Seaflower, by Julian Stockwin

This is the third book in Stockwin’s series (it follows Artemis)about Thomas Paine Kydd and his friend Nicholas Renzi. Both Kydd and Renzi are now wiser and more seasoned seadogs than before.

This tale moves quickly from the grim 18th-century England to the beautiful and lawless ports and seas of the West Indies, and the adventures of the cutter Seaflower. While the story can be read as a continuation of the Kydd series, it also stands up well as a tale in its own right and reveals much about the way ordinary seamen viewed themselves and their superiors.

Seaflower provides a good and detailed account of shipboard life in the late 18th century from the point of view of the common sailor. It’s all here – the cramped conditions, the disgusting food, the undeserved punishment and cruelty of some of the officers, and unremitting toil – and well described as well!

There is a lot of action in this book – both on land and sea. And there is romance, sea battles, tales of cynical exploitation of seamen as well as a breathless episode set in a wild hurricane. The fast action and a good plot, along with the fact that Stockwin’s writing is improving with each new book, all help to make Seaflower the best Kydd novel yet. Very promising for the series, and a nice and entertaining tale!

Read more reviews of Julian Stockwin‘s books!

Praise for Julian Stockwin’s books:

‘I was soon turning over the pages almost indecently fast … Roll on, the promised adventures of Kydd and Renzi.’ (Independent)

‘The vantage point of the common sailor gives the nautical novel a fresh twist. In Stockwin’s hands the sea story will continue to entrance readers across the world.’ (Guardian)

Water for Elephants: A Novel (Paperback)

Sura Gruen’s novel is among my absolute favorites. It is a beautiful story, well researched, full of compassion, and deeply touching. It make me cry, it made me laugh, and it made me want to read more of this amazing, highly talented storyteller. Fascinating! Glued me to the chair! And, also, it has, of course, been an international bestseller acros a number of countries ofr a long time. Deservedly so!

Amazon.com Review
Jacob Jankowski says: “I am ninety. Or ninety-three. One or the other.” At the beginning of Water for Elephants, he is living out his days in a nursing home, hating every second of it. His life wasn’t always like this, however, because Jacob ran away and joined the circus when he was twenty-one. It wasn’t a romantic, carefree decision, to be sure. His parents were killed in an auto accident one week before he was to sit for his veterinary medicine exams at Cornell. He buried his parents, learned that they left him nothing because they had mortgaged everything to pay his tuition, returned to school, went to the exams, and didn’t write a single word. He walked out without completing the test and wound up on a circus train. The circus he joins, in Depression-era America, is second-rate at best. With Ringling Brothers as the standard, Benzini Brothers is far down the scale and pale by comparison. Water for Elephants is the story of Jacob’s life (more…)

The Fire, by Katherine Neville

This is the sequel to the super-hit novel, The Eight, released more than a decade. I liked The Eight a lot, so I have read all her books since then. But so far, the other books have not been nearly as good. Unfortunately, this is true for The Fire as well. This book, like The Eight, is a filled to overflowing with the essences of history, mystery, chess and intrigue. But it is not integrated in the same convoluted and elegant way. And, besides, why does Neville insist on sticking to the same formula yet again?

The Fire starts out in 2003, in Colorado, where Alexandra Solarin is summoned home to her family’s ancestral Rocky Mountain hideaway for her mother’s birthday. When Alexandra arrives at her mother’s retreat, she finds that she must solve a puzzle to get into the deserted house. It is the first of many puzzles in a danger-crammed, picaresque narrative involving a legendary chess set.

Many characters from The Eight reappear, but the focus now is on Xie, a 12-year-old chess prodigy who has lost a pivotal game due to Amaurosis Scacchistica, or chess blindness.

En route to a rematch that could make her the youngest grandmaster ever, she and her father encounter even greater dangers: evidence that one of those long-buried pieces may have been unearthed, a discovery that leads to her father’s murder. Ten years later, Xie, now forbidden by her mother to play chess, is summoned to Colorado for her mother’s birthday party, but her mother seems to have vanished, leaving behind a series of clues, among them a chessboard laid out with Xie’s last game. Soon other guests arrive, including both the opponent to whom Xie lost that game and a group of neighbors with surprising ties to the world of chess. There are eight people in all, of course. And The Game is on again.

The Game is a quest for a mystical chess service that once belonged to Charlemagne, it spans two centuries and three continents, and intertwines historic and modern plots, archaeological treasure hunts, esoteric riddles, and puzzles encrypted with clues from the ancient past.

It is a book I think many of the fans of The Eight, like me, will want to read. However, it is not a book that captures the same way as The Eight did. For sure, The Fire is written with elegance and sophistication. But the characters don’t catch me the same way. As a literary thriller, this is not quite in the upper echelons of the genre, even though it is good I think I will only recommend this book to people who are already Katherine Neville fans. For others, I am not so sure, but I think it may be a disappointment.

Prince of Fire, by Daniel Silva

Prince of Fire is Daniel Silva’s fifth novel in his Gabriel Allon series. Allon is an internationally renowned art restorer, assassin, and master spy. This book follows A Death in Vienna, and is best read after it. Again, Daniel Silva offers a well-plotted, suspenseful spy thriller, full of spy tradecraft and with a story that is believable.

