THE SHADOW NETWORK by Deborah Swift @swiftstory

4 out of 5 stars

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How I discovered this book: I read all Deborah Swift's books, full stop!  Original discovered her on Twitter.

In a Nutshell: World War II espionage drama

The next in the series of Deborah Swift's excellent and oh-so-British tales of espionage and undercover networks during World War II.  The Shadow Network is particularly interesting because Lilli, the main character, is a part-Jewish refugee from Berlin, who falls prey to circumstances that lead her to take a major part in a 'black' propaganda outfit, targeting the German people and armed forces.  

This book has a particularly thrilling start, set as it is in Germany, when life was precarious for so many.  The pace continues throughout, culminating in gripping ending that made me wish it was a TV mini-series.  Ms Swift has painted a wonderfully nasty antagonist in the form of Brendan Murphy, member of the IRA.

As ever, the research is detailed and fascinating; Deborah Swift outlines the real story behind the fiction in the back of the book, and, once more, I wished I'd read it first.  I've no doubt that this novel will be as successful as The Silk Code - and I look forward to Operation Tulip!

HARD TO FORGIVE by Georgia Rose @georgiarosebook

 5 out of 5 stars

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How I discovered this book: I'd already read another in the series.  This is Book 3 of A Shade Darker.

In a Nutshell: A woman alone, a life lived in obsession and regret...

I've read a few of Georgia Rose's books over the years.  I liked the last one in this series, the most enjoyable Shape of Revenge, but this is a different class, by far the best thing she's written.  Loved it!

Dora Smith is 69 and lives alone in the cosy village of Melton, in which all these books are set.  It's a close community, with all the advantages and drawbacks this brings, and Dora is involved yet sets herself slightly apart from her neighbours.  She has secrets; conflicting in her head is a riot of heartbreak, loss, obsession and a sense of isolation that she reveals to no one.  Sometimes she wears it well, and is content in her life.  Other times the ghosts from the past as well as the present crowd in, tearing her sanity apart.

This is a short novel, probably around 50-60k words, which is just right for the story.  Early in the book we're taken back in time to see Dora as a young woman and experience the tragedies that befell her - I found this absolutely gripping.  Yet there was another surprise I didn't expect, near the end.  The end itself made me need to know more.  What happens to her?  Hopefully we will see Dora again in another instalment of this twelve-book series.

So skilfully written is Dora's first person narrative that - even though she lives in her own head, rarely looking out - it allows the reader to see what the other people in the village think about her, opinions of which she is probably unaware.  So clever!  All the way through, Dora reminded me of Susan the vicar's wife in Alan Bennett's Bed Among The Lentils - if you like his Talking Heads monologues you'll love this, though it's considerably darker.

Well done, Georgia Rose, and I look forward to the next book!

OUTBACK OUTBREAK by Frank Tayell

 4 out of 5 stars

On Amazon (universal link)
On Goodreads

How I discovered this book: I've read a lot of books by this author, so Amazon recommends others!

In a Nutshell: Beginning of zombie apocalypse, in Australian Outback.  

Frank Tayell has written extensively about the same zombie apocalypse, a main series (Suviving The Evacuation) that started about ten years ago and is up to Book 21, and the other related collections, set in different places.  Kind of like The Walking Dead with all its spin-offs!

This first book of the Surviving The Evacuation: Life Goes On series is set in Australia, in which a carpet salesman from Indiana called Pete Guinn goes on a mission to find his oddly elusive sister, where she works mending fences in the Outback.  The events of the first chapters were labelled as '18 hours before the outbreak', etc - the suspense building even though Pete didn't know it!  As well as breakdown of civilisation and the zombies, rich evil cartel type people provide Pete, Corrie and their friends yet more headaches.

I very much liked going back to the beginning of the apocalypse (I've only read up to about Book 8 of the original series), and enjoyed Pete's shock at the reality of trying to exist in the Outback, even before the zombies appear.  It's a good story and I did like it, but my interest waned with the original because the characters' conversations became too information-dump-ish, as though the dialogue is being used primarily as a vehicle for giving information to the reader, rather than as an expression of character, and I felt the same creeping in here.  This can result in the characters coming across a bit one-dimensional, or all speaking in the same 'voice'.  This wasn't the case in the earlier books (my review of Book 1, written 9 years ago, HERE).

Anyway, I still liked it!  Mr Tayell is a fine judge of pace, creator of plot, builder of suspense, etc - and, in case you ever read this, Frank, I laughed at this: He didn't know much about hotels, motels or any variation in between, but he knew carpet and the one beneath his feet was expensive.  A hard-wearing, two-ply, eighty per cent wool mix with a polyester coating to ease cleaning.  I used to know a chap who sold carpets, and he was not dissimilar.  We'd be watching telly and he'd point at the screen during a really dramatic scene, and say, "That's a nice bit of Worsted fibre bonded.  Made by Danflor, if I'm not mistaken'.