Mrs Pollifax, Innocent Tourist (Mrs Pollifax #13) 3.5Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Mrs Pollifax, Innocent Tourist
Series: Mrs Pollifax #13
Author: Dorothy Gilman
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 155
Words: 51K
Publish: 1997

The penultimate Mrs Pollifax story. This time the author isn’t afraid to name names or deal with REAL situations.

I was still recovering from Lewis’s The Abolition of Man when I read this, so I just kind of sat back and soaked this in, like sitting in a pool. I just let the whole story wash over me without trying to think. I simply enjoyed. Sometimes that is all I ask of a book. Not very often, but occasionally that really is enough and this was one of those times. I enjoyed the beginning, the middle and the end and I didn’t have to stretch myself at all.

I benevolently pat this little book on its head and send it scampering off to play with all the other little books out there.

★★★✬☆

From the Internet

In Mrs. Pollifax, Innocent Tourist by Dorothy Gilman, elderly CIA operative Emily Pollifax travels to Jordan to help smuggle a dangerous manuscript exposing Saddam Hussein. Posing as a tourist to cover for her retired agent friend John Farrell, she faces immediate danger, deadly pursuits, and uses her wits and karate to survive.

The Mission and Arrival

• The Goal: Retrieve and smuggle out an inflammatory manuscript written by a murdered Iraqi dissident that details the dark truths of Saddam Hussein's regime.

• The Cover: Emily acts as the fun-loving tourist cousin of her partner, John Sebastian Farrell.

• The Threat: On the flight to Amman, Emily's suspicious seatmate hides a map and key inside a carving in her luggage, launching them straight into a web of terrorists and secret police.

Danger in Jordan

• Missing Contact: Their scheduled meeting with Farrell's contact at the Crusader castle of Karak results in finding a dead body instead.

• The Chase: Tracked by Jordanian terrorists, Iraqi secret police, and local authorities while touring with a local guide and his sister, the pair must navigate shifting loyalties and life-threatening traps.

• The Climax: The high-stakes adventure concludes at an ancient desert fort where Mrs. Pollifax uses her signature karate skills to outwit and take down the villain

• All of my “Mrs Pollifax” Reviews

From Russia with Love (James Bond #5) 3Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: From Russia with Love
Series: James Bond #5
Author: Ian Fleming
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 229
Words: 81K
Publish: 1957

I have to keep reminding myself that this era was about the COLD war, in which both sides did as little as possible to harm the other in any tangible, material way. It was all about information, and what’s more, about “reputation”. As if the world was fool enough to believe that communism was viable after seeing what horrors Stalin had committed. Of course, as is shown by people in the United States today, that lesson didn’t stick and you have communists in politics and every day life here and now. Basically, everything James Bond ever did was a complete waste because his wastrel children threw it all out. Generationally speaking that is. But that’s not what this book is about.

This book is about Bond getting tossed over by the girl in the previous book for some American mook and how SMERSH plans to kill Bond and destroy his reputation, thus destroying the British Secret Service’s reputation as well. It’s a cautionary tale of how bad things are nowadays that I struggle to even connect with that idea, as in, who would care if Bond’s reputation was besmirched? Now of course, I have to ask, have things actually gotten worse, or have people cast off the hypocrisy of saying one thing (“Oh Nohse, bad reputation, oh nohse!”) while believing something else. Like Bond being a philandering man whore. It isn’t that he is doing those things that people cared about, but that he wasn’t caught at it. Appearance. So if he was caught it would be bad, but if he wasn’t, it wasn’t bad. Ahhhh, I hate that kind of thinking and way of life. And this whole book is predicated on that idea.

Thankfully, this wasn’t as boring as the previous book either. Bond gets in a fight between gypsies and soviet soldiers and has a standoff where he gets shot in a train later on. And he’s poisoned right at the end and might even die.

But everything else? Riding on a train thinking some soviet chick might fill that gap in his life? Bond is an empty man, representing a totally bankrupt generation and it is ugly to read about. I doubt Fleming intended that outcome, but he was one of that morally bankrupt generation and so his writing reflects that.

That’s a lot of complaining, I know, and coupled with the 3star rating, you might be asking yourself “Why, Bookstooge, why?” And I’ll tell you why. Because I said so. This is my blog and my ratings are MINE and it is my prerogative to do nothing but complain about a book and still not hate it. Also, I’m not a communist, so that settles that.

Next!

