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Leon was pushed ahead by Mateo. At a single touch of Mateo’s hand, Leon could easily turn and permanently incapacitate the thug, but Mateo wasn’t alone. He was accompanied by Fabio, also with drawn automatic, a Star Megastar holding fourteen rounds, and another guard who carried a machine-pistol, a Steyr with a capacity of twenty-five 9mm Parabellum cartridges. Leon conceded that he wasn’t faster than a speeding bullet, and though the prospect of being ‘softened-up’ did not appeal in the slightest, he clung on to Vanda’s words: ‘Keep him in one piece’. He accepted that he would have to endure pain in this process, but he would live and come out of it whole. He mentally braced himself for the ordeal ahead.

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Each hunter has the same equipment—a sniper rifle, five bullets and a machete.

An even killing field.
A corrupt organization in Spain is selling the ultimate thrill. They cater to rich amateur game-hunters who hunger for the privilege of stalking and killing human prey. Their targets are non-persons. In effect, the vile process gets rid of illegal immigrants. Enter Leon Cazador—a half-English, half-Spanish private investigator who occasionally assists the authorities. Eager to take down this immoral organization, he’s tasked with going full cloak-and-dagger. But when his cover is blown and he’s forced to join nine other captives, will he become the hunters’ ultimate prey?

 

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Normally, he was comfortable combating drug-traffickers, grave robbers, conmen, even Al Qaeda infiltrators and misguided terrorists. Dodgy Spanish developers and shady expat English had faced his wrath over the years. Traders in human beings and stolen vehicles invariably met their match, while kidnappers, crooked mayors and conniving Lotharios had come within his orbit of ire. Dealing with the purveyors of endangered species was a first.

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Pb $11.99, e-bk $0.99c: https://tinyurl.com/bdnze3x9

Each hunter has the same equipment—a sniper rifle, five bullets and a machete.

An even killing field.
A corrupt organization in Spain is selling the ultimate thrill. They cater to rich amateur game-hunters who hunger for the privilege of stalking and killing human prey. Their targets are non-persons. In effect, the vile process gets rid of illegal immigrants. Enter Leon Cazador—a half-English, half-Spanish private investigator who occasionally assists the authorities. Eager to take down this immoral organization, he’s tasked with going full cloak-and-dagger. But when his cover is blown and he’s forced to join nine other captives, will he become the hunters’ ultimate prey?

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Leon embraced the idea of being a hunter. Even his Spanish name meant just that: Lion Hunter. He could afford expensive private investigations because a few years previously he’d helped a relic hunter. The proceeds from that case provided him with enough wealth to pursue his vendetta against the ungodly. That was quite a long time ago; Angel Ramos had since joined the dust of his cherished artefacts.

Pb £9.99, e-bk £0.99: https://tinyurl.com/2p9528f3

Pb $11.99, e-bk $0.99: https://tinyurl.com/bdnze3x9

Each hunter has the same equipment—a sniper rifle, five bullets and a machete.

An even killing field.

A corrupt organization in Spain is selling the ultimate thrill. They cater to rich amateur game-hunters who hunger for the privilege of stalking and killing human prey. Their targets are non-persons. In effect, the vile process gets rid of illegal immigrants. Enter Leon Cazador—a half-English, half-Spanish private investigator who occasionally assists the authorities. Eager to take down this immoral organization, he’s tasked with going full cloak-and-dagger. But when his cover is blown and he’s forced to join nine other captives, will he become the hunters’ ultimate prey?

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With his slicked-back black hair and leaden features, Vadim might well have escaped from a Bela Lugosi film. Maybe he was a throwback from the silent era. He hadn’t spoken since they met…

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Pb $11.99, e-bk $0.99c: https://tinyurl.com/bdnze3x9

 

Each hunter has the same equipment—a sniper rifle, five bullets and a machete.

An even killing field.
A corrupt organization in Spain is selling the ultimate thrill. They cater to rich amateur game-hunters who hunger for the privilege of stalking and killing human prey. Their targets are non-persons. In effect, the vile process gets rid of illegal immigrants. Enter Leon Cazador—a half-English, half-Spanish private investigator who occasionally assists the authorities. Eager to take down this immoral organization, he’s tasked with going full cloak-and-dagger. But when his cover is blown and he’s forced to join nine other captives, will he become the hunters’ ultimate prey?

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Sweat soaked Leon’s back. This was the moment when he braced himself for swift devastating defensive action. Would they take the money then, considering life to be cheap, attempt to dispose of him, or would they be greedy enough to want more? In this case, that meant more money from a sale. Happily for his continued survival, greed always won.

Pb £9.99, e-bk £0.99: https://tinyurl.com/2p9528f3

Pb $11.99, e-bk $0.99: https://tinyurl.com/bdnze3x9

Each hunter has the same equipment—a sniper rifle, five bullets and a machete.

An even killing field.
A corrupt organization in Spain is selling the ultimate thrill. They cater to rich amateur game-hunters who hunger for the privilege of stalking and killing human prey. Their targets are non-persons. In effect, the vile process gets rid of illegal immigrants. Enter Leon Cazador—a half-English, half-Spanish private investigator who occasionally assists the authorities. Eager to take down this immoral organization, he’s tasked with going full cloak-and-dagger. But when his cover is blown and he’s forced to join nine other captives, will he become the hunters’ ultimate prey?

