Category: Historical Fiction

The Queen’s Captain by Peter Watt

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Australian, Historical Fiction, LGBT+12 Comments

The Queen's Captain Cover

Publisher: Macmillan (Trade Paperback – 10 November 2020)

Series: Colonial series – Book Three

Length: 358 pages

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Amazon

One of Australia’s top historical fiction authors, Peter Watt, wraps up his ultra-exciting Colonial series with the third and final novel, The Queen’s Captain.

Watt is a fantastic Australian author who has written a huge collection of amazing historical fiction novels, most of which are set in Australia or feature Australian characters.  I have been a fan of Watt’s books for several years now and I have been particularly enjoying his current body of work, the Colonial series.  The Colonial books, which started back in 2018 with The Queen’s Colonial, follow the adventures of Ian Steele, a colonial blacksmith who manages to enlist as an officer in the British army under the name Captain Samuel Forbes, taking the identity of a friend who wished to sit out his military service.  While the real Samuel leaves to go to America, Ian fights in his place for a period of 10 years, which will allow Samuel to claim a substantial inheritance from his ruthless family.  This has so far been a really fun series, and I enjoyed reading The Queen’s Colonial and The Queen’s Tiger.  I have been looking forward to reading this third novel in the series for some time now and I was very excited when I received my copy, especially because the back cover quoted my Canberra Weekly review of The Queen’s Tiger.  I ended up having an awesome time reading this book, and it proved to be another fast-paced and compelling read.

In October 1863, Ian Steele is still fighting for the British crown as Captain Samuel Forbes, known to his men as the Queen’s Colonial.  After helping to put down the Indian Mutiny, Samuel and his comrades, including his long-time friend Sergeant Major Conan Curry, are fighting the Pashtun in the treacherous mountain passes on the north-western frontier of India.  With only a few months left until the 10-year deal with the real Samuel Forbes concludes, Ian is determined to survive so he can claim his reward and finally settle down.  However, with his typical bad luck, he finds himself drawn into several high-profile missions, including a dangerous operation to eliminate a murderous rebel army camped in the jungle.

As Ian fights for Queen and country, his friends are engaged in their own adventures.  In America, the real Samuel Forbes has followed the man he loves into battle, become a lieutenant in the Union army to fight the Confederates.  Back in London, Ella, the women Ian loves, has entered into an unhappy marriage to Russian Count Nikolai Kasatkin.  Determined to have one piece of happiness, Ella attempts to reclaim the son she had with Ian, but the jealous Nikolai will do the unthinkable to spite her.  At the same time, Samuel’s ruthless older brother, Charles Forbes, continues his relentless bid for power and money, while still determined to prove that the Samuel serving in the British army is an imposter.

All of this will come to a head down in the colonies in 1864.  As Ian is transferred to New Zealand to provide advice to the soldiers fighting against the determined Maori, he will come face to face with an old enemy, and the final chapters of his story will be told.  Friends will die, people will be changed in unexpected ways and the Queen’s Colonial will fight his last battle.  How will the story end?

The Queen’s Captain was another excellent novel from Watt, who has produced an exciting and fascinating conclusion to his latest series.  Like the rest of the books in the Colonial series, The Queen’s Captain is an extremely fast-paced story told from a series of different character perspectives around the world.  The book is broken up into two distinctive parts (although the second part only contains the last 100 pages) and features a number of compelling action and intrigue orientated storylines.  This is an extremely easy novel to get into, even for those readers who have not previously enjoyed the Colonial series, and I was able to finish it off in a short period of time as I got caught up in the various battles and double-crosses.  Watt really took this final entry in his series in some interesting directions, and readers will be intrigued by the various ways he finishes up the Colonial books.  There was a real focus on wrapping up every single storyline and character arc throughout The Queen’s Captain, and I really enjoyed the way in which Watt brought the series to end, especially as the overarching narratives comes full circle.  Overall, I felt that The Queen’s Captain was a fantastic way to conclude the Colonial series and readers are in for a real treat with this book.

Like all of Watt’s novels, The Queen’s Captain makes use of a substantial number of point-of-view characters to tell the story.  This is a combination of some of the established characters from the previous Colonial novels as well as several new characters.  This makes for a rather intriguing, character driven novel, especially as Watt was apparently determined to wrap up as many character arcs as possible for this final entry in the series.  There is a particular focus on the characters of Ian, Samuel, Ella, Charles, and Ian and Ella’s child, Josiah, although many of the other point-of-view characters get their time to shine and Watt ensures that they have a decent backstory.  I have really enjoyed seeing several of these characters develop over the course of the series, and it has been rather heart-warming to see how the hard events of their lives has changed several of them.  I was particularly impressed with the characterisation of the real Samuel Forbes in The Queen’s Captain, as he had a fantastic arc in this book.  Samuel, whose hatred of war is a major plot point of the series, actually joins the Union army in this book, following his love James Thorpe into battle, and while he still detests being a soldier, he shows some natural flair as an officer.  I thought that this inclusion in the book was extremely fascinating, and I loved how Samuel’s arc in this book mirrored that of his body-double Ian, with both of them gaining a reputation for courage and bravery from their soldiers, and both gaining an affectionate nickname from their men, with Samuel becoming known as “the Limey Officer”.  Samuel’s storyline in this book is really good, full of all manner of tragedy, heartbreak and dramatic moments, and readers will be deeply surprised how it ends up.  I also have to highlight the character of Charles Forbes in this book.  Charles serves as the series’ main antagonist, as he is determined to bring down both Ian and Samuel while gaining as much power as possible.  Charles is an extremely slimy villain who the reader cannot help but dislike, and I know I had a rather good time seeing him gradually get some comeuppance in this book.  I also quite enjoyed the various ways in which Watt provided conclusions to nearly all the side-characters featured in the series.  Some of these are rather entertaining (I had a good laugh at one in particular), and it was great to get some closure on all of these excellent characters at the end. 

The major highlights of this book are the awesome and thrilling action sequences as The Queen’s Captain’s characters journey through several intense and dangerous battlefields around the world.  The Queen’s Captain features several interesting and impressive battle scenes from around the world and possibly has the greatest variety out of all the books in the Colonial series.  Not only do you have a number of great sequences in India as Ian fights both the Pashtun in the mountains and a group of rebels in the jungle, but you also have battles from the American Civil War as Samuel fights against the Confederates.  There are also some sequences that feature the Maori fighting against the British and the New Zealand settlers which really stand out, despite the fact that this particular conflict only occurs for a short while towards the end of the novel.  Watt has clearly done his research around these battles, as they are loaded with historical detail about the typical combatants and the weapons and tactics they utilised.  The author does an amazing job bringing these sequences to life, and you get a real sense of the desperation and the horror that the participants would have felt on these fields.  I particularly enjoyed the author’s examination of the differences between small-scale guerrilla skirmishes (several of which occur throughout The Queen’s Captain), compared to the larger-scale battles of the past, and Watt includes several hints about how combat was likely to occur in the future.  All these action scenes are extremely awesome to read and they are a great part of The Queen’s Captain, especially as they help the plot to move along at a faster pace.

