The London Sniper

The novel The London Sniper by Daniel Pascoe is a novel that relates how evil can contaminate all that it touches.

The Chgwell family, lead by family patriarch Arthur, is looking not for closure over the heartless decapitation murder of one of their family members by terrorists. At the London Olympics.

No. The Chigwell family is looking for a bloody revenge that will live on in the memory of those who hurt their family for a very long time indeed.

Their  chosen tool for this bloody revenge is former Army sniper Jarvis Collingwood. Having seen the death of his own brother in Iraq, Collingwood is, to put it mildly, perhaps not quite as stable as he might be. And is almost certainly far more dangerous than is realised even by those closest to him, including his wife.

Pitched against the plot is Leon Deshpande. He is a security consultant and an investigator. But can he take on the skills of someone who is, in their own way, as highly trained and just as determined as he is? Someone who is, in point of fact, equally matched to him?

What if someone is playing their own, equally deadly game? What if they are using the desire for revenge by the Chigwell family as a cover for their own thirst for revenge?

It is a story of madness, of  bloody retribution, of trust that is betrayed and broken and of lives lost in the name of revenge.

It is an exciting, pacy novel which, at £10.99, will, we predict, be in many a-Christmas stocking this December 25.

It is published by bookguild.co.uk and is available via the That's Books and Entertainment bookshop, which is to the right of the site.

The Reich Device

The Reich Device is set in Germany in the early 1930s, when the Nazi Party was beginning to put together the monstrous operation that was to become the Third Reich.

It is late spring or early summer in 1933 and Professor Gustav Mayer, a German man of science and a genius well before his time has made a startling and somewhat unsettling discovery.

He has developed an utterly new technology that is at least a full century ahead of current scientific thoughts or abilities.

But how safe could his secret be in the world of the 1930s, when secret preparations were being made to thrust Europe and, ultimately, the world, into a new war, even more deadly than the Great War?

Professor Mayer becomes a haunted and a hunted man, tracked by the ruthless assassins of the recently created SS, which had already amassed to itself a dirty and foul reputation for deeds of great evil.

A worldwide chain of events is set into motion, with acts of espionage on a global scale being engendered, tracking across the world from the heart of Nazi Germany to the USA, the Middle East, the UK and South Africa. But why South Africa, in particular?

But is all what it seems? Who is spying on whom? And to what real end?

Are shadowy forces at work? If there are, what are their links to the gigantic corporations that are already towering like a corporate colossus over an unknowing and relatively innocent land of America?

Eventually Mayer falls into the clutches of the evil Commandment Kessler. Driven to madness by his torture, Professor Mayer lets slip a vital part of his secret, but his interrogators fail to grasp the import of what he has revealed to them.

Professor Mayer is moved to the Peenemunde V1 rocket facility. But why? For what reason?

Is there more happening at Peenemunde than is apparent? Is there another, even more deadly, weapon under construction there that could change the whole course of the human race?

Who can stop them? Who will stop them?

The book is written by Richard D. Handy, who is an expert on the hazards of nanotechnology and his expertise shines through in this pulse quickening thriller.

It is published by Matador and costs a remarkably reasonable £8.99 and will be a welcome Christmas gift for those who like World War 2 based thrillers.

It is available via the That's Books and Entertainment bookshop, which is to the right of this site.

Buckingham

John Schroeder's Buckingham is a book about a cat who, perhaps not surprisingly, is called Buckingham.

Buckingham is no ordinary cat.

He managed to, somehow, insinuate his way into the life of Angela Tillsworthy.

He was a cat that was large in both physical size, psychic presence and also in good looks.

But, as has been pointed out, Buckingham was no ordinary cat.

Soon, Angela began to notice that there was something about this cat called Buckingham. Something really very different Something unique.

Buckingham, it transpired, was a magical cat, of sorts. A cat who had healing, therapeutic powers and influences.

Eventually, other people began to notice the strange powers that Buckingham possessed, and as they watched, fascinated, Buckingham managed to affect the lives of a great many people and all for good.

Eventually, Angela launches a very special business with Buckingham. And that's when the fun really starts!

The book is about cats, love and the human and feline conditions.

It is also illustrated with some remarkably good line drawings and at £10.99 is an ideal book for the cat lover in your life or anyone else who likes heartwarming story!

It is published by Matador and is available from the That's Books and Entertainment bookshop on the right of this site.

