Review: The German Client by Bruno Morchio

Genre: History/Mystery

Description:

There are three strands to this book: secret events of 1944 during the Nazi occupation of Italy (after the fall of Mussolini); a search for those secrets in ‘the present day’ (this book was first published, in Italian, in 2008); this second thread being displacement activity for Bacci Pagano, while he sits by the hospital bedside of his comatose girlfriend, Jasmine, who has been badly beaten waiting for her to wake or not wake – which is the third thread.

The events of 1944 are loosely based in fact, and the setting (Sestri and surrounding area near Genoa) is accurate.

One of the puffs at the front of the book, from Il Giornale di Brescia, claims this is “the best novel Morchio has written so far.” Telegraph Avenue adds that “This is the beauty and the distinctive trait of Italian noir. There is more than just crime: [there are also] history, politics, society, love, friendship.”

Bacci Pagano is the protagonist in a series of gumshoe-type investigations by Morchio. Italian readers are very fond of him. This is the fifteenth in the Pagano series and the first to be translated into English (in 2020) by Kazabo Publishing, which specialises in providing English translations of books which have been bestsellers in their original language but have never been available in English before. Perhaps unusually for series, especially this far in, Il Giornale’s review claims this series is hitting a new high note with this book.

Author:

Bruno Morchio lives in Genoa, Italy, where he worked as a psychologist. He has won two literary prizes for the mystery genre, the “Azzeccagarbugli” and the “Lomellina in Giallo” Prizes; and has been a finalist for the “Bancarella”, “Scerbanenco” and “Romiti” Prizes.

Appraisal:

Morchio is very knowledgeable about the area in which this book is set. It is a reasonable supposition that the local 1944 story piqued his interest, and led him to write this particular book. The Pagano books are not usually set in the past. The original 2008 publication date was already nudging the edges of plausibility for a WWII story, if your protagonist is going to be interviewing participants in that conflict in your book’s present. Even teenage partisans would have been about eighty in 2008, and the eponymous German, in his sixties, is the son of Hauptmann Hessen, the German in the story from 1944. Nevertheless, that strand of the story convinces. The tendency, forged in war-time, only to speak when absolutely necessary, not to inform on a comrade, and to maintain that tight-knit comradeship to the grave comes across strongly. In point of fact, all the characters are well drawn. In addition, Italian life sits lively on the page, the Italian way of life is there on the page, and the cultural life of this time and place shine through.

Unfortunately, the three plots do not entirely hang together. Why and how Pagano became enamoured of Jasmine is never fully explained. And how she ended up in the hands of the traffickers is kept from the reader until very late in the book, providing a mystery that I found more frustrating than intriguing. The mystery from 1944 turns out to be no mystery at all, except … no, I won’t give that away – it would be a mean spoiler.

The 1944 sections set in are the strongest part of the book: I always felt we were on firmer ground when Morchio took us back to that part of the story. And it does form the major part of the book, with a satisfying plot of its own.

I hope Kazabo feel it worthwhile to translate others in the Pagano series. And that somebody decides to turn them into a television series (in Italian or English, I don’t mind) now that we have run out of the Sicilian Montalbano novels to dramatise. Here we have just enjoyed the first series of Inspector Gerri, set in Puglia (at the other end of Italy from Genoa). But Telegraph Avenue is quite correct: there is a particular charm to Italian noir, on the page or on TV.

If you are a fan of Andrea Camilleri’s Inspector Montalbano books, or you tried Pentimento Mori by Valeria Corciolani on the strength of my recent review, or you enjoy holidays in Italy or have felt you would really like to visit that country, or simply enjoy noir crime fiction, you will find much to enjoy in this novel.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.

Rating: **** Four Stars

Reviewed by: Judi Moore

Approximate word count: 65-70,000 words

Review: The Furies’ Bog by Deborah Jackson

 

Genre: History/Mystery/Science Fiction

Description:

Archaeological finds are turning up where they have no business to be. Could there be a connection between ancient bog bodies found in a national park in northern Canada and others found in the Everglades in Florida? Why do some of them appear to be Phoenician? And why are astronauts on a mission to observe the terraforming of Mars spying on each other?

