June 23

Forty Acres – Dwayne Alexander Smith

Forty Acres – Dwayne Alexander Smith

Martin Grey, a smart, talented. young lawyer working out of a storefront in Queens, is taken under the wing of a secretive group made up of America’s most powerful, wealthy, and esteemed black men. He’s dazzled by what they have accomplished, and they seem to think he has the potential to be one of them They invite him for a weekend away from it all – no wives, no cell phones, no talk of business. But what he discovers, far from home, is a disturbing alternative reality which challenges his deepest convictions…

A novel of rage and compassion, trust and betrayal, Forty Acres is the story of one man’s desperate attempt to escape the clutches of a terrifying new moral order.

 

Review copy kindly provided by Netgalley.

One of the joys of any new book is the pending adventure. Where will the story take me? Will I be gripped by adventure? Bored by excessive detail? Or be challenged with new ideas and concepts? Fortunately 40 Acres managed to grip, entertain and, at times, even made me seriously consider some of my personal perceptions.

At the heart of the story is a successful lawyer, Martin Grey, who gets the chance to join an elite band of successful black businessmen and entrepreneurs. The foundation behind their unity is shrouded in mystery which is slowly and (often) shockingly revealed to the reader, and Grey, as our perceptions of equality in the 21st Century is challenged by author Dwayne Alexander Smith.

Although I felt the book got off to a bit of a slow start, this was short lived and I quickly found that I wanted to learn more about Mr Gray and his new friends. The central character was nicely grounded and when faced with some of the extreme concepts and situations that confronted him as the story unfolded I found I was able to empathise with the dilemmas he faced – excellent writing by Smith who took some unpleasant concepts and almost gave them a rational spin at times. By the time I was deep into the book I was engrossed and could not wait to see how the story panned out.

A little bit of learning in this book for me too. The titular Forty Acres is a direct link to the freehold land given to former slaves by the American Government when they got their freedom. Had I known this before starting the story I may have been a bit more aware of where the story was leading so I was a little slow on the uptake! I don’t feel that being better informed than I would in any way spoil what was otherwise an excellent story.

For readers that enjoy an adventure story, but don’t want to suspend their belief and read about the all action hero, then I would have no qualms recommending that you Grab This Book.

Category: From The Bookshelf | 3 Comments on Forty Acres – Dwayne Alexander Smith
June 19

Stalkers – a great book crept up on me

stalkersSTALKERS – PAUL FINCH

Time’s up. You’re Next.

“All he had to do was name the woman he wanted. It was that easy. They would do all the hard work.”

Detective Sergeant Mark ‘Heck’ Heckenburg is investigating the disappearance of 38 different women. Each one was happy and successful until they vanished without a trace.

Desperate to find her missing sister, Lauren Wraxford seeks out Heck’s help. Together they enter a seedy underworld of gangsters and organised crime.

But when they hear rumours about the so-called ‘Nice Guys Club’ they hit a brick wall. They’re the gang that no one will talk about. Because the Nice Guys can arrange anything you want. Provided you pay the price…

 

Having spent some time hanging round Twitter and getting a feel for what fellow readers were spending time with there was one name which cropped up more than once…Paul Finch.

Stalkers seemed the ideal jumping on point as it introduced Mark Heckenburg, a recurring central figure for Finch’s books. Promising start from my point of view – I love when an author establishes a character and builds on their story over a few books.

From the outset I was drawn into the story the Stalker element was unsettling when described  from the victim’s (limited) viewpoint. The scale of the true horror that was to follow was skillfully revealed and kept me hooked. There were some very disturbing concepts brought out and the author really put his characters through the wringer.

I read a lot of Michael Slade books when I was younger. Murder stories featuring the Royal Canadian Mounted Police but with nasty ‘shlock horror’ undertones.  This is the closest UK equivalent that I have read for many years but Stalkers was better – much, much better than anything Slade ever wrote.

I have no hesitation in calling Stalkers the best book that I have read this year – GRAB THIS BOOK  I give it an A+.

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June 16

New Find – Paul Finch

The best thing about this blogging lark is when fellow bloggers give you a heads-up on authors that you may not have read yet.  Over the last two weeks I have read the name Paul Finch many times on my Twitter feed.

Time for a bit of an investigation and I discover he writes thrillers, set in the UK and that (best of all) there is a recurring hero as the lead character in his ‘Heck’ books.

On the train to work this morning I began Chapter One of Stalkers.  I was immediately drawn into the story and 40 mins later left the train in very grumpy mood as work was about to interrupt a great story.

Lunch was too short but I squeezed in a few more chapters and the journey home meant another 40 minutes of uninterrupted reading. The true test of how good this story is – I turned off the World Cup commentary on my radio to read Mr Finch’s book.  Probably the most telling sign as to just how good it is!

