Matt McAvoy Book Review

A direct sequel to The Magdalene Deception, and it’s a good one, from my namesake (no relation, I promise).  One thing I will say from the off is that before you read …Reliquary it would definitely help to have read its predecessor first, because there is great backstory for most of the endearing cast of characters in this book, and there are multiple strands of narrative which stem from the first.  While the quest of this book is a new one (these books tend to revolve around archaeologic...

This is an enjoyable, nicely written kids’ book for, I guess, the middle school, pre-teen age group – it also has some wonderful illustrations.  Lis writes well in the first-person viewpoint of a young boy who finds and befriends a cute little alien.  It is easy to see why this lovely author has received the plaudits she has for her children’s writing – she certainly deserves them.

With more than a touch of E.T. about the story, it is good, naïve and harmless fun, with a little susp...

I do like a bit of British curmudgeonry, and this well written, well-crafted example of suaveness is your classic wartime comic adventure, very much with a feel of The Thirty-Nine Steps about it, infused with the tongue in cheek innuendo of John Steed and Emma Peel.

It’s a good, fun read, as our roguish upper-class spook is charged with recovering and transporting a top-secret suitcase, which can change the outcome of the imminent breakout of World War Two.  Hitler and Churchill alike are ...

This was a very good, very professional book, and my rating may seem a little contrary in this respect, but if I’m being quite honest, I did struggle with the writing a touch.  Not that Chasser is not high quality – she most certainly is – but more so that with this particular standard tale of magic and medieval fighting fantasy, the problem for me was perhaps not so much its content, but its pace.  To tell the truth, I always find fantasy extremely tough to bond with, and even harder t...

Another high action, gung-ho suspense thriller from Robert, featuring his favourite characters, veteran soldiers Rob and Tex.  In this, the second instalment in their superb series, set ten years after the two friends met in the jungles of Vietnam, they now find themselves embroiled in a nightmare closer to home.  Rob, now working as a cop in a small town, is involved in a drug-related shooting, which sees his wife taken hostage in retaliation, by a vicious cartel.  With time running out, it ...

Something horrifying is happening at the Particle Physics Research and Development Complex in North Carolina. Three physicists working on a sub-atomic particle accelerator known as the Destabilizer, have become psychotic and two of them have died. Alex, the daughter of physicist Jonas Kraig, cannot forget her father’s words, “Events will unfold that will rock the heart of man.”

Part psychological thriller, part sci-fi, part action novel, Sinai Unhinged by Joanna P. Evans has been ver...

A great fictional story, in some ways stunning and beautiful in others, for those of a religious persuasion – or maybe just lovers of good writing.  And Bruce Hampson is certainly a very good writer – as well as, quite clearly, an authority on the Old Testament.  This book expands in greater detail, with full creative licence, an event only very briefly touched on in the Bible: that of the twelve spies Moses sent ahead of the refugee Israelites into the Promised Land, in defiance of God. ...

An extremely well written, well presented and professional study textbook, in which Lance – clearly a very knowledgeable author and academic mind – presents what amounts to a vast and comprehensive thesis on the subject of control.  He uses all the basic schools of psychology, sociology and even philosophy and biology, to give as detailed an explanation as he can – and suffice to say it is an admirable feat, which he achieves well.  It is fair to say that he leaves no stone unturned in ...

I have to be honest, when I first saw the blurb for this book, my heart sank at the thought of yet another otherworld, magical fantasy.  But, while this book is kind of that, and certainly seems to plummet in that direction in the second half, for the first half of the book I was actually very surprised to see that it was nothing of the sort.  What it is, in fact, is a cynical, sardonic and at times very funny satire on day to day life in the office workplace, and an excuse for Sanin to pick ...

The Iron Lady is an entertaining young adult thriller that does not stop moving.

Agatha Freeman is not your average grandma. She loves her grandchildren but has a secret history of espionage that she keeps well away from them up in the cupboard with the cake mix. But criminal minds have long memories and sooner or later, if you have a history of fighting evil, your past will catch up with you. Age, as it is often said, is no barrier. As Agatha’s comfortable retirement is brutally interrupt...