★★★☆☆

From Grokipedia

In Moscow, the Soviet counter-intelligence agency SMERSH, humiliated by James Bond's prior successes against their operations, approves Operation Thunderbolt to assassinate him and discredit British intelligence through a fabricated sex scandal. Grandmaster chess player Colonel Kronsteen and Colonel Rosa Klebb of SMERSH devise the scheme, assigning psychopath assassin Donovan "Red" Grant to execute Bond during a full moon; they coerce cipher clerk Corporal Tatiana Romanova to defect with the top-secret Spektor cipher machine—a device capable of decoding all Soviet messages—as bait, instructing her to seduce Bond upon his arrival in Istanbul.British Secret Service head M dispatches Bond to Istanbul to rendezvous with station chief Darko Kerim and retrieve Tatiana and the Spektor, unaware of the trap. Bond and Kerim navigate Soviet-instigated conflicts, including a violent gypsy clan feud, before Bond meets Tatiana at the Soviet consulate; she claims infatuation after studying his photograph and confirms the defection plan via the Orient Express to Paris.Aboard the train, Kerim joins Bond and Tatiana but is murdered alongside a Soviet agent in a compartment struggle; fellow passenger "Captain Norman Nash"—Grant in disguise—boards at Belgrade, later drugging Tatiana to stage compromising photographs of Bond before revealing the plot and attempting his assassination. Bond deflects Grant's garrote and gunshot with an armored cigarette case, then kills him in hand-to-hand combat using a knife. After evading pursuit and reaching Paris with Tatiana and the booby-trapped Spektor, Bond confronts Klebb in their hotel; she poisons him with a retractable blade concealed in her shoe, causing him to collapse in agony as the novel ends on a cliffhanger

Spook Street (Slough House #4) 3.5Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Spook Street
Series: Slough House #4
Author: Mick Herron
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 252
Words: 95K
Publish: 2017

Boy howdy, it’s been almost nine months since I last read a Slough House book (it was Real Tigers by the way, back in December of ‘25). Since then I’ve tried to watch the tv show (I got a 1 week promo pass to Atv via Prime) and that didn’t work out very well. For whatever reason, I didn’t like the characters on the screen and since I already knew the rough story outline, that is what stayed in focus for me. What was/is quirky on a page is unbearably annoying when presented on a screen. There was one character (I can’t even remember who) who kept trying to be Mr Sociable. Selling raffle tickets, getting people to meet up after work, etc, etc. I wanted to throw him in front of a bus, he annoyed me so much. Then there was Jackson Lamb. He’s a disgusting guy in the books, but I’m saved from the pure visceralness of it by having it presented in words. On the screen? Every fart, every belch, every scratch, it is right in my face. I couldn’t handle it, so I just stopped.

All of that is background so you know what was swirling around in my brain when I picked this up. It is part of why I enjoyed this enough to bump it up half a star from Real Tigers and why I had such a good time with it despite it dealing with dementia and Western State sponsored terrorism.

Herron is writing about old spies and how the things they did, or even attempted to do back in the Cold War are still bearing bitter fruit today. It was a good reminder that there are always unintended consequences and they may be years in the making. Thankfully Herron wasn’t so hamhanded as to turn that into a “message” about today but the implication is definitely there. I do think it is something to think about, especially with what is currently going on with Iran and the Straight of Hormuz. What we do today will have repercussions 20 or even 30 years in the future.

And honestly, that was what I was mainly thinking about while reading this book. There are times it is good to be reminded of the real world and thankfully, this was one of those times where it didn’t stick in my craw. I liked that and I think that’s a good place to end this.

★★★✬☆

From Grokipedia

Spook Street opens with a devastating suicide bombing in a busy London shopping centre that kills forty innocent civilians. [5] [6] The attack triggers a high-level MI5 response, but parallel events quickly draw in the disgraced agents of Slough House when retired legend David Cartwright, a Cold War-era operative and former senior MI5 figure now in the grip of dementia, becomes convinced that old enemies are targeting him to silence dangerous secrets from his past. [5] His growing paranoia leads to a violent incident at his home, escalating concerns for his safety and prompting his grandson, River Cartwright—a slow horse relegated to Slough House—to push for answers despite his lowly status.Jackson Lamb, the abrasive and cunning head of Slough House, reluctantly engages to shield his former mentor and superior while investigating the threats, recognizing that the bombing and threats against retired agents may be linked to unfinished Cold War business that someone is determined to bury permanently. [6] The Slough House team digs into buried intelligence history amid suspicions that the terror incident may conceal deeper motives. [6] River's family ties heighten the personal stakes as he navigates the crisis involving his grandfather's vulnerability and the resurfacing dangers. [5]As the parallel investigations converge, Slough House's outcast agents apply their unorthodox skills to uncover the connections between the bombing, the targeted threats, and the long-guarded secrets, working against time to avert further violence and expose the underlying conspiracy. [6] The narrative resolves the immediate threats through their persistent efforts while underscoring the lingering impact of past espionage on the present.

Mrs Pollifax and the Lion Killer (Mrs Pollifax #12) 3Stars

 This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Mrs Pollifax and the Lion Killer
Series: Mrs Pollifax #12
Author: Dorothy Gilman
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 155
Words: 52K
Publish: 1996

A direct sequel to Mrs Pollifax Pursued and I must say, this didn’t come out so great in comparison. There is no CIA connection, no Carstairs or any other operatives, just Mrs Pollifax in a fake African country that is being riven by rumors and with everybody acting like a three year old.

