Leave the Remains

Sounds like the title of a murder mystery, perhaps… 

As the EU Referendum approaches the closing stages (at long last!) and the hyperbole, scaremongering, idiocy, outright lies, dodgy statistics, self-serving expert advice and all the rest is put away (hopefully never to see the light of day again), what’s it all about, Alfie?

What, indeed. What seems to have been lost in the argument is that the once-named Common Market has grown and grown into the European Union, a dictatorial behemoth administered by unelected individuals paid for by the taxes from the member states’ workforce. They’re profligate with the money, unaccountable, and blatantly arrogant about any edict they wish to foist onto the collective membership (the people who pay their high salaries).

What’s it all about, Alfie?

The EU isn’t a democracy, it’s a bureaucracy, wasting tax-payers’ money on vanity projects to justify their well-paid existence.

What's it all about?

The vote isn't about 'leaving Europe' - it's about leaving the European Union. We're part of the European continent and always will be, communing, sharing, trading; we're also part of the wider world, too.

What do the UK papers say?

Leave                                       Remain

The Sun                                   The Guardian

The Daily Telegraph                The Observer

The Sunday Telegraph            The Independent

The Sunday Times                  The Mail on Sunday

The Daily Express                   The Times

                                                The Daily Mirror

                                                The Financial Times

Undeclared, last time I checked:

The Daily Mail

The Daily Star

The Morning Star  

There are powerful, well-considered arguments to be read, indeed, for both sides.

One argument goes that if the UK stays in, we can effect change.

That doesn’t seem to work. Reports suggest that of the seventy (!) changes the UK has voted for, the EU voted against. The arrogant bureaucrats don’t or won’t listen; they know best. If they had listened, if they had really wanted the UK to ‘remain’, maybe they should have tried harder when Mr Cameron went round with his begging bowl.

If the UK remains, expect to be sent to the ‘naughty step’. 

And that old-fashioned title, ‘Great Britain’ will be removed, since the coinage is tarnished. And it will be self-inflicted – much as it was shamefully removed from British Telecom and British Petroleum and British Home Stores (oh, certain rich individuals took more than ‘British’ from BHS, didn’t they? Their workers’ pensions!) Sorry, got sidetracked there...

One thing we can be sure of: exciting times lie ahead, whether we want the ‘excitement’ or not.

'If Britain must choose between Europe and the open sea, she must always choose the open sea.' 
- Winston Churchill.

Well, the Common Market seemed like a good idea at the time...

Book review - Red Sparrow

The Cold War isn’t dead and buried, it’s still with us, very much so, if Jason Matthews’ debut thriller Red Sparrow (2013) is to be believed. And since Matthews is a retired Operations Executive of the CIA, the tradecraft and information letter-drops suggest authenticity. Mr Putin may even have avidly read a translation, particularly as he figures in the story. As an ops officer observed, Putin’s intent on putting together USSR Mk 2, and he will do it by any means possible, probably creating instability in the West and Europe in particular. There’s a deep psychological need to create a new, feared Russian Empire.

We first meet CIA agent Nate Nash in Moscow, clandestinely meeting with his asset, code-named MARBLE. The Russians are aware that a mole exists, but have no clue - so far. The meeting seems to go as normal, then mere chance thrusts them both into danger. The manhunt is on – and Nash is identified by the Russians as a foreign agent. The fact that he evaded the hunters is good news, but the bad news is that his asset, a major general in the SVR, the successor to the KGB’s First Chief Directorate, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, is at risk if Nash arranges to handle him further.

At about the same time, Dominika is a new member of the SVR, her recruitment engineered by her uncle, Vanya Egorov. Her career leads her to the Sparrow school, where she learns the techniques of seduction, then suborning targets by blackmail. Dominika’s background is veined with tragedy, her parents’ and her aspirations smothered by the system. Strangely, she is able to view coloured auras around people’s heads, signifying their moods, but keeps this arcane knowledge to herself. It comes in handy when dealing with conspirators, and even her uncle. Considering the controversial lineage of the Kirlian imagery of the 1960s-1970s, this is not too far-fetched, perhaps, noting that my spy heroine happens to be psychic!

Certainly, Dominika is depicted as a strong, sympathetic and convincing character.

