Tag: advance review copy

#BookReview The Man in the Bunker (Tom Wilde 6) by Rory Clements @ZaffreBooks

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The Man in the BunkerAbout the Book

Germany, late summer 1945 – The war is over but the country is in ruins. Millions of refugees and holocaust survivors strive to rebuild their lives in displaced persons camps. Millions of German soldiers and SS men are held captive in primitive conditions in open-air detention centres. Everywhere, civilians are desperate for food and shelter. No one admits to having voted Nazi, yet many are unrepentant.

Adolf Hitler is said to have killed himself in his Berlin bunker. But no body was found – and many people believe he is alive. Newspapers are full of stories reporting sightings and theories. Even Stalin, whose own troops captured the bunker, has told President Truman he believes the former Führer is not dead. Day by day, American and British intelligence officers subject senior members of the Nazi regime to gruelling interrogation in their quest for their truth.

Enter Tom Wilde – the Cambridge professor and spy sent in to find out the truth…

Format: Hardback (460 pages)          Publisher: Zaffre
Publication date: 20th January 2022 Genre: Historical Fiction, Thriller

Find The Man in the Bunker (Tom Wilde #6) on Goodreads

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My Review

Rory Clements’ books featuring Cambridge professor turned spy, Tom Wilde, have become one of my absolute favourite series. I’ve devoured every one of them and The Man in the Bunker was no exception. (I’m also a fan of his John Shakespeare series set in Elizabethan England.)

Who do the intelligence services in Britain and the United States call on when they’ve a tricky problem to solve? Why Cambridge professor of history turned spy Tom Wilde of course – much to the exasperation of his wife, Lydia, in this case.

The brilliantly dramatic and chilling opening chapter is a prelude to everything you could possibly want from a spy thriller: plenty of action scenes, car chases, narrow escapes, assassins waiting in the shadows, wily and ruthless villains, double-crosses galore. There are also a host of interesting secondary characters, such as the colourful Boris Minsky, Jerzy ‘the boy with the camera’ and the dedicated Dr. Angie Gray.  The skilfully crafted plot means there are plenty of side stories the reason for whose inclusion remains deliciously intriguing for a large part of the book.

Wilde is assigned a companion in his investigation, Lieutenant Mozes Heck. Heck is a wonderfully drawn character. Whilst, as readers of the previous books will know, Wilde has his own share of traumatic memories, Heck’s are beyond imagining. His first-hand and very personal experience of the atrocities committed by the Nazis has given him a deep-seated hatred of those Nazis who survived the war and ‘an overpowering hunger’ for revenge. As a result he is utterly ruthless – shoot first, think later – meaning at times he is difficult for Wilde to control.  ‘Heck was in a blood-red world of his own, and no amount of reasoning was going to alter that.’ On the other hand, Heck’s sharp-shooting skills, physical resilience and ability to pass unnoticed are definitely things you want in a difficult situation, and Wilde and Heck experience plenty of those.

Wilde’s investigation into whether Hitler remains alive takes him to the heart of post-war Germany giving the reader a vivid insight into the destruction visited upon cities such as Berlin by Allied bombing and the advance of the Russian army.  ‘This is real life, this is the detritus of war, right here.’ Berlin has become a place of ruined buildings, piles of rubble and people trying to eke out a living in the shattered remains of their city. It’s a dangerous place as well.  ‘The problems start after dark when the desperate and the dispossessed come out and defy the curfew. It’s kill or be killed.’

There also unsettling scenes in the makeshift camps for people displaced by the War including those who survived the concentration camps. And a visit to a particular site in Berlin brings Wilde a chilling reminder of the evil of the Nazi regime. ‘He did not believe in the occult, nor even an afterlife, yet he could hear the children’s cries.’

I can’t say much more about the plot without giving too much away. But, I hear you ask, does Wilde discover if Hitler survived the Berlin bunker? Sorry, not telling. Read the book and find out.

I thought The Man In The Bunker was absolutely fabulous, another masterly spy thriller from the pen of Rory Clements. A few loose ends left subtly dangling at the end of the book leaves me hoping this is not the last outing for Tom Wilde. In the meantime Tom, Lydia deserves her holiday.

