Tag: advance review copy

#BookReview Hell Gate (Ingo Finch Mystery #3) by Jeff Dawson @canelo_co

whatcathyreadnext

Hell GateAbout the Book

To solve this case, only an outsider will do… Ingo Finch faces his biggest challenge yet.

New York, 1904. Over a thousand are dead after the sinking of the General Slocum, a pleasure steamer full of German immigrants out for a day on the East River. The community is devastated, broken, in uproar. With a populist senator preying on their grievances, a new political force is unleashed, pushing America to ally with Germany in any coming war.

Nine months later, Ingo Finch arrives in Manhattan, now an official British agent. Tasked with exposing this new movement, he is caught in a deadly game between Whitehall, Washington, Berlin… and the Mob.

Not everything in the Big Apple is as it seems. For Finch, completing the mission is one thing; surviving it quite another…

Format: ebook (255 pages)                      Publisher: Canelo
Publication date: 5th November 2020 Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystery, Thriller

Find Hell Gate on Goodreads

Purchase links*
Amazon UK
*link provided for convenience not as part of an affiliate programme

85fb0edb-ed5a-436f-a9c1-2d9e1b679f3f.__CR0,0,1940,600_PT0_SX970_V1___

My Review

I’ve been a fan of Jeff Dawson’s Ingo Finch series since reading the first book, No Ordinary Killing, in 2017. And I absolutely loved the 2018 follow-up, The Cold North Sea. Although there are brief references to events in the previous two books, Hell Gate can definitely be enjoyed as a standalone. However I’m betting that, having read it, you’ll want to go back to where it all began and find out just why Ingo Finch finds himself at the beck and call of the British secret service.

I recall describing The Cold North Sea as “Buchanesque” and, as regular followers of this blog will know, there is no higher compliment as far as I’m concerned. I’ll happily award the same accolade to Hell Gate. Although there’s a terrific scene on a train that could come straight out of a James Bond movie, the episode in which Finch infiltrates an anarchist group reminded me of the exploits of John Buchan’s hero, Richard Hannay, in Mr. Standfast and a pursuit across open country recalled Hannay’s adventures in the The Thirty-Nine Steps.

Ingo Finch’s latest mission sees him sent to New York, a city that in 1904 is a “growing metropolis in all its living, steaming, cacophonous glory”. I enjoyed seeing him experiencing landmarks such as the Statue of Liberty and Brooklyn Bridge, and his exploits take him to many well-known parts of the city including Central Park, Broadway, the Meatpacking District and Little Italy. I also loved his wide-eyed reaction to American innovations such as traffic lights and toothpaste you squeeze from a tube. Finch also has his first taste of pizza and hot dogs.

Early on in the book, there are walk-on parts for some famous historical figures such as financier J.P. Morgan, chairman of the White Star Line Bruce Ismay, and Edward Smith, captain of the Baltic (the ocean liner on which Finch travels to America) later to become infamous as the captain of another ship. There’s even a mention of a Trump!

As in the earlier books, there are fascinating nuggets of historical fact around which the author has cleverly wrapped a gripping historical thriller. For instance, I hadn’t appreciated how much of the population of New York at the time was made up of people of German extraction and to what extent this influenced political and economic power within the city. As one character says, “German labour built this city. German labour built the Brooklyn Bridge and the Williamsburg…”.

As Finch reflects at one point, “The United States was a nation forged in blood” and it’s not long before he’s experiencing the reality of this in the melting pot that is New York with its rival gangs and political factions fighting for control. As one insider explain, “All I can tell you is that it’s getting worse – far worse. The Irish, the Italians, the Jews… We got Russian gangs, Chinese gangs, too… We got Black gangs, Hispanic gangs. And now…the Germans.”

