate with each other by walkie-talkie. Although everyone seems friendly, Grady begins to feel trapped. And then old newspaper cuttings of stories written by Abby are left in the cabin for Grady to find.
Most of the story is told from Grady’s point of view, which raises the inevitable question: is he a reliable narrator. But we also have chapters from Abby before her disappearance and this fills in some back story. We see how they meet on a plane, their whirlwind romance, but as the years pass there are tensions just below the surface. Both have their secrets, both are obsessive about their work. Abby says to a counsellor, ‘Wives think their husbands will change but they don’t. Husbands think their wives won’t change but they do.’
A very clever plot, even if some twists are easy to spot. An unsettling thriller that examines truth and lies in relationships, promises made, things you don’t tell your partner and secrets you don’t admit even to yourself. Throughout the book I was also getting flashbacks to films such as Hot Fuzz and Misery.

Here’s my review of SOMETIMES I LIE, also by Alice Feeney.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Hunting Party’ by Lucy Foley 
‘Before the Fall’ by Noah Hawley
‘The Ice’ by Laline Paull

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview BEAUTIFUL UGLY by Alice Feeney @alicewriterland https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8Dd via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Lucinda Riley & Harry Whittaker

#BookReview ‘Clown Town’ by Mick Herron #spy #thriller

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It’s been a while since Bad Actors so I couldn’t wait to start Clown Town, ninth in the Slough House thriller series by Mick Herron. It is like a family reunion; the grumpy uncle who says the wrong thing, the bossy aunt who tidies up around everyone, the noisy one, the thoughtful one, the silent one, the cocky one. These books are seriously addictive. Clown Town by Mick Herron River Cartwright is on medical leave after Novichok poisoning and, though suffering from occasional woosiness and vision problems, is overseeing the cataloguing of his long-dead grandfather’s library. The books of David Cartwright, once a senior spy at Regent’s Park, have been transferred to the ‘spy’s college’ at Oxford. Except a book is missing, or is it? River’s harmless visit to the archivist leads him on the trail of a former spy, the leader of a cell during the Northern Ireland troubles. CC plans to go public with a long-hidden secret that could cause explosions at the Park and Number Ten.
In London at Slough House, the slow horses are bored. Shirley Dander has turned her computer off. Lech Wicinski has inherited River’s assignment trawling endless records to identify potential safe houses. Louisa Guy is making a restaurant booking for dinner. Ash Khan is talking to her mum on the phone again. And Roddy Ho has a new tattoo which he says is a hummingbird but Lech says is a platypus, Shirley thinks is a sheep and Louisa decides is an upside-down dung beetle.
Various independent story strands bob along at the same time, the only common denominator being that the people involved are aware of each other’s existence. The slow horses, Catherine Standish and Jackson Lamb. First Desk at Regent’s Park, Diana Taverner. Former sleazy politician Peter Judd. And former dog, or Park enforcer, Devon Welles. Except in Oxford are three people new to the Slough House books; three retired spies are waiting in a safe house for their also retired team leader to arrive for a meeting. There is a link that knits together Clown Town. Can the slow horses make the connection in time to save a life? And when they decide to help, will they charge in again without a real plan?
Herron’s skill is to make this the ninth book in the series as fresh as the first. He sticks with familiar characters and a handful of ongoing storylines, kills off some horses and introduces new ones, adds tense action scenes interwoven with his trademark humour and satire. And of course Jackson Lamb is the spine that holds it all together, bored by his horses in the office but willing to go to war for them if they are hurt.
A series best read in order from the beginning, and told at a pace that barely catches breath. Clown Town finishes with a few cliffhangers which means I’m already waiting impatiently for book ten. Excellent.

Click the title to read my reviews of the previous books in the Slough House series:-
SLOW HORSES #1SLOUGHHOUSE
DEAD LIONS #2SLOUGHHOUSE
REAL TIGERS #3SLOUGHHOUSE
SPOOK STREET #4SLOUGHHOUSE
LONDON RULES #5SLOUGHHOUSE
JOE COUNTRY #6SLOUGHHOUSE
SLOUGH HOUSE #7SLOUGHHOUSE
BAD ACTORS #8SLOUGHHOUSE

If you like this, try:-
‘Gabriel’s Moon’ by William Boyd #1GABRIELDAX
‘Exposure’ by Helen Dunmore
‘The Chase’ by Ava Glass #1ALIASEMMA

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview CLOWN TOWN by Mick Herron https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8B1 via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Verity Bright

