Category: Reviews

#WWWWednesday – 5th July 2023

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WWWWednesdays

Hosted by Taking on a World of Words, this meme is all about the three Ws:

  • What are you currently reading?
  • What did you recently finish reading?
  • What do you think you’ll read next?

Why not join in too?  Leave a comment with your link at Taking on a World of Words and then go blog hopping!

Currently reading

TS_EP21 In Defence of the Act Proof CoverIn Defence of the Act by Effie Black (eARC, époque press)

Are we more like a coffee bean, a carrot or an egg? What happens to us when we are boiled in the trials and tribulations of life?

Jessica Miller is fascinated by the somewhat perplexing tendency of humans to end their own lives, but she secretly believes such acts may not be that bad after all. Or at least, she did.

Jessica is coming to terms with her own relationships, and reflecting on what it means to be queer, when a single event throws everything she once believed into doubt. Can she still defend the act?

The Painter of SoulsThe Painter of Souls by Philip Kazan (Orion)

Beauty can be a gift…or a wicked temptation…

So it is for Filippo Lippi, growing up in Renaissance Florence. He has a talent – not only can he see the beauty in everything, he can capture it, paint it. But while beauty can seduce you, and art can transport you – it cannot always feed you or protect you.

To survive, Pippo Lippi, orphan, street urchin, budding rogue, must first become Fra Filippo Carmelite friar, man of God. His life will take him down two paths at once. He will become a gambler, a forger, a seducer of nuns; and at the same time he will be the greatest painter of his time, the teacher of Botticelli and the confidante of the Medicis.

So who is he really – lover, believer, father, teacher, artist? Which man? Which life? Is anything true except the paintings?

An extraordinary journey of passion, art and intrigue, The Painter of Souls takes us to a time and place in Italy’s history where desire reigns and salvation is found in the strangest of places.

Recently finished

The Blood of Others by Graham Hurley (Head of Zeus)

Before the Swallows Come Back by Fiona Curnow

What Cathy (will) Read Next

Para BellumPara Bellum by Simon Turney (eARC, Head of Zeus via NetGalley)

AD 381. Five years have gone by since a Roman governor ordered the deaths of a Gothic king and his attendants at a feast in their honour. This disastrous act led to warfare in the Roman Empire and the death of the Emperor Valens.

Now, the Empire is calm once more, but for the eight legionaries who committed the killings, the bloodshed is only just beginning. Fritigern, brother of the murdered king, has sworn revenge on his brother’s killers. Now king of a powerful Gothic tribe, he will not rest until the men are hunted down.

Flavius Focalis is one of those legionaries. Surviving an attack at his villa, he realises the danger he and his family are in, and seeks to warn his former comrades, for he knows Fritigern will give them no quarter. So begins a deadly game of cat-and-mouse across the Empire, as, by land and sea, the former soldiers face the wrath of their implacable enemy, and return to the scene of the greatest battle of their Adrianople. For war is coming again – and the only question is, do they die now, or die later?

#BlogTour #BookReview The Blood of Others by Graham Hurley @AriesFiction @HoZ_Books #TheBloodOfOthers #TuesdayBookBlog

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Welcome to the opening day of the blog tour for The Blood of Others by Graham Hurley which will be published on 6th July 2023. My thanks to Tara and Sophie at Ransom PR for inviting me to take part in the tour and to Head of Zeus for my digital review copy via NetGalley. Do check out the reviews by my tour buddies for today, Jen at Jen Med’s Book Reviews and Mairéad at Swirl and Thread.

About the Book

Dieppe, August 1942. A catastrophe no headline dared admit.

Plans are underway for the boldest raid yet on Nazi-occupied France. Over six thousand men will storm ashore to take the port of Dieppe. Lives will change in an instant – both on the beaches and in distant capitals.

Annie Wrenne, working at Lord Mountbatten’s cloak-and-dagger Combined Operations headquarters, is privy to the top secret plans for the daring cross-Channel raid.

