Review: An Honourable Thief by Douglas Skelton

Synopsis: 1715. A tale of two cities, and the man caught between them.

The Kingdom is riddled with a rumour. The late Queen Anne supposedly left a secret will promising the nation to her half-brother James – the man the Jacobites call the King Over the Water. With George I now settled on the throne, this document could prove devastating.

Enter Jonas Flynt. Gambler. Thief. Killer. Man of honour. A reluctant member of the Company of Rogues, a shady intelligence group run by the ruthless Colonel Charters, Flynt is ordered to recover the document, using any means necessary. But he is not the only one on the hunt…

The trail takes him from London’s dangerous streets to the dark Edinburgh of his childhood, where Flynt is soon embroiled in a long overdue family reunion, a jail break and a brutal street riot.

Come what may he must uncover the truth, about the crown... and about his own past...

~~~

The backdrop to this series is the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715, wherein James Edward Stuart (the Old Pretender) attempted to regain the thrones of England, Ireland and Scotland for the exiled Stuarts. James II's son and heirs were excluded from the succession by the Act of Settlement 1701, definitively excluding any and all Catholics from the throne. Upon the death (1714) of Anne, daughter of James II, the throne went to her second cousin Georg Ludwig, Elector of Hanover, whose coronation as George I in October led to rioting in over twenty towns in England. The following year saw more rioting, and in response to these riots, the new Whig majority passed the Riot Act to put down disturbances. This law strengthened magistrates powers and allowed Justices of the Peace to disperse demonstrations without fear of prosecution. In September and early October the government arrested the leading Tories in fear of a Jacobite rising.

There were, however, many in England utterly opposed to George, and chief among them was Queen Anne herself. Strongly Tory, surrounded by Tory ministers sympathetic to James, Anne had always felt guilty about her half-brother's deposition. She favoured autocratic monarchy, and felt that a legitimate Stuart monarch should be on the throne, not some obscure German princeling. She saw James as young and romantic, unlike the boring George, whom she despised. All of these things, combined with the election of successive Tory governments and the growing sympathy for James in Britain, seemed to offer the best hope for Jacobite success.

Skelton uses this sympathy of Anne for her half-brother to create the plotline for the first in his series. Did Anne leave a will naming her half-brother as her successor - and what are the repercussions if such a document was to come to light. Enter the shadowy Colonel Nathaniel Charters and his Company of Rogues; and Charles Talbot, Duke of Shrewsbury and Lord High Treasurer, a life long Catholic who was in secret communication with James after Anne's death. Whose side either of them are on is open for question.

Charters engages Jonas Flynt, a Serjeant in the Company of Rogues, to seek out this document which would endeavour to put the Catholic James on the throne and be used to call the succession of Protestant George into question. But, quite naturally, there are other interested parties who would use this document for their own purposes - which do not necessarily align with Charters et el. We have the biggest villain in London, Jonathon Wyld, Thief-taker General; Madame de Fontaine, member of yet another shadowy organisation, The Fellowship; and Lord Moncrieff, a villainous double-dealer.

In pursuit of this elusive, document, Flynt's foray into Edinburgh sees him reunited with family and old friends, but also set against new enemies, however betrayal, treachery and murder soon take centre stage as a family secret comes to light.

Skelton does well to convey the atmosphere of secrecy, betrayal and rebellion that permeated the lives of those not only in England but also Scotland, where politics was not just based upon party and family lines but religion as well.

I am looking forward to the next in this historical fiction crime series.

Read in 2022.

Review: Hawker and the King's Jewel by Ethan Bale

Synopsis: Three outlaw knights. Three secrets. One last mission.

August 1485. The eve of the Battle of Bosworth. King Richard III summons his loyal and grizzled retainer, Sir John Hawker, and charges him with one final mission. After the battle, he must return a priceless ruby – one of the mysterious Tears of Byzantium – to its giver, the Doge of Venice. Richard believes the jewel has brought ill luck to his family, and wants rid of it before anything else can go wrong. Hawker is also sworn to protect Richard’s newly knighted bastard son, an arrogant youth unaware of his true parentage. But Richard’s commands are overheard by a Tudor spy.

When the king falls in battle, Hawker, his royal bastard, and another “lost” knight make common cause and flee the field with Tudor agents in hot pursuit of both the ruby and the potential Plantagenet heir. Not knowing who to trust and with England falling under the grip of Henry VII, Hawker and his small Yorkist band take the only course left open: Venice, with all its conspiracies – and the love Hawker left behind there...

