Tag archives for thriller
A Young Man’s Game by Paul Blake [Book Review]
A Young Man's game by Paul Blake My rating: 4 of 5 stars A Young Man's Game by Paul Blake is an excellent debut novel with loads of twists and turns. Alec Foster uncovers a plot to assassinate the British PM in Berlin. He then needs to avoid being picked up by the Berlin police, the Russian SVR and the would-be assassins. It's further complicated by suspicion a traitor inside MI6 in the Embassy. A Young Man's Game Alec is a relic of the cold war, a former field officer, promoted away from his passion to a desk job. He's an SIS section head in the British Embassy in Berlin. Personal tragedies have turned him into an alcoholic. So he's out of practice, and very much out of shape, when tipped into the maelstrom by the murder of an SVR…
Book Review – Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch
Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch My rating: 5 of 5 stars A change in direction for the Peter Grant series. Peter's out of London and without his mentor Nightingale. As well as this the story is one of two missing children, which adds an urgency to the pace of events. As you'd expect there is a strong supernatural element to the story, with an interesting twist in it. Only Peter and Beverley Brook really feature through the story, Nightingale bookends it and there is minor contact with Dr Walid at one point. All the rest of the characters are locals from West Mercia. Out on his own Peter develops as a character. He's a lot more self-reliant and capable, he doesn't have any magical backup so deals with what he finds himself. The background is also expanded a bit, Peter…
Book Review – Resurrection by Arwen Elys Dayton
Resurrection by Arwen Elys Dayton My rating: 4 of 5 stars I really enjoyed this story, it was a mix of classic science fiction, ancient history and a modern thriller. I'm not an expert on the Egyptology, but what there was worked very well for me as a story and was plausible. It managed to avoid being too Erich von Däniken in its approach, and the way that the locals never grasped the technology was completely believable. Another aspect that I liked was the interplay between the metal poor and biotech rich Kinley (humans from a planet 8 light years away) and their enemies who used cloned Kinley to spy on them. This provided some of the science fiction backdrop for a modern day thriller, with the two racing to recover the lost secret of faster than light travel (the…
Eligibility for the 2014 Hugos
My novelette Crisis Point is eligible for the Best Novelette category of the 2014 Hugos. Weighing in at about 13k words it is a near future science fiction techno thriller set in the middle of the 21st Century. So if you want to grab a free copy here are the links Crisis Point on Crisis Point on Amazon UK Crisis point widens the world view from that presented in Perfects (due Summer 2014, but you can read extracts from it elsewhere on the blog). It tells the story of a military conspiracy to overthrow the democratically elected US President. This is a future where space travel has got cheaper and major corporations have used the FAI treaty that establishes space as non-national from 100km above the Earth. This gives them a guaranteed tax free haven, and also allows them to establish…
Imperfect – Scene 01 – Realisation
Imperfect Realisation I collected what I needed for my trip to see the place that I was born, and having psyched myself up for the trip I left the house. Almost as soon as I did I saw Rosie coming towards me at a very rapid walking pace and with a serious determined look on her face. She was only about ten feet away when I noticed her. "Hi, Rosie!" I cheerily greeted her. "Back inside. Quickly!" she replied, grabbing and spinning me round as she got to me without slowing down. As soon as we were inside Rosie apologised for handling me, "Look, I'm sorry about being rough on you, but it's important that we stick together for a bit. Have you seen Charlie or Cat recently?" "I haven't seen Charlie since yesterday morning, nor Cat since about tea-time yesterday.…