I think this was the first Mrs Pollifax book that I finished with a sigh of relief that it was over. Part of it was that Mrs P was very passive in the first part of the book and that doesn’t suit her at all. Yes, she’s tired and she’s dealing with that girl Kadi, but she just lets everything happen to her. It didn’t feel like Mrs P until she took matters into her own hands, but even then, it was just a little bit. This was more of a mystery with its passiveness than an active thriller like I’ve come to expect from the author.

Also, that title. It refers to a man who dresses up as a lion and kills people. So if any of you are bleeding hearts, don’t worry, no lions are killed. Because there are NO lions in the fake country of Ubangiba. I guess that was part of the irritation. Gilman has had no problem talking about other real countries and their pro’s and con’s, all over the world, but suddenly we go to Africa and its different for them?

Despite my complaining, this was still a decent read, just not a great read and I must admit, after the last book I had high expectations.

★★★☆☆

From the Publisher

In response to a desperate SOS, Kadi Hopkirk flies to the African country of Ubangiba, where her childhood friend, Sammat, is soon to be crowned king. Mrs. Pollifax, reluctant to allow the girl to venture alone into what she fears may be grave danger, crashes the party. On arrival, Kadi and Mrs. P. soon discover that Sammat has dangerous enemies. Rumors are springing up that he is a sorcerer who is responsible for a rash of shocking murders in which the victims appear to have been clawed to death by a lion. These crimes are especially terrifying because there are no lions in Ubangiba. So Mrs. Pollifax wades into the fray, hunting for the source of the bloody terrorism that threatens Sammat and Ubangida – – not to mention Kadi and Mrs. Pollifax…..

• All of my “Mrs Pollifax” Reviews

Diamonds Are Forever (James Bond #4) 3Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Diamonds Are Forever
Series: James Bond #4
Author: Ian Fleming
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 205
Words: 72K
Publish: 1956

There is a reason why the movies have overshadowed these books. For about 75% of the book, it was just boring, boring, boring.

Bond gets involved with the American Mob and diamond smuggling and one train blows up after Bond gets beaten up. That’s it. I know I’m jaded in terms of thrillers and adventures, but seriously, that’s it. Cold War thrillers are just so slow and move/countermove and then counter/counter/countermove. Blah, blah, blah. It’s not bad story telling or anything, it’s just a style that has, thankfully, passed.

If I was still doing my food comparisons for books, I’d liken this to a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on white bread.

★★★☆☆

From Grokipedia

James Bond is assigned by M to infiltrate and dismantle a major diamond smuggling pipeline that is costing Britain millions in lost dollar earnings, running from the mines of Sierra Leone through London and into the United States. [3] The pipeline begins in Sierra Leone, where African miners conceal rough diamonds in their mouths during staged dental visits to a corrupt Afrikaner dentist, who extracts the stones and transports them by motorcycle to a remote thorn bush rendezvous; there, a German helicopter pilot collects the diamonds (worth around £100,000 per shipment) and flies them toward Dakar, from where they are forwarded through cut-outs to London. [3] In London, the stones are handled by the House of Diamonds, a front for Jack Spang (alias Rufus B. Saye), who packages them for couriers to smuggle to the U.S. end operated by his brother Seraffimo Spang. [3]Bond impersonates Peter Franks, a known diamond courier arrested by Special Branch, and meets Tiffany Case, the organization's American go-between, at the Trafalgar Palace Hotel in London. [3] She briefs him on smuggling the diamonds concealed inside six Dunlop 65 golf balls in his golf bag and provides expense money before he departs. [3] Bond flies to New York via BOAC Stratocruiser, clears customs without issue, and checks into the Hotel Astor as instructed. [3] He meets Shady Tree, a hunchbacked intermediary for the Spangled Mob, who pays him part of his fee and directs him to Saratoga Springs to collect the remainder by betting on the fixed horse Shy Smile in the Perpetuities Stakes. [3]In Saratoga Springs, Bond reconnects with Felix Leiter, now a Pinkerton's detective investigating the same mob, and they collaborate to sabotage the fix. [4] Shy Smile, a ringer substituted for the original horse, appears to win but is disqualified after its jockey deliberately fouls another horse, thwarting the payout. [3] Bond is then rerouted to Las Vegas to win his fee at the rigged blackjack tables of the Tiara Hotel and Casino, owned by Seraffimo Spang. [3] Tiffany Case, dealing blackjack, arranges for Bond to win $5,000 legitimately, but he defies orders by continuing to play roulette and winning more, drawing the mob's attention. [3]Bond is captured by the killers Wint and Kidd, taken to the ghost town of Spectreville, and severely beaten by Seraffimo Spang's men after his imposture is discovered. [3] Tiffany Case, disillusioned with the mob, helps Bond escape; they flee on a hand-pumped rail car while setting Spectreville ablaze. [3] Seraffimo pursues them in his antique steam locomotive, the Cannonball, but Bond shoots him through the cab window, causing the train to derail and crash in flames, killing Seraffimo. [3] Bond and Tiffany escape with assistance from cab driver Ernie Cureo, who is wounded during a violent car chase in Las Vegas. [4]They travel to New York and board the Queen Elizabeth for England, but Wint and Kidd follow aboard with orders to assassinate them. [3] Bond confronts the pair in their cabin, kills Wint with a thrown knife and Kidd with his Beretta, then stages the scene as a murder-suicide stemming from a gambling dispute. [3] Bond then flies to Freetown, Sierra Leone, where he ambushes the pipeline's African end. [3] Jack Spang, piloting the helicopter himself after murdering the regular German pilot, arrives at the thorn bush rendezvous, but Bond fires a Bofors anti-aircraft gun, striking the tail rotor and causing the helicopter to crash in flames, killing Spang and destroying the smuggling operation. [3]

