Book Review: One Foot In Heaven, Journey of a Hospice Nurse by Heidi Telpner

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Not sure that this was a good choice of book to read in my current condition, but hey, life is all about taking a risk, isn't it. In the end it didn't make me feel any worse. Indeed like most of those dying in the book, I accept my fate with equanimity and really have done so since the moment the surgeon told me, "I can operate but  the thoracic surgeon who needs to be working on you at the same time as me and the consulting anaesthetist also feel that your chances of surviving the eight and half hour surgery that it will take to cut that foot long tumour out, are slim to none."

I have to say it was a little disappointing to be told that, and I did shed a tear or two, but only because Ishbel was in the room with me and SHE burst into tears, which set me off.  But all in all at 57, while not quite ready to die, I have come close to it on any number of occasions in the past and so wasn't too surprised that it had finally caught up with me......

But this is a book review and not about me although I do feel/ hope that it highlights the positivity of what you would probably think of, by looking at the fly leaf of this relatively short volume and think, death equals doom and gloom equals depressive reading.

Not at all, Ms Telpner, (and I do have to confess at this juncture, to knowing the author and she hadn't told me she had produced this book, as an RN specialising in Hospice Care) I imagine, decided to write about her patients and the specialist care they need as a means to show that death, like life itself, should not frighten those who are coming to the end of theirs and nor should families and loved ones fear what is to come.

My understanding of hospice Care was people going into a 'home or unit' to live out their final days, weeks or months. I am not sure if that is the case now even here in the UK as even in my condition I haven't actually considered that far ahead and so have not looked into it at all. But here, the author informs us that this is not the norm in the US and that Hospice Care normally involves the patient being looked after at home with Hospice Carers visiting as often as required to tend to the patient and to support the family.   She describes a variety of cases frankly that go from the sublime to the ridiculous; some with loving caring family rallying round, supporting the dying from both poor and wealthy backgrounds to the downright crazy of visiting the dying relatives of 'caring' drug producer/dealers and occasionally to the dying with relatives who all find it such an inconvenience.

It is a little surreal in places, as Ms Telpner has both strong beliefs and views. Me on the other hand, while I wasn't particularly religious at any point in my life although have been known to read the scriptures from the lectern on more than one church attendance, I can't say I every fully believed in an all powerful god of any denomination. But, what I can say with some certainty is that when the author talks about and refers to 'out of body' experiences, I am a believer in those, having experienced one myself circa 1999/2000 when I had been engaged to run a car park operation at Scotland's premier outdoor event, T in The Park. I became so stressed out over the course of the week/ weekend that during a briefing to my senior operational staff I suddenly became aware of floating above myself and those present and watching from above as my deputy grasped me and sat me down while he continued the briefing.

Is it stress on becoming aware that you are close to death or just stressful situations that bring you closer to these experiences. Clearly from the authors patients point of view it is probably a combination of both and while my experience was borne from the stress of the operational requirements for the event I am not sure if this then leads on to a belief in an afterlife!

I found the book, in parts quite moving and in other places a little disturbing, only because of what might be my future, but through it all it was clear that the author is a person with deep feelings for those who were entrusted to her through Hospice Care and it seems a shame but entirely understandable that due to later incidents that she has taken a 'sabbatical' from a calling that she was clearly meant to be involved in. 

This book clearly isn't for everyone but I don't think I would hesitate to recommend it to a family member who has someone close to them who is dying.  It gives insights into what you can expect to cope with in terms of your loved ones body beginning to shut down and the problems that you will have to cope with and reminds you that while their body may be shutting down that in many cases their minds are still active and lucid and that WE know what is happening but can't always communicate that to you whom we love.  Give it a go, if becomes too much for you you can always put it down...

Editing for Kindle:  5 out 5 

Reading Enjoyment: 

Plot: 

Overall Rating: 5 out of 5

Chapters: 5

Page length: 148

Book Review: Bitter Harvest (Harvest Trilogy, Book 2) by Michael R Hicks

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Bitter Harvest, book 2 in the Harvest trilogy by Michael R Hicks with Book 3 scheduled for publication in 2013.

It took me a while to get in to Season of the Harvest, book 1 in the Trilogy, back in 2011. But once in, I found a fast moving, modern, scary crime thriller, with the added zest of a bit of science fiction thrown in to mix things up.

Summary The Harvest books are dealing with a deadly and intelligent insectoid like creature who are able to take over a human body and perfectly mimic the person taken over! It is not known where these creatures originated from, whether they have been lying dormant on earth for millennia or whether they have come from space. What is known is that they can be killed but normally only after they have wiped out 98% of those trying to kill them and as is the way in these situations, some escape..... In book 1 the Harvesters, as we have come to call them, could not reproduce and were working on a way to genetically modify crop seeds that once planted and turned into food for the human population would rewrite the DNA of humans turning them into Harvesters.  Jack Dawson and Naomi Perrault and the rest of the EDF along with the US Govt. who finally came to believe in the threat, thought they had solved that problem ........