The Queen’s Captain by Peter Watt was another amazing and enjoyable historical fiction novel that takes the reader on a series of fast-paced adventures around the world.  Watt has done an awesome job wrapping up his Colonial series and readers will have a fantastic time seeing how he has concluded the various storylines and character arcs he has set up over the previous two novels.  A fun and exciting read, The Queen’s Captain comes highly recommended and I look forward to seeing what cool series Peter Watt comes up with next.

Amazon

Hidden in Plain Sight by Jeffrey Archer

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Historical Fiction, Murder Mystery7 Comments

Hidden in Plain Sight Cover

Publisher: Macmillan (Hardcover – 27 October 2020)

Series: William Warwick – Book Two

Length: 304 pages

My Rating: 4.25 out of 5

Amazon

Bestselling author Jeffrey Archer returns with the second book in his William Warwick historical crime fiction series, Hidden in Plain Sight.

London, 1986.  Following the failed attempt to put his nemesis, expert art thief Miles Faulkner, behind bars, William Warwick has been promoted to Detective Sergeant and now has a whole new focus: drugs.  William and his team have been assigned to take down a notorious drug kingpin, one who has all of South London in his pocket and who takes great pains to hide his identity and methods.  However, despite their focus on catching this mysterious drug lord, known only as the Viper, Warwick is still determined to take down Faulkner.

When William coincidently arrests an old acquaintance from his school days, Adrian Heath, it unexpectedly provides him with the opportunity that he has been looking for.  Not only does Adrian have information about the identity of the Viper, but he also has a connection to Faulkner that could be exploited to finally throw his adversary behind bars.  As William attempts to close the net around his targets, he must also counter the moves of his enemies, even when they attempt to ruin his life or his upcoming marriage to Beth.  However, it will take more than personal attacks and clever setbacks to discourage William, and he soon has Faulkner and the Viper exactly where he wants them.  But even in defeat, Miles Faulkner is a dangerous opponent, especially now that he has his vengeful eyes fully set on William and everyone he loves.

Hidden in Plain Sight was another exciting and clever novel from Jeffery Archer featuring a compelling historical crime drama set around the life of a fun fictional character.  The protagonist of this series, William Warwick, actually first came into existence in Archer’s iconic Clifton Chronicles series of historical fiction books, where he was introduced as the in-narrative fictional protagonist of a series of detective books written by the Clifton Chronicle’s main character, Harry Clifton.  After Archer concluded the Clifton Chronicles a couple of years ago, he decided to provide his fans with a more detailed exploration of this fictional detective, and this series is the result.  The William Warwick series looks set to be Archer’s next major long-running series and it will explore the entire career of Warwick, from eager young recruit to hardened and brilliant detective.  This is the second William Warwick novel following last year’s Nothing Ventured, and Archer has come up with an enjoyable new tale that proved really hard to put down.

This second entry in the William Warwick series contains another intriguing and exciting character driven narrative that sees the protagonists engage in a game of wits with some despicable criminals.  This proved to be an excellent historical crime fiction novel that not that not only continues the compelling narrative set up in the previous book in the series but which also sees the protagonist go after an entirely new foe.  Archer presents a great recreation of 1980s London and takes the story in an interesting new direction by having William attempt to combat the city’s crippling drug trade.  However, the story still has a fascinating focus on the world of art and antiquities and its associated criminal underbelly, thanks to the amazing returning antagonist from the first novel.  This story proved to be really exciting and fast-paced, and I enjoyed the variety of different crime fiction elements that Archer included in the plot, as the protagonists attempt to take down their quarry in a number of different manners.  Readers are treated to a range of great sequences, from pulse-pounding police raids, detailed investigations, cunning undercover operations and even a very entertaining courtroom sequence.  Archer has loaded Hidden in Plain Sight’s story with all manner of twists and turns, so much so that the reader is often left surprised at who ends up on top and where the story will go next.  This was a really enjoyable narrative that I found to be extremely addictive, resulting in me powering through the entirety of Hidden in Plain Sight in just over a day.  Fans of the previous entry in the series (as well as the Clifton Chronicles) will have a great time continuing the fun story started in Nothing Ventured, while new readers will also be able to quickly dive into this novel and become engrossed in the story.

Like all of Archer’s books, the narrative of Hidden in Plain Sight is strongly driven by the excellent characters that the plot follows.  Archer utilises a range of different character perspectives to tell his story, presenting a rich and multifaceted narrative that explores the lives of several intriguing protagonists, as well as a couple of great villains.  Most of the story focuses on the series’ titular character, William Warwick, the determined, ambitious and righteous police officer who has dedicated his life to fighting crime.  Warwick continues to grow as a detective throughout Hidden in Plain Sight, losing more of his “choir boy” personality and gradually becoming more addicted to the job and the danger.  Despite that he still maintains his strong moral code and proves to be a very likeable central character, especially as Archer spends a lot of time exploring his personal life and his various relationships.  In addition to Warwick, Archer also dedicates a large amount of the book to several key side characters including Warwick’s police colleagues, the major antagonists and members of Warwick’s family.  These various additional characters and perspectives really added a lot to the story’s flow, and it was a much more effective way to tell this narrative than through the eyes of Warwick alone.  Most of these characters are only featured for a small amount of time throughout the book, but I felt that Archer made the most of their appearances, showcasing their personalities and motivations in an excellent manner and making sure that the reader was concerned for their various story arcs.

While these books are mostly focused on the exploits of William and his crime fighting associates, the character I have the most love for is the villain, Miles Faulkner, who is a constant highlight of each book.  Faulkner is a debonair and brilliant criminal mastermind who specialises in elaborate art thefts and forgeries and who gained the attention of the protagonists in Nothing Ventured.  Faulkner serves as a brilliant foil to William and the other police, continually outsmarting them at every turn and thoroughly acting as the cocky master villain.  Faulkner pretty much steals every scene he appears in, and you cannot help but enjoy his antics, even when you are pulling for the protagonists to knock him off his pedestal.  Archer introduces a number of entertaining and clever twists around Faulkner throughout Hidden in Plain Sight, and it was extremely entertaining to see the various ways in which this antagonist manages to manipulate everyone around him and generally come up on top, even when it appears that he has lost.  I personally liked the more vindictive streak that appeared as part of Faulkner’s character in this book, following his various losing encounters with William and the other protagonists.  Not only does this result in a number of clever and elaborate revenge ploys but it also gives a harder edge to Faulkner as the overall antagonist of the series, and hints that he may have some diabolical plans for William in the future entries of this series.  I had a lot of fun with this excellent antagonist and I cannot wait to see what villainy he unleashes next.

Hidden in Plain Sight is another fun and clever novel from Jeffery Archer that comes highly recommended.  Archer has done an excellent job of continuing his William Warwick series, and readers are in for an exciting and enjoyable time with this book.  I really liked where Archer took the story in Hidden in Plain Sight and I am looking forward to seeing how the series will continue next year.

