Tag: HF Reading Challenge

Book Review – Adder Stone by Clare Clark

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Welcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for Adder Stone by Clare Clark, which was published on 5th November by Wilton Square Books. My thanks to Amy at Eye Books Group for inviting me to take part in the tour and for my review copy.

About the Book

It is 1963 and in north Wales the Jones family are being forcibly ejected from the land they have farmed for generations. Their valley is to be drowned, turned into a reservoir for the people of Liverpool.

While her husband Dai is grief-stricken, Olwen Jones privately sees it as a blessing, an unforeseen chance to escape the narrow confines of the valley. But for her teenage son Emyr, Liverpool’s careless arrogance is proof that Wales will never be free to decide its own future until, like Ireland, it breaks the shackles of English imperialism.

Format: Hardback (320 pages) Publisher: Wilton Square Books
Publication date: 5th November 2026 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

Adder Stone is a beautifully written novel based on real events, the flooding of the Tryweryn valley in north Wales to make way for the construction of a vast reservoir to supply water to the city of Liverpool in the 1960s. This is the sort of historical fiction I absolutely love because I learn about people, places and events I was unaware of before.

The book opens at the point where the long campaign by the people of Capel Celyn to prevent the project going ahead has failed and the last families are being evicted from land they have lived in and farmed for generations. Among them are Dai Jones, one of the leaders of the campaign, his wife Olwen and their teenage son Emyr. Having resisted to the end, their eviction is carried out with unbelievable callousness, the bulldozers moving in the moment they leave their home. The destruction of the church and even the removal of bodies from the graveyard is a final act of erasure of a community.

For Dai, the eviction is a moment of finality. On the day itself he shocks Olwen and Emyr with the ferocity of his actions. He feels defeated and soon retreats into himself, seemingly heedless of the effect on his wife and son.

Emyr reacts differently. He is fired up with anger, regarding the flooding as yet more evidence of England’s disregard for the Welsh people, their culture and the Welsh language, the village being one of the few remaining Welsh speaking communities. He is swayed by those who argue Wales must gain its independence. Although some seek to achieve this through political means, others declare the only answer is direct action. He’s an impressionable boy and is frustrated by his father’s apparent acceptance of the situation.

Olwen acts as the lens through which we view events. Her reaction to the destruction of the village is less straightforward. She recognises it as a potential opportunity to escape the confines of a small community which has always been unwelcoming towards her family, and to experience life in the wider world. However, she knows she could never persuade Dai to leave. She also feels a spiritual connection with the area, recalling the myths and stories told to her as a child by Mari, her grandmother (or mother, I never did work out quite which).

With Dai unable to rouse himself from his deep depression, Olwen is forced to become the household’s breadwinner and, to Emyr’s fury, she accepts a job as a cleaner on a local estate owned by an Englishman.

Olwen is fiercely protective of Emyr. She wants a better future for him, encouraging him to stay on at school and gain his qualifications. When she fears he has been drawn into the murkier side of the campaign for Welsh independence, she reacts with fury and not a little guile. I found Olwen an exceptionally believeable character who, although experiencing moments of despair, continually finds reserves of strength on which to draw. I felt her sadness at the change in Dai from the man she married but could also understand her frustration with him as he withdraws into himself.

I’ll be honest there were a few elements of the book that didn’t quite work for me but I absolutely loved the way the author brought out the harsh beauty of the landscape and the cruelty and unfairness of its desecration.

In three words: Compelling, absorbing, emotional
Try something similar: Land by Maggie O’Farrell

About the Author

Clare Clark is the author of seven critically acclaimed novels including The Great Stink and Savage Lands, both longlisted for the Women’s Prize. Her books have been translated into seven languages. She lives in Wiltshire.

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Book Review – The Taper Man by Nick Harkaway #TheTaperMan

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About the Book

It is 1965, and the Cold War has never been colder. The Circus – the secret centre of British intelligence – has one prize asset left in Moscow: a senior Red Army officer with access to the enemy’s deepest secrets. But when a British agent is shot in Helsinki, George Smiley uncovers a Soviet operation that imperils this irreplaceable source.

The trail leads Smiley not to Berlin or Vienna, but Los Angeles – the most foreign place he has ever known. There, in the murky heart of US intelligence, a Communist sleeper agent – a ‘Taper Man’ – is poised to expose Britain’s operative in Moscow. To save him, Smiley must navigate an America riven by divisions over race, loyalty and belonging, all while his spy in Leningrad, Roy Bland, risks everything in pursuit of a Russian defector who holds the final piece of the puzzle.