In Prince of Fire terrorists bomb the Israeli embassy in Rome and massacre the people working there. And so, once more, Gabriel Allon gets a visit from the spy master of the Israeli secret service, the legendary Ari Shamron. Ari Shamron, who once was the head of Israel’s secret service and is Gabriel’s mentor, is now special advisor to Israel’s prime minister.

When Shamron visits Gabriel in Italy, he informs him that Palestinian terrorists have uncovered Gabriel’s true identity and may be targeting him for assassination. He urges Gabriel to come out of retirement. Reluctantly, as always, he returns to Israel to head a team investigating the bombing. After some difficult work, the team finds traces leading to a Palestinian mastermind named Khaled al-Khalifa. He is, as well, believed to be the brain behind two earlier terrorist attacks. Allon is now assigned to find and execute him.

As in his other books, Silva weaves facts and fiction in a rough, hard reality which is grim and requires tough decisions, especially by those involved in the espionage business. The story in Prince of Fire is, if anything, even darker than most of the stories in this series. None of the actors involved – both individuals and the organizations – are able to walk away with clean hands in this story.

Khaled al-Khalifa turns out to be perhaps the most difficult opponent Gabriel Allon has encountered so far. Both have lots of resources to back them up, and both are extremely skilled and smart.

The complex and very well told story in Prince of Fire has a lot of twists and turns, as well as false identities, double-crosses and misleading information. And the action is fast and furious: assassinations, bombings and kidnappings.

Prince of Fire is a great addition to the Gabriel Allon series. It is an excellent, very exciting spy thriller.

The Avenger, by Frederick Forsyth

Calvin Dexter, the main character of this story, is a quiet lawyer in a quiet little town in America. Or so it seems. However, Dexter was a “tunnel rat” in Vietnam, one of the toughest services there, and came back alive and highly decorated. A man very used to danger.

It turns out that Dexter doubles as the Avenger, a man who secretly sells services where he uses the set of skills acquired in Vietnam rather than at law school.

The main plot in The Avenger involves a Canadian billionaire that hires the Avenger to identify the killer of his grandson. The Avenger, however, eventually gets involved in this at a personal and emotional level, rather than simply professional. And when that happens, the straightforward mission gets infinitely more complicated.

The Avenger is a great and interesting read, with a very intriguing psychological mechanism at its core. It is not the best book Frederick Forsyth has ever written, but as all of Forsyth’s books, it is still very suspenseful and entertaining.

A King’s Trade (Alan Lewrie-series), by Dewey Lambdin

I am a lover of books. Among the books I love the most to read, are historical novels. Master & Commander, Sword Song, Masters of Rome, and more, are among my favorites. And to me, there is hardly anything more romantic, intriguing, exotic and interesting then a great naval novel, of course about the British navy during the era of sail.

And the series entitled The Naval Adventures of Alan Lewrie by Dewey Lambdin is among my favorites. Great, joyful reading. Rough, tough, hard Navy guys, sailing, the life at sea, great sea battles. I love it!

Alan Lewrie is the main character is this series of books. He is a brash, impetuous ladies’ man and general rakehell. He’s also an officer in the Royal Navy where his bravery and quick thinking bring him success as often as they land him in hot water.

From a young midshipman who develops a love for naval artillery to captain of a dashing frigate, Lewrie moves up the ranks as he samples the pleasures of the world and makes his mark as a King’s officer!

In A King’s Trade, Alan Lewrie meet trouble of many types. He is now in hot water for “liberating” a dozen slaves from their Caribbean plantation and putting them to work on his ship, the HMS Proteus. He learns that “No Good Deed Goes Unpunished”. Then Zachariah Twigg of the Foreign Office, one of the spies who has often used him for dangerous missions, suggests a scheme that might save his career: recasting the incorrigible captain as an abolitionist hero. And sends him to sea, reckoning that he will be a more sellable hero at a distance. But Lewrie can get into trouble at sea as well! And even being his bestest self, he does!

Great book and a lovely series overall! If you like naval historical fiction, go check it out!

Masters of Time, by A.E. van Vogt

A.E. van Vogt (actually Alfred Elton van Vogt, April 26, 1912 – January 26, 2000) was one the the classical masters of science fiction, and one of my favorites as well. Masters of Time is one of his earliest works, a real classic science fiction story. So to some extent Masters of Time is, and should be read as, an example of the first primitive attempts at writing modern science fiction. This novel from the early 1940s was first published in the pulp magazine Astounding Science Fiction.

A woman, Norma, is contacted, and offered a job. She finds out that her secretarial job is in a business which exists as a front for a recruiting station for a war in the distant future. As well, Indeed, Norma’s boyfriend professor Garson is caught up in this. The man who hires Norma is a tall, powerful, and callous individual named Dr. Lell, who turns out to be one of the Masters of Time.

Taking place in a multidimensional matrix of space and time, we follow Norma’s and Garson’s attempts understand the frightening new technoligies used to control them, the operation of the future cultures, and the new concepts of time and space forces upon them. Also, of course, they seek to be free and return to their own time. And the technologies are powerful indeed – Dr. Lell, for instance, can make Norma older or younger at will.