Nash is redirected to Helsinki. His boss is Forsyth, a no-nonsense kind of guy, aided by Gable, a quick-talking, apparently glib yet cunning agent, very much in the mould of Tom Arnold’s character Albert Gibson in True Lies, providing light relief.

Before long, Dominika is tasked with going to Finland to ferret out any clues to the mole suspected to exist in the SVR. A fascinating cat-and-mouse affair begins between the attractive pair, each planning to recruit the other.

Disaster strikes and almost at the point where Nate and Dominika become lovers, they are brutally parted.

Dwelling in the shadows is Sergey Matorin, a ‘mechanic’, an executioner of the Russian secret service. This is a dark, unpleasant creation, his deadly cruelty given release in Afghanistan.

Matthews has imbued the story with authentic settings and knowledge about the Russian system and psyche. There are tense, suspenseful moments, and a few brutal interludes, and throughout there’s the constant stench of betrayal hovering. Even though it has 546 pages, it’s a fast read, because you become involved with the characters and want to know how their stories are resolved.

If you like espionage books, then Red Sparrow should greatly satisfy.

Soon, I expect to be reading the sequel Palace of Treason.

Footnote: I cannot fathom why he has inserted recipes at the end of each chapter, admittedly relevant to the food eaten in that chapter. I got to the point where I stopped reading them as they affected the narrative flow!

'Novel works on two levels...'

Many thanks to LesleyAnn for her review of Sudden Vengeance, a vigilante crime thriller which can be regarded as a 'guilty pleasure'...

Here's her review, to be found on Amazon.COM:

'When trust in the forces of law and order break down, when child molesters, rapists, thieves and murderers go uncaught or virtually unpunished then something’s got to give. Reading this tale of a righteous vigilante on the loose in the crime-ridden English town of Alverbank, I was reminded of a possibly apocryphal tale doing the rounds when the first ‘Death Wish’ movie was screened. The time was 1974 and New York a dangerous place to live. Charles Bronson was cast as a mild-mannered man whose family was devastated as the result of a violent home invasion. So he buys a gun… The story goes that whenever the film was shown in New York, every time Bronson blew some punks away, the audience stood up and cheered.

'A recent film ‘Harry Brown’ had elderly ex-soldier Michael Caine reaping revenge for the murder of his friend by a teenaged gang on his North London housing estate.

'And what with Marvel Comic heroes going back to the 1930s, stories of avenging angels are nothing new. Here, however, Morton’s writerly viewpoint offers a twist in the tale because the reader doesn’t know the identity of this masked avenger - The Black Knight – until the end. Several highly plausible possibilities are thrown into the frame while the police warn, the villains quake and the local press praise.

'This novel works on two levels, firstly as a crime mystery where readers become the detective and secondly by forcing each reader to question their own take on the morality or lack thereof of The Black Knight. In other words, would you stand and cheer like those folks in 1974 New York?'

Thank you, LesleyAnn!

 Available from your Amazon region here

I'm back

I'm back. Thanks for bearing with me during my absence from blogging!

I'm getting deeply involved in my third Tana Standish psychic spy novel right now, set mainly in Afghanistan in 1979/1980. The significance being the Russian invasion. However, I'm hoping to blog regularly even so.

Visitors...

As we have visitors from the Old Country, blogging will be somewhat curtailed for the next week or so... Back to normal thereafter.

Please continue to browse earlier blogs!

A treasure of a book

Odd Shoes and Medals is the memoir of the late Ron Hudson. It was pleasing to read this 4-star review: 

A most brilliant book. I was able to relate to most of this account, not only because I knew Ron but because I was in the Fleet Air Arm during the same time Ron was.

Most ex-servicemen will be able to follow this with some kinship especially those born around early 1940s and joining the mob when 17.

There is a lot of Ron's humour brought out; you sometimes have to read between the lines but it really is a great read, whether you were in the mob or not.

I treasure this book now, as sadly Ron is no longer with us, but anyone who knew him would know what a great story teller he was.

[I'd like to think Ron would like the review too!]

