Church vs Barbarian the Colin Falconer way - Silk Road

I am a sucker for books about the Silk and Spice route.  I have read several non-fiction books about this and I have some dvd's about it too.  I'm not sure why these routes appeal to me so much.  I think it has something to do with the adventure...so, when Corvus asked me if I'd be interested in this guy - Colin Falconer's new book, Silk Road I nodded so fast I looked like a bobble head.  At my request for a guest blog from Colin, I got sent an interview between two of the characters from Silk Road.  I have learned from this, that Colin does his own thing his own way, and that's pretty much the MFB ethos and therefore, we love it.

***

The following is based on an interview between William of Augsburg, a Dominican friar, and a woman identified in the manuscript as Khutelun, the daughter of a Tatar tribal chieftain near Fergana in present-day Kyrgyzstan. The document was recently discovered in the Vatican archives by author Colin Falconer, though it is unclear how it got there. It is believed the document was written en route to Shang-tu (the Xanadu made famous by Coleridge) in 1260.

WILLIAM: For over twelve hundred years your people have been living in darkness. Do you not wish to hear news of the one true religion and save yourselves and your people from everlasting damnation?

KHUTELUN: I don't understand this darkness you are talking about. The world was created by the spirit of the Everlasting Blue Sky and it is alive with luminous spirits. Every rock and every bird, every tree and every wolf has spirit in it. Why don't you ever wash?

WILLIAM: But you are a witch, is this not true?

KHUTELUN: In my tribe we are known as shamans. If we wish to commune with the gods, we use koumiss and hashish to go to the fifth level of heaven and talk with them. I have talked with gods since I was a child. Josseran says that you are a holy man, can you not do this? But it is burdensome and sometimes I wish I did not have such a gift.

WILLIAM: It is not a gift! What you are talking about is the work of the Devil!

KHUTELUN: I don't know what world you come from, but there seems to be a lot of devils in it. I shouldn't like to live there.

WILLIAM: I saw one of your women beating a man with his whip today until his back was bloody!

KHUTELUN: Well, he wanted to marry her.

WILLIAM: And this is how you savages mate?

KHUTELUN: A woman does not want to marry a weakling. He submitted willingly to the test. He rode around her on his horse and let her whip him to prove he is strong. Of course, she was quite fond of him so she didn't whip him too hard or for too long. A boy has to make sure he chooses the right girl. You think this is strange? So explain this please, why sometimes at night in your tent you flay yourself with your own whip? Did you think we didn't know about this? Is it a test to allow you to mate with yourself?

WILLIAM: I am mortifying the flesh, our great enemy. I only wish my translator, Josseran Sarrazini, would have a care to do the same. He is a knight who has taken vows of chastity for five years with the Templar order, to serve out a penance for his past sins. Yet I believe he has broken these vows with you, in violation of his oath and all natural and divine laws. Is this true?

KHUTELUN: I may not answer that. The things that take place between a man and a woman are not anyone else's business.

WILLIAM: But you are a heretic and a savage and he is a Christian nobleman with a sacred commission to guide me to your great lord in Cathay. He has steeped his mortal soul in sin for you!

KHUTELUN: Look, barbarian, I have had enough of your questions. I will take you as far as Shang-tu so you can put your petition to the great khan, Khubilai, as my father has ordered me to do. After that you may look to your own future, as I must look to mine.

WILLIAM: And what about Josseran?

Here the manuscript fragment ends.

There is no evidence that such an embassy from the Pope to Khubilai Khan took place in 1260 although historians have conjectured that the Pope at one stage considered sending an embassy there to forestall an invasion of Western Europe by the Tatar Mongols.

Such an expedition would have been tantamount to a suicide mission. At that time no one in the Christian world had been to China - Cathay - and returned alive.

The Promo Bit:

Colin Falconer has been published widely in the UK, US and Europe and his books have been translated into seventeen languages. He is the author of SILK ROAD, a fictional account based on this historical fragment. It is to be published on October 4, 2011. For more information click here. He invites you to join him at http://www.colinfalconer.net/

The Beauty Chorus by Kate Lord Brown

New Year’s Eve 1940: Evie Chase, the beautiful debutante daughter of an RAF commander, listens wistfully to the swing music drifting out from the ballroom. With bombs falling nightly in London, she is determined to make a difference to the war effort.