Bitter Harvest, as one would expect, takes up where the first book left off with out heroes who were declared terrorists by the US Government having been giving their own Agency to track down the missing bag of  genetically modified bag of grain seed.  It has been a year now and they still haven't managed it.  The new administration and President, still have difficulty in believing all that they have been told and in how catastrophic the Harvesters would be to the human race, if allowed a foothold on the planet, and decide to close down the new Agency, terminating all of its employees almost with immediate effect!

As any good writer will do, Hicks uses this to good effect to reintroduce the missing bag of seed with horrifying consequences. Without giving to much away, as is always difficult when writing a review.  The bag has fallen into the hands of a disenfranchised scientist who without knowing the deadly secret potential for devastation that it holds; all he and others in that field  know, is that the company who produced the seed were trying to introduce a seed that would improve the worlds food supply, and that the seeds produced for that purpose would be worth millions to be sold off to competitors!

And then planet earth starts to burn: India, China, Russia, Brasil, France and then back to the USA and  then you are (if an e reader) holding your finger or thumb over the button desperate to turn each page as you can't believe what is happening as we jump from continent to continent to raging battle after battle and only those few who have dealt with them before and who fully know how to try and kill them having that information sequestrated by their own government, does the full horror of what is happening and just what the original Harvesters did to the seeds unfold.  The story unfolds and Hicks has written it in a way where you just have to keep turning pages.  People whom we met in the first book, we meet again, they are hero's, but Hicks just as easily kills these people off just as the Harvesters are killing the general population while the governments of the world close in on themselves in the usual indecisiveness that seems to affect them in reality, and you find yourself wishing that maybe a Harvester or two should be let loose upon them......

The Harvesters couldn't reproduce in Season of the Harvest, and were still a terrifying and deadly problem for mankind; You may not want to know what they do in Bitter Harvest, but will you be able to resist peeking,  and, can mankind survive? And then that bugger again leaves us on the edge of planetary destruction and says wait and see in 2013, Oh how I sometimes hate authors ;-)

catch up with Mr Hicks at: @MR_Hicks_Fans

Editing for Kindle:  Good
Reading Enjoyment: 5 out of 5
Plot: 5 out of 5
Overall Rating: 5 out of 5
Chapters: 35 plus an epilogue
Page length: circa 394 NO PAGE NUMBERS I really do wish you guys and Amazon would get your acts togther.

Book Review: Death of Kings by Bernard Cornwell

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Bernard Cornwell must be known to many even if not from his books but from the book inspired TV show "Sharp" , I have read all of them too.

Death of Kings is the 6th novel in his 'The Making of England' series the previous books being:

The Last Kingdom
The Pale Horseman
The Lords of the North
Sword Song
The Burning Land

They tell the story of Alfred the Great the King with a vision to unite England into one country under the English. It doesn't matter today what your own provenance is, particularly at this time when some Scots are attempting to reclaim their nation for themselves away from the English; these are tales of a beginning, tales of honour and glory, tales of battle and honour and tales of men dying in bloody battlefields terrified of the oncoming shield walls but bravely standing, fighting and dying for the birth of their Country and their King.

'Go, go!' Broga had charged two men. One swung his sword at Broga's mouth, but he was trained well and reared up, hooves flailing, and the man ducked away. I clung to him, waited until he came down and brought Serpent-Breath hard down onto the second man's head, splitting helmet and skull. I heard a scream and saw that Broga had bitten of the first man's face. I spurred on. Dogs were howling, children screaming, and Serpent-Breath was feeding.'

These are the tales as told by Uhtred of Babbenburg a Pagan from Northumbria who is brought up to despise Wessex, Mercia, The Danes and anyone else not from Northumbria but who ends up becoming Alfred's Sword and Shield against the Danes.

The tale starts in the Last Kingdom when Uhtred is a boy in Babbenburg and we follow him through the years to this book and Alfred's death and his succession by Edward. The books are based on real events and so not only are we getting an exciting tale of our first Great King and the Birth of England but we are getting a master class in storytelling.

Uhtred, on the face of it, has a miserable life, constantly fighting for his life and so, has to be that much better at taking life than his contemporaries, and he should be and is, a foul tempered man at times. But he is not always like that and all of the books are sprinkled with his really funny humour.

Cornwell's writing through all his books improves and becomes better with each new book. The stories flow along; like soldiers marching along a Roman road without deviation, the prose is sharp and precise. You do tend to stumble a little at the pronunciations of the original place names he uses, but that is not a criticism as they give added authenticity to the story and the books do not suffer for that.

While this series of novels is telling us of the 'Making of England' they are stories of the birth of Uhtred, following his life's, his loves, his losses of the women he loved, and his ongoing fight to reconcile his Pagan beliefs with that of giving his oath to a Christian King and then to keeping that King and his successors on the throne while trying to find his way back to and reclaiming Babbenburg in the north.

These stories are truly engaging and exciting reads and I can't recommend them enough.