 Amazon K - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Odd-Shoes-Medals-Ronald-Hudson/dp/1484172140/ref=sr_1_20?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1464869242&sr=1-20&keywords=nik+morton

Odd Shoes and Medals Ronald Hudson Non-fiction from Manatee Books.
 “War broke out when I was eight. My short pants had holes in the backside, which was doubly embarrassing because I didn’t have any underwear and anyone could see my bum. So I used to walk sideways to school if any other kids or grown-ups came by. Miss Grafton, the teacher, let me stay at my desk during playtime to avoid embarrassing exposure. She liked me a lot and I used to take love letters for her to an American soldier. “

These reminiscences cover a span of over seventy years and will jog several memories and remind people that the so-called poverty of present times is nothing compared to the 1940s and 1950s. Young Ron and his sister Audrey were shunted from one home to another, in excess of a dozen, ‘fostered’ by ‘aunts’ and ‘uncles’, and indeed for many years the pair of them didn’t know where the other sibling lived! His absentee father barely gave him a thought – though he did present him with ill-fitting clogs, once…

Occasionally, he was shown kindness and, despite moments of great despair, he carried on and eventually joined the Royal Navy. Ironically, for the first time he found a place he could call his home: the navy. He travelled the world, saw the sights, and ‘learned a trade’. When he was demobbed prematurely by politicians, he embarked on a career in British Gas, and has a few amusing tales to tell about (nameless) customers! He set up his own business and became the oldest registered gas fitter in the country, until he retired at age eighty.

As told to Nik Morton 

[Ron died 11 April, 2015, aged 84]
See http://nik-writealot.blogspot.com.es/2015/04/rip-ron-hudson.html

Writing – analysing a writer’s work-1

Many years ago, when I embarked on writing fiction, I studied a good number of novels in an attempt to see how they worked – paragraph structure, dialogue, scene changes, pace, characterisation, etc. It’s a useful exercise for beginners.

I’m going to post the occasional analysis in this blog, though it’s a little invidious, analysing a writer with only one sample of his (or her) work, but here goes.

The Writer: Peter Cheyney

The Work: It Couldn’t Matter Less, 1941 (reviewed in my blog here)

In his day, Cheyney was very popular indeed, his books selling two million a year, and towards the end of his life even five million. He adopted a spare, sometimes cynical yet humorous style, and employed a secretary to write down his dictation, very much in the manner of Barbara Cartland.

Naturally, tastes have changed since Cheney was famous. Yet fans of crime fiction will still derive enjoyment from his tales that involved hard-bitten detectives and beautiful dames, decidedly influenced by the American school of crime writers.

Nowadays, a few of the things we look out for in editing clearly didn’t apply then. Notably, word-repetition on the same page, paragraph or even sentence. And people ‘begin to walk’, ‘began to think’… all the time, it seems.

The norm was for fresh speech always to begin on a new line/new paragraph. This helps to fill the pages, though it can become stilted. For example:

            Callaghan went to the sideboard and poured out some bourbon. He came back with the glass in his hand. He said:

            ‘I’d like to hear all about it. I’m very interested.’

            She threw him a quick glance. She said:

            ‘I’m not quite certain as to whether you’re taking me absolutely seriously…’

            She drank some champagne. She said:

            ‘…’ and so on.

Of course it’s out of context; we’re watching a black and white movie and Cheyney has to move the characters in the set. 

            Even so, the phrase ‘in his hand’ is doubtless superfluous – where else would he hold the glass?

            Can a glance be anything but quick?

            These are minor quibbles.

            Throughout, even when there are only two individuals in the scene, there’s an over-emphasis on ‘he said’/’she said’, when it should be obvious who is speaking.

            Now, the action can be linked to the speech, dropping the ‘she said’, thus: She threw him a sharp glance. ‘I’m not quite certain as to whether you’re taking me absolutely seriously…’

            To the modern editing eye, these are weaknesses in style. Yet at the time, they doubtless comprised ‘the style’ for the period. Cheyney invariably produced two books a year for an eager readership that was more interested in story than style. Quite right, too, and let us not forget it: the story is the thing.

            As this is the fourth in the Slim Callaghan series of novels, Callaghan reminiscences about the other women in his life from previous cases – which is a neat touch, showing that his adventures are linear and not divorced from his reality, unlike some adventurers who never change or reflect on past cases.

            One of the attractions of Cheyney’s writing is doubtless his wit. After a heavy bout of drinking that necessitates him taking a couple of aspirin tablets, he goes off whistling a tune, ‘It Was Good While It Lasted.’ Like James Bond after him, Callaghan was a prodigious drinker, imbibing liquor day and night, at all hours, and driving a Jaguar as well. (The roads were less cluttered then.)