Evie joins the ATA – the civilian pilots who ferry fighter planes to bases across war-torn Britain. Two other women wait nervously to join up with her – Stella Grainger, a forlorn young mother from Singapore, and Megan Jones, an idealistic teenager who has never left her Welsh village before.


Billeted together in a tiny cottage, Stella, Megan and Evie learn to live and work together as they find romance, confront loss and forge friendships that last a lifetime.

The Beauty Chorus has been inspired by the female pilots during WWII. 166 women signed up to fly Spitfires and bombers from factories to airfields across the country. It was an adventure that would cost many their lives:


It really is quite by accident that I've read several books relating to WWII in such short succession.  Each one has given me a different experience.  In The Beauty Chorus, a title these young female pilots received from their older male colleagues, we are swept off our feet by the impossible glamour of these young women flying these great big roaring machines of war.
 
The newspapers saw their beauty, their youth, their red lipstick and carefully groomed hair, and never once did they peer beneath the surface to show how much hard work these young women put in on a daily basis and the dangers they faced.
 
Evie, impossibly glamorous and beautiful, joins the ATA - Air Transport Auxiliary Unit - on New Years Day in an attempt to get away from her father and her irritating stepmother.  Megan loses her husband in Singapore to the war effort and travels to Ireland where she leaves her baby behind.  She joins the ATA in a way to put it all behind her.  Stella, having never travelled further than the local village in Wales, leaves the farm she grew up on and joins the unit.  The 3 girls are billeted together in a tiny cottage and soon their differences are swept aside as they become fast friends.
 
War is a man's world and The Beauty Chorus has their share of run-ins with some other members of the Auxiliary unit who would rather not have them around.  The girls rise to the challenge and are soon flying various planes and craft around the country to make sure that their male counterparts have flying machines to hand to defend queen and country.
 
This is Kate Lord Brown's first novel but she handles the subject matter with ease - it is a quick read...in the sense that the narrative flows and is easy on the eye.  The girl's characters are very different yet in their differences lie their friendship and strengths. 
 
Before reading The Beauty Chorus I did not know about the ATA.  Which is silly of me as I have a friend whose great aunt flew for them.  But somehow I never really thought about it within the context of what they did in WWII.  It was a bit outside of my ken and so until The Beauty Chorus came along, it never occurred to me how much we owed these women, these "unsung" heroes.
 
It is a very British novel, focusing on friendship and duty and how tea can make almost anything right.  It runs such a fine line between action and adventure and the impossible glamour of parties and handsome men in uniform, that there really is something for everyone in this novel.  It isn't all just serious stuff, but there are throwaway one-liners and deeply humorous moments too, but then it is artfully balanced with the ugly reality that there is a war on and that at any moment any of these girls or their close comrades could be killed whilst out flying from one airbase to the next.
 
I had a box of tissues with me whilst reading this - it was not a commutable book - and sobbed uncontrollably over breakfast one morning, much to Mark's horror.  The Beauty Chorus really does what it sets out to do - entertain you, draw you in, and make you feel part of the story as you can't help but identifying with the girls.  The characters are well developed and Ms. Lord Brown has a great talent for scene-setting.  The book reads in a very filmic way and so it would be great to see a decent movie or tv show made to accompany it. 
 
As I said, it has all the elements that will appeal to a larger audience.  My biggest worry is that - although I love the cover - it may turn off some male readers, and I can say, with my hand on my heart, that male readers would enjoy reading The Beauty Chorus, don't be biased, look past the cover to the excellent novel beneath.  Or buy it on the Kindle from from Amazon.
 
I have found some great interviews Kate did with some other reviewers.  So find one here and here.  And this is Kate's excellent blog. Thank you so much to Corvus for sending me this on to review.  It was educational but more importantly, it was a great read and I highly recommend it.  Just keep those hankies to hand.

