Tragedy & Challenge

Tragedy & Challenge is is a book that is written by an insider and it provides expert testimony on the decline of engineering in the UK and it also points out the challenges that face the UK in what he describes as a "Bexit economy."

Tom Brown has seen engineering over a 45 year career, within both the UK and overseas. He has seen all aspects of the industry from a night shift manager to the chair of 15 companies, such as university spin offs, private equity backed concerns and larger concerns with stock market listings.

He is, therefore, able to offer a unique and penetrating insight into the new challenges that will face our engineering concerns in the post-Brexit world.

He also takes a look at the impact engineering has on the whole of the British economy, the potential for exports, the loves of working people and on the broader reaches of society as an entirety.

The book examines and codifies the reasons behind the decline of engineering within the UK. One key factor that he looks at is poor leadership, the detrimental effects of a variety of government policies and the negative impact of the City of London on our engineering sector.

The book should make some uncomfortable reading for a variety of people because it is Tom Brown's conclusion that although the global economy did have some negative impact on the British engineering sector, that a major part of the blame for the decline in the UK engineering sector must be shouldered by poor management, unions and poor government decisions and short term thinking within  the city of London. He also blames "decaying social attitudes" and feels that Brexit could make the situation even more daunting.

The book will make sobering reading for all involved and it will be published on June 28th by Matador at £19.99 in hardback.

It will be available for purchase via all good bookshops and also at  https://goo.gl/Ltov34.

Wounded But Not Dead

Wounded But Not Dead tells the story of what happened to young Victor Vimord.

Victor was abused by his parents and, as a result of the abuse, he misbehaves in school and, due to his behavioural problems, he is expelled from his school.

He is then despatched to a Catholic boarding school which is a long distance away from his former school and home.

He meets up with another boy called Freddy, who quickly befriends Victor.

Unfortunately, Freddy leads Victor astray and as a result a fellow pupil at the school is murdered.

Victor is once again expelled from school, and he faces an uncertain life, in which his goals -educational, employment, familial, are either set at nought or otherwise trampled on.

Eventually Victor decides to take a different path and makes his way to England. Once in England he locates a group of expatriates who seem to be living a somewhat happy and carefree lifestyle in their new country.

How will Victor cope? Can he forget the griefs, doubts and self recriminations of his past life? Can he forge a new life for himself, moving away from his troubled and tormented earlier life?

This is an interesting slice of life style novel from French-born author Vincent Leforestier and is in some ways a fantasy novel.

It's published by Matador at £9.99 and is available for purchase through all good bool retailers and online from https://goo.gl/Ltov34.

The Big Plug

The Big Plug is a book with a very strong environmental message for children and it is written by Peter Grenville and is his debut work.

The world is getting hotter and hotter as the result of human activity.

All around the world, all living creatures and plants are dying.

Dave the Cherry Tree and his fellow plants obviously do not like this and they must form a plan to stop it from happening.

Just when they are thinking that there is nothing they can do, a giant and rather scary spider -and its huge army of loyal followers- arrive on the scene.

The spider reveals to Dave and his fellow plants that he has a cunning scheme to save the world, but that it will not be without sacrifice hardship and, indeed, some deaths.

Deciding that they have nothing to lose Dave and his fellow plants join the spider and his army to bring an end to global destruction.

But! Will the plan work? And even it it does, will any of the plants actually survive?

The book is aimed at children and is published by Matador at £6.99, it is available from the That's Books and Entertainment bookshop which you will find here:- https://goo.gl/Ltov34.

Murder in the Fourth Round

As a weapon of murder, golf clubs are not an entirely unknown choice. But  a sharpened wooden golf tee, coated with a rare but extremely deadly native Colombian toxin? That has to be a first.

And this is the startling opening premise of the novel "Murder in the Fourth Round" by retired High Court judge Ian Simpson who, upon retirement, moved from judging murder cases to writing about murder cases as a successful crime novelist.

"Before Ballesteros signed his winning score card he was dead" has to be one of the most significant lines in the history of murder novels through the ages.

But who was dead? Tony Spencer.

Who would want him dead and dead in such an extravagant and gaudy fashion?

The police and the courts knew. Or rather, they thought they did. After all, didn't the try and jail the killer, Peter Waldron, a partner of solicitor Tony Spencer in the firm L & P Campbell, Solicitors?

But now, after 31 years, Waldron, dying of pancreatic cancer, is to be released on compassionate grounds.

But then, after the murder of a political activist, DI Flick Fortune begins an investigation which has a group of solicitors as the target. The solicitors had dubbed themselves "The Jolly Boys" and as well as focussing on them,  the investigation is taking a fresh look at the murder of Tony Spencer back in 1984.

She is assisted by DS Baggo (Bagawath) Chandavarkar.

However, trouble -of sorts- comes their way with the arrival of a nemesis from her past, former DI Noel Osborne (formerly of the Met and otherwise described as Inspector No) who has been hired to overturn the conviction of Peter Waldron.