Fans of medical dramas will line up to buy this book and, if they don’t, they should.  The author writes with authority and I suggest must be a doctor, but the information is not difficult for the layman to understand.  Alongside the medicine is the excellent characterization and the novelist’s savoury intimation that something sinister has indeed infiltrated the life of the young woman lying motionless in a hospital bed.

Patricia Harding is 28 and works for a legal firm. Benjie is her g...

I’m becoming a big fan of John Bauer’s writing, and this acerbic coming-of-age drama is another good one from him.  He is a sharp author, with a great professional style and a wry sense of humour.  The interaction between the characters is entertaining and nostalgia-inducing; you remember talking that way with your buddies at their age (boys, that is; girls I can’t really speak for).  More than that, though, Bauer has a knack of creating lead characters with multiple layers of humanity,...

An interesting book and a novel premise.  This entire novella takes place in a police interview, its whole story unfolding through the main character’s narrative.  I’m not sure how much of Brown’s bio is intended to be serious, and how much tongue-in-cheek, as he would seem to suggest that much of the unnamed first-person character is based on his own personality and indeed his own experiences – not too much, I hope, because while the protagonist is indeed interesting, I wouldn’t ca...

I initially thought that Burn Me Out was just another mafia-type novel but, as Barrows drew me skilfully into his story, I realized it promised something much more.

Al Vacarro is a hit man for Eddie Castella, the Italian crime boss who runs the local neighbourhood. Gang warfare, extortion and murder are all in a day’s work and his young family know only his pseudo-job as Vice President of Operations Castella Shipping & Transport. Al’s back story is rich with emotion, from the adolescent ...

Hmm…  I was really enjoying this atmospheric and gripping short story, increasingly eager to discover its poor protagonist’s backstory and fate – perhaps this was the reason I was left feeling so short-changed at the end.  Whilst it may not be to everyone’s tastes, I have to say that I rather liked Rodin’s present tense, reciprocal internal dialogue-style; the melancholy and morose oppressiveness are chilling yet warming at the same time.  And, although the overall premise is no rea...

To tell the truth, my review of Strange Karma is somewhat of a contrary one.  This is actually a pretty good book, yet strangely I struggled with large parts of it, finding it a little difficult at times to get into and stay with the story.  Not that it was particularly complicated, rather convoluted perhaps, as a woman traces the steps of her great-grandfather, decades earlier, into the mountains of Tibet, whilst in possession of a valuable gemstone; unbeknown to her, she is being tracked by...

Interesting and original, clever and at times almost comedic, SUDAN, Escape from Voi by Ted Walde is the story of Tawa Haridi, an independent researcher in the field of biomedical engineering who hopes to strengthen the Northern White Rhinoceros in order to protect it from poaching. Unfortunately, his cutting-edge technology has attracted the attention of the Pwani Republican Movement, a paramilitary organization that is planning to secede from Kenya. The very research that is designed to cre...

A well-written crime comic-thriller, about an unassuming estate agent who begins an affair with the wife of a wealthy criminal and finds himself up to his neck in money laundering and drug smuggling.  This is a conventional and pretty simple tale which is not excessive in any capacity, but rather a cosy read; it is probably far more suited to readers who like low-action crime caper fiction based on witty dialogue and humorous personalities.  There is a touch of cynicism in Browne’s portraya...

Sharp and clever, the more you read this witty social commentary, the deeper and more numerous its insightful layers develop; by the end, you find yourself nodding in approval at the way it went.

As a man seeks psychiatric help to unravel the profoundly interesting psychotic episodes he is experiencing, he begins to become increasingly aware of the myriad mental health issues affecting each and every person around him – some mildly reactive; some severely symptomatic.  Gradually, his own e...