In the dedication to The Thirty-Nine Steps, addressed to his friend Tommy Nelson, John Buchan recalls their mutual fondness for ‘that elementary type of tale…which we know as the “shocker” – the romance where the incidents defy the probabilities, and march just inside the borders of the possible’.  It’s an apt description of Hell Gate in which Ingo Finch lurches from one narrow escape to another and is constantly trying to work out – as is the reader – who he can trust. The short answer is pretty much no-one.

The author keeps the pace moving and the tension building as Finch seeks to achieve his mission. As with any good action hero, he gets rather battered and bruised along the way. I’ll admit to having developed a slight crush on Finch making me think it might almost be worth being held captive by a mysterious cult in order to be rescued by him. However, I also suspect I might have some quite formidable rivals for his affections!

If you’re a fan of historical crime thrillers that feature an intrepid hero, are set in interesting locations, that exude the atmosphere of the period and have a plot that cleverly combines fact and fiction, then this is the series for you. I loved Hell Gate and I can’t wait for the next outing for Ingo Finch, not least because he has unfinished business…

I received an advance review copy courtesy of Canelo via NetGalley.

In three words: Fast-paced, gripping, action-packed

Try something similar: Hudson’s Kill by Paddy Hirsch

Follow this blog via Bloglovin

Jeff Dawson CaneloAbout the Author

Jeff Dawson is a journalist and author. He has been a long-standing contributor to The Sunday Times Culture section, writing regular A-list interview-led arts features (interviewees including the likes of Robert De Niro, George Clooney, Dustin Hoffman, Hugh Grant, Angelina Jolie, Jerry Seinfeld and Nicole Kidman). He is also a former US Editor of Empire magazine.
​
Jeff is the author of three non-fiction books — Tarantino/Quentin Tarantino: The Cinema of Cool, Back Home: England And The 1970 World Cup, which The Times rated “Truly outstanding”, and Dead Reckoning: The Dunedin Star Disaster, nominated for the Mountbatten Maritime Prize.

Historical thriller, No Ordinary Killing (2017) – an Amazon/Kindle bestseller – was Jeff’s debut novel. His follow-up, The Cold North Sea (2018), continued the adventures of Captain Ingo Finch. The third book in the series, Hell Gate (2020), comes out on November 5th.

Connect with Jeff
Website | Twitter | Facebook

#BookReview When the Music Stops by Joe Heap @fictionpubteam

whatcathyreadnext2 Comments

When The Music Stops Banner

Welcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for When the Music Stops by Joe Heap. My thanks to Anne at Random Things Tours for inviting me to take part in the tour and to Harper Collins for my digital review copy via NetGalley. Do check out the post by my tour buddy for today, Jo at Over The Rainbow Book Blog. And, for a limited time, you can grab yourself a signed copy of When the Music Stops from Hewson Books.

Finally, a note from Joe:
“I owe this book to my grandparents, John and Jean Sands, for sharing the stories that inspired it. In many ways their story is more remarkable than the one I have written.

At a summer season in Ramsgate, 1959, two ice skaters held a party. My grandfather, a Glaswegian saxophonist who would rather have gone to the pub, was convinced by a comedian on the same bill to come along. My grandmother, another one of the ice skaters, sat down next to him and spilt her drink in his lap. Though she has since denied it, her first words of note to him were ‘Oh no, not another Scot.’

Nobody could have guessed how much would spin off that moment, myself and this book included. Here are a few pictures of them.”

images

9780008293208About the Book

This is the story of Ella. And Robert. And of all the things they should have said, but never did.

‘What have you been up to?’
I shrug, ‘Just existing, I guess.’
‘Looks like more than just existing.’
Robert gestures at the baby, the lifeboat, the ocean.
‘All right, not existing. Surviving.’
He laughs, not unkindly. ‘Sounds grim.’
‘It wasn’t so bad, really. But I wish you’d been there.’

