First Thoughts
Review: Joe McNamee
WITH his fully-formed debut, Fitzgerald instantly earns equal billing with the long-established giants of crime writing. The languor of a hot Roman summer is disrupted when dilettante animal rights activist Arturo Clemente is brutally murdered in his apartment. Clemente is also husband of a senator and when Chief Inspector Alec Blume arrives at the crime scene, he finds an investigation under way, instigated by unknown higher political powers.
Though resident in Rome since his teens, and a sublimely gifted policeman with a penchant for psychological profiling, the American-born 40-something Blume remains an outsider in the force.
Despite identifying the prime suspect early on in his investigation, he finds himself stymied at every turn by powerful elements with hidden agendas. Fitzgerald’s plotting is first-rate and despite revealing the murderer’s identity almost from the off, he maintains the high level of suspense throughout. Save one or two genre cliches his prose is sharp and brilliantly descriptive.
FROM the author of the multi-million selling series Tales Of The Otori, comes this beautifully told story of a young woman taking her first steps into an adult world, during a time of intense social and political upheaval.
Set in Japan during the mid-19th century, the Western world is approaching and very soon the era of the samurai will be over, leading the way for a revolution and a whole new Japan. The daughter of a well-respected doctor, Tsuru has aspirations and expectations far beyond other women of her time. Marrying a doctor she loves and her father approves of, she believes she has the world at her feet and that she will work amongst men as an equal. But her country is not yet ready to accept this change.
The detailed and emotive descriptions of Tsuru’s world bring a relatively unknown period of history, far beyond the page. An enthralling and well-researched read.
Review: David McLoughlin
AT the end of the Battle of Passchendaele, in November 1917, the Allies must have been worried.
Imperial Russia had ceased to exist and its new government had made a separate peace with Germany and her allies, releasing nearly a million troops from the Eastern Front.
Allied losses during the previous three years had been catastrophic and while America had come into the war, both Germany and the Allies thought that intervention was too little too late.
But, as historian David Stevenson illustrates in his meticulously researched tome, in 1918 it all changed.
He details the total disaster for the German Army that was Ludendorff’s doomed offensive “Operation Michael”, as well as the American army’s full and very active participation far earlier than anyone had thought possible.
This one is a very welcome addition indeed.