‘Callaghan came to the conclusion that he was drinking too much whisky. He ordered a large Bacardi.’ (p42)

            And Callaghan’s a chain smoker, as well. (Publishers risk the ire of do-gooders – those folk who want to rewrite history to conform to their modern prejudices - if they re-publish these books in an unexpurgated edition! I jest: many of his books are available as e-books, and some paperbacks can be had for reasonable prices.)

            Callaghan turned and flicked his cigarette into the fireplace. He said:

            ‘I always mean it. When I kiss a woman I always mean it like hell. Let me show you…’

            He showed her. [End of chapter 7]

            No sex is depicted, though suggested, and there’s plenty of flirting and seduction.

            Callaghan’s sidekick is a Yank called Nikolls, and he’s always relating episodes from his past, usually involving a woman:

‘She’s the sorta dame who falls for every guy who makes a pass at her. She oughta be called Dandruff. She’s always fallin’ on some guy’s collar.’ Another conquest from Chicago: ‘She was sorta fond of love. In fact I christened that dame Muscles because she was in every guy’s arms…’

           

            Private detectives like Callaghan have a code, despite the sleaze they swim in. ‘People like Lionel are little people. They love in a small way and hate in a little way. Most murderers are mean.’ (p151)

            Then more than now, I suspect, people were keen on catchphrases, and Cheyney was no exception, attempting to create one for the book title:

            Gringall cocked an eyebrow.

            ‘That’s a new one,’ he said. ‘I never heard that one before… “It Couldn’t Matter Less”… But then you know all the catchphrases.’ (p106)

            And he used this:

            ‘Thank you for nothing,’ said Callaghan. ‘I’ll be seeing you.’ (p232)

            Which reminds me of the phrase ‘Be seeing you’ employed often in The Prisoner original TV series. ‘I’ll be seeing you’ was an old phrase by the time of this book, being a song title for the Broadway musical Right This Way, 1938.

Summary

You read his books for the story, the wit and the period touches.

I’d be tempted to read another Cheyney novel, maybe one of his ‘Dark’ series of espionage novels (1942-1950).

Cheyney died in 1951, aged 55.

I recommend viewing the dedicated website for more information, and for old Cheyney book cover art: http://www.petercheyney.co.uk/index.html

Book review - Truth Lies Buried

Truth Lies Buried by Lesley Welsh is published on 7 June. I was fortunate to read an advance review copy.

First off, I like the clever title, juxtaposing Truth and Lies. The addition of Buried is made very clear at the outset when a local gangster is interred in a shallow grave, thanks to Sam Riley, ex-Army, who’s doing it for a very potent reason. We’re not privy to the fact that Sam  is a woman until page 25, but I don’t think this can be a spoiler as the cover features a woman: Samantha wants to spend the rest of her life with the deceased’s wife, Monica. Unfortunately, Monica also has a son, Brando – ‘Reservoir Pup’, Sam calls him: ‘just eleven years old and already a greedy, heartless little tosser.’

By now you should have a very strong flavour of the tone, the dry and dark humour of the book. To be savoured.

There are some great lines dropped in the narrative, too many to list here, but here are a few: ‘Carver’s voice always threw me, that high-pitched squeak emanating from his bulky body. Years before, a bullet in the throat had left him talking like a mouse on helium.’ Some more: ‘The Gangster, His Wife and The Lesbian.’ (p36); ‘…your knight in shining Armani,’ (p47); and ‘They say Orientals are inscrutable but they’ve got nothing on lawyers.’ (p80) Acute observation is evident, and couched in fine prose, for example: ‘Rubbish flew about like tattered birds…’ (p225)

Sure, there are clichés, but this is a first person narrative so Sam would use them, even ‘my blood ran cold’ – because that’s how most people feel and think in a threatening situation.

Throughout, Welsh captures Sam’s voice to perfection, her emotions and strength of character, notably when she undergoes a transformation as she gets to know Brando, a great wise yet vulnerable character, eleven going on thirty. A number of chapters are third-person, and these enable the reader to get into the minds and under the skin of other characters, particularly the despicable Monica. Lenka is a fine surprise, too! As Sam says, ‘She really was something else.’ (p315)

To relate the storyline in any detail would be to spoil the discoveries along the way. For there’s a dark incident in Sam’s past that has poignant bearing on her present situation. Twists and turns in the plot kept me flipping the pages, whether that’s the good suspense, the cat-and-mouse with the DI, the confrontations with the other gangland members out to carve up Monica’s inheritance. There are many instances where the tension is raised in fraught moments. Sam’s encounter with a local hood on the threshold of the house is gauged just right.