Vespasian: Tribune of Rome by Robert Fabri

ONE MAN: ONE DESTINY 26 AD:

Sixteen-year-old Vespasian leaves his family farm for Rome, his sights set on finding a patron and following his brother into the army. But he discovers a city in turmoil and an Empire on the brink. The aging emperor Tiberius is in seclusion on Capri, leaving Rome in the iron grip of Sejanus, commander of the Praetorian Guard. Sejanus is ruler of the Empire in all but name, but many fear that isn't enough for him. Sejanus' spies are everywhere - careless words at a dinner party can be as dangerous as a barbarian arrow. Vespasian is totally out of his depth, making dangerous enemies (and even more dangerous friends - like the young Caligula) and soon finds himself ensnared in a conspiracy against Tiberius. With the situation in Rome deteriorating, Vespasian flees the city to take up his position as tribune in an unfashionable legion on the Balkan frontier. Unblooded and inexperienced, he must lead his men in savage battle with hostile mountain tribes - dangerous enough without renegade Praetorians and Imperial agents trying to kill him too. Somehow, he must survive long enough to uncover the identity of the traitors behind the growing revolt

The idea of Rome in its heyday is a glorious one- the Forum, the Colisseum, the fountains, togas, slaves to do your bidding. Hollywood has a lot to answer for in respect of the image of Rome until recent times, when the reality of it has been looked at more closely: the basic sanitation, deathtrap housing, overcrowding, cutthroat politics (literally in many cases), dangerous streets and the constant threat from all sides.

It’s the latter version of the world that Vespasian is born into. The youngest son of a reasonably well-off family making a living from a successful mule-breeding business, he grows up on the farm, content with what he has, enjoying the peace that he has while his elder brother Sabinus is away serving in the army. Sabinus’ return, however, sets events in motion that will see Vespasian uprooted and sent to Rome, to earn his way as a man and fulfil his obligations and honour of his family. It’s a deadly adventure that quickly sees whatever illusions he had about life stripped away and offers little respite from the danger that surrounds him.

It is an adventure though, with more than its fair share of dirty, bloody battles, both large and small, a thunderous chariot race on a grand scale twith echoes of Ben Hur, narrow escapes, and intrigue aplenty. But it’s the way that it’s all brought together that makes it work.

Fabbri has a very clear image of life in the Roman world fixed in his mind, and sticks to it throughout. The world doesn’t revolve around Vespasian, and there’s a clear sense that life would go on if he wasn’t there, and while there are a couple of eyebrow lifting moments, it’s this atmosphere that was ingredient X for me, a literary MSG that kept me turning the pages and cursing whenever my train arrived at its destination.

More please!

Winterkill by CJ Box

In Winterkill, Joe Pickett is a game warden in a remote part of Wyoming, but more importantly, he's a family man and home is where he'd rather be than anywhere else. In this third Joe Pickett novel by C. J. Box, Joe finds a herd of elk slaughtered, and when he finds the perpetrator of that crime, it turns out to be the district supervisor of the National Forest, who is then found murdered. At the same time, a group of Waco and Ruby Ridge survivors calling themselves the Sovereign Citizens set up a permanent camp in the National Forest. Among them is the mother of Joe Pickett's youngest girl, a foster child abandoned three years ago. The tension mounts as Washington bureaucrats arrive to evict the Sovereign Citizens, by force if necessary, Joe becomes convinced that wrong man has been arrested for the murder, his foster daughter is kidnapped by her mother, and a killer blizzard is bearing down on the forest. This write-up was taken from here - as it seemed a more comprehensive reflection of what the book is about.


The UK is some while behind the US as they've had the opportunity to read CJ Box's books since around 2002.  It is thanks to Corvus, here in the UK, that we are now getting the chance to catch up with Mr. Box's books.
 
I read Winterkill within a few sittings.  What drew me to the story was the main character, Joe Pickett.  Joe is such a great character with a strong moral compass and a spidey-sense that he tends to follow, regardless of the consequences.  What I liked even more about Joe is that although he has this integral good guy attitude which in theory should have made him a lonely hero-type, Mr. Box has taken that and swung it around, having Joe rely hheavily on his wife Marybeth for advice and guidance.  Marybeth herself is a fantastically wrought character and you have a sense that she can withstand an onslaught from practically anything.  Yet, Box manages to keep both his characters very human, with failings, doubt and anger just under the surface.

**very minor spoilers** 

But I am getting carried away here.  My review for Winterkill is basically this: when Joe is faced with the awful murder of an escaped suspect, Lamar Gardner (the guy got shot full of hunting arrows), within minutes of the suspect escaping from his truck (having locked Joe in the truck by handcuffing him to the steering wheel) whilst a storm is moving in, Joe has few choices. Leaving him in the cold and snow would mean that any of the scavengers would get to him so he lifts the man and carries him back to the truck, through the storm and drives him to the hospital.  He also reports the incident to the local sheriff who accuses him of (obviously) tampering with evidence.  Joe points out that he'd rather bring the man in to hospital, than leave him to the mercy of the storm and scavengers.  This shuts the sheriff up pretty promptly.
 