Young Canadian journalist George Hogan, protegé of influential Lord Beaverbrook, faces a crucial assignment that will test him to breaking point.

And Abwehr intelligence officer Wilhelm Schultz is baiting a trap to lure thousands of Allied troops to their deaths.

Three lives linked by Operation Jubilee: the Dieppe Raid, 19 August 1942. Over six thousand men will storm the heavily defended French beaches. Less than half of them will make it back alive.

Format: eARC (400 pages)            Publisher: Head of Zeus
Publication date: 6th July 2023 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

The Blood of Others is the latest book in the author’s ‘Spoils of War’ series. It’s a non-chronological series, meaning books can be read in any order or as standalones, although some characters appear in more than one book. I’ve read quite a few of the books in the series – Finisterre, Last Flight to Stalingrad, Kyiv and Katastrophe (links from the titles will take you to my reviews) – and they all involve a skilfully-crafted blend of fact and fiction, focussing on key events during World War 2. Like previous books in the series, events unfold from the point of view of two main characters.

Wilhelm Schultz, an officer in the Abwehr, the German military intelligence service, is a man you don’t want to cross. He has been, and still is, prone to acts of violence, although it has gained him some deadly enemies, allowing the author to incorporate a thriller element into the story and some dramatic scenes. Schultz is ruthless in his determination to ensure a Nazi victory and to make sure that any raid across the Channel by the Allies will end in failure. So whispers of a raid on what he knows to be the well-fortified port of Dieppe is a gift. And such is the desire of some, like Lord Mountbatten, to strike a target in occupied France that they don’t even need Schultz’s misinformation campaign that Dieppe is poorly defended to spur them on. (By the way, If you’ve read Katastrophe, you’ll know how Schultz’s fortunes change towards the end of the war. Divine justice, you might say.)

Much my favourite character was George Hogan. We follow his career from aspiring young journalist to protegé of Lord Beaverbrook. Beaverbrook, publisher of the influential Daily Express newspaper, friend of Winston Churchill and Lord Mountbatten, was a mover and shaker behind the ‘Second Front Now’ campaign, aimed at drawing German resources away from the Eastern Front. George marvels at the presentation of military setbacks as successes in order to maintain (or should that be to manipulate?) public morale. He reflects that, ‘Two years back, the Germans had chased most of the British Army out of northern France, but by some strange magic the evacuation that followed had become a kind of victory’ yet the newspaper headlines were ‘Miracle at Dunkirk‘ or ‘We Live To Fight Another Day‘. The more George learns about plans for the raid from experienced soldiers and from witnessing the build-up for himself, the more his sense of foreboding increases, and ours with it. For him it’s especially poignant because the troops that will be involved are largely fellow Canadians.

I would have liked more of a role for the female characters other than providing male characters with sexual gratification. In particular, I would have welcomed more from Annie’s point of view given her part in the story.

The book includes some neat walk-on parts by real-life figures, such as Noel Coward whom George meets as Coward’s in the midst of filming – and directing – one of my favourite WW2 films, albeit a film which was so obviously intended to be a wartime morale booster. [Other examples are Went the Day Well? (1942) and Henry V (1944).]

As is only too clear from the blurb, Operation Jubilee was a disaster, and was always going to be. The author concentrates on the how and the why for much of the book, leaving the description of the actual raid to the final chapters. The latter makes for tough reading given the loss of life and the manner in which men died. To put it bluntly, it was a bloodbath.

The Blood of Others is a thrilling read. It’s also an unflinching picture of the chaos, confusion and horror of war, as well as the clearest possible evidence that Operation Jubilee was an act of supreme hubris for which others paid the price.

In three words: Authentic, compelling, powerful

Try something similar: Munich by Robert Harris

About the Author

Graham Hurley is an award-winning TV documentary maker and the author of the acclaimed Faraday and Winter crime novels, two of which have been shortlisted for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Award for Best Crime Novel. His Second World War thriller Finisterre, part of the critically acclaimed Spoils of War collection, was shortlisted for the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize.

Connect with Graham
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