Format: Hardcover (416 pages) Publisher: Viking
Publication date: 5th November 2026 Genre: Historical Fiction, Thriller

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My Review

The Taper Man reads like it was written by someone else. Fortunately that someone else is John le Carré, the author’s father. In this pitch perfect follow-up to Karla’s Choice, Nick Harkaway once again takes advantage of the ten year gap in George Smiley’s fictional life between the events in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

There’s a sense of continuity about the way characters are represented, foreshadowing events in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy. Control is showing the first signs of ill-health and of paranoia about the security of the Circus being compromised. His policy of ‘compartmentalisation’ of intelligence material is aimed at ensuring no-one in the Circus has the full picture. The mission that went so disastrously wrong and resulted in the death of British agent Alec Leamas (the subject of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold) still looms large in the collective memory.

The author once again brilliantly evokes the atmosphere of the Circus. Its unprepossessing exterior, shabby interior, and labyrinth of corridors and basements, its public school like quality, and its specialist departments presided over by idiosyncratic individuals. For example, the redoubtable Connie Sachs with her encyclopedic memory and extraordinary ability to marshal information.

If you’re familiar with Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy you’ll recognise many of the characters, some of whom are still early in their Circus careers. (Personally, I can never see the names Percy Alleline, Toby Esterhase, and so on without picturing the actors who played them in the 1979 TV adaptation. And Alec Guiness is and always will be George Smiley.)

Smiley’s quiet devotion to his wife Ann remains undiminished. He loves her but perhaps not in the way she needs. Aware of this but not capable of bridging the gap his intelligence role has created between them, he tolerates her infidelities with a quiet, melancholy understanding. I found this intensely moving.

I loved the central role given to Roy Bland, the ‘Soldier’ of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, and the fact we learn more about his back story. His authentic Communist sympathies provide him with the ideal cover but it’s not without risk. He finds himself more than once in a situation where every option seems a bad one and it’s a case of going with the one that’s least bad but is still bad.

Smiley’s mission to reveal the identity of the ‘Taper Man’ (an agent whose job is to stay behind and remain undetected, possibly for many years, when a network is ‘burned’) takes him to America where, as he was warned, he feels like a ‘man on the moon’. Everything is different there – the food, the cars, and especially the way the ‘Cousins’ (the Circus’s term for the US intelligence service) operate, very different from the Circus’s instincts and modus operandi.

‘The Circus was primarily a listening entity: it existed to hear, to collect and to anticipate… The more aggressive type of clandestine endeavour – the toppling of governments, the assassination of enemies, the sabotage of infrastructure – was at the very edge of its scope. […] The Cousins were not so reticent… They were not watchers; they existed to unpick, to unravel, and even to burn away the tapestry of the growing Soviet bloc.’

As in so many other times in his career, Smiley finds himself painstakingly following a trail back in time. Sometimes it’s a paper trail involving meticulously leafing through reports. At other times it’s through direct engagement with people involved at the time, in the run-up to or after the discovery of the network. It’s a case of patient listening, letting others fill the silences, testing facts and assumptions. And all the time thinking, are they telling me the truth? If not, why not? And who are they protecting – themselves or others?

I’m not going to attempt to summarise the plot for fear of spoilers or give you any clue to the identity of the ‘Taper Man’, you’ll just have to follow the twists and turns for yourself. For those who love spycraft, there is plenty on show – brush passes, dead letter boxes, code names, fallbacks and, an old favourite, blue chalk.

There are also moments of high tension. As we discover, being an agent on the run is a lonely and bewildering place. Maintaining your cover story is an art. ‘You want a lie you can land on the runway in a storm. Practise it, fly with it, land it. Don’t improvise until there’s no other choice.’ And an exfiltration that has not been planned in the utmost detail is one that can easily, in fact probably likely, to go wrong. I was holding my breath at that point.

The Taper Man is a superlative spy thriller. I enjoyed every moment I spent reading it.

I received a proof copy courtesy of Viking.

In three words: Gripping, intricate, assured
Try something similar: London Match by Len Deighton

About the Author

Nick Harkaway is the author of eight novels, including: The Gone-Away World, Angelmaker, Tigerman, Gnomon, Titanium Noir and Karla’s Choice.

He is the son of John le Carré and has an unique insight into his father’s work. He lives in London with his wife and two children.

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