Author:

Deborah Jackson’s debut novel was Ice Tomb. This is her second, and was published in 2016. There is now a sequel to this one, published last year (and a third novel published sometime in the intervening seven years). She also writes the ‘Time Meddlers’ books for children.

Jackson has a science degree, and did online courses with MIT in order to refresh and deepen her knowledge in the areas of genetic studies, biology and planetary geology as part of her research for this book. She lives in Ottawa.

Appraisal:

I love a good history and mystery. I also love SF. So a mash-up of the two should be ace, right? Well, when you cram as much as this into one book matters can get a bit out of hand. This book is some 160,000 words long. There is a *lot* of plot here. Also a lot of characters, some of them with needlessly similar names. There are many, many chapters, the beginnings of which give the reader no clue as to which bit of book we’ve now arrived in. It is, frankly, a bumpy ride.

Jackson did a *lot* of research for this book, and was obviously keen to use it all. Not only is there a substantial information dump of an extremely technical nature towards the end of the book, there is also a glossary of terms beyond the end of the book proper, *and* an Author’s Note at the beginning detailing the preparations she made before writing the book.

But be in no doubt – this is original stuff, and a fascinating read. You will need time, and patience, but it really grabbed me from about half way through when it became clear that something Really Weird was going on with the archeology. Why it needed to take that long to lay that before the reader I cannot tell you. The relevance of the Martian thread remained opaque longer. But when the Martian material began to make sense too one finally got a sense of the over-arching plot. And it is huge.

You have to wait a long time for the first Big Reveal: hints are dropped from early on. I pride myself on being able to take a clue and make a three course meal out of it – but I could do nothing with Jackson’s hints. She screws the reader’s patience to screaming pitch before beginning to release information as to what is actually going on.

When the release began (it takes the rest of the book to be completely divulged) I was very impressed with the underlying ideas which took the book to that point. But then the book became diffuse again. There is, of course, the sequel to consider: must leave some plot for that. But I did feel I’d been left dangling at the end. Was it the end of the world as we know it, or not? And who were the Furies of the title? The only reference to them appeared to be in epigraphs from Ovid.

The cast of characters is substantial. I couldn’t warm to any of them. Jackson is at pains to give each major character serious personality flaws. The Baddies, on the other hand, are without nuance but are just Really Bad. Except for those who have a foot in both camps. The Baddies have an enormous chip on their shoulders for reasons I never fully grasped.

If you enjoy long, complex novels, this may be just what you’ve been looking for.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

Some adult language.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.

Rating: *** Three Stars

Reviewed by: Judi Moore

Approximate word count: 155-160,000 words

Review: You Are Not Here by Eric Czuleger

 Genre: Travel Memoir/Non-Fiction/History/Politics

Description:

“American journalist Eric Czuleger dives into the twilight zone of statecraft by living in unrecognized nations in order to discover what a country really is. He begins his journey as a third-grade teacher in Iraqi Kurdistan at the height of the Kurdish independence movement. Banned by Turkey, he pivots to Kosovo where he reports during the nation's 10 year anniversary celebration. Moving on to The Black Hole of Europe, Transnistria, he arrives in time for the Russian election. Finally, Czuleger infiltrates the world's first crypto-anarchist nation, Liberland, where he parties with Bitcoin millionaires and falls into his most challenging position yet: Liberland Ambassador to Somaliland. There, in the never ending desert, he discovers the real cost of drawing a new line in the sand.

You Are Not Here: Travels Through Countries that Don't Exist is part history lesson, memoir, and adventure travelog in the tradition of Bill Bryson, Louis Theroux, and Anthony Bourdain.”

Author:

Eric Czuleger is a playwright with several plays to his credit that have been produced from coast to coast. A former Peace Corps volunteer and the son of a USA Today bestselling novelist, Czuleger has two novels he’s written that are available as well as his most recent release, a travel memoir.