Main characters

The main characters in Ian Fleming's Diamonds Are Forever revolve around James Bond and the key figures he encounters in his investigation of the diamond smuggling network.James Bond, the seasoned British Secret Service agent designated 007, adopts an undercover persona as a criminal to infiltrate the smuggling operation. [5] His usual detachment gives way to rare emotional vulnerability in his evolving relationship with Tiffany Case, where he assumes a supportive role and develops genuine concern for her well-being. [5]Tiffany Case is a tough, quick-witted American woman serving as a professional diamond courier for the Spangled Mob. [5] Her backstory includes profound trauma: at sixteen, she was gang-raped by mobsters after her mother's San Francisco bordello failed to pay protection money, prompting her to run away, struggle with alcoholism, and later enter the criminal world under Seraffimo Spang's influence. [5] Tiffany projects a cold, self-reliant demeanor marked by sharp dialogue, defiance, and competence, yet her psychological complexity reveals melancholy, mood swings, and a protective wariness toward men rooted in her past. [5] She forms an eventual alliance with Bond that blossoms into a romantic relationship characterized by cautious intimacy and mutual trust. [5]Felix Leiter, Bond's longstanding American ally, has left the CIA after debilitating injuries in a prior case and now works as an operative for the Pinkerton detective agency. ) He provides crucial assistance to Bond in Saratoga Springs and maintains a loyal partnership. )The Spang brothers, Jack (known as ABC) and Seraffimo, lead the Spangled Mob, the U.S.-based syndicate orchestrating the diamond pipeline. Jack oversees operations strategically, while Seraffimo handles more direct enforcement.Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd are homosexual professional assassins working for the Spang organization, distinguished by their contrasting physical builds—Wint tall and ginger-haired, Kidd shorter and dark-haired—and their methodical, unconventional killing techniques.Supporting figures include Shady Tree, a crooked comedian functioning as a key contact and fence in the smuggling chain; Ernie Cureo, a Las Vegas taxi driver who becomes Bond's reliable local ally; and M, the head of MI6, who assigns Bond the diamond smuggling investigation.

Mrs Pollifax Pursued (Mrs Pollifax #11) 4.5Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Mrs Pollifax Pursued
Series: Mrs Pollifax #11
Author: Dorothy Gilman
Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 151
Words: 49K
Publish: 1995

This book really jumped up in my opinion. I bumped it up a whole star and even thought about giving it a rare 5star. Something about it just resonated with me and I enjoyed it thoroughly from start to finish. Part of that is that Mrs Pollifax is now an experienced agent and when something out of the ordinary happens at her own home, she takes charge. Of course, she gets embroiled in even more adventures but everything is tied together and at the end everything works out. Just like a Mrs Pollifax story should.

Tension was inherent in the story from almost the beginning and I wasn’t left wondering how things were going to go sideways for Mrs P. She is home in the US and not on assignment, so she can’t accidentally get in trouble. Trouble comes looking for her! We get African politics, Carney people and other stuff. Mrs P spends time at a carnival, which is also a CIA safehouse and ends up solving some attempted murders there.

And that is why this didn’t get the 5stars. Attempted murders. Of only the good guys. Some badguys get offed, but both of the good guys are going to make a recovery by books end. At least one of the two people should have died to keep the feeling of tension at the high point. It was just a little thing, but little things are why my 5stars are so rare.

Probably the best Mrs Pollifax book so far though. That’s high praise, as the whole series has been consistently good. It is fun, it is thrilling, it has great plot lines and most importantly, it has characters with brains instead of fluff. That is the highest praise I can give an author, that they wrote intelligent characters.