They are due to set off to with some deputies and various other law enforcement types the next day, but the storm moves in quite heavily and scuppers the plans. By the time things are clear enough for them to go to the site of the murder, with a certain Melinda Strickland in tow.  Strickland is one of the nastiest pieces of bureaucrats I have ever had the honour to read about.  She is a high ranking Forest Service official and is so cold, heartless and brutal, that I really did wish someone would just punch her lights out permanently.  She, of course, makes Joe's life utter hell. 
 
The investigation that follows into Lamar's death spirals out of control as Strickland sees enemies where there are none and through her sheer force of will creates a nightmare for all concerned.  A group of people, refugees, if you can call them that, from some of the most high profile stand-offs between authorities and citizens (think Waco survivors) move into a nearby campground and all they want, they say, is to be left alone.  Joe visits them, to suss out what they are up to and he comes away with a sense that what these people are saying is true.  They literally just want to be left alone to see through winter and then maybe move along.  They call themselves the Sovereign Citizens and although Joe believes them, he doesn't think for a moment that they are all innocent.
 
It also transpires that the Sovereigns have in their midst, the birth-mother of April, Joe and Marybeth's foster-daughter.  And by all counts, this woman wants April back. 
 
When things go pear-shaped, April is taken by her mother and the authorities move in to try and evict the Sovereigns from the campground, Joe is left with some truly awful decisions to make.  The authorities are convinced that the murderer of Lamar Gardner is sheltering with the Sovereigns, which means that Joe has to act to prove them wrong, in the vain hope that they will not attack the Sovereign camp.
 
It literally becomes a race against time.  Joe's character is pushed to the limits here and even though you will him to throw his law abiding citizen persona to the wind, you know that once he does, nothing will be able to bring him back from the edge.
 
I was on the edge of my seat.  I had no idea what was going to happen.  CJ Box kept proving to me that he was a skilled writer and that Joe's action were not to be taken for granted.
 
In the end, the very end, I closed the covers and sat back with this huge tremendous sigh.  And no, it may not end the way you expected it to end, but wow, what you got for your ending was raw and honest and really pummelled you.
 
As this is the third Joe Pickett novel, and as it is very American, being set in Wyoming, it fully expects you to be au fait with guns and various laws pertaining to the Forest Services, including bits of hunting law.  It also assumes that the reader will know about Waco, Ruby Ridge and who the Freemen are.  Personally, this didn't bother me, in the least.  As a reader you can quite easily deduce what had taken place at these events and of course, you can always Google it. I mean, we all know and remember Waco, so it's easy enough to figure out what Ruby Ridge was about.  As Joe does everything in his power to stop the authorities turning Saddlestring into another recognisable name synonymous with death and horror.
 
CJ Box is a writers' writer.  His plotting is ridiculously well done and his characters lived and breathed whilst I read it.  The back story for those of us who did not know about the more intimate details of their lives (i.e. that their daughter April was not their own etc) is handled with care and never once did it feel like I was receiving info-dump.   I came to care for the community and I think I have a bit of a crush on both Marybeth and Joe for being such honest good people whom I want to be with.  So, I'm definitely signing up for the next Joe Pickett book to be read.  I am curious to see what else will happen in his life.  It may sound macabre, but it isn't really.
 
Find CJ Box's website here.  As I understand it, Corvus will be releasing a CJ Box novel a month, until we are caught up with the States.  This is great news.

The Bones of Avalon by Phil Rickman

Synopsis:

It is 1560, and Elizabeth Tudor has been on the throne for a year. Dr John Dee, at 32 already acclaimed throughout Europe, is her astrologer and consultant in the hidden arts... a controversial appointment in these days of superstition and religious strife.

Now the mild, bookish Dee has been sent to Glastonbury to find the missing bones of King Arthur, whose legacy was always so important to the Tudor line. With him – hardly the safest companion – is his friend and former student, Robert Dudley, a risk-taker, a wild card... and possibly the Queen’s secret lover.

The famously mystical town is still mourning the gruesome execution of its Abbot, Richard Whiting. But why was the Abbot really killed? What is the secret held by the monks since the Abbey was founded by Joseph of Arimathea, uncle of Christ and guardian of the Holy Grail?