Amazon

Waiting on Wednesday – A Prince and a Spy by Rory Clements

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Historical Fiction, Thriller, Waiting on Wednesday8 Comments

Welcome to my weekly segment, Waiting on Wednesday, where I look at upcoming books that I am planning to order and review in the next few months and which I think I will really enjoy.  I run this segment in conjunction with the Can’t-Wait Wednesday meme that is currently running at Wishful Endings.  Stay tuned to see reviews of these books when I get a copy of them.  In this week’s Waiting on Wednesday I look at an awesome upcoming historical thriller, A Prince and a Spy by Rory Clements.

61EMMpcrTjL

Rory Clements is an outstanding and talented author who has written several exciting and clever historical thrillers throughout his career.  I have been a fan of Clements for a while now and I have enjoyed several of his books in the past.  In particular, I have been really getting into his current body of work, the Tom Wilde series, of which I have so far read all four books: Corpus, Nucleus, Nemesis and Hitler’s Secret.  Each of these novels has been really cool, presenting complex and compelling thriller storylines set before and during the events of World War II.  So far in this series the protagonist, dashing American history professor Tom Wilde, has managed to avert an armed coup against King George VI, stopped the Nazis gaining nuclear secrets, thwarted an attempt to kill the Kennedy family and infiltrated Germany at the height of the war to save Hitler’s secret daughter.  However, Clements is far from done, and in his new book, A Prince and a Spy, Wilde will investigate another curious event from history.

Plot Synopsis:

Sweden, 1942 – Two old friends meet. They are cousins. One is Prince George, Duke of Kent, brother of the King of England. The other is Prince Philipp von Hesse, a committed Nazi and close friend of Adolf Hitler.

Days later, the Prince George is killed in a plane crash in the north of Scotland. The official story is that it was an accident – but not everyone is convinced.

There is even a suggestion that the Duke’s plane was sabotaged, but with no evidence, Cambridge spy Tom Wilde is sent north to discover the truth . . .

This new novel from Clements sounds really interesting, and I am looking forward to seeing how this cool story pans out.  Based on my prior experiences with Clements’s Tom Wilde novels, I know that the author is able to craft a great historical thriller around clever plot idea, and I am quite intrigued to find out what sort of story he can come up with around the death of Prince George, Duke of Kent.  I have to admit that I am a little unfamiliar with the late Duke of Kent and his untimely demise, but he seems to be a rather striking historical figure thanks to his colourful personal life and his status as the first British Royal to die in military service in hundreds of years, as well as being the only member of the Royal Family to die due to World War II.  I have no doubt Clements will weave together something extremely interesting memorable out of this notable historical event and I am very curious to see what it is.

A Prince and a Spy is currently set for release on 21 January 2021 and I think it is going to be one of the better novels to start the new year with.  It certainly sounds like Clements has come up with another compelling entry in his awesome Tom Wilde historical thriller series, and I am really looking forward to seeing what sort of clever and exciting adventure he has comes up with in this new novel.

River of Gold by Anthony Riches

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Historical Fiction4 Comments

River of Gold Cover

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton (Hardback – 6 August 2020)

Series: Empire – Book 11

Length: 339 pages

My Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars

Amazon

From one of the top authors of Roman historical fiction, Anthony Riches, comes River of Gold, the action-packed and epic 11th entry in his bestselling Empire series.

Aegyptus, 187 AD.  Under the command of Tribune Scaurus, decorated Centurion and former fugitive, Marcus Valerius Aquila, serves with several elite veteran officers, each of whom has displeased the Imperial hierarchy in some way.  These Roman soldiers now find themselves part of an informal troubleshooter unit, destined to die if they should ever fail one of their impossible tasks.  The Roman Empire is once again in danger as a mysterious army advances from the south of Africa, killing a major garrison and conquering a key port city at the southernmost border of the empire.  In order to solve this problem, the Emperor’s corrupt advisor sends Centurion Marcus and his comrades on another dangerous mission.

Arriving in Alexandria, Marcus and his comrades discover a rich province riddled with corruption and with a much reduced military presence.  Taking command of the local legion, Scaurus marches what soldiers he can down to the site of the massacre to find a new grim reality waiting for them.  After centuries of peace, the mysterious kingdom of Kush has once again declared war on Rome, determined to claim what is rightfully theirs from the weakened Romans.  In order to stop them, Scaurus leads his force deep into enemy territory to recapture an abandoned fortress and hold it against impossible odds.  Their mission is borderline suicidal and only has a slim chance of success, but if anyone can pull of this impossible task, it is Marcus and his friends.

This was another fun and exciting historical novel from Riches which proved to be a fantastic new entry in his Empire series.  Riches is a prolific and talented author who has been writing since 2009, when he debuted the first Empire novel, Wounds of Honour.  Since then he has gone to write an additional 10 novels in this series, as well as writing his separate series, The Centurions.  I have previously read a few of Riches’s books, including the first three entries in the Empire series when they were released.  While these first three books were extremely enjoyable Roman historical fiction novels, I missed the chance to read a couple of entries in the series and fell too far behind to catch up.  However, I recently got a copy of this latest book and, as I was in the mood for a visit back to ancient Rome, I tried out River of Gold to see how it would turn out.

This proved to be a good decision on my behalf as River of Gold ended up being a fantastic and compelling read.  Riches sets up an excellent character-driven story that sets a group of unique Roman officers against a dangerous new foe.  The author does a good job setting the story up, allowing those readers unfamiliar with the series or the historical era to easily jump in, and then sets the characters toward their goals.  This results in a captivating narrative that has a good blend of action, character development and cool historical features, as the protagonists embark on a madcap plan to win the war.  This leads to a number of awesome battle scenes, including an extended siege sequence which was a lot of fun to read, and the various characters find themselves in sufficient danger throughout.  The story ends a tad suddenly, although Riches does a good job of setting up the overall conclusion to the main storyline.  This story also felt a bit short, and I think it could have benefited from another 50 pages or so, perhaps extending out the siege sequence and adding in some more action and peril there.  However, this was still an overall excellent narrative which I was able to get through in only a few short days.

Riches spends a good part of River of Gold focusing on the various characters he has introduced and developed over the course of his long-running series, and this proves to be an entertaining group of protagonists.  In order to examine these characters Riches utilises a detailed, in-narrative character introduction near the start of the book, in which a newcomer reads off personnel files about each of the recurring characters.  While this was rather forced and inelegant way to introduce the characters and their history, it does the job and allows the readers to get an idea of who these protagonists are and their various quirks.  I found this particularly useful after having skipped several books in the series, and new readers will definitely appreciate the background.  Most of these characters get some intriguing arcs throughout the book.  For example, Marcus is once again the lead character of the novel as he tends to get the most important missions and ends up in the most danger, including a particularly close look at the Kush and their society.  Marcus is a fairly typical Roman historical fiction protagonist who has gone from raw recruit to hardened veteran throughout the course of the series, and it was interesting to see the various developments that have occurred since the last Empire novel I read.  Tribune Scaurus also gets a fair bit of attention as the leader of the Roman force and the mastermind behind their attack.  Scaurus is a good leader character, providing the rest of the characters with backbone and fortitude, and I liked his rather unique command style that relates to the dangerous political situation he finds himself in.  The other major character arc that I liked revolved around Cotta, the group’s veteran centurion and Marcus’s mentor, who reluctantly returns to Aegyptus for the first time after assassinating a Roman general who sought to rebel against the Emperor.  Cotta’s interesting subplot revolved around him reminiscing about his past mistakes while he attempts to hide his identity from the legion they have taken over, as they suffered as a result of his actions.  All of these recurring characters provided a great base for the story and some major moments that occurred will definitely rock readers, especially those long-term fans of the series.