As I have all of the previous books in the series in hardback I continued in that theme with this one; and it was good to get back to holding a 'book' again (although I have to confess it did feel a bit unwieldy to begin with)

Editing for Kindle:
Reading Enjoyment: 5 out of 5
Plot: 5 out of 5
Overall Rating: 5 out of 5
Chapters: 13
Page length: 330 story, 5 Historical note

Book Review: A Game of Proof by Tim Vicary

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A Game of Proof, the first outing for Mr Vicary's Sarah Newby, a High Court counsel. Sarah Newby leaves school at 16 has a relationship with a lad who is slightly older than her and they have a son. They get a council house but, as is the way with so many of these relationships, it goes the wrong way. 

Having no money and family life is not, after all, what he wants. He begins to hit her, and leaves. She turns back to School, then college and finally University and law school.

While learning to become a lawyer she marries someone else, Bob, he is educated and a teacher. They have a daughter but Sarah is to busy becoming the best at what she does to spend to much time with her children and Bob is rising up the ladder as a teacher on his way to being a head teacher! 

The setting is York, England and Sarah is defending a  rapist. In fact, DI Terry Bateson who arrested Gary Harker believes that he is responsible for a series of rapes in the city and involved in one murder.  The rape victim Sharon Gilbert is a mother and prostitute and is accusing her ex-lover, Harker, a brute of a bully, of breaking in to her home and raping her in front of her children ending by then stealing her jewellery.

In between defending this detestable human being Sarah's marriage appears to be on shaky ground, Simon her son from her first relationship is estranged from her Bob and Emily, her daughter with Bob and to cap it all there is an undercurrent between her and Terry Bateson too.  Terry  Bateson is a widower with two young daughters and a drop dead gorgeous Norwegian nanny.  He was heading for promotion until his wife died at the hands of joy riders and now answers to a DCI Churchill whom he hates. 

A Game of Proof begins as a complex chain of links between this group which looks as if nothing can keep them together other than the tangled lives they are drawn into as bit players in a tacky piece of theatre only for it to become more degrading, tacky and hurtful as one bit player after another gets the upper hand in the too-ing and fro-ing against the other in court and on the streets of York.  Against the odds one man who you are sure is guilty, is found innocent, someone else is murdered and a family member is accused of murder and rape!

Again, like The Blood Upon The Rose, the first book I read from Vicary, this too was good, the pace was just right for a convoluted crime investigation and court room drama; dead ends in the investigations and the unique reason for the lack of clues in the rapes was pretty intriguing. 

I was slightly disappointed with this one in that a number of easy spelling and grammatical errors were thrown throughout the book and in the Kindle store when you purchase it, it tells you it is 400 pages long; There are no page numbers on the Kindle itself and on the iPad it is 12520 pages long but only goes to 12518.  Minor but irritating little things it has to be said.  The plot and the pace were thoroughly enjoyable but marking it down on the presentation.

Editing for Kindle: 4 out of 5
Reading Enjoyment: 4 out of 5
Plot: 5 out of 5
Overall Rating: 4 out of 5

Chapters: 44  

 

Book Review: The Eldridge Conspiracy by Stephen Ames Berry

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Ames Berry clearly wanted to catch his reader by the throat and shake them about a bit from the outset in this novel, as the villain of the piece looked at

" a freckled teenage girl in soft repose, was now a wailing, writhing horror of ochre scales and suppurating sores, it's tentacles battering the lid." 

It worked, the opening sequence introduced us to Doctor Schmidla another 'recovered' Nazi from the 2nd World War by the American government.  Unlike other Nazi's though, where they were, it seems, integrated into a life for good and betterment, Schmidla's purpose, on behalf of the United States Government was to actively seek out (with the aid of the CIA and FBI), experiment on and ultimately murder a select group of US Citizens!

It is difficult to review this book to much without giving away the plot line but if you are old enough, and if you're not check out the Wikipedia page here , you will remember the movie The Philadelphia Experiment, where the US Government attempted to make a US Battleship invisible, during WW2.  The attempt failed!

This book takes us to the present (or at least to the 80's when this book is set and doesn't suffer any for that) and to the fact that while the attempt to make the ship invisible failed, it did do something to the crew.  Whatever it did wasn't manifest in the survivors but in their children and even more so in their grandchildren.... Think X Men II


There are twists and turns everywhere in this book with a plausibility borne from the recent hash of super hero movies, but the real hero is a father who lost a baby daughter only to find that the mad Doctor arranged for her kidnapping (presumed death) over twenty years before..... and he finds a friend in the closing paragraphs wasn't the friend you'd want to have

There are some graphic horror scenes described, particularly when one bad-ass gets his comeuppance at the hands, or rather the mind, of one of the pursued 'Potentials' and I liked what she did with him, even if she herself didn't.

The book is well written and the characters feel real.  All of us by now, have seen far too many shows telling us that Governments are not always the protectors that we would want or believe them to be and  Ames Berry plays on this and turns it into a horrific story suggesting that the people in power for years have been killing citizens for a perceived threat, whether it was real or not and as with his futuristic space borne books he has left the door open in another reality for a come back and I for one , hope there is a sequel....

