📖 Blog Tour ~ The Coming Darkness by Greg Mosse

 

Moonflower Books
10 November 2022

My thanks to Midas PR for my copy of the book
and the invitation to the blog tour

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. 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.

📖 My Review...

At the start of this clever espionage thriller we meet with Alexander Lamarque, a man of many identities, who uses his considerable wits to keep one step ahead of those who seek to bring harm. Lamarque works for the French external security services but as we discover, over the space of the story, there is far more to this enigmatic man than meets the eye and very soon we are swept into a dangerous world which is heading towards chaos and destruction. Set in futuristic world The Coming Darkness seems remarkably alien and yet there are some similarities with our post pandemic world as in 2037 the insecurities around health continues, and there is an uneasy distrust amongst the population.

The Coming Darkness is definitely not a story to rush as the many twists and turns in the plot need careful consideration but the short, sharp chapters help to create a tight edginess and there’s a real sense of disquiet throughout the whole of the story. The writer has an interesting style of writing and there is much to consider over the space of the novel, lots of characters to get to know and intricate plot strands woven together so it’s imperative that you concentrate, especially during the first third of the novel when the complex layers of the story are being carefully built up.

The Coming Darkness is an accomplished futuristic thriller by a writer who knows how to keep the reader engrossed in a totally believable alternate world.

About the Author

A theatre director, playwright and actor Greg Mosse is the founder and director of the Criterion New Writing programme at the Criterion Theatre in London, running workshops in script development to a diverse community of writers, actors and directors. In addition, since 2015, Greg has written, produced and stage 25 plays and musicals.

Greg set up both the Southbank Centre Creative Writing School - an open access program of evening classes delivering MA level workshops - and the University of Sussex MA in Creative Writing at West Dean College which he taught for 4 years.

The husband of the bestselling novelist Kate Mosse, Kate’s hit novel Labyrinth was inspired by a house that Greg and his mother bought together in the French medieval city of Carcassonne, where the couple and their children spent many happy summers. Following the success of Labyrinth, Greg created the innovative readers-and-writers website mosselabyrinth.co.uk MosseLabyrinth. The first of its kind MosseLabrynth was the world’s first online accessible 3D world, and the inspiration for Pottermore - the popular Harry Potter website.

A multilinguist, Greg has lived and worked in Paris, New York, Los Angeles and Madrid and has worked as both an interpreter at a variety of international institutions and a teacher in the UK. Greg and Kate live in Chichester, where Kate’s parents founded the Chichester Festival Theatre, they have two grown up children. The Coming Darkness was written during lockdown and is Greg’s debut novel.

Twitter @GregMosse #TheComing Darkness

@MoonflowerBooks

@midaspr

📖 Book Review ~ What About The Girl? by K T Cavan

 

ASP  an imprint of Indie Book
1 May 2021

Clemency White Series #1

My thanks to VineHouse UK for my copy of this book

Berne, 1962. When Clemency is asked to help Peter Aspinal pick up some film from one of his agents, she jumps at the chance. It’s a welcome change from her routine desk job at the British Embassy. Peter himself is the kind of charming, cultured and slightly dangerous man a girl could fall for. But then the romance turns to terror as the KGB move in. Cut off from help in the Alps, Clemency finds she has hidden skills and courage. But will it be enough to save her and Peter from elimination by their ruthless opponents?

First in a series featuring Clemency White, a cypher clerk in the Foreign Office who ends up as one of MI6’s top agents. With 60s glamour, exotic locations, plenty of action and a strong female lead, they mix the excitement of the Connery-Bond era with a feminine sensibility.

The series is on-topic for 2021, with the same 1960s settings and themes of women’s place in society as The Marvellous Mrs Maisel and The Queen’s Gambit. The next two titles, The Girl Knows Nothing and Come Spy with Me, will be published later in the summer of 2021.

Author KT Cavan explained the origins of the series.

“As a child I was fascinated by the courage and achievements of wartime agents like Violette Szabo and Noor Inayat Khan. But in the Cold War fiction, the agents – James Bond, Harry Palmer, George Smiley – are almost all men. I thought there was room for a woman.  Clemency does things differently. I wanted to explore how she grows and learns and realises she can do so much more than type letters or wait for a husband. But it’s still a spy series and there are still shoot-outs and car chases and secret dossiers.

📖 My thoughts...

Clemency White is working as a secretary at the British Embassy in Berne when she is asked by Major Peter Aspinall to help him out with the small matter of working undercover. That Peter Aspinal is working for MI6 is a well known secret within the Embassy however, as Clemency is about to discover, working in a clandestine operation, although exciting and glamorous, is also fraught with danger.

Setting the story in 1962, at the height of the Cold War with Russia, allows the story to have a certain ambiance and as old grudges fester, so Clemency, along with Peter Aspinal, gets drawn into circumstances beyond their control and both of them have to make some pretty significant decisions.

Whilst there is plenty of detail, particularly about drop offs, and keeping a close eye on not being trailed and of always keeping one step ahead of the enemy, there is also an interesting focus on the burgeoning relationship between Clemency and Aspinal, which does add a little piquancy to how the story eventually plays out

What About the Girl? definitely gets the series off to a good start. The author writes well and allows the story to evolve gradually without getting too complicated about the political agenda. There is a definite sixties vibe to the story, from the striking cover which is so reminiscent of spy thrillers of the time, to the perception early on in the story that it’s the men who are in charge, but it’s good to see that notion being challenged as Clemency starts to show just what she is capable of achieving.