★★★★✬

From Wikipedia

Mrs. Pollifax discovers a young woman hiding in a closet of her Connecticut home on the same day that she observes a suspicious white van patrolling the neighborhood. Kadi Hopkirk says the men in the van have been following her ever since she met Sammy, a childhood friend from the African country of Ubangiba. Mrs. Pollifax hides Kadi in the car and takes to the highway but is unable to shake the van until she calls on her colleagues at the CIA, who send a helicopter to whisk them away to a traveling carnival in rural Maine. Mrs. Pollifax poses as a journalist, and Kadi becomes the lower half of the woman who is sawed in two, while the CIA pals find out who Sammy is and why he is being so heavily guarded. Mrs. Pollifax solves several mysteries, including a stabbing at the carnival, Kadi and Sammy's story and the abduction of a wealthy executive.

• All of my “Mrs Pollifax” Reviews

Mrs Pollifax and the Second Thief (Mrs Pollifax #10) 4Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Mrs Pollifax and the Second Thief
Series: Mrs Pollifax #10
Author: Dorothy Gilman
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 147
Words: 52K
Publish: 1993

Ahhhh, another wonderful Mrs Pollifax adventure. There’s just enough danger and thrills to keep it from being cozy. I don’t want cozy. Plus, the assassin Aristotle (who Mrs Pollifax foiled in Mrs Pollifax on Safari) makes a startling return but as is the case every single time with Mrs Pollifax, things are not as they seem, nor do things happen as anyone could possibly predict.

I think that is one of the things I thoroughly enjoy about this series, the pure unexpectedness of how the story unfolds. I never find it unbelievable either. It is “realistic” from this readers’ unlearned viewpoint and since I am so humble, we all know I really mean that.

I like that Gilman makes these standalone stories BUT with call backs to previous books so it makes it a richer experience for those who have been faithfully reading along yet deliberately not alienating those who are just jumping in. Writing for both takes deliberate effort and I think Gilman does a great job at it.

★★★★☆

From the Publisher

The assignment is a snap: Mrs. Pollifax just has to shoot some pictures at a quiet funeral outside Washington and take them to Sicily, where her old friend Farrell — a former CIA agent turned art dealer — anxiously awaits them.

But like all Mrs. P's assignments, so ostensibly suitable for the CIA's favorite garden club member, this one quickly turns lethal. Her welcoming committee in Palermo includes a most unlikely CIA agent and several unseen enemies. Unfriendly eyes also observe Mrs. P's rendezvous with Farrell in a secluded mountain village and weapons are soon displayed. With mysterious forces hot after them, she and Farrell scurry for safety to a fortified country villa, where the bizarre chatelaine, once a star on Madison Avenue, is almost as unnerving as the dangers she's protecting them from.

• All of my “Mrs Pollifax” Reviews

Real Tigers (Slough House #3) 3Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Real Tigers
Series: Slough House #3
Author: Mick Herron
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 261
Words: 97K
Publish: 2016

Nobody from the Slow Horses dies in this book. I kept waiting until the very end. Now, Catherine Standish does quit at the end, which I assume means Herron wrote her out of the series, but she didn’t die. I was happy with that. But man, it was almost as gut wrenching to see her quit because of everything that happened, all because she was in Slough House. She had had enough and I for one don’t blame her.

This whole book, and the title, come from the term Tiger Team, which is a stress test of an intelligence agency by a 3^rd party, to really put it to the test. Kind of like how a bank will hire people to try to break in to find their weak spots, so they can fix them. The problem is, the Tiger Team ends up having their own agenda and that is why this is called Real Tigers, as they slipped the leash and are wicked dangerous. Well, dangerous to certain people, namely political people. Speaking of political…

These books are inherently political, since they deal with the UK Intelligence Agencies, so that is not a problem. My problem is when Herron skates right close to “real life” with his politics. There is a character that is based on Boris Johnson. Now, I know almost nothing about UK politics, but even I know who BJ was and what he looked like and acted like. I don’t want real life to impinge on my escapist reading, thank you very much.

Other than that, and it wasn’t surprising an author let himself get carried away by his personal politics, I am still enjoying these Slough House books. I just wish I could watch the tv series based on these, I bet it would be good stuff.

★★★☆☆

From the Publisher & Reddit:

Slough House is the Intelligence Service outpost for failed spies, former high-fliers now dubbed the 'slow horses'. Catherine Standish, one of their number, worked in Regent's Park long enough to understand treachery, double-dealing and stabbing in the back, and she's known Jackson Lamb long enough to have learned that old sins cast long shadows. And she also knows that chance encounters never happen to spooks, even recovering drunks whose careers have crashed and burned.

What she doesn't know is why anyone would target her.

So whoever's holding her hostage, it can't be personal. It must be about Slough House. Most likely, it's about Jackson Lamb. And say what you like about Lamb, he'll never leave a joe in the lurch.

He might even be someone you could trust with your life.

Standish gets kidnapped by a Tiger team that is orchestrated by Peter Judd (Lady Di gave him the idea) and it goes awry when he tries to call it off. Sean Donovan one of the guys in the Tiger team has other motives. His real intention is to get a file that exposes the real reason his partner Alison Dunn died. This file can ruin Tierney.