Editing for Kindle /iPad: 4 out of 5
Reading Enjoyment: 4 out of 5 based on a couple of formatting errors and no page numbers
Page length on kindle /iPad: 279 estimated although the page numbers are not shown on either iPad or Kindle - Come on Mr Ames Berry show the Bl**dy numbers
Plot: 5 out of 5
Overall Rating: 5 out of 5

Book Review: Gone at Zero Hundred 00:00 by CR Hiatt

If you know me, you will know that I love my kids and my grand kids, that's in reality. But, and it is a big But, when it comes to TV, Movies and Books, as far as kids are concerned, I am quite happy to see them die, preferably horribly, in the opening scenes in Celluloid or TV and in Books within the first few paragraphs as invariably they are screaming, whimpering, annoying and irritating distractions.  So, it is, even after finishing this book,  still a bit of a mystery as to why I even picked it up in the first place, as it is clearly described as a YA or Young Adult book!

Anna McSwain is a single mother and a private investigator.  She has a rebellious 18 year old daughter Sydney, who has two annoying teenage boy 'friends'.....

Anna McSwain is shot and killed during the investigation of a high profile fraud and swindle case involving local public figures and after getting over the shock and distress of her mothers death, Sydney and one of the boy 'friends' Cody Beck decide to continue the Private Investigator business, renaming it 'McSwain and Beck' this is going to be the sub heading of a series of books following the 'reluctant sleuths' exploits.

Sydney, or Syd as she is referred to, tells the story in a first person narrative style which sometimes the author occasionally forgets and wanders back into the more defined style of third person narrative.

Before they even get a web page up advertising the 'new' business they get a walk in client who informs Syd that she believes her step brother is stealing from her and she wants him followed and evidence found....  there then follows the exploits of the two, in reality mainly Syd as she stumbles from one disasterous piece of investigation to the next involving corrupt cops, Mexican (suggested) cartel and a number of other suspicious characters.

It turns out that the same people who killed Syd's mother are the ones that she is investigating and while they can kill the mother using a sniper rifle they can't kill young Syd from any distance...

I have to say that the story was a little hit and miss and coming at it from the bias of my dislike of kids in fiction as mentioned in the opening paragraph I was finding it hard to stay focussed.

HAVING SAID THAT, I can also sit back and think that with all the nods and mentions to contemporary YA appendages such as Youtube, Facebook, the Internet, Modelling and the way to an easy life through celebrity, it will appeal to the target audience of YOUNG ADULTS, and it is fairly fast paced throughout which was good.

Cody is the tall handsome athletic all round rogue, who knows everything and is a whiz with a digital movie camera and computers, making movies in his spare time and uploading them to YouTube, and at every opportunity has a cheerleader or three hanging on every word.  Syd isn't as beautiful as her mother was, but has Cody and Jayden, who pops up as an aside throughout the book, both secretly in love with her, since elementary school, and then she nearly had me too with the mention of her love for all things NCIS, Gibbs and Di Nozzo, nearly had me....

The writing style was easy and flowing and it was an easy read but the sleuths are not in the same league as say, King and Maxwell from David Baldacci, or the singular Jack Reacher, but, give them 10 or fifteen years and they may mature into something that the more mature reader might grow into But for now this is definitely a book for YA's who I think will enjoy it much more than I did, having said that I have to say it was not a waste of my time in doing so.

Editing for Kindle /iPad: 4 out of 5*
Reading Enjoyment: 4 out of 5
Page length on kindle /iPad: 352 incl two chapters of the authors next offering**
Plot: 3 out of 5
Overall Rating: 4 out of 5

* I downloaded this book when it was on promotion and it contained a number of errors, not major ones, but glaring, I am assured that these have been rectified in the paid version but it would have been nice to find an Indie author who was error free from the get go

** Again in the promotion version there was no page numbers (don't know if this has changed) and I find this infuriatingly irritating

You can connect with CR Hiatt here and find out about upcoming projects or on Twitter with @McSwainandBeck

You can get the book from Amazon UK here and Amazon US here

Doughnuts for Amy by John Malik

I haven't gotten round to this book in my TBR pile yet, but thought it worth pointing out that the author, who also happens to be a Chef and my friend, John Malik, is having a bit of a promotion on Amazon at the moment and giving it away for

FREE

Now how cool is that?

You can download it to your Kindle, PC, Phone or Tablet by clicking here for Amazon UK or here for Amazon USA

You can also follow John at his blog here or on twitter @chefjohnmalik

Book Review: Blood Trail by C J Box

Blood Trail, number 8 in the ' Joe Pickett' series and yes I may as well say right out at the front - EVERY BIT AS GOOD AS 1 THROUGH 7!