The mission takes Dee to the tangled roots of English magic, into unexpected violence, necromantic darkness, the breathless stirring of first love... and the cold heart of a complex plot against Elizabeth.

I am a big big fan of Phil Rickman and his Merrily Watkins books. When Corvus Books was first launched, I pestered the good people at Atlantic Books to PUHLEASE send me Phil Rickman's newest novel on, The Bones of Avalon. That duly arrived and I read it greedily and read it again.

And yet that review never saw the light of day, till now. Because I think this time of the year is the perfect time for this fantastic historical novel from one of the foremost authors working in the UK.

Phil Rickman is a master when it comes to plotting a novel. He sweeps you along with the narrative and slowly but surely the pieces of the story comes together and suddenly, you as the reader get this lightbulb moment and you then unexpectedly totally get the story and how cleverly it is all put together. Or rather, that is my experience with his other novels.

In Bones of Avalon things are ramped up significantly. John Dee, Elizabeth's "sorceror" is called on to investigate the missing bones of King Arthur. Already you can't help but be hooked.  Such a simple pretext to get the adventure off to a start but as this is a Rickman novel, that simple hook is already far more complicated than you may expect.  Throw in powerful characterisation of historical figures and an ability to tell a story in a setting that you never for a second disbelieve, The Bones of Avalon will sweep you off your feet, shake you around a bit and spin you around.

Deeply drawing on his already extensive knowledge of the occult and hidden knowledge, Rickman works his magic by giving us a John Dee as we may never have thought to see him: a gentle, highly intelligent man in his early thirties who is probably a bit too naive for his own good.  Contrasted with him we have the charismatic Robert Dudley, who is wise, foolish and a bit dangerous to know.  The two form an odd team but therein lies Rickman's talent, giving us a main character (Dee) and a main secondary character (Dudley) who reflect not only each other, but the time the story is set in.

I can't praise Phil Rickman's depiction of Elizabethan England enough. The book oozes with mystery, fear and layers of religious strife and deep pagan roots.  But, it is also an unexpected novel in the sense that Dee's character is so novel.  I have read biographies of him in which he is always the dry haunted man, a man who is easily lead astray by colleagues and rumours.  In Bones of Avalon we have the bookish young man to contend with - someone who is brave without swinging a sword or facing a knight in battle.  His bravery is quieter yet it will shake the foundations of the small town of Glastonbury and surrounds, right to London where his Queen resides.

I am loathe to tell you more of the plot as it is a) involved and b) trying to explain the ins and outs will be too spoilery but allow me to say that if you enjoy in depth characterisation, good storytelling and an evocative historical setting, you should enjoy Bones of Avalon.  On par, and better than many of the contemporary written historical novels out there today, Phil Rickman has proved that he is an excellent wordsmith with a deft touch when it comes to writing about historical figures.

Find Phil Rickman's website here and Corvus / Atlantic Books here.

Michael Ridpath talks Iceland, sagas and shows us some photos

I was so excited reading Where The Shadows Lie last week, I impetiously emailed poor Michael Ridpath and gushed at him. He was clearly so taken aback by it and so stunned by my mad word skills, he agreed to a guest blog before he had time to register how devious I was! I was keen to find out more about him writing WTSL, how it came to and the locations he uses and he's kindly complied with the following guest blog:

***

Where The Shadows Lie is an important book for me. It is four years since I decided to change genres, and this is the result.

After writing eight financial thrillers, I decided to try my hand at something else. The motivation was partly commercial: although I thought my books were improving in quality, sales were declining steadily, a trend which I put down to a lack of interest on the part of the general reader in financial fiction. But also, after spending years dealing with subjects I knew well, I wanted to move on to subjects which were both new and interesting.

After examining the shelves of a local Smith’s to look for popular areas that appealed to me, I decided to embark on a detective series. For that I needed a distinctive detective. My sub-conscious settled on Iceland. I had been on a book tour to the country ten years before and found it a fascinating, quirky place. For years I had tried to figure out how I could set a financial thriller there, but couldn’t see how (of course now it would be dead easy!).

So I needed an Icelandic detective. The name was easy – Magnus. The late Magnus Magnusson is every Englishman’s favourite Icelander, and his name was far too good to waste. But then a problem arose: I needed a detective who spoke Icelandic but was also a bit of an outsider. This was partly because I am obviously an outsider and would find it hard to pull off book after book written from the point of view of someone whose language I don’t speak. But also I wanted to point out the many extraordinary aspects of Icelandic society, which would be difficult if Magnus was a native – to him they wouldn’t seem worth mentioning.