~~~

Mercenary veteran Sir John Hawker escapes the bloody battlefield of Bosworth, charged by the late King Richard III, to return a jewel, previously held in possession of the Yorkists' kings, to the Doge of Venice. The pathway from Bosworth to Venice, unfortunately is never easy - the compass does not always point north. And along the way, the motley group of exiles and spies are beset by drama and betrayal. Their quest is hardly the secret they think it is, as enemies and allies alike want the jewel for themselves and their own purposes.

This first in a series gets off to a great start, as the main characters establish themselves across the pages. Bale provides plenty of historical detail that conveys the reader along on the journey. The reality of these perilous times is evident - Bale has done his due diligence.

I am looking forward to the next in this series.

Read in 2022

Review: Reality Bites by Nick Lennon-Barrett

Synopsis: Doesn’t everybody want their five seconds of fame?

Daniel North, survivor of a gay pub bombing, wants to share his forgotten story with the world, but he’ll have to settle for millions of viewers in the 18-35 demographic.

Complex Neighbours is the latest ratings smash from billionaire media tycoon, Felix Moldoon. Think Big Brother meets the Hunger Games! To win the one-million-pound prize, contestants must compete in challenges that range from legal waterboarding to inducing projectile vomiting, or a showbiz quiz when it’s a low budget week.

Felix will do anything to ensure high viewing figures, even if that involves murder. As well as controlling the media, he also controls the edit. It is for him to determine who will be crowned the winner, and who will be “executed” from the show, with their lives destroyed forever.

