Book Review: High Heat (A Jack Reacher Novella) by Lee Child

16 year old Reacher is on school holiday from South Korea and is passing through New York en route to visit his older brother who is a cadet at West Point Military Academy.

It's July 1977 and it's hot. Son of Sam is on the rampage and a sweaty guy is slapping a sweaty woman in the face......

Even at 16, Reacher has already established a code of honour and conduct, and a guy slapping a woman on the face falls outside of what is permitted....

Reacher prevents the guy from doing any more harm to the woman and a night of cat and mouse with a local drug lord ensues although as usual Reacher, even at 16 is not the hunted but the hunter in the blacked out streets of New York dodging fires and looting as a city wide power cut takes affect.  In between making the drug lords life unbearable, he finds time to hook up with a co-ed a and is introduced to a special first time encounter in the front seat of a sports car and then to assist a suspended FBI agent with information on Son of Sam.

These occasional diversions by Child into Reachers past are as entertaining as the 'up to date' titles. They show us the boy who became a man growing up inside the Marine Corp and being enveloped by a system of honour and do right at all times, even if that means taking extreme actions to find a solution to a problem.  As long as the solution achieves the aim of winning the contest / solving the problem, then it is the correct way to go.......

There were a couple of small issues with the editing for the Kindle with extra spaces between words, but other than that no problems.

Editing for Kindle: 4 out 5
Reading Enjoyment: 5 out of 5
Plot: 5 out of 5
Overall Rating: 5 out of 5
Chapters: none
Page length: 77

Book Review: Caribbee by Julian Stockwin

Number 14 in the Thomas Kydd series from Mr Stockwin detailing the life of 19th century Royal Navy mariners as they protect England and it's dominions from the threat of Napoleonic domination.

Caribbee sees Thomas Kydd and his Frigate L'Aurore dispatched from the successful but ill fated attack on Buenos Aries to the Caribbean to request a relief force. 

On arrival, station Admiral Cochrane denies the request and informs Kydd that he and the Frigate L'Aurore are now under his command and that he and his crew will patrol the Caribbean to protect British interests from the French and Privateers! 

With Napoleon issuing a decree that makes all trade with Britain and her colony's illegal the economic threat to Britain and the Crown is a crushing one and added to the threat of capture most trading and commerce is brought to a standstill.

Once again Stockwin draws us in to this 19th Century world and throws everything at us, from hanging on for dear life in a ship and soul destroying hurricane (chapter 7) where you end the chapter relieved but drained, to heart pounding chases of sighted enemy vessels, to formal dinners where upon at one it is revealed drunkenly in front of peers and local aristocrats of Kydd's humble and lowly beginnings ....  Can he recover his status after that 

It is revealed that there may be a secret French base commanding ships and privateers in the local and Nicholas Renzi is firmly in the firing line after gathering information that leads to an attack by British forces only to find that there is no evidence that a base of operations ever existed.... Can Nicholas recover from the embarrassment of being a failed master spy too....

All in all another exiting read from a master storyteller and very much worth the annual wait for the next instalment 

Editing for Kindle: Hardback 1st Edition
Reading Enjoyment: 5 out of 5
Plot: 5 out of 5
Overall Rating: 5 out of 5
Chapters: 13
Page length: 347 including authors note

Book Review: The Pagan Lord by Bernard Cornwell

On a recent visit to hospital I was advised that as well as having cancer I have a heart condition, such is life, and then I settle down to read the latest Bernard Cornwell offering, 'The Pagan Lord' featuring Uhtred of Babbenburg and Cornwell nearly kills me off along with the hundreds of Danish horde that his creation Uhtred dispatches throughout this latest in 'The WARRIOR Chronicles' as my heart is pounding almost from the opening paragraph to the very end. Dear Lord Sir, but you can write!

Uhtred is in trouble from the beginning, again when he sets of with son number two and a small band of warriors to retrieve son number one who has become mixed up with the Christians, them Christians will be the death of poor Uhtred one of these days.... Only to find that son Uhtred has converted to the faith and has become a priest.   

In trying to retrieve his son from this folly Uhtred inadvertantly, for a change, kills of a Bishop and disowns his son renaming him Judas and promoting son No 2 up the ranks to be henceforth called Uhtred........

On returning to his hall he finds it burning and Sigunn his woman gone. Cnut Ranulfson has visited to exact his revenge, and while he and Uhtred are sworn enemies, on this occasion Uhtred has no idea what he has done, this time.....

