Author – Norman Collins “Uncle Henry, by a short nose”At 700+ pages this novel never drifts and it is never dull; it was a delight to read. Punctuated with dead-pan humour it follows the lives of the inhabitants of a South London boarding house against the backdrop of the two year period that straddled the…

Author – Walter Tevis “A realistic science fiction novel, after 50 years!”A short science fiction book that realistically portrays life for an extraterrestrial humanoid on Earth. Beautifully written and set in 1985 twenty years ahead of its publishing date it does not feel outdated 50 years later. Written during the escalating Cold War and the…

Author – Evelyn Waugh “This author wrote the end before the beginning”A top 100 modern day classic written in English. Evelyn Waugh takes a satirical dig at the landed gentry and the decay of English society, the disintegration of moral standards and the resulting shallow set of values. It is a tragedy and comedy which…

Author – Mohsin Hamid “Disappointing, try The Reluctant Fundamentalist”I had high expectations, forty endorsements from newspapers and magazines, and a front page quote from Philip Pullman, I found the latest book from Mohsin Hamid lacking in any depth, bordering on the boring and somewhat annoying. The disappointment was that I loved his previous bestseller The…

Author – Ben Macintyre “Read it! Not all historical books are dull.” A brilliant historical account and biography of an improbable double agent during WWII. Eddie Chapman became notorious as a safe-breaker and founding partner in the Jelly Gang, so called because of their use of Gelignite. He was run to ground in Jersey and…

Author – Evelyn Waugh “Wickedly funny from start to end”If you have heard of Evelyn Waugh through the 2008 film Brideshead Revisited then while Decline and Fall is by the same author, they are not alike, not even close. This was Waugh’s first book published in 1928 and is loosely based on his time at…

Author – David Gillham “A gripping debut novel, realistically written”In Berlin 1943, the Eastern Front is in retreat, Goebbels is looking for ‘Total War’, Jews are being rounded up and air raids by the Tommies are creating a ruin of the city, for everybody it is now a matter of survival. Sigrid Schröder, a stenographer…

Author – Rodolfo Walsh “Historically monumental – disappointing !”A true story of the brutality of the Argentinian inter Peron years with a cover-up of a botched execution of a dozen innocent victims. There were 5 deaths and at least 7 survivors although some had been left for dead. This is considered the first book in…

Author – Charles Cumming “A pacey modern spy thriller – I want more!”This is a modern gripping spy thriller with our hero, Tom Kell, an ex-MI6 agent engaged to track down Amelia Levene who has disappeared and in six weeks is due to become the first female MI6 chief. Charles Cumming had a short career…

Author – Graham Greene “A bungled kidnapping by a catholic priest”Set around 1969 Doctor Eduardo Plarr lives in a small Argentine town near the Paraguay border at a time when kidnapping and political unrest is rife. His old school friends are planning to kidnap the American Ambassador in order to use this as leverage for…