Black Mountain (Isaiah Coleridge #2) 3Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Black Mountain
Series: Isaiah Coleridge #2
Author: Laird Barron
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 296
Words: 83K
Publish: 2019

Isaiah Coleridge is not a good man. He might not beat his girlfriend, or hit her kid but that is about the only redeeming factor I can give in his favor. It’s not just that he came from a bad past, it is that he never truly broke from it, nor, and more damning in my opinion, does he really want to. He was a mob enforcer who brutalized and killed people and he sees that as no different a job than me surveying a piece of land for a subdevelopment. He does his thing to bad people, but that doesn’t make him a good guy. This was really made clear to me in this book. Coleridge isn’t even an anti-hero. He’s the protagonist of this series, but he’s just a lesser villain than the guys he goes after.

The guy he goes after is one whackadoodle of a villain this time too. He’s a rich boy serial killer whose family killed an innocent young man and sculpted the psycho to look like him and take over his life. He ended up doing dirty black work for the government and then went off reservation and started killing for fun again. Now he has an apprentice and it’s up to Coleridge to bring it all to light. It is seriously messed up. Throw in some illegal corporate medical work with fungus and you have something even the X-Files wouldn’t have dreamt up.

While I can’t honestly say that I “enjoyed” my time while reading this, I didn’t go into it each time dreading it or wishing it was over. Faint praise, I know, but I’m trying to stay positive. There is one more Coleridge book and after that, I’ll be done with the author.

★★★☆☆

From the Publisher:

When a small-time criminal named Harold Lee turns up in the Ashokan reservoir--sans a heartbeat, head, or hands--the local mafia capo hires Isaiah Coleridge to look into the matter. The mob likes crime, but only the crime it controls . . . and as it turns out, Lee is the second independent contractor to meet a bad end on the business side of a serrated knife. One such death can be overlooked. Two makes a man wonder.

A guy in Harold Lee's business would make his fair share of enemies, and it seems a likely case of pure revenge. But as Coledrige turns over more stones, he finds himself dragged into something deeper and more insidious than he could have imagined, in a labyrinthine case spanning decades. At the center are an heiress moonlighting as a cabaret dancer, a powerful corporation with high-placed connections, and a serial killer who may have been honing his skills since the Vietnam War. . .

The List (Slough House #2.5) 3Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: The List
Series: Slough House #2.5
Author: Mick Herron
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 44
Words: 17K
Publish: 2015

This was a nice little novella about some lazy guy in MI5 getting played. We know the stakes aren’t big (no 9/11 circumstances like in the previous book) but this is a good view into the “games” that go on. Definitely not a work environment I’d ever want to be in. I’d end up shooting people when I found out I’d been manipulated and lied to just because my boss thought it would be fun.

There was enough separation from the character though that I didn’t get upset at what was going on. It also helps that most of the main characters in these Slough House stories ARE screwups in one way or another and I feel they deserve what they get coming to them. John Bachelor’s job was to go around and make sure these cold war era spies were being taken care of, even if they were not living the high life. And he couldn’t even be bothered to do that, which is why everything happens in this story. He’s a lazy bum and I didn’t feel bad at all about him reaping the consequences. I do have to say that the author does a fantastic job of walking that line of describing characters in such a way that I don’t want to kill them myself but I also don’t mind if they fail. That’s a real tightrope and so far, Herron has walked it without a hitch.

★★★☆☆

From the Publisher & Bookstooge

Dieter Hess, an aged spy, is dead, and John Bachelor, his MI5 handler, is in deep, deep trouble. Death has revealed that deceased had been keeping a secret second bank account—and there’s only ever one reason a spy has a secret second bank account. The question of whether he was a double agent must be resolved, and its answer may undo an entire career’s worth of spy secrets.

The List refers to a list of people that Hess had on hand. He was convincing the German spy agency that the people on this list were potential material and they were paying him to keep tabs on them. Only, every person on the list but one was in no condition to even be talking, much less spying. Bachelor tracks down the one viable candidate and convinces her to be a spy for England while pretending to be a spy for the Germans. And at the end of the novella we find out she was originally working for the Germans the entire time. So Bachelor is now paying a German spy and hired her into the English Intelligence Agency.

Blood Standard (Isaiah Coleridge #1) 3Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Blood Standard
Series: Isaiah Coleridge #1
Author: Laird Barron
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 288
Words: 81K
Publish: 2018

I enjoyed this anti-hero badguy makes good, well, not so bad anyway. Nothing particularly stood out good or bad, which is why it is getting that middle of the road rating of 3stars. It’s good enough that I plan on reading the rest of the trilogy.

But unless those two books improve my opinion dramatically, I do not plan on seeking out any other work by the author. I probably shouldn’t base any future plans on this book alone. But really, outside of the main character being big and beating up even worse people than himself, there’s not much else to discuss. So my brain goes down these weird little paths, and since I’m an inveterate planner, it usually goes down a planning path. Even if there isn’t enough data to do any actual planning on. Therefore, my NEW plan is to finish this trilogy and reserve judgment.