Can Daniel resist the temptation of a younger man to achieve his goal? Will Felix sacrifice his own son for the sake of TV ratings? And just how far is the ultimate Reality TV villain willing to go for the grand prize?

~~~

I read this in one sitting - it is that type of book - you literally cannot turn away in case you miss something.

What the reader is witnessing is life inside a Big Brother style TV program - all the alliances, back-biting, romance (or lust) - in which the contestants must compete against each other in a series of challenges. There are the inevitable twists - and along with immunity, one contestant can have more control of who stays and who goes. The losers are then"executed" and upon leaving the compound, their deepest, darkest, most personal secrets are revealed to all and sundry - oft times with devastating consequences.

The main characters are the contestants themselves - though Daniel North seems to be the main one - the callous TV producer and media tycoon, Felix Moldoon; Felix's fix-it and assistant Desiree; hostess Zelda; and the shadowy Mrs P. Just how far any of them will go to win - both the cash prize and the ratings - is anyone's guess. Sacrifices will be made all in the name of entertainment.

The reader's focus is centered on Daniel and Felix - and it is pleasing to reader that neither of them seen have it all their own way. Whilst the characters have no real depth to them - they are at times as shallow as their storylines - it was still an entertaining read.

I am looking forward to reading the second in the series to see where things lead.

Review: Medieval Royal Mistresses by Julia Hickey

Synopsis: Marriage for Medieval kings was about politics, power and the provision of legitimate heirs. Mistresses were about love, lust and possession. It was a world that included kidnap, poison, murder, violation, public shaming and accusations of witchcraft. Ambition and quick wits as well as beauty were essential attributes for any royal mistress. Infamy, assassination and imprisonment awaited some royal mistresses who tumbled from favour whilst others disappeared into obscurity or respectable lives as married women and were quickly forgotten.

Meet Nest of Wales, born in turbulent times, whose abduction started a war; Alice Perrers and Jane Shore labelled ‘whores’ and ‘wantons’; Katherine Swynford who turned the medieval world upside down with a royal happy-ever-after and Rosamund Clifford who left history and stepped into legend.

Discover how serial royal womanisers married off their discarded mistresses to bind their allies close. Explore the semi-official roles of some mistresses; the illegitimate children who became kings; secret marriage ceremonies; Edith Forne Sigulfson and Lady Eleanor Talbot who sought atonement through religion as well as the aristocratic women who became the victims of royal lust.

Most of the shameful women who shared the beds of medieval kings were silenced, besmirched or consigned to the footnotes of a patriarchal worldview but they negotiated paths between the private and public spheres of medieval court life - changing history as they went.

My views on this book are conflicting. On the one hand, kudos for seeking out some of the lesser known historical women and providing something despite there being very little to go on in some instances. But on the other hand, this really has provided nothing that a good google search could not turn up. On the one hand, there is an interesting selection of mistresses; yet on the other, they are tried and true selections with a number of inclusions I found myself questioning as to their inclusion at all.

I found the subtitle not only deceiving and infuriating but rather trite - "Mischievous Women who Slept with Kings and Princes" . Where were these vamps and ingenues, these Mata Haris who plied their wares before all manner of royalty, these saucy and salacious bawds who managed to seduce and satiate royal carnal desires all for gain. Cue Sid James and the Carry-On gang - disappointingly no. If the focus was to bring these women to the fore, calling them "shameful" from the very outset does nothing to further that aim.

Beginning in the late 10th century with Canute and finishing off with the last Plantagenet King Edward IV, we are treated to not only a history lesson but also a rather dry series of biographies. Hickey repeats all the usual rumours, innuendos and scandals, providing very little by way of anything new. The selections are narrowly focused on and in the British Isles - the side trip to France seemed out of place. As I mentioned before, there were a number of inclusions that really should not have been there at all as there were no sufficient proofs, and then there were the generalisations where names were unknown.

What I was looking for and yet found lacking was any real exploration of the role of the royal mistress. Many of these women had no choice in this - women were chattels - property of first their fathers then husbands, and ultimately of their direct lord; very few were able to assert the independence of thought and action that many of us can do today. It is a shame that through a lack of any detailed accounts of many, their lives are seen only as a mere footnote in the pages of the lives of the men with whom they were associated.

This tome is not overly long, however, the material contained therein was not sufficient to keep me fully engaged. Being extremely well read on much of the content already, I was looking for that little something more - that new take, some new theory or thoughts, even some small snippet of of the promise of something new. The phrase quality not quantity comes to mind in this instance - we know you have done your due diligence, but there is no need to cram it all into one space as it shows that you really don't know what to do with it all.

I am sure that there is a market for this and there will be many who will enjoy this immensely, unfortunately, I am not to be one of them.

Review: The Woodville Women by Sarah Hodder

Synopsis: Elizabeth Woodville, queen to Edward IV and mother of the Princes in the Tower.

Elizabeth of York, daughter of Elizabeth Woodville and the first Tudor queen of England.

Elizabeth Grey, granddaughter of Elizabeth Woodville and Countess of Kildare, whose life both in England and across the Irish sea was closely entwined with the Tudor Court.

This is the tale of three generations of women, linked by their name, Elizabeth, and by their family relationship. The story begins in the reign of the great Plantagenet Kings with the life of Elizabeth Woodville and ends in the reign of perhaps England’s most famous dynasty, that of the Tudor kings and queens. Through the life of Elizabeth of York, the first Tudor queen and Elizabeth Grey, cousin to Henry VIII and Mary Tudor, we explore the Tudor court and its dealings with the Earls of Kildare.

