A House of Ghosts by W C Ryan

review by Maryom


It's Christmas 1917, and guests are gathering at Blackwater Abbey, the island home of Lord and Lady Highmount. This isn't a normal festive gathering though - on the longest night of the year, while the war continues to rage in France, a seance is to be held under the supervision of Madame Feda and Count Orlov, two celebrated mediums, to contact the Highmounts' two sons, both killed in the conflict, and possibly another young man - Arthur Cartwright, who's been posted as 'missing', but is believed to also have died. The party therefore includes his parents, and sister Kate, long-time friends of the Highmounts, but Kate has a second secret reason to be there.

Lord Highmount is an important arms manufacturer, and some of his weapon designs have been found in enemy hands, so Sir Mansfield Smith-Cumming, head of the government department in which Kate works, is sending along an undercover operative, Robert Donovan, to track down who is leaking such valuable information, and Kate with her insider knowledge of the house and its inhabitants is to help him where ever possible.


 I found A House of Ghosts to be a rather odd book - not so much it itself, as the way it's promoted - as I'd expected something ghostly and spooky, and didn't really find it to be. There ARE ghosts, plenty of them - people who've lived and worked at Blackwater Abbey in the past, men who've died in trenches of the Somme  - but Kate and the other medium who can see them treat them in so matter a fact way that I didn't find them scary, even when speaking through the mediums.


On the other hand it's an excellent blend of 'country house' and 'spy' thriller. The setting is pure Agatha Christie - guests arriving at an old brooding house, finding themselves cut off from the world, and help should it be needed (you can bet it will!), as a wild winter storm rages outside. And then someone starts to attack the guests one by one ...
It's gripping and tense, but just not spooky in my opinion.


And if you like a bit of romantic interest along with the sleuthing, there are signs of a growing attraction between Donovan and Kate, an aspect that I feel may be further explored in future stories - for I'm certain we haven't seen the last of this pair.

Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Zaffre
Genre - adult, spy thriller, country house mystery

Exile by James Swallow

Review by The Mole

After Nomad Marc Dane is persona non-grata in everyone's organisation but someone has to take him and he's given a dead-end, almost clerical role, in the International Atomic Energy Agency where his boss hopes he'll put the hours in, keep his head down and keep out of everyone's hair. Readers of Nomad will know that's not very likely to happen.

Picking up a lead that he is told is a dead end and a waste of time he starts to track what he believes is a suitcase nuclear bomb. But while the lead seems hot to him no-one else is prepared to take him seriously apart from his only friend in the agency who he ends up putting in the hospital and finding himself totally alone in pursuit of his case - and he can't do it alone.

While mostly fast paced I did find with Exile (unlike Nomad) that there were times when words seemed to be included that increased the page count but did not enhance the story. That is to say, at times the plot slowed for seemingly no real good reason. That said, the publishers liken Dane to Jason Bourne and that's not a bad comparison except I don't recollect Bourne having a right hand man like Lucy Keyes. Keyes is not insignificant in the plot and the book would be a lot poorer without her. Like Jason Bourne, you know where the plot is going to go and where it's going to end up and the only surprises come in getting from A to B. But it's fun on the journey and escapism rules the book.

As far as action thriller writers go, Swallow is up there with the best of them so keep an eye out because the last chapter tells us there will be more to come.

Publisher: Zaffre
Genre: Adult Action Thriller

Nomad by James Swallow

Review by The Mole

Marc Dane is a man with a dark past and is working with MI6 on covert activities within the comfort of the support vehicle behind the lines. He is part of the Nomad team, as is his girlfriend Sam, when everything goes pear shaped and he finds himself of the run from MI6. But others also want him dead except a guardian angel who wants him kept alive - but Marc is unaware of this angel.

If you want an action thriller without flaws then you are going to be very hard pressed to find one - ever. But Nomad is as close as they come and it takes you away from your daily routine to an action packed, gory, blood spattered world that won't creep you out. I know because I am the king of squeamish.

The moment you meet Marc for the first time you know that; here is the hero, this guy will still be with us on page 487 and that he won't hurt a fly if he doesn't have to. It sounds a bit sickly sweet, but truly it works very well.

It keeps you on the edge of your seat. No, it doesn't because you KNOW Marc will survive but you still won't put the book down while the action unfolds. And it starts unfolding on page 1 and doesn't finish unfolding on the last page - Pass the sequel.

A great book that should offend no-one and entertain any reader who likes an action thriller.

Publisher: Zaffre
Genre: Adult Action Thriller

The Floating Theatre by Martha Conway

Review by The Mole

When the steamship that May Bedloe is on explodes she finds herself on the banks of the Ohio with only the clothes she is wearing. Separated from Comfort, her cousin she was travelling with, she looks for some way to carry on. She joins the Floating Theatre as a seamstress, front of house, pianist, stage manager, show promotions, ticket maker and seller, in fact anything that is not actually on stage.

Then enter Mrs Howard, to who she owes money, to blackmail her into helping in the underground railroad.

When I saw this book I was very curious... I reviewed "O Freedom" a while ago, which is a book for younger readers, that follows a family along the underground railroad. Then "The Underground Railroad" by Colson Whitehead won the Pulitzer Prize For Fiction (a book I haven't read) so another book touching on the same topic intrigued me.

The plot follows the theatre, which drifts down the river that marks the border between north and south, and is towed back up the river at end of season. We are introduced to theatre life in this cramped environment as well as a little of lives along the river and the coming of coal mining to the area - the fuel of the steamships.

May is a character that cannot lie - she corrects the smallest of errors in speech - so the theatre is an odd place to find her - stories and plays are "lies" after all. I found her a fascinating character to follow and how she coped with the pressures of blackmail that forced her to more than lie, but to break the law.

The story also covered an aspect of the railroad that I didn't know existed.

All in all an intriguing story told very well that left me with an idea what life on the Ohio at that time may have been like.

Genre - Adult historical fiction
Publisher - Zaffre Publishing