Hahhaahahahahahahaa, riiiiiight, ME, reserving judgment. My goodness, sometimes I just crack myself up.

★★★☆☆

From the Publisher and Bookstooge

Isaiah Coleridge is a mob enforcer in Alaska--he's tough, seen a lot, and dished out more. But when he forcibly ends the moneymaking scheme of a made man, he gets in the kind of trouble that can lead to a bullet behind the ear. Saved by the grace of his boss and exiled to upstate New York, Isaiah begins a new life, a quiet life without gunshots or explosions. Except a teenage girl disappears, and Isaiah isn't one to let that slip by. And delving into the underworld to track this missing girl will get him exactly the kind of notice he was warned to avoid.

After beating up lots of people and threatening lots of people and getting almost killed by crooked cops, Isaiah founds her corpse. Her horse had thrown her in the woods and she’d died from hitting her head. No big mystery at all. Isaiah just wasted all that time and energy for nothing. So much for laying low.

Mrs Pollifax and the Golden Triangle (Mrs Pollifax #8) 3.5Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Mrs Pollifax and the Golden Triangle
Series: Mrs Pollifax #8
Author: Dorothy Gilman
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 162
Words: 58K
Publish: 1988

Thankfully, there is no torture. Mrs P still gets in a world of trouble and it’s tense as all get out, as Cyrus (her husband) gets kidnapped and its up to Mrs P to rescue him, in the jungles of Thailand.

A romping good time with thugs, rogue military people, peaceful wise and gentle “natives” and some monk who is probably an American who gave it all up decades ago plus some hijinks going on at the CIA, those lovable scamps *heart

Hahahahahaa. I think I enjoyed this as much as I did simply because of the lack of torture. It is mentioned in this book and Mrs P is realizing she has to work through what happened to her, BUT, and I think this is why I like this series so much, she doesn’t let that incident stop her from doing what she needs to in the here and now. She watches her husband be kidnapped and instead of fainting or falling apart, she enlists the aid of a dubious man she just met and starts tracking down the vehicle. We get glimpses into her mind, so we the readers know how upset, conflicted and concerned she is, but she still takes action. Man, there are some male book characters who don’t have balls as big as Mrs P, that’s for sure! (and I wish she would karate chop them to death for the record)

When it comes to this series, I think I’m in it until the very end. As long as there isn’t any more torture in Mrs P’s future.

★★★✬☆

From Wikipedia.org & Bookstooge

This time Mrs. Pollifax's assignment seems simple: while she and her husband Cyrus Reed are vacationing in Thailand, she is to pick up some valuable information on drug smuggling from an informant called Ruamsak. Everything goes awry immediately: Ruamsak is murdered, Cyrus is kidnapped, and Emily joins forces with Bonchoo, an intriguing stranger with complex reasons of his own for wanting to find Cyrus. They meet the Akha people in the jungle. The usual phalanx of muddled but supportive CIA agents try to follow Emily through the jungles of Thailand and are seriously rattled when one of their directors abruptly vanishes, only to reappear in the Golden Triangle as the head of all illicit drug trafficking. Pollifax needs all her wiles and her considerable skills in the martial arts, not only to track her husband but also to put a serious dent in the heroin trade.

Bonchoo is Ruamsak and he gets his payment from Mrs Pollifax. Cyrus is rescued, heroin is burnt, the CIA bigwig is found out that he was covering for his brother, who is now dead, so nobody at the CIA cares, Mrs Pollifax and Cyrus make it home safe and sound and Mrs P doesn’t quit the CIA (even though she should).

• All of my “Mrs Pollifax” Reviews

Moonraker (James Bond #3) 3Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Moonraker
Series: James Bond #3
Author: Ian Fleming
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 211
Words: 74K
Publish: 1955

Matt reviewed the movie version of Moonraker last year, and while I knew from his review that the movie and book shared almost nothing, I still had this idea of Bond going into space and doing something.

Not in this book.

A Nazi, who has hidden his old allegiances, has built a super missile that can reach anywhere in Europe from England. This is supposed to give England the upper edge and the government is just wild about it. Everything seems to be going smoothly until one of their two operatives dies. Bond replaces him and tries to find out what “might” be going on. Agent Girl and Bond bond over an almost successful assassination attempt on them both and realize the German guy and his 50-100 “scyenzetists” are nazis in disguise who are hellbent on sending a nuclear tipped missile into the center of London with help from the Russkies.

While this was fun, it was also the most ridiculuous thing I have read in a very long time. The English government is sinking tons of money into this military project and they only have 2 agents looking out for their interests? There was no oversite, no military presence double and triple checking everything? Bond and Agent Girl survive the rocket taking off and the superheated steam it produces by dunking themselves in cold water 10minutes before it happens? Plus some other things. I don’t mind ridiculous in many stories if it doesn’t take me out of the story, but those two things I mentioned just felt like hitting a brickwall while going 60mph.