While the recurring characters are good, I really have to highlight some of the new characters that Riches created for this novel, one of whom in particular outshines the rest.  This new character is Demetrius, a Christian who accompanies the army down south as part of his holy mission.  Demetrius is a complex and enjoyable character mainly due to his past as a vicious Christian-hunting Roman soldier.  After a series of brutalities, Demetrius sought redemption by joining the Christian cult, and now he fights against the invaders, believing that this fight is a holy war.  Riches focuses a good amount of the plot on Demetrius, and he proves to be a captivating and central figure, offering words of wisdom and defending his newfound Christian beliefs.  I found the author’s portrayal of this character to be really intriguing and I liked the close relationship he formed with some of the recurring characters, especially Marcus, despite that fact that none of them are Christians.  The other new character I liked was Ptolemy, an Imperial secretary and scribe assigned to the group, who provides them with relevant information and history to assist with their mission.  Ptolemy is essentially a walking piece of exposition, and a large amount of the book’s historical information is revealed thanks to him.  Despite this, he was a rather entertaining character, mainly due to the odd-couple friendship he formed with Dubnus.  The two characters are pretty much opposites in every way and end up bickering on a number of subjects, while also building up a mutual respect for each other.  This fun discourse between the two resulted in some great moments throughout the book and he was an interesting addition to the plot.

In addition to the fun story and great range of characters, Riches also invests a significant amount of time and effort in bringing the historical aspects of this novel to life.  The author has obviously done some serious research on the subject of Roman military history as he does a wonderful job showcasing various elements of the Roman legions and soldiers to life, including gear, unit makeup and tactics.  This also translates incredibly across into the various combat scenes throughout the novel, as you get a real feel for how a Roman solider would have felt in combat, especially at the Centurion level, although Riches mostly focuses on unique fight situations in this book.  The book also contains a number of detailed descriptions of the historical landscapes that the protagonists traverse through, such as Alexandria and the rest of historical Egypt.  This proved to be quite a fascinating inclusion in the story and I always enjoy seeing an author’s depiction of historical settings.  However, the most fascinating part of this novel has to be the inclusion of the ancient African Kingdom of Kush, with whom our protagonists face off against.  The Kushites were a powerful and advanced civilization, who, until recently, have been somewhat overlooked by historians and archaeologists.  Riches does an incredible job working them into his novel and setting them up as a rival kingdom to Rome.  Not only does he feature a number of detailed depictions of their culture and military make up during the events of the book, but he also spends time exploring the history of Kush, including their origins as a civilization, their prior history throughout Aegyptus and their conflicts with the Romans.  This was easily one of the most interesting and compelling elements of River of Gold, and I really appreciated Riches’s inclusion of such a unique historical adversary.  Indeed, all of the historical inclusions in this book are excellent, and I had an amazing time exploring them as the story progressed.

River of Gold by Anthony Riches is a captivating and enjoyable novel that takes the reader on a fascinating and action-packed journey through history.  Riches does an excellent job continuing his bestselling Empire series, and I had a great time getting through his exciting story, loaded with great characters and an impressive historical background.  All of this results in an amazing historical fiction novel that is well worth checking out, whether you are a fan of this long-running series or a general historical fiction fan looking for a fun adventure story.

Amazon

V2 by Robert Harris

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Historical Fiction4 Comments

V2 Cover

Publisher: Hutchinson (Ebook – 15 September 2020)

Series: Standalone

Length: 312 pages

My Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars

Amazon

One of the most talented historical fiction authors in the game, Robert Harris, dives deep into the history of the infamous Nazi V2 rocket program in his latest novel, V2.

Harris is an impressive and well-regarded novelist who has been writing fiction for nearly 30 years.  A former journalist, Harris’s initial books were a series of non-fiction novels in the 1980’s on various subjects, including a book that is considered to be the definitive account of the investigation into The Hitler Diaries scandal which later inspired a drama-documentary miniseries.  His first fiction novel was the 1992 release, Fatherland, an alternate history novel that depicted Germany wining World War II.  He has since gone on to write a number of other fascinating novels, most of which have a historical edge to them, including Pompeii, The Ghost (later adapted into the film The Ghost Writer), The Fear Index and Munich.  Harris is one of those authors I have been meaning to read more of, but so far I have only checked out his 2013 release, An Officer and a Spy, which featured a fascinating account of the Alfred Dreyfus affair in 19th century France, and which was an outstanding piece of historical fiction.  I also currently have his 2019 release, The Second Sleep, on my bookshelf and it was one of the novels I most regret not reading last year.  As a result, I was rather interested when I got a copy of V2, which sounded like quite a fun and intriguing historical read.

In November 1944, while the Allies advance on Berlin, the Nazis are desperate to avoid defeat at all cost.  Placing his hopes in new technology, Hitler funnels vast resources into his V2 rocket program, the most sophisticated weapon on the planet.  The V2s are powerful ballistic missiles capable of delivering an explosive warhead deep into enemy territory at immense speeds.  Hitler has ordered the production of 10,000 rockets and from an isolated forest in occupied Holland, the Germans launch them towards London, causing immense damage.

Rudi Graf is a German scientist who has long dreamt of sending rockets to the moon, and who now regrets his role in the creation of the V2.  Stationed at the V2 launch site, Graf desperately tries to hang onto his humanity as he watches his dream cause only destruction and death.  At the same time, in London, Kay Caton-Wash, an officer in the WAAF, is experiencing the full horror of the V2 rockets as she barely survives one of their strikes.  Over the course of five days, these two strangers are about to be connected by their circumstances.  As Graf is forced to launch even more of his rockets at London, Kay becomes involved with a secret mission to locate and destroy the V2 launch sites in Holland.  Travelling to Belgium, armed with only a slide rule and some equations, Kay works to end the V2 menace once and for all.  However, danger and duplicity are around every corner, and both Graf and Kay soon begin to realise that they cannot trust anyone.  As both rush towards their destinies, their actions will have unintended consequences on the over, changing the course of history forever.

V2 was a clever and compelling novel from Harris, who did a wonderful job wrapping an intriguing, character-driven story around one of the most remarkable military programs of World War II.  Like the majority of Harris’s novels, V2 is a standalone book that can be easily enjoyed by anyone in the mood for informative historical tale or war story that shows the horrors of war and the terrible ways that a person’s dreams can be twisted for evil purposes.