#BookReview ‘The Hunting Party’ by Lucy Foley #mystery #thriller

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I’ve read a few of the closed room mysteries by Lucy Foley now but not The Hunting Party, one of her first. So after reading a number of intense thoughtful books, I wanted a page-turning rollercoaster. I wasn’t disappointed. Lucy Foley The Hunting Party begins on 30th December 2018. A group of friends are travelling to the wilds of Scotland by train. Their destination, Loch Corrin, is an exclusive Highlands getaway surrounded by mountains. The height of luxury. As friends since university, they know everything about each other. Or do they. As well as the original students there are the partners, incomers, who try to fit in but are conscious they’re not part of the founding gang. As well as the nine guests there are two members of staff living on site, Heather the manager and Doug the gamekeeper, a handyman, plus two unconnected guests, an Icelandic couple staying at a far-off guesthouse. Doug is an ex-marine who is ‘surviving, existing – just. Not living. That is a word for those who seek entertainment, pleasures, comfort out of each day.’ Through the voices of Doug and Heather, her previous job is hazily defined but she like Doug seems to be running from something, are the observers. Through their eyes we see the group from the outside, without prior knowledge. It adds another perspective.
Everyone, guests and staff members, has a past, something they’re not proud of, something they’re hiding. Ambition. Jealousy. Addiction. Grief. Regret. Anger. Take them out of their comfort zone and put them somewhere unfamiliar and vaguely threatening, anything can happen. And does. Especially when guns are available and a stalking party is on the list of activities.
Foley has chosen an unsettling location. The surrounding hills are beautiful, bleak, empty. The guests stay in individual lodges but socialise and eat in the central glass building, The Lodge. Its lights glare out into the dark. For the uneasy, there is the feeling that someone is outside looking in, just out of sight, watching. Seeing everything. As the New Year’s Eve entertainments commence, alcohol and drugs are consumed, inhibitions drop, long-held resentments rise to the surface. And then it begins to snow. Not just any snow, this is ‘a one-in-a-thousand weather event.’ No one can get in or out.
The story unfolds in a structure now familiar from reading Foley’s other thrillers. In each novel she creates an original world and populates her territory with characters that are each in their way troubled and hiding secrets. Then she adds murder. It’s a formula at which she excels.
Chilling. Read quickly over a weekend. I had my suspicions about the identity of the victim and the murderer, I was correct on one of the two.

Click the title to read my reviews of these other novels by Lucy Foley:-
THE GUEST LIST
THE INVITATION
THE MIDNIGHT FEAST
THE PARIS APARTMENT

If you like this, try:-
‘The Bear’ by Claire Cameron
‘Little Deaths’ by Emma Flint
‘The Girls Left Behind’ by Emily Gunnis

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE HUNTING PARTY by Lucy Foley https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8zN via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- SW Perry

#BookReview ‘Precipice’ by Robert Harris @Robert_Harris #WW1 #thriller

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A gripping, page-by-page account of the prelude to war interleaved with the secret letters and snatched meetings of a forbidden relationship between the prime minister and a young society woman. I read Precipice by Robert Harris over a weekend, resenting anything that forced me to set the book aside. Robert HarrisThat the man involved is Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, that the story starts in the days preceding the declaration of war against Germany, that the fictional account is based on truth, all adds to the frisson. Harris is a master storyteller used to creating a fictional thriller based on historical fact. It ceased to matter what was true and what was made up, Harris puts us inside the private worlds of Asquith and Lady Venetia Stanley at a time of national danger. We all know how the war begins and ends but I didn’t know the details of the Asquith/Stanley affair or the level of reckless sharing by Asquith of privileged information; using ordinary post, top secret telegrams thrown from car windows. ‘That was a kind of madness.’ Letters were written, sent, received and replied to, with such speed and in such volume as to resemble a frantic exchange of emails or texts between lovers today.
Harris’s genius is to add the fictional character of young policeman Detective Sergeant Paul Deemer, a new recruit at Special Branch, who is charged with looking into the torn remnants of secret Government documents found in the road and handed in by a member of the public. Deemer adds the element of risk that the story needs, a sense of danger as the sergeant uses old-fashioned policing technique – asking questions, following leads, covert surveillance, gathering evidence – in the chase to uncover the truth. Meanwhile, uncannily accurate comments about military matters are appearing in the Daily Mail. From where is the newspaper getting its information? Is the Prime Minister blinded by love? Is he incompetent, perhaps a traitor? Or is someone close to him a spy?
This is a political story about war, about ambition, obsession, showing government tensions at the most pressurised time possible as the country faces tremendous change. I turned to Harris after an unsatisfactory attempt to read another novel, it was like gulping water at a time of extreme thirst.