Appraisal:

I’ve been a fan of travel memoirs for many decades. As an avid traveler I find myself comparing the travel memoir author’s experience with my own, if they visit a place I’ve been, and travel with them vicariously if it is a place I haven’t been. Some of the experiences I read about I’m unlikely to experience by myself. I guarantee I’m never going to hike the entire length of the Appalachian Trail, but have read multiple books to experience it vicariously. I feel extremely safe saying that those things Eric Czuleger experienced and the places he visited that are chronicled in this book are not things I will ever experience or places I’m likely to visit, but I can definitely learn from his experience. And I did.

The places Eric traveled to and chronicled in this book are places that see themselves as a country, just like the United States, Canada, or France is a country, but few, if any of the other countries in the world agree. Eric experiences the unique culture of these places, sometimes disconcerting and possibly a bit on the dangerous side. He observes the people and does what he can to get a feel for the impact of this country’s status with the rest of the world on its people. The theme running through the entire book is an attempt to decide exactly what it is that makes a country a country. Will he come up with the ultimate answer that we’ll all agree with? I’ll let you read and decide. Whatever the answer to that question, his exploration and consideration of this was an interesting exercise that got me thinking a lot about not only countries that might not be an actual country, but also about the differences, both good and not so good, to those places that clearly are countries.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

A small amount of adult language.

Format/Typo Issues:

Review is based on a pre-release ARC (advance reader copy) and I can’t gauge the final product based on this version.

Rating: ***** Five Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 90-95,000 words

Review: The Shakespeare Conspiracy, a Clayton Lovell Stone Adventure: Volume 1 by Bruce Hutchison

Genre: History/Mystery

Description:

Clayton Lovell’s partner goes on a sudden research trip to the UK and is murdered there. She leaves him a clue as to why she has been killed. She has stumbled upon something that has the potential to rewrite Elizabethan history. There are those who desire very much to benefit from what she has found. And others who believe the world is better served by the status quo. Lovell follows her to London, Oxford and Stratford upon Avon.

Author:

Bruce Hutchison has several novels and a non-fiction book on the market all of which investigate his thesis regarding Shakespeare. There is also information on his website.

Appraisal:

The wraparound which Hutchison has used to enable him to develop his thesis regarding Shakespeare provides an exciting aura of conspiracy and violence through which the historical facts and extrapolations are woven. If you are not familiar with the several theories regarding the true authorship of Shakespeare’s plays, and such conundrums appeal to you, then this is an intriguing and informative read, especially towards the end.

Each of the 73 chapters in Hutchison’s book is preceded by an epigraph in the form of a short quote from Shakespeare’s oeuvre. The function of an epigraph is to act as a summary, introduction or example from some famous literary work so as to draw a comparison, or to generate a specific context for what follows. Often these are too anodyne to do that. A number of the epigraphs are misquoted.

There are some howlers. ‘Lord Cecil Burghley’ is actually William Cecil, Lord Burghley. A burial 392 years ago would have been made in 1626. Not a useful date for any Shakespearean enquiry I can think of. The ‘Charwell’ river which flows through Oxford is actually the Cherwell. There are others.

Hutchison is, perhaps, unfortunate that I picked up this book. I am a British writer and historian with a keen interest in Shakespeare and Elizabethan England. That being the case, of course I would pick this off BigAl’s virtual shelf for review.

Like Hutchison, I don’t believe for a moment that the glover William Shakespeare of Stratford upon Avon wrote the plays ascribed to him. Over many years a number of notables have felt the same way, including Americans Mark Twain, Henry James and Charlie Chaplin. On this side of the Pond a current advocate for alternative authorship is Mark Rylance, erstwhile director of The Globe Theatre in London and one of our finest contemporary actors. Could Hutchison’s theory possibly be correct? There is, unfortunately, a fair-sized elephant in the room that he doesn’t address. And so, the debate continues.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

One very violent scene.

Format/Typo Issues:

A number of typos. Also some muddiness of expression, non sequiturs, confusing continuity, and unhelpful formatting, particularly of the epigraph quotations at the head of each chapter. This complex book would be easier for the reader if an editor had been through it.

