Blog Tour: A Night of Flames - Matthew Harrfy

Join me at the Library on 3rd March when I review "A Night of Flames" by Matthew Harrfy

The Berlin Exchange by Joseph Kanon

From “master of the genre” (The Washington Post) Joseph Kanon, an espionage thriller set at the height of the Cold War, when a captured American who has spied for the KGB is swapped by the British and returns to East Berlin needing to know who arranged his release and what they want from him.

Berlin. 1963. The height of the Cold War. An early morning spy swap, not at the familiar setting for such exchanges, or at Checkpoint Charlie, where international visitors cross into the East, but at a more discreet border crossing, usually reserved for East German VIPs. The Communists are trading two American students caught helping people to escape over the wall and an aging MI6 operative. On the other side of the trade: Martin Keller, a physicist who once made headlines, but who then disappeared into the English prison system. Keller’s most critical possession: his American passport. Keller’s most ardent desire: to see his ex-wife Sabine and their young son.

The exchange is made with the formality characteristic of these swaps. But Martin has other questions: who asked for him? Who negotiated the deal? The KGB? He has worked for the service long enough to know that nothing happens by chance. They want him for something. Not physics—his expertise is out of date. Something else, which he cannot learn until he arrives in East Berlin, when suddenly the game is afoot.

Filled with intriguing characters, atmospheric detail, and plenty of action Kanon’s latest espionage thriller is one you won’t soon forget.

Who Killed Jane Stanford? by Richard White

A premier historian penetrates the fog of corruption and cover-up still surrounding the murder of a Stanford University founder to establish who did it, how, and why.

In 1885 Jane and Leland Stanford cofounded a university to honor their recently deceased young son. After her husband’s death in 1893, Jane Stanford, a devoted spiritualist who expected the university to inculcate her values, steered Stanford into eccentricity and public controversy for more than a decade. In 1905 she was murdered in Hawaii, a victim, according to the Honolulu coroner’s jury, of strychnine poisoning. With her vast fortune the university’s lifeline, the Stanford president and his allies quickly sought to foreclose challenges to her bequests by constructing a story of death by natural causes. The cover-up gained traction in the murky labyrinths of power, wealth, and corruption of Gilded Age San Francisco. The murderer walked.

Deftly sifting the scattered evidence and conflicting stories of suspects and witnesses, Richard White gives us the first full account of Jane Stanford’s murder and its cover-up. Against a backdrop of the city’s machine politics, rogue policing, tong wars, and heated newspaper rivalries, White’s search for the murderer draws us into Jane Stanford’s imperious household and the academic enmities of the university. Although Stanford officials claimed that no one could have wanted to murder Jane, we meet several people who had the motives and the opportunity to do so. One of these, we discover, also had the means.

River of Darkness by Buddy Levy

River of Darkness : Francisco Orellana and the Deadly First Voyage through the Amazon

The acclaimed author of Conquistador and Labyrinth of Ice charts one of history’s greatest expeditions, a legendary 16th-century adventurer’s death-defying navigation of the Amazon River.

In 1541, Spanish conquistador Gonzalo Pizarro and his lieutenant Francisco Orellana searched for La Canela, South America’s rumored Land of Cinnamon, and the fabled El Dorado, “the golden man.” Quickly, the enormous expedition of mercenaries, enslaved natives, horses, and hunting dogs were decimated through disease, starvation, and attacks in the jungle. Hopelessly lost in the swampy labyrinth, Pizarro and Orellana made the fateful decision to separate. While Pizarro eventually returned home in rags, Orellana and fifty-seven men continued into the unknown reaches of the mighty Amazon jungle and river. Theirs would be the greater glory.

Interweaving historical accounts with newly uncovered details, Levy reconstructs Orellana’s journey as the first European to navigate the world’s largest river. Every twist and turn of the powerful Amazon holds new wonders and the risk of death.

Levy gives a long-overdue account of the Amazon’s people—some offering sustenance and guidance, others hostile, subjecting the invaders to gauntlets of unremitting attacks and signs of terrifying rituals.

Review: Son of Mercia by MJ Porter

Synopsis: Tamworth, Mercia AD825.

The once-mighty kingdom of Mercia is in perilous danger. Their King, Beornwulf lies dead and years of bitter in-fighting between the nobles, and cross border wars have left Mercia exposed to her enemies. King Ecgberht of Wessex senses now is the time for his warriors to strike and exact his long-awaited bloody revenge on Mercia. King Wiglaf, has claimed his right to rule Mercia, but can he unite a disparate Kingdom against the might of Wessex who are braying for blood and land? Can King Wiglaf keep the dragons at bay or is Mercia doomed to disappear beneath the wings of the Wessex wyvern? Can anyone save Mercia from destruction?

First in a new series from MJ Porter though the main character, Icel, is not new to the author's readers as he is in another series though much older. "Son of Mercia" is the story of his early years, and as such the build up is slow and steady, any action taking place in the last quarter of the narrative. The author has firmly placed herself and her books in the Kingdom of Mercia.

I will be interested in seeing how the second in the series progresses as I have not read the existing tome where a much older Icel appears.

This post is to coincide with the publication date, though I read this last year.

Review: Siciliana by Carlo Treviso

Synopsis: A family torn apart by conflict. An uprising of deadly magnitude. A nation altered forever. Inspired by actual events, "Siciliana" is the harrowing tale of a young woman’s courage in the face of unthinkable turmoil.

In 1282 AD, the Kingdom of Sicily is under the rule of a tyrannical French king and subject to his brutal Angevin army. Daily acts of violence and persecution are commonplace in a once-prosperous realm.