Read my reviews of these other thrillers, also by Robert Harris:-
AN OFFICER AND A SPY
MUNICH
V2

… and try the #FIRSTPARA of THE GHOST, also by Robert Harris

If you like this, try:-
‘Life Class’ by Pat Barker #LIFECLASS1
‘The Warm Hands of Ghosts’ by Katherine Arden
‘The Lie’ by Helen Dunmore

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview PRECIPICE by Robert Harris @Robert_Harris https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8ub via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Michelle Paver

#BookReview ‘The Briar Club’ by Kate Quinn @Kate_Quinn #thriller #mystery

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Oh what a tangle this story is, in a good way. The Briar Club by Kate Quinn is about the women renting rooms at Briarwood House, a down-at-heel all-female boarding house in Washington DC. Starting off as a group of individuals, they slowly bond at their Thursday supper night. Kate QuinnThe story starts on the night Thanksgiving in 1954 with a prologue in the voice of the house. There’s a dead body in the attic and there is blood everywhere. Police are questioning witnesses. The narrative then backtracks four years. Set in the post-war McCarthy era when communists are reported by friends, family, neighbours and colleagues, at the time of this story no one feels immune from threat of denunciation. Not Bea, the former baseball player with a dodgy knee. Not Fliss, mother of baby Angela, both waiting for Fliss’s doctor husband Dan to come home from the Korean war. Not Nora, secretary at the National Archives, whose police officer brother steals her rent money.
At first The Briar Club seems long and languorous, taking its time to tell the background story of each female lodger one at a time. This is a clever device that first shows each woman as the others see them, the assumptions made, prejudices assumed, judgements taken; then the real person is revealed in their own viewpoint, the experiences that made them who they are today, the twists and turns of life that made them behave and speak as they do. But then there is a dead body in the attic apartment and the tangles become twisted, knotted and dangerous to everyone. Is it a lover’s tiff or something more sinister? Is it the reds? This is the time of the HUAC [House Un-American Activities Committee] investigations, set against a rough Washington background of gangsters, sleaze, knife crime and wife-beating. The Thursday night Briar Club get-together gives the women a safe place to be themselves.
The first voice we hear in 1950 doesn’t belong to one of the lodgers but to Pete Nilsson, son of the landlady. When Pete is on the front stoop mending the screen door, he is interrupted by a tall woman wearing a red beret. She enquires about a room to rent and 13-year old Pete instantly falls in love. Grace March takes the dingy room, as big as a shoebox with dull green walls. Grace is the sun around which the lodgers and the story revolve. She is both at the centre of everything, seemingly all-knowing, all-seeing, but remaining an enigma. It is Grace who suggests a Thursday night supper club, it is Grace who encourages the other ladies to club together to buy spectacles for Pete’s younger sister Lina, and it is Grace who first encourages Lina’s attempts at baking despite the frequent burnt offerings. She is the bringer of light and flowers into a grubby house, the one who notices everything and knows how to keep a secret.
The stately telling of a complicated story, slow for the first 60% until the strands become entwined, character connections are made and deeply-held secrets and opinions are unveiled. From the beginning this is a consummate picture of the lives of women in 1950s Washington DC at the time of the communist witch hunts. Opportunities for women are changing post-war though many are still trapped by marriage, racism, expectations and low wages. The story starts with a mystery that becomes consuming as the paths of the fictional women cross with real-life historical people and events. And I loved that the house is given its own voice, because Briarwood House too seems a member of the Briar Club.
Very good. Slower in parts than the other Quinn novels I’ve read. All are different and I’ve enjoyed every one of them. The Briar Club morphed from a 4* to a 5* towards the end as I realised I wanted to go back to the beginning and start all over again.

Here are my reviews of other novels by Kate Quinn:-
THE ALICE NETWORK
THE DIAMOND EYE
THE ROSE CODE

If you like this, try:-
‘Shrines of Gaiety’ by Kate Atkinson
‘Before the Fall’ by Noah Hawley
‘The Chase’ by Ava Glass #1ALIASEMMA

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE BRIAR CLUB by Kate Quinn @Kate_Quinn https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8mt via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Heather Marshall