Harris has come up with a captivating narrative for this book.  The focus of V2 is split between two fictional point-of-view characters, Kay and Graf, and follows their respective experiences over a period of five days, with several flashback scenes thrown in for context.  This proved to be a rather intriguing read, and I liked how the author tied a mostly fictional story around some fascinating historical events, such as the creation and implementation of the V2 rockets.  Both of the two separate storylines are quite intriguing and both go in some exciting directions, including Kay getting involved in a secret military operation while Graf tries to keep his sanity as he navigates the politics, treachery and sadism of his Nazi controllers.  However, the real appeal of this narrative is the way in which the two separate story arcs intersect throughout the novel.  For example, the novel starts with Graff witnessing and assisting the launch of a V2 rocket, which then lands and changes Kay’s life.  As the story proceeds, the various actions and reactions of these two point-of-view characters impacts the events occurring around the other character, resulting in danger and tragedy in equal measures.  While I really liked the fascinating individual narratives and the cool way in which the storylines overlapped, I did think that the main story ended rather suddenly and lacked a substantial or satisfying conclusion.  This narrative desperately needed some big, exciting hook at the end to really tie everything together, even if it was historically inaccurate.  Still, V2’s story was really good and easy to get into, and I had a fantastic time reading it.

In order to tell this fascinating tale, Harris utilises two great fictional characters, Kay and Graf, through whose eyes we see the events unfold.  Both of these characters are rather interesting and I quite enjoyed both their individual character arcs.  However, of the two, I definitely found Graf to be the more compelling character.  This is because Graf is a particularly tortured individual, a brilliant scientist who is forced to work for the Nazis to bomb England.  There are some excellent scenes throughout this book that show Graf agonising over his actions working for the Nazis, who have perverted his childhood dream of creating spacefaring rockets into weapons of mass destruction.  Harris also spends much more time exploring Graf’s past, investing in a series of flashbacks that show how Graf became obsessed with rocketry, how he became involved with the V2 project and some of the tragedies that working with the Nazis have brought.  Add in a very captivating storyline that shows Graf starting to rebel against the actions of his Nazi handlers and attempting to find a small measure of redemption out in the wilds of Holland and you have a very impressive and enjoyable character arc that does rather outshine the storyline Harris sets up for Kay.  That being said, Kay is still an interesting focus character in V2, and I did enjoy her arc of trying to find and destroy the V2 launch sites by travelling to Belgium with several other members of the WAAF to work out the trajectories of the rocket flights.  It was also really cool to see this portrayal of a WAAF, a female air force officer, throughout the book, especially one deployed outside of England, and I found it interesting to examine the varied roles that they played throughout the war.  Overall, these two characters do an outstanding job telling this story, and I had a great time seeing how their individual arcs unfolded.

The real highlight of this novel has to be the author’s incredible and captivating portrayal of the infamous V2 rocket program.  Harris has clearly done his research on the subject as he does an amazing job examining all the key aspects of the program and bringing them to life.  This includes a detailed examination of the history of the project, the technical aspects of the rockets and various examinations of how they fly and what they can do.  Harris makes good use of the various flashback sequences in Graf’s chapters to examine the full fascinating history of the project, including the origins of the rockets, identifying who the key architects of the project were and how the project came to the attention of the Nazis.  This includes some compelling depictions of several major historical figures associated with the V2s, such as the project’s leader and main creative driver, Wernher von Braun, as well as several key Nazi characters who had a hand in the project in some way or another.  The author also provides the reader with an unfiltered depiction of the devastating effect that these rockets had on the inhabitants of London when they hit and he actually features several real, historical rocket strikes that occurred during the timeline of the novel, including the most devastating attack that hit London.  The depictions of the horror and the carnage that the rockets caused were really striking, especially as Harris tries to capture the psychological impact that these unstoppable and ultra-fast rockets had on the populace.  I really loved learning more about the V2 rockets and it was easily the most fascinating and captivating part of the entire book.  I especially appreciated the way in which Harris used his dual character perspectives to examine the project from the point of view of the Germans and the Allies, and it was great to see the clash of understandings and opinions about the rockets.  It was also really fascinating to learn more about the Allies’ covert attempts to identify and demolish the V2 launch sites, and this was a great addition to the novel.  All of these historical aspects are immensely enjoyable and fascinating and they add a heck of a lot to the story.

V2 by Robert Harris is a particularly clever and intriguing World War II novel that presents the reader with a fascinating and memorable examination of the infamous V2 rocket program.  Featuring a compelling story, fantastic characters and an outstanding historical focus, V2 was an awesome and captivating read that is really worth checking out.

Amazon

Waiting on Wednesday – The Emperor’s Exile and War Lord

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Historical Fiction, Waiting on Wednesday9 Comments

Welcome to my weekly segment, Waiting on Wednesday, where I look at upcoming books that I am planning to order and review in the next few months and which I think I will really enjoy.  I run this segment in conjunction with the Can’t-Wait Wednesday meme that is currently running at Wishful Endings.  Stay tuned to see reviews of these books when I get a copy of them.  For this week’s Waiting on Wednesday I take a look at upcoming releases from two of my favourite authors, historical fiction masters Simon Scarrow and Bernard Cornwell.  Both of these upcoming books are the latest entries in two of my favourite long-running series and should prove to be some of the top books of 2020.

The Emperor's Exile Cover

The first entry in this article is The Emperor’s Exile by Simon Scarrow, the 19th novel in The Eagles of the Empire series.  The Eagles of the Empire novels focus on two Roman officers, Tribune Cato and Centurion Marco, as they battle across the Roman Empire, taking on all manner of different enemies and getting involved in some of the pivotal historical events of the period, such as the invasion of Britain or the rise of Nero as Emperor.  This is easily one of the best Roman historical fiction series out there and I have had an amazing time reading all of the entries in this series.  The last few Eagles of the Empire novels, The Blood of Rome and Traitors of Rome, have been really compelling reads and I am always extremely eager to get my hands on a new entry in the series when it comes out.

The Emperor’s Exile is a fantastic sounding new addition to the series which is currently set for release on 10 November 2020.  This next novel will once again place the protagonists in the middle of another dangerous situation, with some rather unique and enjoyable new elements to it.

Synopsis:

A.D. 57. Battle-scarred veterans of the Roman army Tribune Cato and Centurion Macro return to Rome. Thanks to the failure of their recent campaign on the eastern frontier they face a hostile reception at the imperial court. Their reputations and future are at stake.

When Emperor Nero’s infatuation with his mistress is exploited by political enemies, he reluctantly banishes her into exile. Cato, isolated and unwelcome in Rome, is forced to escort her to Sardinia.

Arriving on the restless, simmering island with a small cadre of officers, Cato faces peril on three fronts: a fractured command, a deadly plague spreading across the province…and a violent insurgency threatening to tip the province into blood-stained chaos.