Rating: *** Three Stars

Reviewed by: Judi Moore

Approximate word count: 90-95,000 words

Review: The Antiquities Dealer: a David Greenberg Mystery, Book 1 by Ed Protzel

Genre: History/Mystery

Description:

The Amazon blurb says: “When Miriam Solomon, the love of David Greenberg’s life, phones him at his antiquities gallery in St. Louis, the black hole at the center of his heart shudders. Twenty years earlier, Miriam had inexplicably run off to Israel with his best friend, Solly, a brilliant but nerdy young scientist. Now she tells David that Solly has committed suicide and she needs his aid on a secret research project Solly left unfinished: to acquire the one remaining nail from the crucifixion of Jesus. Is she telling the truth? And why does that nail have such significance?” (One wonders that anyone would need to ask why a nail from the Crucifixion would have significance. But blurbs – even my own – are not strangers to hyperbole …)

Author:

The author has lived much of his life in St Louis, which figures largely in this book. He lived for a while in the Gaslight Square area of that city, among its wackier citizens, some of which colourful characters have probably found their way into this book. He writes with authority of students working their way through college by gambling (including playing chess). As well as this novel, he has published the first two parts of his DarkHorse trilogy of novels and the third is due out this year. He spent several years producing screenplays in LA, looking for the big break which never quite came. He has a Master’s degree in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Appraisal:

This book hits the ground running. David Greenberg, the narrator, is a cultural, urban Jew of the darkly witty and ironical sort. It quickly becomes apparent that he has no self-control where Miriam is concerned, so of course he agrees to help her acquire The Significant Nail. I cannot tell you why she needs it, as that would be a massive spoiler. But trust me when I say the reason is a doozie. As is the McGuffin constructed out of the chess Game of the Century played between Bobby Fischer and Donald Byrne in 1956. There is also (of course) a secret society in Israel which runs its own university, possibly a Second Coming, and a red-neck Christian preacher who is quite happy to use strong arm tactics to meet the potential New Jesus. There is, as you can see, plenty of plot.

There are a few infelicities in said plot. I found these irksome: the twin assassins with identical birthmarks; that people kept attempting to flee to safety in cars which they knew carried tracking devices placed there by their enemies; the ease with which Swiss bank account details were acquired and bandied about. There is an increasing flabbiness as the story approaches its endgame, leading to some implausibilities (a bit of a surprise as this is Protzel’s fourth novel: it makes one wonder what sort of editing is provided by Touchpoint Press). But by that time I was sufficiently intrigued by what was playing out to skip over the less well-focussed bits.

This is the second history and mystery using the Crucifixion story which I have read this year. It is fruitful ground for fiction writers. Both novels are thought-provoking and relevant in the twenty-first century. Inevitably there are nods to Dan Brown here, in the arcana and the sudden flashes of imaginative and unpleasant violence, although the protagonist is both wittier and more passive than Robert Langdon (and the violence is less extreme).

The McGuffin is well used and well explained in the story. It is explained again, unnecessarily, in an addendum to the story. The standard (presumably) chess notation used in both renditions did not format readably on a Kindle using the file I was working from.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.

Rating: **** Four Stars

Reviewed by: Judi Moore

Approximate word count: 100-105,000 words

Review: Mona Lisa’s Secret by Phil Philips

Genre: History/Mystery

Description:

This book is described on Kindle as ‘A Historical Fiction Mystery & Suspense Novel Da Vinci Code meets Indiana Jones!’. There is plenty of room for good books in the ‘history and mystery’ genre. It gives nothing away to say that we are revisiting that most complex of Renaissance men, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Priory of Sion who are both guarding and leaving clues to an ancient secret.

Author:

Here is a link to the website of our Phil Philips. http://philphilips.com/about-the-author/ (There is another Phil Philips who writes for children: he is not our Phil Philips). Our Phil Philips lives in Sydney, Australia and his background is in digital graphic design. He considers himself a modern Renaissance man having an interest in ‘anything and everything’. He strives to create art in everything he does, be it a magazine layout, a painting in oils or writing a thriller. His writing style has, apparently, been compared to James Patterson and Matthew Reilly. He has published two books. Mona Lisa’s Secret is his second. The protagonist – Joey Peruggia - also carries the first book, but this book stands alone just fine.