I still enjoyed the adventure and it didn’t make me want to stop, but it did make me glad that I’m switching this series and Discworld every three to four books. I don’t think I could read more than three of these in one rotation.

★★★☆☆

From Wikipedia

The British Secret Service agent James Bond is asked by his superior, M, to join him at M's club, Blades. A club member, the multi-millionaire businessman Sir Hugo Drax, is winning considerable money playing bridge, seemingly against the odds. M suspects Drax is cheating, and while claiming indifference, is concerned as to why a multi-millionaire and national hero would cheat. Bond confirms Drax's deception and manages to turn the tables—aided by a stacked deck of cards—and wins £15,000 (about seven times his own annual salary).

Drax is the product of a mysterious background, purportedly unknown even to himself. Presumed to have been a British Army soldier during the Second World War, he was badly injured and stricken with amnesia in the explosion of a bomb planted by a German saboteur at a British field headquarters. After extensive rehabilitation in an army hospital, he returned home to become a wealthy industrialist. After building his fortune and establishing himself in business and society, Drax started building the "Moonraker", Britain's first nuclear missile project, intended to defend Britain against its Cold War enemies. The Moonraker rocket is an upgraded V-2 rocket using liquid hydrogen and fluorine as propellants; to withstand the ultra-high combustion temperatures of its engine, it uses columbite, in which Drax had a monopoly. Because the rocket's engine can withstand high heat, the Moonraker is able to use these powerful fuels, expanding its range across Europe.

After a Ministry of Supply security officer working at the project is shot dead, M assigns Bond to replace him and also to investigate what has been going on at the missile-building base, located between Dover and Deal on the south coast of England. All the rocket scientists working on the project are German. At his post on the complex, Bond meets Gala Brand, a beautiful police Special Branch officer working undercover as Drax's personal assistant. Bond also uncovers clues concerning his predecessor's death, concluding that the man may have been killed for witnessing a submarine off the coast.

Bond catches Drax's henchman Krebs snooping through his room. Later, an attempted assassination by triggering a landslide nearly kills Bond and Brand, as they sunbathe beneath the Dover cliffs. Drax takes Brand to London, where she discovers the truth about the Moonraker by comparing her own launch trajectory figures with those in a notebook picked from Drax's pocket. She is captured by Krebs, and finds herself captive in a secret radio homing station—intended to serve as a beacon for the missile's guidance system—in the heart of London. While Brand is being taken back to the Moonraker facility by Drax, Bond gives chase, but is also captured by Drax and Krebs.

Drax tells Bond that he was never a British soldier and has never suffered from amnesia: his real name is Graf Hugo von der Drache, the German commander of a Werwolf commando unit. Disguised in an Allied uniform, he was the saboteur whose team placed the car bomb at the army field headquarters, only to be injured himself in the detonation. The amnesia story was simply a cover he used while recovering in hospital to avoid recognition, although it would lead to a whole new British identity. Drax remains a dedicated Nazi, bent on revenge against England for the wartime defeat of his Fatherland and his prior history of social slights suffered as a youth growing up in an English boarding school before the war. He explains that he now means to destroy London, with a Soviet-supplied nuclear warhead that has been secretly fitted to the Moonraker. His company is also selling the British pound short in order to make a huge profit from the disaster.

Brand and Bond are imprisoned where the blast from the Moonraker's engines will incinerate them, to leave no trace of them once the missile is launched. Before the launch, the couple escape. Brand gives Bond the coordinates he needs to redirect the gyros and send the Moonraker into the sea. Having been in collaboration with Soviet Intelligence all along, Drax and his henchmen escape by Soviet submarine—only to be killed as the vessel makes its escape through the waters onto which the Moonraker has been re-targeted. After their debriefing at headquarters, Bond meets up with Brand, expecting her company—but they part ways after she reveals that she is engaged to a fellow Special Branch officer.

Dead Lions (Slough House #2) 3.5Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Dead Lions
Series: Slough House #2
Author: Mick Herron
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 286
Words: 104K
Publish: 2013

Another enjoyable ride on the Screwup Train. Herron (the author) kills off another character and I was rather surprised. I guess it means that none of the sub-characters are safe and I should expect somebody from Slough House to die in each story. That has the added benefit, for the author, of allowing him to bring on new screwups in each new book, even if they don’t play a big part. They are new fodder.

Also on the plus side, River Carter also plays a much smaller part. He’s just one among the 5 or 6. I was able to handle that.

★★★✬☆

From the Publisher

Now the slow horses have a chance at redemption. An old Cold War-era spy is found dead on a bus outside Oxford, far from his usual haunts. The despicable, irascible Jackson Lamb is convinced Dickie Bow was murdered. As the agents dig into their fallen comrade's circumstances, they uncover a shadowy tangle of ancient Cold War secrets that seem to lead back to a man named Alexander Popov, who is either a Soviet bogeyman or the most dangerous man in the world. How many more people will have to die to keep those secrets buried?