He manages to stir the pot more than a little and to the chagrin of some and the interest of others, the result is that decades-hidden crimes are brought out into the light and suddenly all is not as it seems and events suddenly gather pace as things seem to slip out of control.

So, who did murder Tony Spencer, if it wasn't his fellow solicitor, Peter Waldron?

And why, exactly, did someone -with access to the deadly toxin Batrachotoxin- decide that Tony Spencer deserved death in such a dramatic and theatrical fashion?

This is a real page turner of a crime thriller. I am pleased that Ian Simpson has been brought to my attention. I'll look out for his name in future.

The book is published by Matador at £7.99 and is out now. You can buy it at the That's Books and Entertainments bookshop which you will find here:-https://goo.gl/Ltov34.

It's book number 4 in the Flick and Baggo murder mystery series.

The Hotel Life of Brian

Although published by The Book Guild Publishing as a collection of short stories, Brian Wilson's new book "The Hotel Life of Brian" is a gathering together of a series of events that actually took place during his hotel industry career.

He joined the hotel industry back in 1964, after obtaining a range of suitable qualifications from college.

Over the next 25 years he worked in a variety of positions in a variety of establishments.

Eventually he was promoted to the head heights of hotel management where he was the manager of a large hotel with 170 bedrooms and the facilities to cater for 900 people.

After this Brian decided to escape from the world of corporate hotels, deciding, instead, to run his own somewhat smaller country inn.

He then moved back to the city where he owned and operated a 15 bedroom hotel in the heart of the city. A hotel he ran successfully for three years.

From the Oxford Brookes University he gained membership of the prestigious Institute of Hospitality.

He then spent the remaining years of his career working in academia, spending seven years lecturing on hotel industry management, with the last 13 years as a College Senior Manager.

Read the book and learn about what it takes to thrive, or even just survive, in the hotel and catering industry.

Read about the perils of a badly placed fusebox, why an apron ended up covered with a pound of butter, the perils of cooking steaks with coke, what happens when a colleague miscalculates the time it would take to hard boil an egg, apparently 40 hours was not the answer he should have got, why an office looked like it had been ransacked, when it hadn't been, how a complicated order from a party from the BBC caused a slip-up and how a group of very audacious thieves managed to escape with a load of... well, I don't want to give too much away, so suffice to say that you will find that sad and sorrowful tale toward the latter portion of the book.

The book is also well-illustrated with a collection of highly amusing cartoons. And all for a snip at just £8.99.

It's available from 28th May and can be pre-ordered at our own bookshop, which you will find here https://goo.gl/tn8Kiq.

Of Human Telling

Of Human Telling is the latest novel from Tanya van Hasselt.

It puts under the microscope several homes, several affluent outwardly successful  homes,  where the family members within them, parents and children, can become strangers.

This is the second novel about Wharton, the first being All Desires Known.

Wharton is a typical English town, famed for its public school and the fact that it attracts people hungering for the middle class values that the town projects.

However, all might not be what it seems. Families within Wharton have their own, hidden problems, desires and fears.

Hidden homosexuality, a mother who is willing to risk everything, her marriage and the future happiness of her own children, people with dark secrets that they feel unable to reveal to anyone, a small boy who can't or won't speak.

There is also a hidden problem of severe bullying. But when a girl who is a victim of such bullying attempts to kill herself, everyone in Wharton is forced to take stock of who they are and what they have become and to explore the possibility that perhaps even they might bear some responsibility for the sad plight that the girl had found herself in.

This is an extremely well-written and utterly compelling and beguiling novel.

It is published by Matador at £7.99 and can be bought at the That's Books Bookshop https://goo.gl/Ltov34.

The Road to East India

The Road to East India, a Diary of a Journey of a Lifetime, is a book by Devika A. Rosamund.

It was written during Devika's journey, alone, in 1976, when she was just 22 years of age.

Her journey began in England when she left home and arrived in Amsterdam in 1975. She worked hard for several months and saved her money for the beginning of her epic solo journey.

She boarded the once famed "Magic Bus" to Iran, continuing her journey through Afghanistan and Pakistan until she arrived at her destination, India.

Once in India she travelled extensively.

Devika points out that the journey she took would be utterly impossible today due to the changes that have taken place in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The diary is a very well-written, intelligent and witty account of her travels.

It contains some interesting and illuminating comments on Mother Teresa, how she smuggled cloves into Sri Lanka to make some money, a song that she wrote about Sri Lanka, how she found an Ashram where she was able to learn about meditation at the feet of a spiritual master.

She reports that she met much kindness on her journey and made friends wherever she travelled.

Although the book is well worth buying its sparse images, plus a lack of any colour images is somewhat puzzling.

The book is published by Matador at £7.99 and can be bought at the That's Books bookshop at https://goo.gl/Ltov34.