It’s interesting to have an espionage thriller which allows a woman in the nineteen sixties to take a lead role as all too often historical spy stories in this era have, as their focus, the intrepid hero who saves the day, so having an intelligent female take a central role makes the story just that little bit different and highly enjoyable. I look forward to meeting Clemency White in future stories.

About the Author

There’s something of a mystery to the author whose own work in intelligence and security means they have to remain in the shadows of a pseudonym.

#KTCavan

@vinehousedist

Blog Tour ~ Code Name : Lise by Larry Loftis

Jaffareadstoo is delighted to host today's Blog Tour stop

Mirror Books
20 February 2020

My thanks to the publishers for my copy of this book
and the invitation to be part of this blog tour

The year is 1942, and World War II is in full swing. Odette Sansom decides to follow in her war hero father’s footsteps by becoming an SOE agent to aid Britain and her beloved homeland, France. Five failed attempts and one plane crash later, she finally lands in occupied France to begin her mission. It is here that she meets her commanding officer Captain Peter Churchill. 

As they successfully complete mission after mission, Peter and Odette fall in love. All the while, they are being hunted by the cunning German secret police sergeant, Hugo Bleicher, who finally succeeds in capturing them. 

They are sent to Paris’s Fresnes prison, and from there to concentration camps in Germany where they are starved,beaten, and tortured. But in the face of despair, they never give up hope, their love for each other, or the whereabouts of their colleagues. 

This is a portrait of true courage, patriotism and love amidst unimaginable horrors and degradation.

What did I think about it..

In 1942 Odette Sansom is a thirty year old mother of three young girls when she decides that she has a moral obligation to do whatever she can to help save her native France. This decision, not easily made, sees Odette’s transformation from an ordinary housewife in rural Somerset, into, Code name : Lise, a fully operational SOE agent working undercover in the most dangerous areas of occupied France. Her connection with her commanding officer, Captain Peter Churchill, will be momentous for both of them.

I’m ashamed to say that prior to reading this excellent biography I knew nothing of Odette Sansom and so it was with an air of incredulity that I read of her remarkable exploits and of her absolute commitment to her role as special agent. She was a remarkable woman, brave, intrepid, fearless beyond measure, and doing her utmost to survive in a tormented world, however, it is her personal relationship with Peter Churchill which reveals both her passion and absolute strength of character.

The author fully immerses the reader in all of Odette’s ordeals, capturing the essence of her strong personality in some graphic and brutal situations which were, at times, extremely difficult to Read. However, reading of such horrors, particularly of her incarceration in Ravensbruck concentration camp, only serves to reiterate just how much Odette’s bravery, courage and tenacity contributed to her ultimate survival.

Beautifully written, and as fast paced as any WW2 fiction, this fascinating biography is a remarkable tribute to this very brave and inspirational young woman who became WW2’s most highly decorated spy.

About the Author

Larry Loftis is the international bestselling author of the nonfiction spy thrillers CODE NAME: LISE – The True Story of the Woman Who Became WWII’s Most Highly Decorated Spy and Into the Lion’s Mouth: The True Story of Dusko Popov – World War II Spy, Patriot, and the Real Life Inspiration for James Bond.

Website

Twitter @LarryLoftis #CodeNameLise

@TheMirrorBooks

Blog Tour ~ Legacy of Spies by John le Carré

Jaffareadstoo is delighted to be part of the blog tour for Legacy of Spies

For the first time in over 30 years, John le Carré returns to the Cold War 

in this thrilling masterpiece

Penguin
Viking Books
September 2017

My thanks to the publishers for my copy of this book

What's it all about..

Peter Guillam, staunch colleague and disciple of George Smiley of the British Secret Service, otherwise known as the Circus, has retired to his family farmstead on the south coast of Brittany when a letter from his old Service summons him to London. The reason? His Cold War past has come back to claim him. Intelligence operations that were once the toast of secret London are to be scrutinised by a generation with no memory of the Cold War. Somebody must be made to pay for innocent blood once spilt in the name of the greater good. 

Interweaving past with present so that each may tell its own story, John le Carré has given us a novel of superb and enduring quality.

My Thoughts...

Legacy of Spies work well as a standalone story, however, those readers who have read a couple of its Smiley predecessors, The Spy Who Came In From the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy will probably gain more from reading what is, in effect, a 'tieing up of loose ends' sort of story.

That John le Carré is the undisputed king of the espionage novel is without doubt and I enjoyed reading of the intricacies of the British Secret Service, which he brings to life so vividly, and of the ethical uncertainties and petty squabbles which linger in the shadows.The author's succinct turn of phrase, and the way his characters are allowed to quietly infiltrate the novel without any fuss, or of never quite knowing who is truthful or trustworthy, is all part of the espionage game, and the author does this ambiguity extremely well.

Although the story covers events from the past, there is also a very modern feel to the story, especially in the details of the 21st century spy headquarters and the way in which that operates, which is a far cry from the dim and distant days when George Smiley and his gang ruled the roost.

My feeling is that if you have read the series you will be happy with this book but it's perhaps not the place to start if you haven't read any of the stories before. The back story references need to be appreciated in order to understand just how clever is this conclusion.

About the Author

John le Carré was born in 1931. His third novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, secured him a worldwide reputation, which was consolidated by the acclaim for his trilogy Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley's People. His recent novels include A Most Wanted Man, Our Kind of Traitor and A Delicate Truth. His only work of non-fiction, The Pigeon Tunnel, was a number one bestseller in 2016.

Website

Twitter@lecarre_news #ALegacyofSpies

Amazon UK

~****~