Tag: blogtour

#BlogTour #BookReview The Coming Darkness by Greg Mosse

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Blog Tour Banner Week 1Welcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for The Coming Darkness by Greg Mosse which is published tomorrow. My thanks to Sofia at Midas PR for inviting me to take part in the tour and to Moonflower Books for my proof copy. Do check out the reviews by my tour buddies for today, Jo at JaffaReadsToo and Jackie at Jackie’s Reading Corner.

The Coming DarknessAbout the Book

Paris, 2037. Alexandre Lamarque of the French external security service is hunting for eco-terrorists. Experience has taught him there is no one he can trust – not his secretive lover Mariam, not even his old mentor, Professor Fayard, the man at the centre of the web. He is ready to give up. But he can’t.

In search of the truth, Alex must follow the trail through an ominous spiral of events, from a string of brutal child murders to a chaotic coup in North Africa. He rapidly finds himself in a heart-thumping race against chaos and destruction. He could be the world’s only hope of preventing THE COMING DARKNESS…

Format: Hardback (390 pages)              Publisher: Moonflower Books
Publication date: 10th November 2022 Genre: Thriller

Find The Coming Darkness on Goodreads

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Hive | Amazon UK
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My Review

The Coming Darkness is set just far enough in the future for things to feel different – the use of advanced technology such as holoscreens and comm-watches – but just close enough to be scary. There’s a dystopian feel to the world we’re introduced to, a world in which surveillence cameras are everywhere, some parents have their children micro-chipped in order to keep tabs on them and there are nightly curfews in some cities. Actually, maybe apocalyptic is a better description. It’s a glimpse into a future where environmental degradation has caused desertification of some areas of the world, resulting in poverty, mass migration and inequality. Add to this the threat of deadly transgenic viruses and you have the stuff of nightmares.

Trying to bring some order to this disordered world is Alexandre Lamarque, a government agent who has becoming increasingly disillusioned with the actions he is asked to carry out. (Like Van Der Valk of the 1970s crime series, he lives on a boat.) But Alex possesses an unique intuitive ability that means his bosses don’t want to let him go. ‘The young man had a kind of sixth sense, an ability to envision possible futures, like a chess Grandmaster anticipating countless iterations of cause and effect.’ Alex can sense that ‘something’ is coming – an absence, a darkness – but he doesn’t know quite what it is, when it will happen or from where it will come.  The thrill of the book is accompanying Alex on the journey to find out. In the process, he will come up against those who embrace a twisted, destructive and nihilistic ideology, and wonder if there’s anyone he can truly rely on.

The short chapters keep the pace and the tension high. The occasional switches to events involving other, sometimes unnamed, characters keep the reader guessing. And there are some terrific action scenes, such as the extraction of an influential political figure from a sealed compound during an attempted coup, that have a real cinematic quality. I also loved that in this high-tech future some of the key breakthroughs depend on the use of ‘outdated’ analogue technology and there’s still a role for an ejector seat.

According to his author biography, Greg has long had an ambition to write ‘a powerful thriller’. Well, it’s job done as far as I’m concerned because The Coming Darkness has everything I look for in a political thriller: interesting characters, an intricate plot, a constant sense of jeopardy and plenty of surprises. And is that a tantalising suggestion at the end of the book that there could be a follow-up? I do hope so.

In three words: Clever, fast-paced, compelling

Try something similar: Sleep When You’re Dead by Jude O’Reilly

Greg MosseAbout the Author

Greg’s first career was in theatre as an actor, director and writer. He has lived and worked in Paris, New York, Los Angeles and Madrid, mostly as a translator and interpreter for a variety of international organisations. In 2015 he returned to theatre, writing and producing 25 plays and musicals, plus four short films. He took advantage of 2020’s lockdown to fulfil a long-term ambition to sit quietly and write a powerful thriller. (Photo: Twitter profile)

Connect with Greg
Twitter

#BlogTour #BookReview SBS Special Boat Squadron by Iain Gale

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SBS BLOG TOUR BANNER (1)Welcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for SBS Special Boat Squadron by Iain Gale. My thanks to Andrew at Head of Zeus for inviting me to take part in the tour and for my review copy.