Offbeat and clever, there is something soap-like about this fly-on-the-wall tragi-comic drama as, in what appears to be an effort to teach him loyalty and devotion, a womanizing English Lit professor is reincarnated as the world’s most articulate dog.  Through the dog’s perceptive eyes and sharp narration, we watch unfold the tale of the American anti-dream; an otherwise good-hearted and decent family blighted by hard drug addiction and mental illness.  A generally well-written book, with...

Questions of love and morality feature prominently in this dystopian thriller, in a city where the National Eugenics Centre receives praise for engineering a human with perfect emotional restraint, couples face Reconditioning Therapy for falling in love, and a mysterious terrorist named Zac Zevalon seems hell bent on the destruction of state property. The Liberalists have won power over the Purists, and their agent Mercy is an Enforcer, a genetically modified female working with the State Sec...

Slow burning and hugely atmospheric, Lorna’s work always simmers below the surface, with an intensity which grows and engulfs the reader; this thought-provoking composition is no different.  With a palpable feeling of menace growing gradually throughout, there is also an element of mysterious ambiguity, in this tale of a man with a history of violence struggling to raise his wayward daughter, whilst protecting her from the dark truth about her mentally ill mother.  Be warned, it is as bleak...

Jedidiah Appiah confesses to being restless by nature and he has written a very effective book about restlessness from God’s perspective, using examples of the men and women from scripture.

The Book of Genesis, where he begins, is a wonderful collection of real human dramas and, if you haven’t read it, then I can guarantee that within its pages you will find in abundance the agonies we have all suffered, the mistakes we’ve all made, and the regrets we’ve all had. In chapter 25 we mee...

Dyer is a good, professional author and this World War Two espionage thriller is a work of quality, research and attention to detail.  Based largely on factual events, The Ultra Betrayal tells the story of a Bletchley cryptologist who appears to have gone rogue, and is pursued by American and British MI6 agents before he can sell crucial intelligence to the Germans – information of such value it could change the whole outcome of the war.  It is a slow burner, with huge swathes of simmering ...

Sharp, acerbic and incredibly clever, what initially starts off as a cynical and sarcastically funny satire starts to very gradually – and with perfect timing – develop into something much more profoundly layered.  In a story which is possibly true (?) – or, perhaps in part – Grant is a well-known T.V. journalist, who is also approached to gain information about public figures by the national intelligence services.  Set at the end of the ’90s, then in the intervening years, there wa...

I’ve been fortunate enough to read some great books over the years, as well as some superb series, but it is not often one witnesses an anomaly such as this: a trilogy which produces three works of genuine quality;  Glyn Haynie concludes his Promises… Vietnam War trilogy with this more outright thriller – and it is another cracker.

Ten years on from Return to the Madness, Eddie is still haunted by nightmares of his traumatic tours of duty, and still vowing revenge against his cruel cap...

N.L. Holmes is an outstanding writer of pedigree and quality.  Her historical fiction is authentic and well-researched, as she paints landscapes and locations onto the page like an artist, putting the reader right there in the story, and able to experience her portrayal of history with all five senses.  She is also a master at crafting layered, well-developed characters, who are simultaneously endearing and human, as well as being awe-inspiring and powerful.  Her action scenes – whilst very...

A beautifully designed book with a huge chunk of style, you can see that Lauren has put enormous work and passion into this ambitious and heartfelt project.  It is fun, bright and colourful, and arguably the real star is the stunning computer-generated animation, of which it is packed full in abundance.  The storyline is creative and highly informative; I always enjoy seeing illustrated children’s books delivering important, educational information in a vivid and entertaining way, particula...

I think this novel was too subtle for me.  As I read it, I developed an idea that I should have come to it with some prior knowledge, and that this might have helped me.  Perhaps my problem is that I’m not American.

Edward Jones/Troy/Joey/Emmitt is never formerly introduced under any of these names but has a successful background in life insurance sales and is a proficient con artist.  He is hired to research the possible shortcomings (hopefully pornographic) of a respectable Mormon school...