Cornwell goes on to describe Uhtred's criss crossing the country and the seas to Frisia.  It starts off on horseback crossing these green, pleasant and wonderful lands, at a trot and then into a full canter before galloping across blood filled fields and streams and rivers with Uhtred and his small force of loyal men attempting to reclaim his home of Babbenburg.

Once again and to save the Christians he so loathes but time and again saves from destruction giving them England from the massed armies that Cnut Ranulfson has been building,  to finally take over Wessex and Mercia to once and for all create a Daneland and to consign the English to what they deserve, Slavery and Death.

No spoilers from me here suffice to say that Cornwell really is a master story teller spanning the 20th and 21st Centuries and his characters and stories pull you in from page one and get you turning page after page into the wee small hours gasping for air as another wave pounds over the longship as she fights the storms or gasping for breath through the blood and snot and sweat as you take up position in a shield wall with the blood lust screaming from every pore as you wait to kill or be killed ....   you become part of the story, you are involved and you have a vested interest in it's eventual outcome.  Cornwell has clearly mastered the art of making the reader feel all these things, making you cry out in despair when you get to the end and find that there is still more to come and you are left hungry waiting in anticipation for the next stanza in this epic tale of the birth of England and it's rescue from the Danish hordes.

Editing for Kindle: 5 out of 5
Reading Enjoyment: 5 out of 5
Plot: 5 out of 5
Overall Rating: 5 out of 5
Chapters: 13 (in 4 parts)
Page length: 321 but again not evident on Ipad or  Kindle devices, sort it out folks for goodness sake

Lunch on the Thames....

Ishbel, hiding her large glass of red
from you

Ishbel and I received a voucher from our Daughter Marie and our Son-in-Law Peter for Christmas 2012.  We had meant to take advantage of it earlier in the year but with one thing and another happening, being diagnosed with cancer for one with little prospect of survival, we forgot all about it until last week that is when Marie, reminded us again, with the portent that it was likely to be expiring soon, I know how it felt then!

So, with that thought I went on line and then made a call to book the cruise. As luck would have it we were able to get a booking for the 2nd October, Ishbel's Birthday so once on and with  nice glass of red in her hand and a soft drink in mine we toasted both her birthday and last Christmas, hopefully looking forward too, to this Christmas!

It was a fairly murky day in town on Wednesday but not cold.  You couldn't even see the top of the Shard when we first got on, but never the less you could still see all that was described to you in the commentary, once the cruise got under way.  Ishbel and I are pretty good with our knowledge of London and her many wonderful sights.  But the commentary was informative, even imparting some stuff we didn't know.

The waiting staff, on board were attentive, we had the lovely Lucia, waiting on us and she took our order for drinks while pointing out the menu to us, asking if we were happy with it or did we need to change to vegetarian? No, it all looked fine and as it tuned out it was more than fine..

Smoked and Poached Salmon Roulade with pickled cucumber (forgot to take photo)



Chicken En Croute with Celeriac mash and green beans
















Vanilla Pannacotta with chocolate macaroon

The amount of food was just perfect and well presented the only slight, and it was slight, was the macaroon which was just a bit over baked, but never the less thoroughly enjoyable.

The only downside and again it was only a minor complaint, was that you didn't really get any time to spend 'on deck' but then it was a 'lunch cruise' after all.

Other than that it was, as I never looked at the prices, before hand,  an enjoyable, pleasant  and value for money, couple of hours from our KIDS and BATEAUX LONDON and BUYAGIFT.COM  

A murky London skyline (but still a pleasant day) 

Some photos from our table view:

Saw this and thought it said: PORN FREE

Canary Wharf and odd shaped buildings 

Quite busy on the river today, cruise ships and working barges 

Passing under Tower Bridge

Sir Francis Drakes Golden Hind

Shakespeares Globe, Courtesy of American Sam Wanamaker

After our lunch cruise we decided to head up into town to Soho and Carnaby Street where we bought a couple of birthday gifts for Son-In Law Steve who had taken a few days off work to decorate the hall, stairs and landing for us, bless, he really is a good lad even although he might look like one he is little bit past the lad stage now turning 31 on the 3rd,  so Happy Birthday kid,  and thanks.....

It was a great afternoon with Ishbel. stopping off at side street bars for the odd glass of wine to fortify her walking legs, so she says and enjoying all the shops and weird looking folks who inhabit or visit this city and listening to Ishbel's acerbic comments as we pass yet another 'unusually attired' walker, she can be so funny in her descriptions of them, and as I say to her, they are just different, the eyebrows raise quizzically as if to say, 'yeah right!'

The Blue Cockrel on a plinth in Trafalgar Square, WTF!

A street performer. sitting on air!