Full review soon but writing it now would only slow me down from finishing the story.

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June 12

Books in progress

Lots of reading going on over the last few days.  Taken to the Amazon Kindle sale to stock up on some of my old faves.  Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct stories are a great wee piece of escapism for me, however, they are short so I grudge paying £8 or so for a book I will read in a night.  This is why I nab as many as I can when they go on sale (ie now).

This week’s digital reads are JD Robb stories. I love the Eve Dallas books and as work has been a bit hectic this week I am re-visiting one or two of the Dallas stories I remember less well from the first read through.

In paperback I am reading FAN – kindly provided by Sophie from @ReviewedTheBook. This one is full on and I am reading it in bursts as I find it intense and not always in a good way.  Must check with Sophie if she found any empathy for the protagonist (I am feeling sorry for his fiancee more than him).

A full review of FAN will follow soon as this is a book everyone should see.

Finally – I was planning attending an author signing this week in Edinburgh but found out it had been cancelled late in the day.  Both the publisher and author offered me apologies on Twitter after I posted my disappointment. See – there ARE nice people on Twitter.

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June 3

Ash – I finished it (and it nearly finished me)

Scroll down my pages and you will see that I was reading James Herbert’s Ash. Having been a James Herbert fan since my teenage years I had held back reading Ash for many, many months – mainly because Mr Herbert sadly passed away not long after publication and I knew that this was the last of his books I would ever get to read.

ash The book started with great potential and I really liked the plot threads that seemed to be developing. The central character had featured in two previous novels and I always enjoy when a familiar face is re-introduced. I made a point to re-read Haunted (where the titular David Ash was first introduced) before turning to Ash so I would be fresh on the character’s back story.

Sadly about half way through this book it all started to go wrong. I appreciate that horror stories can be prone to dramatic excesses for the sake of a plot device, however, this was off the wall.  Translucent children, spawn of Hitler, a secret royal baby, incestuous millionaire siblings – any one of these would defy credibility in most books – to chuck them all in to a single novel makes a farce. Oh, forgot to mention Lord Lucan alive and well and hiding in a remote Scottish castle.

I wondered if Mr Herbert’s editor was just so relieved to finally get a manuscript (there had been a significant gap between Ash and the previous novel) that the thought of further delays while edits were made was just too horrific to contemplate?

I started Ash in April, this review will go live in June. It did not take me 3 months to get to the end of a 400 page book, it has taken me 3 months to research lots of new words that I could use to explain to friends just how terrible Ash is. It really is awful. Abysmal. Dire. This could well be the worst book I have read since High School (20+ years ago).

I started blogging so that I could share news of books I enjoyed – I had not expected that I would also use these pages as a vehicle to tell people to avoid a story by one of my favourite authors.

Grab this book – put it somewhere safe, ideally out of the reach of others. If you want to read a James Herbert novel then I recommend The Magic Cottage or The Rats.

Any of these are better than Ash.
Any of these are recommended before reading Ash.
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June 2

Catching up

I have been gone for quite a while, many books have passed through my hands and there have been lots of Kindle uploads. Why the significant gap in updates?  Check out my final review of Ash!

Since my last post World Book Night has come and gone.  I managed to gift all my books (bar three and they are earmarked for specific readers). I had fun presenting some books to random strangers, I left one on the train so it could be ‘found’ (though I was sitting a few chairs away watching to see who nabbed it).  More importantly I tried to ensure they went to people who generally don’t get to read much – as I live in one of the less glamorous areas of Lanarkshire this was quite easy!

I did get a kick out of watching the passengers on the train trying to be subtle about taking what appeared to be a forgotten book.  I had boarded the train at a quiet station, destination Edinburgh.  I walked down a near-empty carriage and dropped a copy of Gorky Park onto an empty seat. If you did not see this year’s World Book Night titles it helps to know the covers were predominantly bright orange – Gorky Park is not a short book either!

Grab This Book
Grab This Book

The book sat alone for two stations though people did stare at it as they walked down the carriage. As we neared the Capital the train busied-up and people started to sit beside the lone book.  There were subtle glances towards it and one man even flipped it over to read the back – not brave enough to pick it up though!

I thought that my fellow passengers may be too polite to lift someone’s forgotten book – as I was riding the train to the end of the line I had planned to lift the book if nobody took it.  However, all was to resolve its-self quite suddenly.  As we pulled into Edinburgh Park station a lady placed her copy of The Metro onto the chair beside her (and on top of Gorky Park). The train stopped, the lady rose, lifted her paper (and a now-concealed copy of Gorky Park) and left the train. A quick glance back at the door to check she was not being challenged….BOOM – Gorky Park had a new home!

I hope she enjoyed it. Later it also dawned on me that she really did Grab This Book.

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