SBS Special Boat SquadronAbout the Book

From this moment on, you and your men, you don’t exist.

Formed in the darkest hours of the Second World War, as nation after nation fell before the unstoppable Axis advance, the task of the Special Boat Squadron was to strike back at an enemy no army could meet in the field. Trained in sabotage and surveillance, the SBS raided deep behind enemy lines, sowing chaos and capturing much-needed intelligence. Soldiers, adventurers and rogues, their methods were unorthodox, their success rate unprecedented.

Operation Anglo, 31 August 1942. Beneath the waves of the Mediterranean, HMS Traveller closes in on the coast of Rhodes. Aboard, eight SBS commandos check their weapons as they prepare to infiltrate and sabotage two Axis bomber fields. Only two of the eight commandos will make it back to alive. Ex-Black Watch Sergeant Jim Hunter will be one of the lucky ones, but what he will face next will make Operation Anglo look like a cakewalk.

Format: Hardback (352 pages)           Publisher: Head of Zeus
Publication date: 13th October 2022 Genre: Historical Fiction

Find SBS: Special Boat Squadron on Goodreads

Purchase links
Bookshop.org
Disclosure: If you buy a book via the above link, I may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookshops

Hive | Amazon UK
Links provided for convenience only, not as part of an affiliate programme

My Review

Inspired by actual events, the book tells the exciting story of the wartime exploits of the Special Boat Squadron, an elite group of ‘intelligence commandos’ created to carry out undercover missions.

Having together survived a disastrous operation that may in fact have been doomed from the start, Hunter and Woods are comrades on the battlefield but rivals in other respects. Cherchez la femme, as they say. However, as Woods explains, ‘If you think I’m fool enough to allow some petty differences to come between me and the life of a brother officer and a man I count as a friend, then you’re very much mistaken’. As the reader will discover, that principle will be tested beyond measure.

The circumstances which have given rise to the mission Hunter, Woods and their teams are asked to undertake may seem a little unlikely but of course there were a number of surprisingly unorthodox operations carried out during WW2.

The book features appearances by real life figures such as Xan Fielding and the flamboyant Patrick Leigh Fermor. WW2 film buffs may recall the latter was played by Dirk Bogarde in Ill Met by Moonlight which dramatised an actual but equally daring SOE operation in Crete. Included in the book’s characters is a rather famous author whose manner of introducing himself is likely to make you chuckle but whose role is, again, based on historical fact.

I particularly liked the way the book illustrated the courage of the Cretan resistance fighters – the andartes – who assisted Allied undercover operations. Their very personal reasons for wanting to do so are often harrowing to read about, even more so because they reflect the well-documented real life experience of those under German occupation.

The team assembled to carry out the mission possess, as Woods remarks, ‘unusual, or should I say […] unique abilities’. Amongst their skills are safe-cracking, knowledge of explosives, communications, code-breaking – and of course silent killing. Although we mainly see things through Hunter’s eyes, the author provides the reader with occasional glimpses into the thoughts of the other team members, most memorably Phelps. It’s a reminder that, although highly trained, they can still experience fear and doubt. And that, although a mission may be planned down to the last detail, things can go wrong and, when they do, the weakest link in the chain is the most dangerous.

SBS Special Boat Squadron, with its tense action scenes, daring accounts of undercover operations and colourful cast of characters, will appeal to fans of wartime adventures such as The Guns of Navarone.

In three words: Action-packed, authentic, dramatic

Try something similar: Eight Hours From England by Anthony Quayle

Iain GaleAbout the Author

Iain Gale is the author of twelve military historical novels and two works of military history. Iain was for many years a member of the Scottish Committee of Combat Stress, the armed forces’ PTSD charity. He also sat on the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards Waterloo Committee at Edinburgh Castle and was privileged to be invited by the regiment to take a major part in its bicentenary commemorations.

He is a recognised authority on the Battle of Waterloo, and has taken numerous tours there, including leading a tactical military exercise of thirty-two serving US Army officers. Ian also guides regular small battlefield tours to the Somme, Arnhem, Dunkirk and Normandy and presents military history lectures. He is married with six children and lives in Fife and Edinburgh.

Connect with Iain
Twitter | Goodreads