In three words: Compelling, action-packed, suspenseful

Try something similar: V2 by Robert Harris

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Rory ClementsAbout the Author

Rory Clements was born on the edge of England in Dover. After a career in national newspapers, he now writes full time in a quiet corner of Norfolk, where he lives with his wife, the artist Naomi Clements Wright, and their family. He won the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Award in 2010 for his second novel, Revenger, and the CWA Historical Dagger in 2018 for Nucleus. Three of his other novels – Martyr, Prince and The Heretics – have been shortlisted for awards.

To find out more about The Man In The Bunker and the previous books in the series, join the Rory Clements Readers’ Club via the link in his website. (Photo credit: Author website)

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The Man in the Bunker

#BookReview The Prophets by Robert Jones, Jr.

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The ProphetsAbout the Book

The Halifax plantation is known as Empty by the slaves who work it under the pitiless gaze of its overseers and its owner, Massa Paul. Two young enslaved men, Samuel and Isaiah dwell among the animals they keep in the barn, helping out in the fields when their day is done. But the barn is their haven, a space of radiance and love – away from the blistering sun and the cruelty of the toubabs – where they can be alone together.

But, Amos – a fellow slave – has begun to direct suspicion towards the two men and their refusal to bend. Their flickering glances, unspoken words and wilful intention, revealing a truth that threatens to rock the stability of the plantation. And preaching the words of Massa Paul’s gospel, he betrays them.

The culminating pages of The Prophets summon a choral voice of those who have suffered in silence, with blistering humanity, as the day of reckoning arrives at the Halifax plantation.

Format: Hardback (400 pages)          Publisher: Quercus
Publication date: 21st January 2021 Genre: Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction

Find The Prophets on Goodreads

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My Review

According to the blurb, ‘Love, in all its permutations, is the discovery at the heart of The Prophets‘. There certainly is love in the book, particularly between Isaiah and Samuel, but there’s also a hell of a lot of hate, as well as obscene cruelty and racial prejudice. The author does not hold back in describing the dreadful treatment meted out to the slaves on the Halifax plantation and the suffering they endure on a daily basis. One of the most shocking aspects for me was the way in which the male slaves are treated akin to stud animals, forced to inseminate female slaves in order to create a production line as it were of future slaves.

The book is told from multiple points of view, including individual slaves, such as Maggie, Essie and Puah, and members of the Halifax household. Interspersed with these is the origin story of an African tribe in which the king is a woman and her wives are men, gender identity being one of the themes of the book. Another narrative strand recounts in detail the squalid scenes aboard a ship bringing enslaved people from Africa, an experience so horrific that many would prefer to drown themselves.

The slaves on the Halifax plantation have literally nothing, except the bare minimum of food and shelter needed to keep them alive and be productive workers. They don’t even possess their own birth names having been given new names, invariably biblical, by plantation owner Paul Halifax. Paul’s excessive religious zeal and his twisted notion that he is doing God’s will is one of the most disturbing aspects of the book.

All the characters in the book seem drawn in different ways to Isaiah and Samuel whether that’s out of curiosity, understanding, desire or opportunism. The book also illustrates the various strategies for survival the slaves adopt, such as Be Auntie’s submission, Puah’s attempts to remain unnoticed or Maggie’s hidden revenge. None of these work and the penultimate chapter of the book – Exodus – is a story of revenge, death and destruction.

Although I could appreciate the quality of the writing, I felt I couldn’t quite do the book justice, if that doesn’t sound weird. I was left with the sense there were themes I was missing because of my lack of familiarity with the biblical references. For example, the significance of the books of the Old Testament that form the titles of each chapter. I found some of the book’s highly expressive language and imagery confusing and I’ll freely admit that the last chapter completely lost me. I know there is a good and important story here; I just regret that others have found it easier to navigate and assimilate than I did.

I received a proof copy courtesy of Quercus.

In three words: Powerful, intense, eloquent

Try something similar: The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris

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Robert-Jones-Jr.-c-Alberto-Vargas-7-1About the Author

Robert Jones, Jr. is a writer from Brooklyn, N.Y. He earned both his B.F.A. in creative writing and M.F.A. in fiction from Brooklyn College. His work has been featured in The New York Times, Essence, Gawker, and The Grio. He is the creator of the social justice social media community, Son of Baldwin, which can be found on Facebook, Google Plus, Instagram, Medium, Tumblr, and Twitter. He is also currently working on his second novel. (Photo/bio credit: Publisher author page)

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