From the birth of our first Elizabeth to the death of our last, these three women lived through wars and coronations, births and deaths, celebration and tragedy and between them they experienced some of the most exciting and troubled times in English history. Mother, daughter and granddaughter: individually they each have their own fascinating story to tell; together their combined stories take us on a journey through a century of English life.

Okay - so what did I think. Well, what I had hoped for was a bit more about the Woodville Women - not just three Elizabeths. Whilst it is fairly obvious that there was a lot of research involved, the application could have done with some finessing. It is a very pro-Tudor piece, covering the usual myths, rumours and tropes, interspersed with assumption and supposition.

The first part deals some background including that of the period in which these women lived; Elizabeth Woodville's mother, Jacquetta of Luxembourg; the potential (and I stress potential) household dynamics, with a whole of lot of myth (including the legend of Melusine) and repeated referencing the works of Christine de Pizan. Whilst there is some merit to this introductory chapter, there is much that should have been left out.

The second part looks at mother and daughter - Elizabeth Woodville and Elizabeth Plantagenet - both queens of England, before the final part deals with Elizabeth Grey - though interesting in her own right, a rather curious choice.

Whilst we began with Jacquetta, and followed this with her daughter, granddaughter, and great granddaughter, as I mentioned, I was looking for a few more female family members. The inclusion of Elizabeth Woodville's sisters and nieces would have fleshed this out to present a more rounded overview of this particular familial branch of women. It is clear, however, that these three main women - four if we include, as we should - Jacquetta - managed to navigate the male dominated political world of their own times, to ensure that their place in it would not go unnoticed nor unremarked.

I would suggest that before diving head first into this tome, a little preemptive research of your own would be recommended.

Review: Marple: Twelve New Stories

Synopsis: A brand-new collection of short stories featuring the Queen of Mystery’s legendary detective Jane Marple, penned by twelve remarkable bestselling and acclaimed authors.

This collection of a dozen original short stories, all featuring Jane Marple, will introduce the character to a whole new generation. Each author reimagines Agatha Christie’s Marple through their own unique perspective while staying true to the hallmarks of a traditional mystery.

Miss Marple was first introduced to readers in a story Agatha Christie wrote for The Royal Magazine in 1927 and made her first appearance in a full-length novel in 1930’s The Murder at the Vicarage. It has been 45 years since Agatha Christie’s last Marple novel, Sleeping Murder, was published posthumously in 1976, and this collection of ingenious new stories by twelve Christie devotees will be a timely reminder why Jane Marple remains the most famous fictional female detective of all time.

Nice little addition to my Agatha Christie library, with some very different takes on the original Miss Marple.

I really enjoyed each author's own personal style when I can to including such a well-known character into their own stories, and it was great to see the inclusion of some familiar characters and locations.

The Authors & Their Stories:

Lucy Foley: Evil In Small Places
Jane visits an old school friend.

Val McDermid: The Second Murder at the Vicarage
Harkens back to the original "Murder in the Vicarage" with the same characters making another appearance. Another murder is committed, the victim being one of the original characters.

Alyssa Cole: Miss marple Takes Manhattan
Miss Marple is in Manhattan with her nephew Raymond West when a murder in one of the off Broadway theatres takes place, just as one of Raymond's books is about to premier as a play.

Natalie Haynes: The Unravelling
Miss Marple is involved in a murder in a village where an impersonation takes place.

Ruth Ware: Miss Marple's Christmas
Jane is celebrating Christmas in St Mary Meade at the Bantrys. However, deception and fraud are unwelcome gifts.

Naomi Alderman: The Open Mind
Attending a dinner at St Bede's College, Jane is witness to a poisoning of a greatly disliked man and a journalist. Long lost letters provide a clue.

Jean Kwok: the Jade Empress
Jane is on a cruise ship to Hong Kong to meet her nephew Raymond. A death of a passenger reveals a family secret.

Dreda Say Mitchell: A Deadly Wedding Day
Death of a wedding guests. Jane teams ups with Ms Bella, a local sleuth of the Caribbean community.

Elly Griffiths: Murder at the Villa Rosa
On the Italian Amalfi Coast, a writer contemplates the murder of his main character.

Karen McManus: The Murdering Sort
Nicola West (granddaughter of Raymond West) and her friend Diana Westever encounter the death of a rich old man.

Kate Mosse: The Mystery of the Acid Soil
Miss Marple meets a friend and a curate shortly after WWII. There is a murder in the village.

Leigh Bardugo: The Disappearance
Jane stay with her nephew Raymond for the summer. However, Dolly Bantry calls Jane back to St Mary Meade to solve the disappearance of one of Gossington Hall's new tennants. Dolly Bantry is at the heart of the mystery.

I cannot say how much I enjoyed their mini homages to Agatha and Jane.  As I said, a great addition to my own Agatha Christie Library!

Review: The Loki Sword by Angus Donald

Synopsis: An ancient blade, fit for the gods but tainted with a deadly curse. Bjarki Bloodhand has finally managed to subdue his gandr, the spirit that gives him the ferocity of a bear in battle. Yet losing his berserker prowess may leave him at the mercy of his foes.

Meanwhile, his half-sister, the shield maiden Tor Hildarsdottir, has slain two warriors from the personal retinue of the new Jarl of Norrland – and now faces brutal reprisals for their deaths.

Valtyr Far-Traveller claims he has a solution to their problems: a long voyage south to the wild Slav lands to find a fabled lost sword said to once belong to the Norse trickster god.

The journey will prove more perilous than anything Bjarki or Tor has ever attempted before. Can all three heroes hope to survive the desperate hunt for... The Loki Sword?