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A pounding noise filled Leon’s head: the builders with their pneumatic drill were quite familiar, even if it was quite a while since they last took up residence. It wasn’t the first time he’d been knocked out. The bad part was recovering consciousness. It was worse than any hangover. ‘So far, you don’t appear to have suffered deleterious brain damage,’ one doctor had told him. ‘But if you keep going on like this, it’s only a matter of time. You really should change your career.’ Right now, he was inclined to agree.

Pb £9.99, e-bk £0.99: https://tinyurl.com/2p9528f3

Pb $11.99, e-bk $0.99c: https://tinyurl.com/bdnze3x9

 

Each hunter has the same equipment—a sniper rifle, five bullets and a machete.

An even killing field.
A corrupt organization in Spain is selling the ultimate thrill. They cater to rich amateur game-hunters who hunger for the privilege of stalking and killing human prey. Their targets are non-persons. In effect, the vile process gets rid of illegal immigrants. Enter Leon Cazador—a half-English, half-Spanish private investigator who occasionally assists the authorities. Eager to take down this immoral organization, he’s tasked with going full cloak-and-dagger. But when his cover is blown and he’s forced to join nine other captives, will he become the hunters’ ultimate prey?

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 Leon absently fingered his false greying moustache. It was secure and not at risk of coming unstuck. In times like these, he wondered what event in his childhood had influenced him to deceive so convincingly.

Pb £9.99, e-bk £0.99: https://tinyurl.com/2p9528f3

Pb $11.99, e-bk $0.99c: https://tinyurl.com/bdnze3x9

 

Each hunter has the same equipment—a sniper rifle, five bullets and a machete.

An even killing field.
A corrupt organization in Spain is selling the ultimate thrill. They cater to rich amateur game-hunters who hunger for the privilege of stalking and killing human prey. Their targets are non-persons. In effect, the vile process gets rid of illegal immigrants. Enter Leon Cazador—a half-English, half-Spanish private investigator who occasionally assists the authorities. Eager to take down this immoral organization, he’s tasked with going full cloak-and-dagger. But when his cover is blown and he’s forced to join nine other captives, will he become the hunters’ ultimate prey?

QUILLER BALALAIKA - Book review

Sadly, Balalaika is the last Quiller novel (published 1996). Adam Hall (Elleston Trevor) died the day after he finished it, in July 1995.

It’s contemporary: following the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian mafiya is poised to take over the new Russia by destroying the country’s economy. The man responsible and capable of achieving this is a British Moscow-based national, a defector from the Foreign Office, who escaped the country and was given the rank of Colonel in the KGB. ‘His name is Basil Secker, and he uses the Russian alias of Vasyl Sakkas’ (p11). Sakkas is elusive and powerful. Quiller’s mission – Balalaika – is to infiltrate the mafiya and then find and neutralise Sakkas in some manner.

Briefed by Chief of Signals Croder, Quiller is made aware that this is a dangerous ask, with poor chance of success. Quiller requires Ferris as his director in the field; this is so important, that Ferris will be pulled off the Rickshaw mission in China.

As before, Quiller shuns the use of any gun. He is adept at unarmed combat, delivering death when his life is threatened or the mission is at risk of collapsing.

All the style of the previous novels is here displayed at the hands of a 75-year-old thriller writer at the top of his game: the usual spare prose, the stream-of-consciousness writing, the extensive scene of hand-to-hand combat (subsequently employed by Lee Child, among others), and his continual argument with his pain-averse conscience, often referring to himself as ‘the little ferret’.

‘It was eight days since Ferris had been ordered out of the field and by now the lights would be switched off over the board, either that or a new mission would already be set up there with data coming in from the director in Algeria or Baghdad or Beijing, while Mr Croder shut himself up in his tempered-steel shell to consider whether or not to resign, how much guilt to feel for the little ferret he’d left running in circles through the snow, or whether he could hold out a spider’s-thread hope for an eleventh-hour last-ditch breakthrough for the mission, knowing as he did the blind tenacity of said ferret when the jaws of adversity gaped from the shadows of the labyrinth’ (p232).

The breathless climax in wintry Moscow is fitting, another Hall-mark fast-paced ending.

‘That’s it.’ So the author finished his last book. There’s a poignant four-page Afterword contribution by Jean-Pierre Trevor, his son.

Editorial notes:

Combat

In two places Hall mentions hitting the nose with force, driving the bone into the brain and causing instant death. However, when researching my recent  Leon Cazador novel No Prisoners, I learned that this is probably not so: ‘Next instant, Leon deployed the ninja Fudo-ken, the clenched fist slamming full into the man’s nose, shattering the bone structure. While the bone and cartilage probably wouldn’t penetrate his perverted brain, the blow would undoubtedly cause subdural hematoma which was bound to deny the brain adequate blood flow. As a result, a biochemical cascade was in all likelihood happening right now as Leon dispassionately watched. Brain cell death was imminent. No great loss to humanity.’