Deaths lead to more deaths, and it all starts spinning out of control among the godless… The local gangsters have to contend with Chinese triads and Russian mafia, as well. I found the action scenes to be well-choreographed, tense and believable.

Sam is a rounded character, and opinionated, too, which is good; for example, her view of the PC crowd: ‘I loathe these people, the ones who have implanted these admonitory words in our brains. What kind of screwed-up Orwellian nightmare are we living in when a simple act of human kindness comes with cautionary, defensive and even reproachful strings attached?’ (p129)

Irony, pathos, it’s all here, and Welsh is superb on relationships – the good and the bad.  ‘Maybe we are all haunted in one way or another. But some of us have more persistent ghosts.’ (p248)

I’d offer one caveat: if you’re averse to raw language, then don’t read gangster novels. Truth Lies Buried contains quite a lot of swearing; this is about raw gangster environment, after all, but it never came across as gratuitous, but character- and situation-driven. And of all the gangsters we meet, perhaps Monica the Moll is decidedly the worst!

As hinted at already, despite the grimness of gangland violence and threat, there’s plenty of humour, black and light. ‘He was straight from the Ugly Agency. Looking for an interesting character for a new film are you, Mr Spielberg? Want to frighten the living daylights out of the kiddies, do you? Then I know just the man for the part.’ (p314)

There are dark moments, since this is the underbelly of what passes for the human condition: ‘… an uneasy feeling settled on her shoulders like a dark shroud and she couldn’t shake it off.’ (p337) We sense that as we read on, wanting Sam to overcome the many obstacles in her path.

Welsh has created an intriguing and likeable heroine in Sam. ‘…Some people have clean hands but dirty soul. You have dirty hands but clean soul, I think.’ – (p382) It would be a shame if we were not to meet her again.

A brilliant novel that deserves to do well, giving the likes of Martina Cole a run for her ill-gotten gains.

[A shorter review will appear on Amazon et al...]

Book review - In Honour Bound

Gerald Seymour writes about contemporary issues and this one is no exception, being published in 1984 at the height of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.This version is 'tenth impression with a new cover, 1990'.

SAS Captain Barney Crispin is meant to train Afghans to deploy Redeye rockets against a Soviet killer Mi-24 helicopter, with the intention of bringing back to the UK secret parts of the crippled craft.  Sadly, their mission goes catastrophically wrong and the guerrillas are killed. Driven by guilt and bloody-mindedness, Barney determines to disobey orders and infiltrate Afghanistan and do the job himself – with the aid of Gul Bahdur, a teenage Afghan boy as guide, and a couple of donkeys. This foray into danger is well told, so we can feel the privations suffered by Barney – and the Afghans he meets.

In parallel with his mission is the dilemma of the Soviet commander in charge of the Mi-24s, Major Pyotr Medev, who is tasked with clearing out the Afghan villages without losing any craft. So far, he’s managed this (and thousands of refugees in Iran and Pakistan attest to it): until one of his aircraft is shot out of the sky…

Another protagonist is Italian nurse Mia Fiori who spends her leave helping the guerrillas in the Panjshir Valley. Unfortunately, this time around she is baulked before she can get there…

Lastly, there’s disenchanted ex-sergeant Schumack, a soldier of fortune who is intent on fighting for the Afghan cause until he dies.

Their paths will cross and they will be in great danger. Pressure pushes Barney to use his Redeye missiles to down a helicopter and retrieve the vital parts before the snows block off half the country. He only has eight missiles. He is begrudgingly accepted by the Afghan fighters, though he has to walk a knife-edge between total rejection and death at their hands.  It’s a battle of wills and wits, leading to a tense showdown.

Research and detail piled on detail lend credence to the story. We feel we were there, in the Soviet airbase at Begram, the dangerous streets of Kabul, the treacherous mountains and passes of Afghanistan.

Seymour never disappoints, though I sometimes feel he unfairly condemns his heroes and heroines in the final stages. I won’t say what happens to the hero of this one; it’s worth reading to find out!