Joe is back in Saddlestring with Marybeth and the girls, Nate is in Federal prison after he and Joe were double crossed by Portenson when investigating the 'perfect murder' in Yellowstone Park , the FBI agent who hates Wyoming and anything to do with the morons who live in such a godforsaken backwood, animal infested part of the country!

Joe and Marybeth have now bought a 'house' in town and Joe is filling in across the state for absent or sick wardens.  Nosey neighbours are making Joe wish that he was back in the isolation of their state owned house and hunting season is in full swing....  and it's not just the game that's being hunted.

A new hunter has arrived in the state, not hunting the wildlife but the hunters themselves.  Two have already been killed elsewhere when the third is killed in the hills outside Saddlestring and they are not just being killed, they are being strung up like an Elk sliced open and left on display....

The Governor again calls on Joe to investigate and Director Pope, Joe's boss who hates Joe as much as he (Joe) hates him, and not forgetting he was the guy who sacked 'our' Joe, want's to be in the field as part of the investigation and seems to be backing Joe up!  You just know that ultimately this means that there is going to be more trouble in store for him.

Joe also finds Stella Ennis is back, this time working for the Governor, Joe nearly fell for her and this damaged his marriage for a while, what will happen when Marybeth finds out that Stella is back?

Joe asks the Governor to intervene with the FBI and have Nate released, but he refuses and brings in a specialist tracker, who also ends up getting killed while out with Joe....... as does ......  (no spoilers - but sadness is felt)

Joe knows that there is something more to the killings but can't figure it out, as usual.  A high profile Anti Hunt protester and his Indian wife arrive in Saddlestring and this complicates the enquiry as he hails the 'hunter' as a hero.

Vern Dunnegan, Joes predecessor and mentor and the guy that Joe had to arrest all those years ago when he was involved in an incident that got Marybeth shot and nearly killed and resulted in them losing an unborn child, is back in the frame somehow and Joe has to confront him in prison....

Once again you think you know what the outcome is going to be but Box leaves it until about the last few pages to confuse and reveal the real killer it was a surprise, until you realise that the answer was also staring you, as it was Joe, right in the face.

Box, just continues to provide an enthralling read.  In between the business of Game Warden and Murder we get the 'mundane' family life;  growing daughters with the angst that that brings, nosey and irritable neighbours  and of course the continuing saga of Missy Vankueron-Longbrake, Joe's mother-in-law.  The narrative flows seamlessly from the high octane of danger and death to discussions  on homework, school and cleaning the roof gutters and fixing tiles and fences to keep the neighbours happy, how many authors do you read, that are this good?

Book 1 - Open Season                  √

Book 2 – Savage Run                   √
Book 3 – Winterkill                      √
Book 4 – Trophy Hunt                  √
Book 5 – Out of Range                 √
Book 6 – In Plain Sight                √
Book 7 – Free Fire                       √

Book 8 – Blood Trail                    √ 

Book 9 – Below Zero

Book 10 – Nowhere to Run

Book 11 – Cold Wind

Book 12 – Force of Nature

Editing for Kindle /iPad: 4 out of 5*
Reading Enjoyment: 5 out of 5 
Page length on kindle /iPad: 301 for the book (and 1st chapter of next book taking it to 314)
Plot: 5 out of 5
Overall Rating: 5 out of 5

* found another word with a hyphen that shouldn't have been there Mr Box 

You can purchase Free Fire At Amazon UK here or at Amazon US here 

CJ Box can be found here

Book Review: Free Fire by CJ Box

I think by now you will have realised that I am a huge fan of 'Joe Pickett' and indeed the Pickett family and of course Nate Romanowski as written about by Mr Box and I really haven't a bad thing to say about any of his books as I work my way through them, this is number 7 in the reading order of 12  and still I have nothing bad to say, even although for the first time in all seven books I found two errors, one of which was a stupid hyphen in dan-gerous WTF!

Setting aside that, and I have marked it down in my editing for Kindle (Harsh but what can one do), what about the story.Well, you may recall that by the end of, 'In Plain Site'  Joe has been sacked from his job as Game Warden and in Free Fire we find him working as Ranch Foreman on his Father-in-laws ranch while Marybeth's accounting business is expanding.

Out of the blue the new Governor turns up in Saddlestring and offers Joe his job back but with strings attached.

A multiple murder has taken place in Yellowstone Park and it looks as if, for the first time ever, anywhere in the world, 'It is the perfect murder'. They know who did it, he even handed himself in immediately after killing 4 people, but they had to let him go!

Yellowstone Park might be in the state, in fact it is in three US states, and therefore comes under Federal law because of its status as a National Park.  The Governor thinks the Federal authorities are not doing enough and tells Joe that he wants him to visit the park and find out what the hell's going on, even although he will have no jurisdiction.

After discussing it with Marybeth Joe takes the job, knew he would, and is reinstated as a Game Warden with no loss of service.  Director Pope who we don't miss from the story still manages to stick the knife in, by making sure Joe doe's not get his original badge number back which would show him as a senior Warden, instead sending him Badge no 54, reserved for rookies!