War_Lord_cover.PNG

The other book that I will be looking at in this post is War Lord by Bernard Cornwell, the 13th and final novel in the acclaimed The Last Kingdom series.  The Last Kingdom books follow the fictional character, Uhtred of Bebbanburg, a feared and respected warrior who is involved in some of the pivotal moments of the early formation of England.  This series has so far followed a number of key events in the life of Uhtred and has seen him get involved in the deadly conflict between the Christian Saxons and the pagan Danes.  Uhtred, a pagan raised by Danes, often finds himself fighting on behalf of the Saxon kingdoms, despite having more in common with and more respect for his enemies than his allies.  This is another series I have so far read all the books in, although I am particularly keen to get my hands on War Lord as I am extremely curious to see how The Last Kingdom series ends.  War Lords will be coming out in late October and it looks like Uhtred will once again be thrust into the midst of a deadly war which he probably will not survive.

Synopsis:

After years fighting to reclaim his rightful home, Uhtred of Bebbanburg has returned to Northumbria. With his loyal band of warriors and a new woman by his side, his household is secure – yet Uhtred is far from safe. Beyond the walls of his impregnable fortress, a battle for power rages.

To the south, King Æthelstan has unified the three kingdoms of Wessex, Mercia and East Anglia – and now eyes a bigger prize. To the north, King Constantine and other Scottish and Irish leaders seek to extend their borders and expand their dominion.

Caught in the eye of the storm is Uhtred. Threatened and bribed by all sides, he faces an impossible choice: stay out of the struggle, risking his freedom, or throw himself into the cauldron of war and the most terrible battle Britain has ever experienced. Only fate can decide the outcome.

The epic story of how England was made concludes in WAR LORD, the magnificent finale to the Last Kingdom series.

Both upcoming books sound like they are going to be a lot of fun, and I am excited to see how they turn out.  Based on all my experiences with every prior book in these two series, I know that I am going to have an amazing time reading The Emperor’s Exile and War Lords, especially as I am already very invested in both series.  It will be great to see how the various characters and established storylines continue to progress and I am particularly keen to see how Cornwell concludes The Last Kingdom series.  The Emperor’s Exile and War Lords both have an amazing amount of potential, and I already know that they will be some of the strongest and most enjoyable pieces of historical fiction in 2020.

Execution by S. J. Parris

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Historical Fiction, Murder Mystery, Thriller2 Comments

Publisher: Harper Collins (Trade Paperback – 24 July 2020)

Series: Giordano Bruno – Book Six

Length: 484 pages

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Amazon     Book Depository

Conspiracy, betrayal and treason.  The heretic monk Giordano Bruno returns for another outstanding and exciting historical murder mystery with Execution, the latest impressive release from S. J. Parris.

England, 1586.  Queen Elizabeth I rules England as a protestant queen, but not everyone is enamoured with her rule.  Many people throughout the world, including the hidden Catholic population of England, wish her gone and replaced by her cousin, the imprisoned Mary Queen of Scots.  Into this hotbed of English conspiracy and treason returns Giordano Bruno, former monk turned heretic and occasional spy for Elizabeth.

Bruno has obtained troubling information about a potential conspiracy and travels to London to deliver it to the Queen’s spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham.  His information confirms that a group of Catholic Englishmen are planning to assassinate Queen Elizabeth and liberate Mary.  However, rather than being shocked by the news, Walsingham reveals that he is aware of the plot and is hoping to use it to obtain proof of Mary’s treason, allowing for the removal of the greatest threat to Elizabeth’s rule.

Brought into this piece of espionage, Bruno is tasked with infiltrating the conspirators under the guise of a Spanish agent and ensuring that their attempted plot proceeds the way Walsingham desires.  However, Bruno’s mission becomes complicated when another one of Walsingham’s agents, a young woman, is brutally murdered, apparently due to her connection to the conspirators.  Was the victim’s murder related to the assassination plot that Bruno now finds himself in the middle of or are more sinister forces at play?  Can Bruno solve the murder before his cover is blown and will his actions save Queen Elizabeth from the assassin’s blade?  Either way, a queen will die!

Now this was an extremely enjoyable and incredible piece of historical murder mystery fiction.  Execution is the sixth novel in the awesome Giordano Bruno series which is written by S. J. Parris, the pseudonym of Stephanie Merritt.  This fantastic series follows the adventures of the titular Giordano Bruno, a real-life Italian monk, academic and heretical thinker, who roamed around Europe during this period and who did act as a spy for the English under the employ of Walsingham.  I have been a major fan of Parris’s series for a while now and I have really enjoyed several of the preceding novels in the series which deal with some fascinating and compelling conspiracies and murders that Bruno finds himself involved with.  As a result, I have been looking forward to this new novel for a while and I knew that I would have an awesome time reading Execution when it came out.

It turns out that my patience was well worth it as Execution proved to be an incredible novel that presented the reader with an exceedingly compelling and addictive historical murder mystery/thriller.  The story follows Bruno as he not only infiltrates a group of conspirators but also investigates the murder of a young woman.  These separate story points are strongly linked and Bruno’s success as a spy is tied into the result of the murder investigation, as the murderer may have the ability to blow Bruno’s cover or reveal to the conspirator.  I absolutely loved the resultant story as Parris produced a complex tale of betrayal, double dealing, espionage, political intrigue and murder.  Parris ensures that there are a huge number of twists and surprise reveals throughout the course of the book, and the eventual conclusion of the story is very well established and extremely compelling.  This all results in a powerful and thrilling narrative that keeps the reader on the edge of their seat as the protagonist is drawn deeper into the conspiracy and gets closer to revealing the villain’s true identity.  I loved the final reveal about the overall antagonist and their motivations, as it was both excellently foreshadowed and hard to predict with the story having the potential to go in several other intriguing directions.  This was a truly amazing story and I had a wonderful time working my way through it in order to see how it turned out.

I was also really impressed with the historical setting that Parris utilised for her story: Elizabethan London on edge as the plots to place Mary Queen of Scots on the throne come to fruition.  I felt that the author did a fantastic job bringing this historical and dangerous version of London to life, and the protagonist ends up exploring several key areas of the city.  This included the notorious entertainment area of Southwark, which proved to be a significant area for the story and which is shown in all its sleazy glory.  I also liked how Parris was able to cleverly work her mystery and espionage story around a historical and well-documented plot to assassinate the Queen.  The author comes up with some great ways for the events of the real conspiracy to impact on the overall story while also doing a fantastic job of examining key elements of the plot, such as who the key players were, what they were up to and how Sir Francis Walsingham had spies in their midst the entire time.  I felt that Parris’s narrative synced up perfectly with this real-life conspiracy and I liked seeing the various interactions between Bruno and the various historical figures that he encounters, including Walsingham, his spies and the various conspirators.  This fantastic attention to historical detail really helped to make Execution a first-rate story and I look forward to seeing which events or conspiracies Parris bases her next Giordano Bruno novel around.