So I devised a complicated background for Magnus, which not only addressed this difficulty, but also gave him a set of personal insecurities of the kind that any good fictional detective should carry around with him.

Magnus’s story goes as follows. He was born in Iceland, but his parents split up when he was a child, and Magnus followed his father to Boston where his father took a job as a professor of Mathematics. Magnus grew up a lone Icelandic kid in an American High School, reading the sagas for comfort. He went to university and was planning to go to Law School, when his father was murdered. The local police couldn’t find the killer, and despite his obsession with the task, neither could Magnus. But it caused him to change his career plans and become a cop.

Twelve years later, he is a homicide detective in Boston when he gets caught up in a police corruption scandal and he needs to disappear for his own safety. The Reykjavík police are looking for an adviser to help them with increasing levels of big-city crime. So Magnus moves to Reykjavík.

He still doesn’t know who killed his father. I do, but I’m not telling you, or him. Not for a few books anyway.

So, I was happy with my detective, but I needed a plot. I did some background research. I read some sagas, the medieval tales of Icelandic settlers in the tenth century, and found them fascinating. So, a lost saga then. How about a professor of Icelandic Literature found dead at his summer house?

OK, so what’s so great about this saga? I wanted something really big, something that would resonate beyond Iceland. An answer came quickly: Lord of The Rings.

Not bad. I didn’t know much about Tolkien, but I thought it plausible that he had an interest in the sagas. I remembered at university reading an academic article by him published in 1936 about Beowulf. So I did some more reading.

Amazingly something happened which almost never does: the more I found out about Tolkien and the sagas, the more it all fit together.

Tolkien was obsessed by Icelandic sagas, from the time when, as a child, he first read the translation by William Morris of the Saga of the Volsungs. He started an Old Norse drinking club at Leeds University in the 1920s, where they sang Icelandic drinking songs and read Icelandic tales. It turns out there is a bloody great volcano in Iceland called Mount Hekla which erupts all the time. It was known as the Mouth of Hell in medieval times, and is the perfect place to drop a ring.

The most famous lost saga in Iceland is Gaukur’s Saga. Not much is known about Gaukur except that he lived at a farm called Stöng in the shadow of Mount Hekla. So much in the shadow it was covered in ash in an eruption in 1104 and rediscovered in 1939. This is a replica.

So everything slotted into place. Brilliant!

The problem was I didn’t quite believe the story myself. I don’t go in for the supernatural very much, and I didn’t want my man Magnus to either. You can’t write a story you don’t believe in.

What to do? Go to the pub with my friend Toby, that’s what. By the third pint Toby had the problem sorted. Magnus could remain cynical, so could I, and so could the readers, if they so wished. Some of the other characters in the book would be credulous. And I should inject just the tiniest hint of something otherworldly in the book, the barest clue, to set the reader wondering.

That worked. I started typing.

I won’t tell you the ending. But I will show you. (Liz: This photo is Gulfoss where the climax takes place - it's pretty evocative and scary and beautiful!)

With those ingredients, how could I fail to make a good story?

Michael Ridpath

June 2010

**Just a small note: all photos featured in this guest blog was taken by Michael during his visits to Iceland. Except for the Tolkien photo, of course. That was nabbed from here.

Where the Shadows Lie by Michael Ridpath

Synopsis:

Amid Iceland’s wild, volcanic landscape, rumours swirl of an eight-hundred-year old manuscript inscribed with a long-lost saga about a ring of terrible power.

A rediscovered saga alone would be worth a fortune, but, if the rumours can be believed, there is something much more valuable about this one. Something worth killing for. Something that will cost Professor Agnar Haraldsson his life.

Untangling murder from myth is Iceland-born, Boston-raised homicide detective Magnus Jonson. Seconded to the Icelandic Police Force for his own protection after he runs afoul of a drug cartel back in Boston, Magnus also has his own reasons for returning to the country of his birth for the first time in nearly two decades – the unsolved murder of his father.

And as Magnus is about to discover, the past casts a long shadow in Iceland.

Binding Iceland’s landscape and history, secrets and superstitions in a strikingly original plot that will span several volumes, Where The Shadows Lie is a thrilling new series from an established master.