Joe sets off for Yellowstone in a brand new truck, you just know what's gonna happen to that, just as Joe can't hit a barn door if he was standing in front of it with his gun, you just know what's gonna happen to that truck (oh, it's deliciously funny) followed by Nate Romanowski as back up.

Soon he is in the thick of it, more murders are committed, and just to mix things up we learn of events from Joe's past, about his brother, how he died and where he is buried.  His parents break up and why Joe has hated his father and always avoids discussing him and ghosts from that past become real in Yellowstone all lead to complications in the investigation.

A thrilling climax to the book ends with the FBI and an old adversary from that organisation double crossing Joe and Nate but this after Joe in his usual stumbling way, solves the crime.

This really was /is as good as the previous six books and Mr Box just keeps getting better and better.  The Perfect Murder scenario was a master stroke in finding it and building a story around it and it worked well, I wonder if that little loophole has now been closed in reality (hope so, wont be in a hurry to visit that corner of Yellowstone Park until I know it has been!)?

Book 1 - Open Season                  √

Book 2 – Savage Run                   √
Book 3 – Winterkill                      √
Book 4 – Trophy Hunt                  √
Book 5 – Out of Range                 √
Book 6 – In Plain Sight                √
Book 7 – Free Fire                       √

Book 8 – Blood Trail

Book 9 – Below Zero

Book 10 – Nowhere to Run

Book 11 – Cold Wind

Book 12 – Force of Nature

Editing for Kindle /iPad: 4 out of 5
Reading Enjoyment: 5 out of 5 
Page length on kindle /iPad: 380
Plot: 5 out of 5
Overall Rating: 5 out of 5

You can purchase Free Fire At Amazon UK here or at Amazon US here 

CJ Box can be found here

Book Review: The Affair by Lee Child

You either like the Lee Child character of Jack Reacher or you don't, there really is no middle ground.  And can I just say at the outset, just to get it out of the way, Tom Cruise buying and starring in the movie franchise doesn't matter a jot.  A book is a book is a book, that sometimes gets made into a movie and generally the movie is well below the standard of the book, so people get over it and concentrate on the books and stop bloody whingeing!

Jack Reacher has been wandering around small town America for a couple of years now doing his best to wear out the tarmac of the roads leading into the middle of nowhere, arriving nowhere and finding the locals being bullied. Reacher doesn't like bullies and generally takes on the baddies in defence of the defenceless and cowered locals and he does it so magnificently and with so little effort, that we keep following him around from nowhere to nowhere, stopping occasionally to buy a new shirt and pair of pants; well when your walking and covering the miles that he does the last thing you need as an encumbrance, is a suitcase full of clothes.

The Affair takes us back to 1997 when Reacher was still a Major in the Army as an  MP and takes us back to the final case he worked on, before taking up his peripatetic wanderings through small town America.

1997 and Reacher is called to his boss, Leon Garbers, office. A woman has been Raped, killed and mutilated, her throat slit near an Army base in Carter Crossing, Mississippi.  Reacher is despatched undercover to get close to the local police while another MP investigates the Army side of things at Fort Kelham.  Sent off with half a story and finding that the local Sheriff is an ex Marine MP, Reacher discovers that there has been more than one murder and in fact there have been possible other murders elsewhere that can be linked to the local ones.  The nature of Army bases is that they can have followers who move around Army bases  setting up wherever they are, so they have no idea whether it is a civilian killer or an Army killer, but the underlying message is, 'that the good name of the Army, must be protected!'

As usual Reacher gets to the truth and all questions raised in the story are conclusively answered in the closing pages, including just why Reacher decided it was time to hang up his uniform.

Disillusioned with the Army at the same time that it was downsizing, a less than stellar report from an Army Colonel on his attitude and tactics which would have seen him marking time career wise.  The blackening of innocent peoples reputations by politicians, and the Army, these were all the things that were vaguely referred to in previous story lines, and going back to 1997 gave us the story behind the myth that is Jack Reacher.

Reacher is a killer, but a killer with scruples and a sense of what is morally right and what is not.  He knows that not everyone on the planet is capable of looking after themselves either physically or by engaging the law, and so he is prepared to look out for their interests.  Killing will never be right, but when it is done out of a clear sense of justice that the normal course of the law would not get to, whether it be for a cover up, or lazy and useless police work , he can easily become, judge, jury and executioner , even when it is the Army, Federal or Local  Government, or just pure criminality; he will take them all on....... and I will be there again, when Reacher arrives at the next small 'nowhere' town.

Editing for Kindle /iPad: 5 out of 5
Reading Enjoyment: 5 out of 5
Page length on kindle /iPad: 405
Plot: 5 out of 5
Overall Rating: 5 out of 5

Lee Child / Jack Reacher can be found here


Footnote:  I love my Kindle but I do wish they would take a leaf out of the Kindle App for iPad and show the book tile and Authors name on each page and more importantly, show the page number as it does when reading through the Kindle iPad app, just saying.