Through seven key moments and seven key people their journey intertwines. From the streets of Glasgow during WW2 to the sex, drugs and rock n’ roll of London in the 60s and beyond, this is a story of love and near misses. Of those who come in to our lives and leave it too soon. And of those who stay with you forever…

Format: Hardcover (384 pages)           Publisher: Harper Collins
Publication date: 29th October 2020 Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Romance

Find When the Music Stops on Goodreads

Purchase links*
Amazon UK | Hive (supporting UK bookshops)
*link provided for convenience not as part of an affiliate programme

My Review

The book’s structure, revisiting seven key moments and people in Ella’s life, was, according to the author, inspired by the ‘Seven Ages of Man’ speech from Shakespeare’s As You Like It. However, as Joe Heap also writes, “This is a book about music, inspired by music” so cleverly incorporated into the story are the seven modes that have been part of musical notation since ancient times.

In When the Music Stops, each of these modes is represented by a song in a music book Ella acquires when she first takes up the guitar. Although other elements of her memory have faded by the time we first meet her as an old woman – alone, in rather strange circumstances – the tunes are still at her fingertips, evoking memories of significant stages in her life – and the people who shared them with her. As she muses, “There are seven songs. I have to play all of them, though I don’t know what will come at the end. I just have to play them.”

The ability of music to evoke memories is just one of the fascinating concepts explored in the book, along with the nature of memory itself and how we experience the passing of time. I’ll leave others to explain Einstein’s theories on the latter but I liked the metaphor Robert, Ella’s friend since childhood, employs. He compares time to a long-playing record. While you’re listening to the second verse of a song, he explains, the first verse is still there but you’re just not listening to it anymore.

As the reader learns, Ella’s life has been punctuated by moments of loss, often signalled by that thing we’ve probably all come to dread – the unexpected early morning or late night telephone call. Robert’s earlier metaphor is applicable here too. As he confides to Ella about a person they both knew, “I don’t think she’s really gone… I just think we can’t see her anymore.”

Another key theme of the book is that of the missed opportunities in life, especially between people like Ella and Robert. ‘The Road Not Taken’ of Robert Frost’s poem, as it were. Their encounters over the years are populated by falsely reassuring thoughts such as “There will be other chances” and fateful hesitations, “The door of possibility stays open, waiting for her to walk through, but she stays put”.

I admired the way the author recreated the atmosphere of each stage on the journey through Ella’s life, referencing the clothing, the television programmes or even the food of the time: the school playground gift of tablet (a sweet similar to fudge for you non-Scots out there) or a corned beef and pickle sandwich prepared for a picnic.

The standout section for me, entitled ‘The Rebel’, was Ella’s experiences as a session musician in 1960s London, rubbing shoulders with many famous, or soon to be famous, bands of the period. (In his acknowledgements, Joe mentions Carol Kaye, “a trailblazing female musician” who played guitar and bass on many hit records and was the inspiration for Ella.) I also found the section entitled ‘The Matron’ particularly moving.

At one point in the book, a character mentions ‘fantastical thinking’ and I think that’s a great description of the premise of this clever but very touching novel. At the online book launch, Joe Heap mentioned fantasy as making up some of his own early reading – books by authors such as Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman – and it’s easy to see that influence in elements of the book. However, more than anything, When the Music Stops is an emotional story of love, loss and the power of the human spirit. I think it would make a great book club choice.

With its gorgeous cover, this is one of those occasions when I feel I’ve slightly missed out by opting for a digital version of a book.  So I may just have to treat myself and help out an independent bookshop through Lockdown 2.0 in the process…

In three words: Imaginative, insightful, heartfelt

Try something similar: Fred’s Funeral by Sandy Day

Follow this blog via Bloglovin

Joe Heap Author PicAbout the Author

Joe Heap was born in 1986 and grew up in Bradford, the son of two teachers. His debut novel, The Rules of Seeing, won Best Debut at the Romantic Novel of the Year Awards in 2019 and was shortlisted for the Books Are My Bag Reader Awards. Joe lives in London with his girlfriend, their two sons and a cat who wishes they would get out of the house more often.

Connect with Joe
Twitter

When The Music Stops BT Poster