Perhaps it is because it has been a few years since the previous entry in the Giordano Bruno series, but I was particularly happy to read Bruno’s point of view.  Bruno is an excellent protagonist whose fictional adventures are only slightly more unrealistic then his chaotic real life.  The author once again does a great job exploring Bruno’s unique life experiences, including by expanding on his view on Catholicism and religion, as well as his unique obsession with the art of memory and other philosophical practices.  Parris has so far cleverly worked the series around the events of Bruno’s life, including his time in England, and this novel ties into Bruno’s work as an agent for Walsingham.  I liked the author’s portrayal of the character as a reluctant spy and misunderstood intellectual, and it was great to see his attempts to go undercover and infiltrate a band of fanatical Catholics, especially thanks to his own lapsed views on religion.  The story makes a number of references to Bruno’s past adventures and also reintroduces several friends and antagonists from the prior novels.  Despite this, you do not really need to have read any of Parris’s previous Giordano Bruno novels as the author makes Execution extremely accessible, with the reader receiving all the relevant details about the referenced adventures or characters.  It was, however, great to see these existing story elements continue throughout Execution, including the return of Bruno’s slippery and mysterious love interest, Sophia, and I cannot wait to see more of this character in the future.  Bruno has a lot of very interesting life events coming up in his future, so this serious has a lot of potential to continue in the future, something for which I am really grateful for.

Overall, Execution by S. J. Parris was an outstanding and captivating novel that serves as a fantastic sixth entry in the amazing Giordano Bruno series.  This novel contains an intelligent and truly addictive historical mystery narrative that works a compelling murder mystery into the chaotic politics and insidious conspiracies of the era.  This book is worth checking out as once you start trying to unwrap Execution’s intriguing mystery you won’t be able to stop reading it until the very end.  A highly recommended read, I really hope that the next Giordano Bruno novel comes out soon.

Amazon     Book Depository

Blunt Force by Lynda La Plante

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Historical Fiction, Murder Mystery10 Comments

Blunt Force Cover

Publisher: Zaffre (Trade Paperback -25 August 2020)

Series: Tennison – Book Six

Length: 415 pages

My Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars

Amazon     Book Depository

The leading lady of crime fiction, Lynda La Plante, returns with another compelling entry in her excellent Tennison series, Blunt Force.

Lynda La Plante is a talented screenwriter and author who has been a leading figure in crime fiction since the 1980s with her combination of enjoyable novels and popular television shows and movies.  Some of her notable works include Widows, which has been alternatively a novel, a television series and a film, the Trial and Retribution television series, and several other novels that have been inspired by La Plante’s various television shows, specials or films.  Perhaps her most impressive piece of fiction is the iconic British television series, Prime Suspect, which ran in the early 1990s (with follow-up seasons running in 2003 and 2006), starring Helen Mirren as the lead character, Jane Tennison.  This show was immensely popular, and in recent years La Plante has started revisiting the character by doing a series of prequel novels that follow a young Jane Tennison in the 1970s and 80s, starting with 2015’s Tennison.  Not only did Tennison inspire the Prime Suspect 1973 television series but it was also resulted in several sequel novels.  I have been rather enjoying this series over the last couple of years (check out my reviews for Good Friday, Murder Mile and The Dirty Dozen), and I was excited when I recently received my copy of the sixth book in the series, Blunt Force.  Blunt Force is set in the early 1980s and continues to follow Tennison on her journey to become the respected investigator we see in the original television show.

After being unfairly kicked out of the high-profile Flying Squad, Detective Sergeant Jane Tennison’s career is on a downward trajectory.  Assigned to the sleepy police station of Gerald Road in London’s affluent Knightsbridge area, Jane must content with working petty crimes and minor offenses.  However, a good murder is always just around the corner for Jane, as a gruesome and bloody crime scene is discovered on her beat containing a brutally disembowelled body.

The victim, Charlie Foxley, was a well-known celebrity agent, representing a multitude of the richest and most influential actors, models and writers on the planet.  However, he was also a cruel and vindictive man whose ruthless business practices, sordid personal life and complicated familiar bonds leaves behind a raft of potential suspects who each had a very real reason to kill him.  In order to catch this murderer, Jane and her colleagues will need to dive into the dazzling world of show business to find out more about their victim.  But not everything is as innocent or glamorous as it first appears, and Jane must get to the bottom of Foxley’s dodgy dealings if she is to solve the case.

La Plante has once again produced an exciting and compelling crime fiction novel that explores the earlier life of her long-running protagonist.  This a particularly great read that combines a fantastic and clever murder mystery with an intriguing historical period and La Plante’s trademark examination of sexism in the London police force.  Just like the prior books in the series, Blunt Force is an extremely accessible novel and readers who are unfamiliar with the previous Tennison novels or the Prime Suspect television series can easily dive into this story without any issues.  That being said, established La Plante/Prime Suspect fans will no doubt really enjoy seeing how Jane’s character continues to evolve throughout the course of the series as well as witnessing her investigate another significant case from earlier in her career.

Blunt Force mainly revolves around the brutal murder of a celebrity agent who is found butchered in his apartment.  This leads to quite an intense and elaborate murder investigation as Tennison and her colleagues dive into the life of the deceased agent and attempt to find out who killed him.  The case goes into some very interesting directions as La Plante loads up the book with a ton of plausible misleads, multiple potential suspects with compelling motives, conflicting police politics and a whole load of misdirects.  This includes a collection of duplicitous celebrities and rival agents, shady characters who the victim had dealings with and a particularly unhinged ex-wife who is definitely hiding something.  The story follows Tennison and several of her fellow detectives as they methodically examine each new lead that comes up.  I liked the realistic and evenly paced investigation storyline, with police slowly working their way through suspects by questioning them multiple times, collecting and analysing new evidence and looking for inconsistencies in stories and claims.  The eventual solution for the murder turned out to be quite clever, and I liked how it required Tennison to dive deep into the victim’s life and profession to come up with a hidden motivation.  The author ensures there is some decent foreshadowing about who the killer is, although I did not see the eventual reveal coming, and I was quite satisfied with the result.  Overall, this was a fantastic murder mystery storyline and I had an amazing time seeing it all come together.

As with the rest of the novels in the Tennison series, La Plante uses Blunt Force to explore and critique the historical institutional sexism that existed within the Metropolitan police.  This is always a fascinating and relevant element to the story, and La Plante does a fantastic job showing both overt and more subtle examples of what Tennison has to go through as one of the few female detectives in the force at this time.  There are several notable inclusions in this novel, from Jane being unfairly dismissed from the Flying Squad, the condescension of her peers, rumours of the reasons why she left the Flying Squad being spread around the office and some new superiors doubting her ability and observations as a result.  However, one of the most noticeable elements of this is the disconnect between Jane and her colleagues over investigating elements of the motive for the murder.  Through the course of her work, Jane is able to identify the real reason Foxley is killed and wants to further investigate that, as well as attempting to help/find another potential victim.  However, her male colleagues, more concerned with the big, glamorous murder, ignore this part of the case, leaving Jane frustrated and a little disenchanted with her colleagues.  I really appreciated these scenes within Blunt Force, especially as La Plante writes them extremely well and it was a distinctive and compelling part of the story.