Chapter titles

The single-word chapter headings were not always evident. In The Quiller Memorandum of the 23 chapters only 12 are single words; interestingly Ch3 is ‘Snow’ and in Balalaika Ch1 is ‘Snow’.

His fourth Quiller (The Warsaw Document) is the first with the consistent use of single-word chapter headings. There is only one other exception, in Quiller’s Run, with 11 of 32 being two-word titles, one of them being ‘Pink Panties’!

Certainly, inevitably, as mentioned already, some chapter headings will be repeated, not least ‘Midnight’.

Why mention this? For my Tana Standish psychic spy novels I adopted Adam Hall’s penchant for single-word chapter titles (Mission: Prague, Mission: Tehran, and Mission: Khyber). In contrast, my Leon Cazador novels have two-word chapter headings (Rogue Prey, No Prisoners, and Organ Symphony).

See also: WRITEALOT: Book review - Quiller: A profile and Bury Him Among Kings (nik-writealot.blogspot.com)

ABSOLUTE HONOUR - Book review

 

C.C. Humphries’ third Jack Absolute novel, Absolute Honour, was published as a hardback and a paperback in 2006. To date, sadly, it is the last book of his adventures.

It’s April 1761 and Jack is in Rhode Island, about to board ship for England. He is instrumental in rescuing an Irish Grenadier, Red Hugh McClune from a mob, saving his life. Hugh is a rumbustious fellow, larger than life and seems a firm friend.  The voyage is not uneventful, whether its mutiny and attacks by the French to enliven their days.

Finally, ending up in Bath, Jack is smitten by Hugh’s beautiful cousin, Laetitia. Complications arise, however, part farce, part suspense, that get in the way of true love. In due course Jack finds himself employed as a spy in Rome, to infiltrate the Jacobites living and plotting there. But it doesn’t end here, for he is soon fighting the Spanish in the storming of Valencia de Alcántara…

There’s plenty of sailing ship lore, sword-fights, footpads, ambushes and betrayal to keep the pages turning. Readers of C.S. Forester and Bernard Cornwell will certainly appreciate these books.

A triumph and a worthy successor to Jack’s previous two outings.

See also WRITEALOT: THE BLOODING OF JACK ABSOLUTE - Book review (nik-writealot.blogspot.com)

and:

WRITEALOT: FFB - Jack Absolute - a new historical hero (nik-writealot.blogspot.com)

MURDER ON TYNESIDE - Book review

 

Murder on Tyneside is the first in the Agnes Lockwood mystery series by Eileen Thornton; published in 2016. The fourth has recently been released.

Agnes Lockwood, 55, recently widowed from husband Jim almost a year ago, decided to visit the north east and the place of her birth. Her adult life had been hectic and well-travelled and this was the first opportunity she had to visit. While staying at a modern new hotel on the Tyne Quayside, she overheard a couple arguing about some missing jewellery. She thinks nothing of it – until the theft is reported.

A detective chief inspector arrives to head the investigation: Alan Johnson. It transpires that he recognises her from their shared childhood, when she’d gone under the surname Harrison. This instant rapport grows as the investigation ensues; there is another jewellery theft at the hotel. And then, on returning from an evening meal at a nearby restaurant, Agnes and Alan encounter a dead body in the gutter!

The enquiries have transformed into a murder investigation now. And as Agnes was a witness to the body’s discovery, she inveigles her way into the case, despite Alan’s misgivings. ‘But since meeting Agnes, his mind hadn’t been focused on the job. He was enjoying their friendship – perhaps he was enjoying it a little more than he should.’ (p71). Alan’s sergeant , Andrews, is against Agnes’s involvement, and yet he grudgingly admits that her contributions regarding theories about the case are valid, and indeed valued.

As with the majority of amateur sleuth stories, getting the amateur seriously involved in the investigation is quite unrealistic. Yet for decades it has been a common feature of books, TV and movies; so, suspend disbelief and enjoy the tale. Agnes has a habit of not letting Alan get a word in; she argues, ‘I know you aren’t supposed to discuss a crime, case, investigation or whatever it is you want to call it with a member of the public. But I’m not any old member of the public. I was there with you when the body was found!’ (p59).

The problem is that the more that Agnes interferes, the more danger she appears to be in…

Agnes is a fine creation: plucky, crafty, stubborn, inquisitive and meddling while being endearing. I suspect that Alan and Agnes will become an unofficial team for subsequent outings. An interesting cosy mystery with more than a few potential suspects.

Agnes Lockwood has already accrued a devoted readership in the hundreds. The other three books in the series so far are: Death on Tyneside, Vengeance on Tyneside, and A Mystery on Tyneside.

Editorial comment:

Writers are told not to use character names beginning with the same letter; it might confuse the reader. It rarely does, though it depends on the names chosen. Here, we have Agnes, Alan, Alice, Andrews, April, Anderson and Achmed.  One way round this is to build a character list; I always do this – but even I slip up some of the time. In The Magnificent Mendozas I had three characters with names beginning with ‘J’ – granted, they were all Mexican, but that’s no excuse…