This third instalment in the Fire Born saga sees our intrepid trio - Bjarki, Tor and Valtyr - go in search of the famed Loki Sword. The epic takes place around Silesia and Prussia, with their enemies - the Black Cloaks - or Franks, hard on their heels at every turn. Will our adventurers and their motley band succeed in their quest or fall victim to betrayal and conspiracy?

As usual, Angus Donald imbues his books in the history and mythology of the period, creating an insight into 8th Century northern European world, whilst at the same time, propelling (and projecting) the reader, full body, into the story.

Review: Jack The Ripper - The Policeman by Rod Beattie

Synopsis: Imagine you were a police officer and had been dominated as a child by an abusive mother who didn’t really want you and as an adult had been served bastardy orders twice, firstly by a woman in whose house you lived and then by a woman you had a relationship with.

Then, to top it all after you had become a police officer in another city you arrested a woman you thought was a prostitute, whose subsequent actions caused you to be accused of perjury and you ended up in court at the Old Bailey. Although you were found not guilty, it ruined your career and left you seriously in debt and though you were still a policeman you were taken off the streets and assigned to a menial job guarding a museum.

As a police officer you were in a perfect position to take revenge on those people you thought had ruined you, prostitutes.

This book contains the complete reason Jack the Ripper came to be. It sheds new light on the mystery of the killer. After all, who is going to suspect a policeman going about his daily duties of being one of the world’s most infamous serial killers.

In this addition to the Ripper library, author Beattie posits his own thoughts on who Jack the Ripper could have been. In this instance, his prime suspect is a policeman, of dubious antecedents, by the name of Bowden Endacott.  And suspects a plenty have been suggested in the past of the list provided by Wikipedia is anything to go by - yet police office was not mentioned.

Beattie says that "... a police officer is the only person who could have walked the streets at night knowing that he would not be questioned or suspected of being the killer ...".  In fact, this is a most plausible scenario.

His reasons for putting forth Endacott as his suspect are numerous and include factors of his childhood (a domineering mother and possibly, unwanted as being one of her last children); his being a compulsive liar; dubious police career which culminated in the "Cass Case" of 1887.

Beattie then put forward that in addition to the five traditionally accepted Ripper victims, that at least one, if not more victoims could be attributed to him - whilst at the same time, suggesting that Stride was not one of the five.  Beattie also suspects that Endacott had an accomplice, possibly a doctor or at the very least, another man.  Again, this is a reasonable assumption, regardless of the true suspect and was worthy of more study.

Unfortunately, Beattie offers no real conclusive proofs - in fact, his case could literally have been made for any police officer who walked the beat at that particular time.  Endacott just had more notoriety due in no part to the Cass Case and his consistent and blatant lying.  Beattie failed to convince me that Endacott was the most plausable suspect.

What I would have preferred is more substantial proofs against Endacott to convey Beattie's argument or at the very least, for Beattie to have developed and put forth a more-detailed case built around the potential of a police officer being the suspect.

Review: Warrior Women by Will Roberts

Synopsis: Warrior Women consists of fifteen short stories of women who led men into battle, fought alongside them, or resisted invasion of their homeland by foreign forces. Some are well known, others less known.

From ancient times, I chose Atalanta, who played a significant role in the Calydonian Boar Hunt, and according to some of the chroniclers, sailed with Jason on the Argo in search of the Golden Fleece. Another from this era, Artemisia, the Queen of Caria, fought for Xerxes against the Greeks in the Greco-Persian War, and Cynane, the little-known half-sister of Alexander the Great, herself a fine warrior who led her army into battle.

From the Roman era, this compilation would not be complete without Boudica of the Britons, and I have included two others who resisted the Romans who were determined to impose the ways of Rome on their culture: Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, and Mavia, of the Tanūkhids, (Saracens), who led a similar revolt against the Romans one hundred years after Zenobia.

From Asia, I chose Nakano Takeko, who fought to uphold the shogun and the samurai traditions. She led a squad of women against the riflemen of the Imperial army of Emperor Meiji, armed with only her naginata, the traditional samurai pole weapon, in the Boshin War. Also, from this region, and my favourite, I have Ba Trieu, the Korean warrior who resisted the Chinese invasion in the third century. She must have looked magnificent as she rode into battle on her great war-elephant, with her yellow cloak billowing in the breeze.

Another who would resist the Chinese, though in a different age, was Ani Pachen, the young Tibetan warrior nun, who fought the Chinese after they invaded Tibet in the 1950s, and when captured, would spend more than twenty years in prison.

Closer to home, I have included Lagertha, the Viking shield maiden; Gwenllian, the Welsh warrior princess Maurice of Londres mercilessly beheaded, as with Boudica, it would be inexcusable not to include Joan of Arc.

From North America, I have included the Apache warrior, Lozen, another who rarely gets mentioned in history books but who fought alongside her brother, Victorio, against the United States and Mexican armies, who were determined to wipe out the Native American.

From South America, Juana Azurduy de Padilla fought in the Bolivian War of Independence against the Spanish. Achieving the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and was revered by the President, Simon Bolivar. She died penniless and forgotten.

In this collection, the continent of Africa representative is Yaa Asantewaa, of the Ashanti, who opposed the British colonisation of their home, now part of modern-day Ghana. She died in exile on the distant shores of the Seychelles Islands.

Simple storytelling narrative with a decent mix of nations and time periods - kudos for that!. The narrative is not overly taxing and it was - for me - a quick read. All of the ladies present were know to me - however, I am sure readers will enjoy learning about some that may not be so well know.  A decent enough read for an independently published tome.