The storyline in Masters of Time is at times a little hard to follow. Yet, to me, this book is very interesting, and rereading it I am still amazed by the level of sophistication of A. E. van Vogt’s thinking and plotting. Relative to the time period of its writing this is an impressive book, and still worth a reading!

Cat O’Nine Tales, by Jeffrey Archer

Cat O’Nine Tales is Jeffrey Archer’s fifth collection of short stories. It was published in 2006, and nine of the twelve stories are based on tales Archer heard while in prison. The other three stories are also based on true events but are not derived from prison. Jeffrey Archer is an excellent short story writer – he masters the form of the short story almost to perfection. In Cat O’Nine tales he shows it yet again.

While incarcerated for two years in five different prisons, Jeffrey Archer picked up several ideas for short stories. They range from a tale of The Man Who Robbed His Own Post Office, to the story of a company chairman who tried to poison his wife while on a trip to St Petersburg – both with unexpected consequences. In another, Maestro, an Italian restaurateur ends up in jail, unable to explain to the tax man how he can own a yacht, a Ferrari and a home in Florence, while only declaring a profit of £70,000 a year.

Cat O’Nine Tales is another great collection of short stories, with twelve stories with intriguing plots, by Jeffrey Archer!
Read more reviews of books by Jeffrey Archer.

Order Cat O’ Nine Tales by Jeffrey Archer from amazon UK!

The Unlikely Spy, by Daniel Silva

Daniel Silva is a great writer of thrillers of espionage. His writings remind me of the early John Le Carré. In this book, The Unlikely Spy, his debut novel, he looks behind the curtain of secrecy surrounding espionage during World War II, and uses it as the basis for a great and exciting as well as innovative spy thriller. He shows that, as Le Carré, he has a lot of knowledge about spy craft as well as the workings of anti-espionage organizations.

In The Unlikely Spy Silva deals with the Allies’ effort to protect perhaps the greatest secrets of all during World War II – the location of the planned D-Day landings in France. Silva’s story has an innovative plot with roots both in Nazi-Germany’s spy machine ran by Admiral Canaris and a huge counter-intelligence effort, involving both the American and the British intelligence services, and having been cleared all the way up to Prime Minister Winston Churchill!

The stakes on both sides are extremely high: a successful invasion does not assure victory, but defeat on the beaches will prolong the war and, very possibly, lose it. Much hinges on what the enemy knows about the undertaking. “In wartime,” Winston Churchill wrote, “truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.”

The main story in The Unlikely Spy takes place in 1943, but with excursions to events at previous points in time leading up to the key events. In 1943, Britain’s counter-intelligence service MI5 has identified and captured virtually all of the German spies sent to the country so far. Some has been hanged; some has been turned and are used to feed back carefully crafted misinformation to their controllers in Germany.

But now the Germans awaken a sleeping agent to get more intelligence about the upcoming British invasion. And when the British learn about this, they realize that one piece of correct information may destroy the house of cards – based on endless lies – they have so carefully constructed. The sleeper-agent is Catherine Blake, a very beautiful and seductive agent who began her entry into Britain with the cold-blooded killing of a young female painter. As she comes closer and closer to penetrating the Allied operation, code-named Operation Mulberry, the action accelerates. Will the invasion plan succeed with this a brilliant agent at work? Can she be stopped in time?

Silva’s characters are strong. Along with a teeming cast of other characters, real and fictional, they bring the chase to a furious and satisfying climax. And the final plot twist is original, yet logical.
The Unlikely Spy is a strong and promising debut book.

Order Daniel Silva’s The Unlikely Spy from amazon UK. See the other Daniel Silva thrillers as well at amazon UK!

See more reviews of books by Daniel Silva at Leserglede.com!

Stieg Larsson’s books hot in England

The following list, from amazon in England, is quite interesting to a fan a Stieg Larsson!

The most popular items in Fiction at amazon UK. Updated hourly. (Average customer rating in parentheses):

1. Breaking Dawn (Twilight Saga), by Stephenie Meyer (3.8)
2. When Will There be Good News?? by Kate Atkinson (3.9)
3. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson (4.2)
4. The 19th Wife, by David Ebershoff, (4.5)
5. The Girl Who Played with Fire, by Stieg Larsson (4.6)
6. The Secret Scripture, by Sebastian Barry (3.8)
7. The Shack, by William P. Young (3.6)
8. The Reader, by Bernhard Schlink (4.2)
9. Revolutionary Road, by Richard Yates (4.8)
10. Wetlands, by Charlotte Roche (3.1)

So, right now Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is in third place and at the same time his The Girl Who Played with Fire is in the fifth place! That is quite remarkable!

Both of Stieg Larsson’s books have excellent customer ratings. The only book ranked higher among the current top ten by customers is the extremely remarkable Revolutionary Road, by Richard Yates. That is also quite a feat by Stieg Larsson. It is very sad that he did not live to see his astonishing success!

Links to Stieg Larsson’s books at Amazon US: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire.

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