To The Last Page

Michèle Forbes' debut novel Ghost Moth was a intriguing work that had its own unique setting and character, dealing with family bonds in Belfast in the post-war years, with a side look at art and entertainment. What made the work even more exceptional was the ability of the author to find some poetic resonance that was able to touch on the more abstract and intangible ideas and sentiments. It's wonderful then to see the author's second novel Edith & Oliver is even more ambitious in its historical period detail and character study of the individuals within a family unit, and the writing even more impressive in how it probes even more deeply into some very dark corners of the mind. What is interesting about the characters of Oliver Fleck and Edith Foster - initially at least - is that they are both in the entertainment industry; Oliver and illusionist, Edith an accompanist on the piano. Both are from Northern Ireland, but the nature of their career means that they are c...

It's probably best to start with a look at the title of Jaroslav Kalfař's debut novel in order to begin to describe what it is and what it isn't. The Spaceman of Bohemia  is science-fiction, but it's also not strictly science-fiction. Oh, it's set in the near-future, there's definitely a spaceman and there is even an alien life-form, so the 'Spaceman' part of the title is certainly SF in how the book explores the technical issues and psychological implications of space travel, but the 'Bohemia' part of the title is even more important. It qualifies and alters where those expectations given in the title might lead you, which inevitably is somewhere more down to earth. In the spring of 2018, Czech astronaut Jakub Procházka sets off on a solo flight on the space shuttle JanHus1. He's on a manned mission to investigate the properties of the dust cloud of a new asteroid called Chopra that has just entered the galaxy. It could pose a threat to huma...

There are some familiar aspects to the covert military operation in Gerald Seymour's latest novel Jericho's War , but that's to be expected from an author who not only knows the established pattern and procedure of such operations, but also demonstrates a remarkable insight into the lives and motivations of the people involved in them. The author's finger on the pulse of world affairs takes a team to a village near Sana'a in the Yemen this time, but aside from the location things really don't change. The potential for things to wrong is one of those constants, with the only variable being the extent to which events slip out of control. Gerald Seymour considers the imponderables. Perhaps the biggest imponderable is the whole nature of the operation itself. A unit of three has been assembled to go into Yemen and eliminate an individual who is deemed to be a serious threat to security. It's strictly old-school, feet on the ground, cloak-and dagger, action man h...

John Fairfax previously worked as a barrister, and reading Summary Justice , the author's first Benson and De Vere novel, you can't half tell. It's a courtroom drama that knows its legal procedure and case history, as well as being well up to date with current techniques and new innovations being made into criminal investigation. As a barrister you would also expect the author to be convincing when it comes to people; understanding what makes them tick, what their motivations and behaviour is likely to be, and how capable they are of committing a crime. Unfortunately, the jury is still out on that one. That might not matter so much if Summary Justice  can begin its series with a thrilling case that introduces an unlikely criminal case team that will take on and win what seems to be impossible cases. It certainly starts out that way at least with its ambiguous characterisation of William Benson. Benson has served 11 years for murder, a murder evidently that he maintains he d...