In addition to this there is also a rather intriguing subplot that deals with Tennison getting involved with the infamous Operation Countryman.  Operation Countryman was an anti-police-corruption investigation that ran in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and featured members of rural police forces investigating the London police.  This investigation has been mentioned and discussed several times in the previous Tennison novels, especially in the prior book The Dirty Dozen, and it finally comes to a head in Blunt Force.  Throughout the course of this book Jane is approached and recruited by members of Operation Countryman due to her work with the Flying Squad and some of the corruption that was implied in the prior books.  This proves to be a really fascinating part of the story, especially as La Plante cleverly brings in events from previous Tennison adventures, revealing some fantastic forward planning on her part, as well as tying this storyline into some of the real-life targets of the operation.  I also liked how this tied into the rest of the narrative contained within Blunt Force, as much of the protagonist’s motivation to help remove a certain corrupt cop could be attributed to her frustrations with the main investigation.  This was a very interesting part of the story, and I look forward to seeing if La Plante features more of Operation Countryman in her future novels, perhaps showing what sort of backlash Tennison faces from her colleagues for assisting the operation take down a fellow cop.

The always impressive Lynda La Plante has once again delivered an exciting and captivating novel with Blunt Force.  This was a fantastic book that not only contains a gripping and clever murder mystery but which continues the dramatic and intriguing tale of one of La Plante’s most iconic protagonists, Jane Tennison.  This was an amazing entry in the Tennison series, and I look forward to seeing what crime the protagonist finds herself involved with next year.

Amazon     Book Depository

Waiting on Wednesday – The Queen’s Captain by Peter Watt

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Australian, Historical Fiction, Waiting on Wednesday2 Comments

Welcome to my weekly segment, Waiting on Wednesday, where I look at upcoming books that I am planning to order and review in the next few months and which I think I will really enjoy.  I run this segment in conjunction with the Can’t-Wait Wednesday meme that is currently running at Wishful Endings.  Stay tuned to see reviews of these books when I get a copy of them.  In this latest Waiting on Wednesday, I preview an upcoming Australian historical fiction novel that I am really looking forward to, The Queen’s Captain by Peter Watt.

The Queen's Captain Cover

Peter Watt is a talented Australian author who is best known for his amazing historical fiction novels that focus on the adventures of heroic Australian characters throughout various points of history.  I was a major fan of his long running Frontier series (check out my Canberra Weekly reviews of the last two books in the series, While the Moon Burns and From the Stars Above), which followed two rival families as they battled throughout several turbulent periods of Australian history, and I have also been really getting into his most recent releases, the Colonial series.

The Colonial books are a fun and action-packed historical fiction series set in the 19th century which follow the complicated lives of two characters, Ian Steel and Samuel Forbes, as they engage in an elaborate deception.  Ian is a colonial Australian blacksmith who dreamed of joining the Queen’s army and fighting around the world.  His dreams became reality when he befriends Samuel Forbes, the heir to a rich English family who bears a striking resemblance to Ian.  Samuel is estranged from his overbearing father and villainous older brother, who are determined that he will not inherit anything from them.  However, Samuel can receive a vast inheritance if he serves as an officer in the British army for a period of 10 years.  Unfortunately, Samuel is somewhat shellshocked after his initial posting in the army and strikes a bargain with Ian to switch places so that Ian can serve his commission and claim the inheritance.  While Samuel hides himself in America, Ian, who has a natural aptitude for fighting and command, takes up this new identity and position in the army and fights through several campaigns, including in the Crimean War and the against the rebelling Sepoys in India.  Both of these protagonists must also contend with the manipulations of Samuel’s suspicious brother and father, who attempt to both kill Ian and identify him as an imposter, and the novels also focus on Ian and Samuel’s friends, comrades and love interests.

This has so far been an extremely enjoyable series, and I loved the character-driven stories and the depictions of various historical battles around the world.  I have read both of the preceding two Colonial books, The Queen’s Colonial and The Queen’s Tiger, and not only were the amongst some of the strongest historical fiction novels of their respective release years, but I also consider them to be the best pieces of Australian fiction that I have read.  As a result, I am quite excited to get my hands on a copy of the upcoming third novel in the series.  This third novel, The Queen’s Captain, is currently set for release on 10 November 2020 and it sounds like Watt has come up with a rather interesting plot for this next book.

Goodreads Synopsis:

In October 1863, Ian Steele, having taken on the identity of Captain Samuel Forbes, is fighting the Pashtun on the north-west frontier in India. Half a world away, the real Samuel Forbes is a lieutenant in the 3rd New York Volunteers and is facing the Confederates at the Battle of Mission Ridge in Tennessee. Neither is aware their lives will change beyond recognition in the year to come.

In London, Ella, the love of Ian’s life, is unhappily married to Count Nikolai Kasatkin. As their relationship sours further, she tries to reclaim the son she and Ian share, but Nikolai makes a move that sees the boy sent far from Ella’s reach.

As 1864 dawns, Ian is posted to the battlefields of the Waikato in New Zealand, where he comes face to face with an old nemesis. As the ten-year agreement between Steele and Forbes nears its end, their foe is desperate to catch them out and cruel all their hopes for the future… 

I very much like the sound of where this third novel is going.  The Queen’s Captain looks set to follow its protagonists through several new historical battlefields, as both Ian and Samuel find themselves fighting for their lives.  I am rather intrigued to see what events drag Samuel into the American Civil War, as this is the last place you would expect a rich British tourist with a dislike for war to end up. Having Samuel engaged in the sort of activities he was trying to avoid when he made his plans with Ian should add some compelling edges to the narrative.  Ian is also heading into some interesting warzones, as not only will he continue his campaigns in India but he will be transferred to New Zealand.  I have to admit that I really do not know that much about the British army’s conflicts in New Zealand and I am curious to see what occurs when Ian is posted there.

It also sounds like there is going to be lot more of the intrigue and double-dealing that surrounds the deal between Ian and Samuel, and no doubt Samuel’s brother, and perhaps other antagonists of the series, will be attempting to expose or kill them.  Ian’s redeployment to New Zealand will probably be a major part of this, as this was Samuel’s initial military post before he struck a deal with Ian.  It is extremely likely that some of the soldiers already posted in New Zealand will have some memory of the original Samuel and will therefore have some inkling that Ian is an imposter, which will place both protagonists in a different form of danger.  I am also looking forward to the storyline surrounding Ian’s main love interest, Ella, as she deals with an unhappy marriage that she tries to escape.  Watt has cultivated several fantastic supporting characters for this series, including Ella, and I am curious to see how their various storylines continue.

Overall, I have extremely high hopes for The Queen’s Captain, which should prove to be an excellent and enjoyable read for the end of the year.  I have had an amazing time reading the first two novels in this fun and exciting series and I am sure that this third novel will prove to be another impressive read.