Book Review: Convergent Space by John Paul Cleary

The Galaxy was living in peace and harmony benevolently controlled, protected, and guided by The Guild.

200 years ago The Aveche threatened the peace and tranquillity of the planets within The Guild.  Earth as the founders and most technologically advanced Planet develop a Shield that will encompass all of the Galaxy's and systems within The Guild, and after millions of relay stations are set up it is time to put the Shield in place.

The Earth fleet sets out with the final part but before it can be put in place  a Great (shock) Wave spreads through known space destroying millions of planets and trillions of lives.

Earth is blamed for the catastrophe and ostracised and a new ruling class is born in the The Renaissance.

Earth spends the next 200 years sending out Archeosoldiers to track what actually happened in the belief that their technology and the Shield could not have caused the disaster, no one believed them.......

Convergent Space then, turns out to be a futuristic inter galaxy archaeological detective story, with one person Archeosoldiers sent out in their ships with nothing more than a micro companion, which is connected to them wirelessly from birth, and dies when its human companion dies.

As large parts of the remaining galaxy are still in turmoil and planetary wars and civil wars are ongoing, the attrition rate of the Archeosoldiers is high.  Rone, a female Archeosoldier was badly injured during her quest and had managed to get assigned to a Renaissance station and was living with the leader of that part of space until a badly wounded soldier turns up in her front room.

She likes the life she is living and feels that Earth needs to forget its past and move on as no one really cares any more, but the Quest has become a religion on the home planet and all resources are geared to that and that alone.  The injured soldier dies but not before giving Rone information that could lead her to the truth of what happened two centuries ago.

She reluctantly takes up her old life and sets off in pursuit of the quest only to stumble upon a new threat to what's left of the Galaxy.  Humans, Phlegars, Hernesses are just some of the seemingly humanoid like species living in this mixed up star system.

The truth is finally revealed and the climax to the story is horrific, can history be repeated?

Over all I found it a little bit slow in places but, that was made up for in the overall story which has a bit of a twist to it that many people may find intriguing.

Putting it into today's setting (and whether the author intended to or not, I have no idea) The Renaissance, are probably the bankers who now control the system, francising out chunks of space to individuals and corporations but their actual power is proved to be a myth.  The Phlegars are the itinerants of the system, who have a dark secret that even they don't know about and the Hernesses are the Occupy Movement who will stop, only just short of genocide (except against one race) to rebalance the system for the betterment of everyone.  And humans, well we have just turned out to be blamed for all the ills that makes the system what it is and are ignored and hated by everyone in power... much like we peasants are today by both Governments and Businesses!

There were a couple of errors* in the book not story line but grammatical and spelling, but not as many as some I have recently read and if the author sorts these out

Editing for Kindle: 4 out of 5*
Reading Enjoyment: 4 out of 5
Page length on kindle: 348

Plot: 5 out of 5
Overall Rating: 5 out of 5

John Paul Cleary can be found here 


Convergent Space can be purchased at Amazon UK here and Amazon US here 

Book Review: Suite Assumptions by JW Manus

A Romantic Comedy

I know, I know, not what you expect from me.  Although, there was a glimmer of a gruesome murder that perked me up during the reading of this little number.....

So, what's it all about then.  Sandra Campbell was abandoned by her parents as a teenager and was taken in by her uncle Wally who operated a recycling plant.  Everything she does and says is aimed at one thing and one thing only, repaying Uncle Wally for his kindness, for taking her in, for putting her through school and college and for giving her a job in the plant.

She has become an obsessive compulsive within the plant alienating the workforce and colleagues with her demands for changes to systems that clearly would make the plant and life for the workforce much more difficult and the only person (other than uncle Wally) to support her is Martin Stonehouse, the plant engineer.

The only problem with Martin's support is that Sandra is unaware of it and believes that Martin, like the rest of the plant, hates her.  In her eyes he is a philanderer, goes out with a different girl every week and makes fun of her serious ways....

Sandra convinces her uncle that they need more business and that she is capable of taking on the role of 'salesperson' and so she and Martin are sent to Dallas for a pre-arranged meeting.  On arrival they find that the hotel they are booked into, in separate rooms,   can't accommodate them and then arranges for them to be transferred to the only hotel that has one single room left in the whole city, and so they end up in the Glass Garden Hotel's Honeymoon Suite.......

I have to confess I did nearly give up, as this is not my usual read, the last 'romantic novel' I read was by De-Ann Black entitled 'The Bitch Proof Suit' and I persevered with that one as I did with this one and found that I was thoroughly enjoying myself.  There are some funny moments, not laugh out loud moments but smiley moments and chuckle moments when the absurdity of the situations Sandra gets herself into because she keeps making Assumptions and jumping to the wrong conclusions.  It is difficult to tell you any of them here as they would all be spoilers, and, suffice to say that it was an 'assumption' by me that I would probably not like the book and all the misinterpretation that Sandra reads into situations that made this book an enjoyable break from the usual gruesome murder, mayhem, and action that I am used to reading:

The will they or wont they struggles between the two will keep you guessing and there are some sweet and tender moments in amongst the confusion .....