For twenty-year-old Aetna Vespiri, daughter of a revered Sicilian knight, survival has become second nature. As a child, she witnessed the destruction of her family’s vineyard by Angevin soldiers and spent the next decade learning the tenets of stiletto blade combat.

Years later in Palermo, as the evening bells toll for Vespers, Aetna fends off a nefarious sergeant and sparks an uprising against the Angevin occupation. Now, standing at the forefront of an accelerating people’s rebellion, Aetna finds herself fighting not only for a nation she believes in but also for the meaning of family. In her darkest hour, this dauntless Sicilian woman steps out of obscurity and into the pages of history. The legend of "Siciliana" is born.

Set amid bustling Arab markets and brooding Norman fortresses, "Siciliana" will envelop readers in the sights, sounds, and dangers lurking around every corner of medieval Sicily.

The Sicilian Vespers (vespiri siciliani) was a successful rebellion on the island of Sicily that broke out at Easter 1282 against the rule of the French-born king Charles I, who had ruled the Kingdom of Sicily since 1266.

The island of Sicily had been part of the Kingdom of Sicily, which had encompassed the southern Italian peninsula since the early 12th century, when Roger II of Sicily defeated the Italian mainland barons and was elected king by the pope. His reign had been inherited by Frederick II of Sicily, whose son Manfred would be ousted by the French invasion of Charles I of Anjou. The French rule soon assumed a repressive and ferocious nature.

On Easter Monday (30 March) 1282, at the Church of the Holy Spirit just outside Palermo, at evening prayer (vespers), a Frenchman harassed a Sicilian woman. Accounts differ as to what the harassment entailed, who the woman was, and who the Frenchman was. Fed up with years of oppression, insolence and brutality, the cry went up - "moranu li Francis" - death to the French!.  This single event led to the massacre of four  thousand French men and women within twenty four hours, and possibly as many as thirteen thousand over the course of the next six weeks. The government of Charles lost control of the island - and the War of the Sicilian Vespers was underway.

The Chronica of the Catalan mercenary Ramon Muntaner (d.1336) recounts the rebellion of the peoples of Sicily wherein he notes that "... all Sicily rebelled against King Charles and they killed all the Frenchmen they could find ..". Although a contemporary of the times, he too ascribes no one single person as the catalyst for the events whose "... efficiency and ruthlessness frightened monarchs far beyond Naples and Rome ..." according to renowned author Louis Mendola.

Instead Treviso, in this fictional account, has given the rebellion a voice and a focal point - a woman - as most accounts lay the reasons for the massacre of the French firmly in the camp of outrages committed against a woman or women leaving Church during the holy week of Easter. The continuance of the initial rebellion, however, has since been credited to one Alaimo da Lentini, a former supporter of the Angevan presence in Sicily and now ally of the Aragonese.

Treviso begins by recounting Siciliana's beginnings and thus the events that led her to champion the people and led the rebellion. This was no easy task - and there was much opposition to the rebels, including from the Sicilian nobility and the Church, whose current favoured position was under threat. Once we return to 1282, the countdown to the Vespers begins in earnest as we go behind the scenes to various places and locales within the city of Palermo, watching and waiting as the tinderbox is about to be lit.

Treviso provides an engaging and at times, fraught narrative, as the players on the chessboard are being slowly and carefully positioned for the impending finale.

As an avid student of Sicilian history, I welcomed this fictional account of one of many a major turning point the history of this island nation.

Review: The Hiding Place by Simon Lelic

Synopsis: Four Friends. One Murder. A Game They Can't Escape.

'It was only a game.' ~ Until a boy went missing.
'No one was meant to get hurt.' ~ But a body has been found.
'Just some innocent fun.' ~ Except one of them is a killer.
Ready or not, here I come.  It's time to play hide and seek again.

I actually read this in one sitting in December 2021 - so obviously I was held fast in its grip. The Hiding Place follows on strongly from The Search Party, though this can be read as a stand-alone.

A dying boy prays to God that no-one will find him - but they did - 22 years later. Can Fleet and Collins solve this cold case, thrust upon them with no anticipation of it ever being solved. But solve it they do, bringing the secrets of a posh school out in the open as they seek redemption for the child.

Brilliant narrative, alternating between the current investigation and the boy's last days.  Like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle which at first seem to fit but then don't as they will be found to fit somewhere else.

Lelic's tenth book and my second from him - both being fabulous reads.

How To Keep Your Readers Coming Back for More

From Joanna Schaffhausen on CrimeReads:

Cracking open a new book in a detective series is like reuniting with old friends. If you want a protagonist who endures, give them plenty of problems both inside and out, a distinct life perspective and a specific geographic locale, a thirst for answers, and some entertaining (possibly furry!) sidekicks.

Joanna Schaffhausen takes the reader / writer through five essential character traits for your detective to keep readers turning pages long past book one.

read more here @ CrimeReads

30 Essential Crime Reads Written by Women in the Last 100 Years

A post by Emily Temple for CrimeReads:

Undisputed Queen of Crime Agatha Christie died on this day [12th Jan] in 1976. Crime fiction is a genre that has traditionally been dominated by men — but on the other hand, Christie is the best-selling author of all time, so that should tell you something. In honor of her life (and her prolific publishing career) I’ve picked out a few great crime novels written by women from each of the last ten decades. Now, of course, there are more than three crime novels from each decade that you should read (and probably more than three novels in every genre that you should read), but one has to stop somewhere, so add your own recommendations with abandon. 

NB: This is not a definitive list by any means; genre is necessarily a bit fluid here, privilege has gone to important, groundbreaking or otherwise historically notable works where I’ve noted them, but taste has, as ever, played a factor.

read the list of books here @ CrimeReads