Tag: NetGalley

#BookReview #Ad The Scarlet Papers by Matthew Richardson @MichaelJBooks

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The Scarlet PapersAbout the Book

VIENNA, 1946: A brilliant German scientist snatched from the ruins of Nazi Europe.

MOSCOW, 1964: A US diplomat caught in a clandestine love affair as the Cold War rages.

RIGA, 1992: A Russian archivist selling secrets that will change the twentieth century forever.

LONDON, THE PRESENT DAY: A British academic on the run with the chance to solve one of history’s greatest mysteries.

Their stories, their lives, and the fate of the world are bound by a single manuscript. A document feared and whispered about in capitals across the globe. In its pages, history will be rewritten. It is only ever known as . . . THE SCARLET PAPERS

The devastating secrets contained within teased by a brief invitation: Tomorrow 11AM. Take a cab and pay in cash. Tell no one.

Format: eARC (592 pages)              Publisher: Michael Joseph
Publication date: 25th May 2023 Genre: Thriller

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My Review

If you’re a fan of the novels of John le Carré such as Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy you will absolutely love this brilliantly compelling espionage thriller that combines ‘old world’ tradecraft – dry-cleaning, safe houses, book codes, secret writing, brush passes, dead letterboxes – with modern technology. Think surveillance and tracking devices capable of being installed just about anywhere.

Moving from the end of the Second World War, through the Cold War to the present day, it conjures up the murky world of secret agents, double agents, sleepers and moles. References to real life individuals such as Kim Philby, James Jesus Angleton and Maurice Oldfield (reputed to be one of the models for John le Carré’s George Smiley), along with figures in the world of espionage from more modern times, give it an air of authenticity. (As can be seen from the bibliography, the author’s research has been extensive.) And although the story is fictional, many of the elements seem completely plausible. Worryingly so, if you believe in the reality of a secret state. And it wasn’t so long ago that the existence of someone very like one of the main characters in the story was revealed, after many years in the shadows.

The book is full of characters with messy relationships and exposes the moral dilemmas which spies confront, the isolation inherent in their role and the burden of keeping secrets, even from those you love.  As one character observes, ‘We were good spies and terrible human beings.’ Many of the characters are almost certainly not who they purport to be or are adept at adopting different personas. ‘Spying was a performance and the costume, the voice, the initial entrance were as vital as the lines themselves.’

It’s impossible to describe the twists and turns of the plot without giving anything away. I could sympathise with one character as they complain, ‘Spies always seemed to make things so damn complicated’ although that delicious complexity is what makes The Scarlet Papers a ‘just one more chapter’ read. Despite being quite a chunky book, the story moves along like a whirlwind with surprises galore awaiting you. I loved it. If you’re a fan of espionage thrillers, put this one on your wishlist.

I received an advance review copy courtesy ot Michael Joseph via NetGalley.

In three words: Gripping, ingenious, fast-paced

Try something similar: The Spy Across the Water by James Naughtie

Matthew RichardsonAbout the Author

Matthew Richardson studied English at Durham University and Merton College, Oxford. After a brief spell as a freelance journalist, he began working as a researcher and speechwriter in Westminster, and has also written speeches for senior figures in the private sector.

He is the author of My Name is Nobody and The Insider. (Photo: Amazon author page)

#BookReview #Ad The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng @canongatebooks

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The House of DoorsAbout the Book

It is 1921 and at Cassowary House in the Straits Settlements of Penang, Robert Hamlyn is a well-to-do lawyer and his steey wife Lesley a society hostess. Their lives are invigorated when Willie, an old friend of Robert’s, comes to stay.

Willie Somerset Maugham is one of the greatest writers of his day. But he is beleaguered by an unhappy marriage, ill-health and business interests that have gone badly awry. He is also struggling to write. The more Lesley’s friendship with Willie grows, the more clearly she sees him as he is – a man who has no choice but to mask his true self.

Format: eARC (320 pages)              Publisher: Canongate
Publication date: 18th May 2023 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

I loved both of Tan Twan Eng’s previous books – The Gift of Rain and The Garden of Evening Mists – but, boy, has he made us wait a long time for his next one. It’s been well worth the wait though because The House of Doors is absolutely brilliant. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it pop up on the longlist for next year’s Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction.

Set in Penang (the author’s birthplace) and moving beween 1910 and 1921, it’s an intimate and nuanced portrait of the complications and consequences of relationships that must remain clandestine, such as that between Willie Somerset Maugham and Gerald Haxton, nominally his secretary but actually his lover.

The book opens in 1947 as Lesley Hamlyn, living on a remote farm in Doomfontein, South Africa, receives a package containing a copy of the book, The Casuarina Tree by W (Willie) Somerset Maugham. It evokes memories of the author’s two week stay in 1921 with her and her late husband, Robert, at Cassowary House, their former home in Penang. It was a place Lesley loved and was reluctant to leave but did so out of a mixture of loyalty to her husband, and despair. The book also has another significance for Lesley, one which the reader will only discover in the moving final chapter of the book.

Willie arrives in Penang in 1921 weakened by sickness from his travels through the Far East and beset by money troubles, a situation he fears may scupper his relationship with Gerald who has become used to a luxury lifestyle. In order to restore his finances, he needs to find material for his next book. Willie and Lesley form an immediate bond, both being in marriages that provide a form of cover from society gossip and speculation.  Lesley begins to unburden herself to Willie, sharing details of a secret relationship that took place ten years earlier as well as her involvement with charismatic Chinese revolutionary, Sen Yat-Sen (a real life figure).  She also reveals her connection with a (real life) murder case that scandalised the British inhabitants of the Straits Settlement and the Federated Malay States.

Willie uses her recollections as material for the stories in The Casuarina Tree. Reading the published book, and in particular the story ‘The Letter’, Lesley observes that ‘He had woven it into something that was familiar to me, yet also uncanny; factual, but at the same time completely fictional.’  Tan Twan Eng has harnessed the same writer’s instinct to blend historical fact with fiction in order to create this wonderful novel.

Those who have read Tan Twan Eng’s previous novels won’t be surprised that there is wonderful descriptive writing that really brings to life the bustling streets of the ‘real’ Penang, i.e. the Penang that the white residents don’t see. There is also a wonderful scene in which Willie and Lesley go for an evening swim. ‘That night, side by side, we drifted among the galaxies of sea-stars, while far, far above us the asterisks of light marked out the footnotes on the page of eternity.’ Gorgeous.

The House of Doors of the title is an actual place in the novel but is also a metaphor for things that must remain hidden, often things more wonderful than the plain facade shown to the outside world.

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

In three words: Assured, intimate, moving

Try something similar: The Chosen by Elizabeth Lowry

Tan Twan EngAbout the Author

Tan Twan Eng was born in Penang, Malaysia. His debut novel The Gift of Rain was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2007 and has been widely translated. The Garden of Evening Mists won the Man Asian Literary Prize 2012 and the 2013 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2012 and the 2014 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. The House of Doors is his third novel. (Photo: Publisher author page)

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