#BookReview ‘The Predicament’ by William Boyd #spy #thriller

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In The Predicament by William Boyd, Gabriel Dax, writer and occasional British spy, gets involved in more suspect shenanigans, this time involving the CIA and the Americans. This book takes up his story in 1963, two years after the end of the first Dax book, Gabriel’s Moon. William BoydIn Guatemala, an election is looming. After a brief lesson in how to kill using the contents of his pockets [a notebook, wallet and keys], Gabriel is sent to South America by his MI6-handler and occasional lover Faith Green. An interview is arranged with Padre Tiago the secretive, charismatic left-wing leader who is predicted to win the forthcoming election. Tiago’s views are not universally popular. When his meeting is disappointing, Gabriel fears the trip is a waste of time. Then Padre Tiago is assassinated and Gabriel flees the ensuing riots. With his journalist’s sixth sense for the dodgy, Gabriel knows the real story is being hidden. The people he meets in Guatemala City and what happens there are important to the developing plot which later leads him to Berlin and the visit of President John F Kennedy.
Gabriel’s spy adventures are alternated with sessions with his psychoanalyst Dr Haas, meetings with his Russian handler Varvara [Dax is still posing as the secretive London contact of an English traitor now in Moscow], and scenes as he settles into his new life in a country cottage in Sussex. These storylines are continued from Gabriel’s Moon so it is helpful to read that book first. Boyd wastes nothing, all of these slower sub-plots add to the narrative. They bring new perspective on Gabriel’s personality, his past spy missions, his longing to return full-time to travel writing, and his feelings for Faith.
When Faith sends him to Berlin to shadow a suspect, Gabriel wants to refuse but knows he can’t. Dean Furlan is one of the men he met in Guatemala, who he instinctively knew was up to no good. The second half of the book is a page-turning race through the Berlin streets, working with the CIA and Berlin police to prepare for Kennedy’s arrival, identify a possible assassin and stop an attack. Gabriel is growing in confidence, his spycraft is improving and he has an instinct for trouble. He is at the centre of the action.
Boyd writes an addictive spy novel set at a time of global insecurity. Gabriel is a likeable character with his complicated love life. He attempts to live a normal life as a writer, planning and researching chapters for his next book, but is unwittingly pulled into more spying by the women who has bewitched him. All told in Boyd’s masterful style, combining simple details with lush descriptions and gentle humour.
Excellent.

Here’s my review of GABRIEL’S MOON, first in the Gabriel Dax trilogy.

And my reviews of other books by William Boyd:-
ANY HUMAN HEART
LOVE IS BLIND
NAT TATE: AN AMERICAN ARTIST 1928-1960
ORDINARY THUNDERSTORMS
SWEET CARESS
THE BLUE AFTERNOON
THE DREAMS OF BETHANY MELLMOTH
TRIO
WAITING FOR SUNRISE

… and try the first paragraph of ARMADILLO.

If you like this, try these:-
‘Munich Wolf’ by Rory Clements #1SEBASTIANWOLFF
‘The Ways of the World’ by Robert Goddard #1WIDEWORLD
‘The Second Midnight’ by Andrew Taylor

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE PREDICAMENT by William Boyd https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8oZ via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Helena Dixon

#BookReview ‘Invasion’ by Frank Gardner @FrankRGardner #thriller #war

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Invasion by Frank Gardner is so lifelike it is terrifying. Fourth in the Luke Carlton series, I enjoyed it so much I’m going back to the beginning, the first book. Frank GardnerThe pace of the story is relentless from the first page. China is preparing to invade Taiwan. British intelligence sends a ‘collector,’ a volunteer citizen and ‘clean skin,’ to Hong Kong to collect top secret data from a spy deep in the Chinese Communist Party. But when climate scientist Dr Hannah Slade goes missing, all hell breaks loose. As the Secret Intelligence Service sends its best to Hong Kong to find her, a team of Chinese genetically-enhanced super soldiers are on board black inflatable boats heading for tiny Yanyu Island. Part of Taiwan but too small to defend, the Chinese hail success as they plant a flag on Taiwanese territory. Geo-political tensions rise, the US, the UK and Aukus send ships to the region. Meanwhile the Chinese are planning a full-scale invasion of Taiwan island itself.
Luke Carlton and Jenny Li are sent to recover Hannah. Posing as holidaymakers their cover is quickly blown. But who is giving them the tip-offs, local gangsters, fellow Five Eyes operatives, Chinese agents, Taiwanese agents? Sensing danger everywhere, trusting no-one, Luke and Jenny rely on their phones which allow covert updates to be sent back and forth to Vauxhall Cross; swapping information, identifying faces, receiving approval for their next move. Luke and Jenny move from Hong Kong to Macau, going from one dead end to another, until they are told Hannah was put on a ship bound for Taiwan.
Short chapters emphasize the quick pace of the action, moving from Hannah to Luke and Jenny, back to Vauxhall Cross and then to London politicians and the British navy racing to the danger zone. I lost track of the military details, the jargon, the model numbers of weapons and military kit, but stopped worrying about it; it reminded me of reading Robert Ludlum when I would skip a chapter to get to the action.
Up-to-date and frighteningly real, the tech is so hot it makes you look at your smartphone with suspicion.
Very good and read very quickly.
Next up is the first book, Crisis.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Chase’ by Ava Glass #1AliasEmma
‘Never’ by Ken Follett
‘The Travelers’ by Chris Pavone

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview INVASION by Frank Gardner @FrankRGardner https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8cm via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Alys Clare