Welcome to the latest leg of the Claymore Straker journey – as brought to us by Paul Hardisty.  We began our trip with Liz Loves Books before moving to Off The Shelf Books then to Espresso Coco.  All those names link to you the journey and I’d highly recommend lingering on each blog once you have caught up with Straker and exploring the other content shared by Liz, Victoria and Dave.

Today we are concentrating on book three – Reconciliation for the Dead and I pass you to Mr Hardisty:

In the third instalment, Reconciliation for the Dead, I wanted to tell the story of how Clay comes to be the deeply disturbed man we meet in the first two books. Essentially a prequel, it opens in 1997, in the aftermath of events in Cyprus. Determined to somehow atone for the sins of his past, Clay has returned to South Africa to testify to Desmond Tutu’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.  Rania has returned to Paris, married, and is again working as a journalist.  As Clay testifies, we are drawn back to 1980. Clay is a twenty-year old paratrooper in the South African Army, fighting in the Border War in Angola. All his illusions are shattered when he comes face-to-face with the real reasons for the war, and finds himself complicit in the most unspeakable atrocities. As with the other books, I was going for realism and historical accuracy.

Reconciliation for the Dead is published by Orenda Books and is available in digital and paperback format. Here is the overview…

Fresh from events in Yemen and Cyprus, vigilante justice-seeker Claymore Straker returns to South Africa, seeking absolution for the sins of his past. Over four days, he testifies to Desmond Tutu’s newly established Truth and Reconciliation Commission, recounting the shattering events that led to his dishonourable discharge and exile, fifteen years earlier. It was 1980. The height of the Cold War. Clay is a young paratrooper in the South African Army, fighting in Angola against the Communist insurgency that threatens to topple the White Apartheid regime. On a patrol deep inside Angola, Clay, and his best friend, Eben Barstow, find themselves enmeshed in a tangled conspiracy that threatens everything they have been taught to believe about war, and the sacrifices that they, and their brothers in arms, are expected to make. Witness and unwitting accomplice to an act of shocking brutality, Clay changes allegiance and finds himself labelled a deserter and accused of high treason, setting him on a journey into the dark, twisted heart of institutionalised hatred, from which no one will emerge unscathed.

Order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Reconciliation-Dead-Claymore-Straker-Hardisty-ebook/dp/B01MTVTHRN/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1530726066&sr=1-3