There are few books that are so beloved, so read and re-read and analysed as the Lord of the Rings.

Personally, I’ve never succumbed to the massive sequence’s lure. I loved The Hobbit and I loved reading the various sagas LoTR was based on, but I’ve never managed to get further than The Fellowship, but that’s just me.

I can’t argue lineage or speak Quenya but I still count myself a fan. I adored the movies, I loved the back-story to the various characters and am probably the only person who has never read LoTR but who has read The Silmarillion.

You may wonder what tangent I’m on writing this review. The book is called Where The Shadows Lie and not Reminisce about LoTR and Tolkien. But bear with me, all of this will make sense. I promise.

Where The Shadows Lie introduces us to Magnus Jonson, a Boston police officer who discovered some nefarious goings that involved a well-thought of cop in his precinct and a pretty nasty Dominican drug dealer. After a direct attack on his life, his superintendent decides to reconsider a request from Iceland and sends Magnus on secondment to Iceland, to work closely with the police force there, until the drug lord’s trial comes to fruition in the States.

Magnus goes reluctantly. He grew up half in Iceland (till the age of 12), half in the States (till present) so he can speak the language and he’s used to the Icelandic inhabitants’ quirks but he’s not really used to the way the police work there. But more importantly, what he does not expect is the impact moving back to Iceland has on him emotionally. He fondly remembers the time he spent with his father, their talks about the Icelandic sagas and more recently, and sadly, his father’s unsolved murder. He acutely feels his isolation as he has family in Iceland, but no one who would want to speak to him, because of his father. They blame him directly for Magnus’s mother’s death and things did not end well between them when Magnus was there last.

When Magnus arrives in Reykjavik on secondment, he’s hurried off to the site of the country’s first murder in a very long time indeed. A professor has been killed at his weekend home. An investigation reveals that he had been working on the translation of a very old saga, one the world did not know about. A saga about a cursed ring and how its owner failed to throw into the yawning mouth of an inferno and how each subsequent wearer of that ring is cursed.

Magnus tries puzzling out the modern day quandary of the two suspects, characters called Gimli and Isuldur via online forums, certain that one of these two men, one English, the other a wealthy American, had something to do with the murder of the professor. The two men had the motive and the opportunity as they were both huge Tolkien fans, almost rabidly so. They were prepared to do almost anything to own the Saga on which their all-time favourite book is based.

As the story unfolds – pretty darn seamlessly, I may add – the back story of the lost saga is filled in. There are several reveals, plot twists and characters coming clean. I completely rooted for the wrong person to be the murderer (dammit!) and found that the mystery of lost saga and that of the professor’s murder is solved pretty adequately.

What binds the story together is the force of the storytelling, the under-stated bleakness of the Icelandic countryside and the subtle differences highlighted throughout the novel between Magnus the American man and Magnus the Icelandic boy. What was once and what is now. This sense of difference and isolation is magnified when his work colleagues are friendly, yet remote, with the officer in charge of the case being not at all welcoming.

The financial climate is mentioned a few times in the novel, it’s touched on, to indicate that everyone in Iceland is currently suffering, with a lot of people losing their jobs and businesses after the financial turmoil last year. More than anything else, it makes Where The Shadows Lie a very pertinent novel, as the entire story evolves from one person who decides to reveal the saga to the world, through the subsequently murdered professor, as the money is needed to keep a business afloat.

I found Where The Shadows Lie a well written, intelligent thriller novel, teetering on being a complete cross-over for fans of magical realism and urban fantasy with a detective noir twist. Having never been to Iceland, but having seen photos and documentaries, and having read various sagas for school and uni and for nerdy pleasure reading, there is an otherworldliness about the place that Ridpath taps into that lifts this “yet another police procedural” from the mundane to the noteworthy. It’s more than just the subject, the lost saga, that pushes this novel out of the crowd. It’s also the clear writing style and the main character that is noteworthy. We leave Magnus at the end of the novel with a murder solved, a blossoming relationship and a trip back to the States to bear witness in the drug trial he almost got murdered for. But we know he’s going to be back. He’s realised that there are things about his father‘s life that he does not know and that it is up to him to find out what they are. Especially if he wants to solve his father’s murder.

Find Michael Ridpath’s website here. Where The Shadows Lie is out now from online retailers and in all good bookshops.