That's Christmas: Ben and the Spider Gate

That's Christmas: Ben and the Spider Gate: Ben and the Spider Gate is a fantastic hardback book by Angela Fish. It tells the story of how Ben, an ordinary little boy, discovers an...

Vermilion Skies

Vermilion Skies is an unusual and moving love story by Wendela Lumley.

It is described as "A love story that will stay with you forever."

It tells the story of the life of Milana, a young Chilean girl who is the resident of a mean shantytown.

But Milana is no ordinary shantytown dweller. Although she is struggling with the impact of the abuse from her vile stepfather, she is a girl of indomitable willpower and strength of character and wants to make something of her life.

Although she could give herself to the local drug dealers who taunt her as they lust after her body, she decides to keep away from them and instead she reads books that she finds in charity bags. She reads these books and uses them to fuel her powerful imagination.

Her precarious life was ripped to shreds by a terrible tragedy, but a stranger by the name of Santiago comes into her life when he discovers her working on the banks of the river.

He makes her a stunning offer. A perfect way of escaping from her life.

But is the aristocratic and handsome Santiago all he appears to be? Or do some dark secrets lurk in his past?

He is an artist teetering on the edge of great fame and fortune and together their secret love spurs them on to travel across continents all over the world, challenging the status quo and the time-honoured conventions of the world.

But will the past catch up with them. destroying the cosy world they have carved out for themselves against all the odds?

Or will they be able to continue as the loving couple that they are?

It is published by Matador at £7.99 and is available via the Amazon-powered That's Books Bookshop, to the right of the site.

Kinch

Kinch, a novel by Laurie Evan Owen, tells the story of Kinch, who is 14, and his compatriots, Pigeon and Brownie and how they cope and, to some extent, strive and thrive, in a place which could be now, or at some point in the future, it could be taking place here or anywhere else, for that matter.

The whole of society is corrupted to gargantuan depths.

Kinch is looking to find a way to avenge the death of his father who had been an anarchist, Pigeon, well Pigeon is naife, though of a literary bent and as from Brownie, Brownie is an old-styled itinerante actor, who is also a frustrated poet. And to complicate matters a little, Brownie is also a paid informer for the "religio-political hierarchy."

The story of Kinch and his companions takes place in and around the cathedral city of Axton, during one tumultuous and white knuckle week of a ride.

And for the price of £9.99 this is a fantasy/allegorical tale that you really don't want to miss.

It's published by Matador and is available from the That's Books and Entertainment  bookshop, powered by Amazon and to the right hand side of this site.

The Father's House

The Father's House is the debut novel by former barrister and Cardiff-based author Larche Davies.

It tells the story of Lucy, who, at 14, has been born into and raised in a secretive and sinister religious cult.

The aim of the cult, which is controlled and led by a shadowy figure who insists on being referred to as the Magnifico, is to take over the world.

Families do not exist in the cult, children are raised in communes by men who are dubbed "father."

For some reason Lucy and another child, a boy called Paul, are raised not in one of the communes but in a house that is split into flats, under the control of a strict "aunt" called Sarah, who is no relation to either child. They live in the ground floor flat with Sarah, whilst the Father lives upstairs. There is a mystery tenant who occupies the second floor of the house, which is owned by the Father.

All Lucy knows are the prayer meetings of the sect and her attendance of the special school operated by the Magnifico with the aim of training them to become able to insinuate themselves into the outside world and to infiltrate important and influential positions within society.

Either that or they are doomed to work endlessly as skivvies for the sect, or to be nothing boot breeders to create babies for the Holy Cause of the Magnifico.

But Something happens to Lucy. She is subjected to cruel humiliation during one school assembly, and this one, thoughtless act of cruel folly begins the destruction of her faith and trust in the religion she has been raised in and as her faith begins to collapse, through two of her school friends, she learns some of the secrets of the sect.

She then resolves to leave the sect before her 16th birthday, when she will be married off to one of the sect fathers in the name of the Magnifico, or disposed of as being "unsuitable to further the Holy Cause."

But how can Lucy escape? Who can she trust? Who should she trust?

But fate intervenes one day when enemies of the Father invade his house and she has no option other than to flee for her life.

But still the sect would not let her and Paul be. It still attempted to control or to destroy what it could not control.

This is a very compelling psychological thriller that gives an accurate look into how a cult works, how it controls people even above and beyond whatever real power it might possess.

It is published by Mastador at £9.99.

It is to be hoped that this will be the first of many more novels by Larche Davies.

It is, of course, available via the That's Books and Entertainment bookshop, powered by Amazon., on the right hand side of this site.