Appraisal:

The book follows Dan Brownian paths. There is plenty of violence (although fortunately nobody loses body parts: I parted company with Dan Brown at that point in The Lost Symbol). There is plenty of historical stitching holding the story together (the Mona Lisa really was stolen in 1911): familiarity with Dan Brown’s tropes is taken as read, but is easy enough to catch up with should you be a history and mystery fan who has never read Dan Brown (you may be the only one …). The action moves from luxury in Los Angeles, to Paris, to the Jura mountains to Cyprus and back to Paris: the author has been to these places and takes pains to spice his scenes with local flavour.

There is plenty of meat to the plot, which is based on some fascinating historical facts with some whopping great ‘what ifs’ added. Who does not enjoy a good ‘what if’? The bigger the better!

There are a few unfocussed and/or unnecessary descriptive passages; the violence becomes a little wearying for this reader (although the hero’s escapes are most inventive); and a number of small tautologies (eg ‘the sink basin’) irritate slightly. There are a couple of plot holes. And I can just imagine what my Cypriot friends would say if they heard Cyprus described as ‘a small Greek island’ (we Europeans view the Med rather differently).

Despite the occasional fuzzy focus, the book gallops along like a horse just on the right side of bolting.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

‘f’ bombs and other swear words.

Format/Typo Issues:

Rating: **** Four Stars

Reviewed by: Judi Moore

Approximate word count: 85-90,000 words

Traveling Between the Lines: Europe in 1938 / Rebecca McBride

Reviewed by: SingleEyePhotos

Genre: Travel/History/Nonfiction

Approximate word count: 45-50,000

Availability    

Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: NO  Smashwords: NO Paper: YES

Click on a YES above to go to appropriate page in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords store

Author:

Rebecca McBride gained a love of travel from her parents who, as this book shows, loved to travel themselves. She is a freelance writer and editor, who has a Ph.D. in English from the University of Pennsylvania. For more, visit her website.

Description: 

In the summer of 1938, the author’s parents traveled throughout Western Europe on a shoestring budget.  After their deaths, she found 4 notebooks that contained her father’s diary from this trip. Reading his diary, she found herself learning more about her parents as a young couple and about Europe immediately before the start of WWII – people very different from the parents she knew, and a world very different from the one that emerged from the war.

Appraisal: 

The majority of this book is a transcription of the author’s father’s diaries from the trip. The concise, day-by-day description of their travels brings a sense of immediacy to the writing – you feel like you know the writer (John) and his wife (Margaret) and are traveling with them.  The author did considerable research into pre-war Europe (especially on the Continent, but including England and Wales as well) in her effort to understand the social and political climate in which her parents were travelling.  She intersperses her own commentary throughout the book, providing details on things that John and Margaret took for granted, but which might not be as familiar to the modern reader.  Since this book is also her way of getting to know her (young) parents better, she asks many questions of her father – what were they thinking at the time, why they did something, how they felt about an event.  The questions do not detract from the flow of the book, and serve to highlight the fact that it is a very personal story.  The historical commentary is brief and to the point, and serves its purpose well.

It is inevitable, because of the timeframe the book covers, that there are a lot of questions – mostly left unanswered – about the political situation in Germany.  At the time, the Nazis had already seized power and were starting to push their agenda.  Austria had been annexed.  A kristalnacht had occurred in many major cities.  Jews were finding themselves under more and more restrictions.  Military presence could be seen on the streets.  Anglophobia was becoming noticeable.  Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement was taking its toll. The burning questions that the author had for her parents was how much they knew about what was really going on in Germany.  How much did they know before they left the United States?  What did they learn while travelling?  Was their decision to spend a good amount of time in Germany made because they truly felt there was no danger or were they being naïve? There are no answers – and the author realizes that, but understands that the questions themselves must still be asked.

Format/Typo Issues:

None. Formatting for the Kindle edition was excellent.  There were many images of old photographs (taken during the trip) along with captions included in the book.  The quality of the images wasn’t as good as I would have liked, but there’s no way of knowing what the quality of the original prints was.  I read this on a Kindle DX, and there were occasions when the caption for the picture was on the next page.

Rating: **** 4 stars