As I read more and more of this short book I kept thinking of Rock Hudson and Doris Day in 'Lover Come Back' where Hudson takes on the 'persona' of a Southern Cowboy' lost in the big city against know it all Day's advertising executive, and this made the book even funnier
 
You can find out more about Jaye here
You can purchase the book at Amazon UK here or at Amazon US here

Editing for Kindle: 5 out of 5
Reading Enjoyment: 5 out of 5
Plot: 5 out of 5
Overall Rating: 5 out of 5

An Unexpected Consequence

There I was, as I usually am, sitting with my thumb up my bum and mind in neutral.  Contemplating as I do, absolutely nothing of consequence, when suddenly, a tweet appears on my timeline, and here it is.


Steve Umstead ‏ @SteveUmstead
Zero Point grand prize nominees: @shayfabbro @WELinde @dimartin6 @SharkbaitWrites @tomstronach @ericswett @twistedscifi http://ow.ly/asxbW


On clicking on the link I discovered that Mr Umstead, in 'celebration' of the publication of his recent novella, Gabriel: Zero Point, had decided to put me and those other fine people (although I suspect they are all much more refined than I), up for a prize award nomination for reviewing or tweeting about his book.

Now just how cool is that.

The link to his site, just in case the link from the tweet doesn't work is here , and once there you will find links to all those other nice people too.

Now this was, as I said earlier, totally unexpected and,  well most welcomed....

You know me by now, I pick up a book to read because I think I may enjoy it and as I already had the mutterings and ravings of a lunatic blog in place, well I thought, 'why not share my views on what I have read here too'.  And so the book review section was born.  I don't think that my reviews are particularly eloquent, certainly not as eloquent as some of the books I am reading, but they are what I think at the time having finished my reading and so off I go rattle of a few paragraphs and stick it out there for folks to see.

To then find that an author decides to run a competition and through it open to his readers, and to include what I wrote, is nice.  But you know what, that's the thing about twitter, blogging and Indie Authors they all seem like nice people, damn them I like to have a moan and a grumble and they are making it difficult for me, STOP BEING SO BLOODY NICE ALL THE TIME, you read my bio up there on the right haven't you,where it specifically says GRUMPY. Well, you aint giving me any opportunities here folks to be GRUMPY and I am in danger of turning into Mr Nice guy and that aint good for my credibility, so give me a break....... PPppppplllllleeeeaaassseeee....

Related Posts: Book Review - Gabriel: Zero Point

Amazon UK
Amazon US 

Book Review: The Blood Upon The Rose by Tim Vicary

Set in Dublin after WWI and Michael Collins is leading the Irish Uprising in its final fling to gain independence from Britain.

Look Inside UK here
Look Inside US here 

Sean Brennan a Medical student at University College Dublin and his friend have joined the Cause.

Catherine Maeve O'Connell-Gort daughter of Colonel O'Connell-Gort head of Military Inteligence in Ireland and answerable to Field Marshal Sir John Denton Pinkstone French, KGB, KCMG, Viscount of Ypres and High Lake, Viceroy and Lord Lieutenant of His Majesty's Kingdom Of Ireland

Catherine is exercising her freedom and she too is studying to become a doctor at UCD, where she meets Sean Brennan.

While Catherine's family history is that of land ownership and part of the ruling classes in Ireland  a profoundly disturbing incident from her youth has made her despise her class and wish for the British to be out of Ireland for good...

Tricked by her father in getting onto theViceroy's train, Catherine embarrasses him by arguing with the Viceroy telling him that she wished they would leave Ireland to the Irish, accusing him and his Army and Police of unspeakable acts of torture and killings against innocent Irish.

Then, almost killed in an attack on the Viceroy's car, by Sean, this serves to drive her deeper into his arms and not away from him

Both are virgins and the tenderness of the love scene where they both come to sexual maturity is short, as one might expect the first tremblings of love to be, but it is written so tenderly and you feel for the lovers as they come together in the muted firelight of the tenement building that Sean is hiding out in.

Major Andrew Butler, a man who found that he is an efficient killer while serving in the front line, and surviving the horrors of WWI, is enlisted by O'Connell-Gort and Harrison, a Civil Servant, to find and kill Collins.

There are a number of twists and revelations in this that just enhance the story as it unfolds and like Julian Stockwin and his Kydd series of books, the mix of real life events into a political, murderous, love story novel has been done so masterfully by Mr Vicary and will make me check out his other books.

This book is a mix of political intrigue, honour and dishonour, of  cold blooded killing and tender lovemaking of a Country and a Woman who both want desperately to be recognised for what they are; Independent and able to stand on their own without bowing to Colonial Masters or to Male Dominance.

Link to Tim Vicary's website here

Editing for Kindle: 5 out of 5
Reading Enjoyment: 5 out of 5 
Plot: 5 out of 5
Overall Rating: 5 out of 5