Triton

In Triton we go on a journey of sex, booze and rock 'n' roll, in the Devonshire countryside of the 1950s.

Johnny, Len and Danny are three typical teen lads of their era. Well, of any era, to an extent. Their lives revolve around sex, their motorbikes and rock 'n' roll music.

Johnny is a mechanic who is very keen to leave home, but he know that, twelve months down the line, National Service will come knocking on whatever door he is living behind.

However, he has his treasured Triton motorbike on which he lavishes his attention to take his mind off the stuff he cannot do anything about.

Then there is Len. Len is a bit different from his mates. He is an ex-public schoolboy, who has found himself sent off the the Royal Navy, (not a usual national Service posting, it must be said) and as for Danny? He is working as a farm labourer without, it appears, a care in the whole world.

The three lads enjoy their lives to the full, with bikes, booze and birds.

But what if there was a dark secret that lurked beneath the surface, a dark secret that was unspeakable and which could blow their cosy existence apart?

This is a very moving an thoughtful book that looks at some difficult yet important themes.

It is written by Morgan Smith who is an award-winning author. She has enjoyed writing since her childhood.

The book is published by The Book Guild at £9.99.book

Son of a Jacobite

In Son of a Jacobite author Professor T. J. Lovat employs research into his own family's history to write this historical work of fiction.

It's April, 1746. Thomas Lovat was born on the last day of the Jacobite Rebellion that took place at Culloden.

As he was being born, his father was breathing his last, killed on the field of battle.

The rest of Thomas' life is coloured and deeply affected by the loss of his father and also by the impact of the subsequent Highland Clearances.

Thomas grew up aware of his heritage and also of the hurt and anger that the events had engendered. He was a somewhat confused young man, as he grew into his adulthood.

He leaves Britain and travels to the Middle East, where he meets and weds the first love of his life, who bears him a child.

Upon returning the Britain, Thomas joins the British Army and leaves for America, in the time prior to the American War of Independence. When the revolution flares up, Thomas finds himself conflicted as he struggles to come to terms with his oen Jacobite heritage and his sworn duties as an officer in the British Army.

It is a moving account with historical fact interwoven with intelligent and well thought out speculation to fill in the gaps of the historical narrative.

It is published by Matador on 28th November at £12.00.

Sorry, Luv, I'll Send Another Car

In Sorry, Luv, I'll Send Another Car by Nigel Springthorpe, we meet up with Andy Marshall.

Andy has spent three decades working as a civil servant, but his worsening health brought about a lengthy period of unemployment. following his unplanned and unwelcome early retirement.

But Andy has a family to look after and support, so the strain is beginning to tell on him.

Although his wife doesn't want him to do it, Andy decides to throw his lot in with a private hire firm that has seen better days and to begin to work as a driver for them.

This thrusts a bemused Andy into a bizarre new world where he spends every evening working with a mixed bunch of fellow drivers. A very mixed bunch, truth to tell!

And as for the strangers, sorry, I mean passengers, well, actually when you read the book you will see why I made that slip!

No two nights are ever the same and there's the little matter that, because of his new job, Andy gets to take a totally unexpected trip to Florida and the Caribbean.

It's a boom that is both amusing a very moving as Andy learns a lot more about life than he probably ever cared to know as he careers from one call out to another in his trusty Yellow Peril.

It's published by Matador at £9.99.

Agent Jack The True Story of MI5's Secret Nazi Hunter

In Agent Jack, The True Story of MI5's Secret Nazi Hunter,  a book by Robert Hutton, we go back to the early 1940s. In Europe Britain was standing alone, facing the menace of the might of Nazi Germany.

In June 1940 Hitler's next target was Britain. And whilst the vast majority of Britons would do anything they could to resist the invasion of Britain by Nazi Germany, there were some who not only would welcome such an attack, they were actually dedicated to helping to make sure of a German victory over their own country, so virulent was their antisemitism.

They were apparently ordinary Britons living seemingly ordinary lives, working in shops, offices and factories (some were even involved in important war work) but unknown to their neighbours and some friends and relatives, they were, in reality, dedicated to promoting the cause of Nazism in Britain and to helping sabotage the British war effort.

However, what they did not realise was that every move they made, every contact they undertook with their German 'spymaster' was actually all taken under the careful control of Eric Roberts, one of the most experienced and dedicated MI5 agents of his generation.

Formerly a bank clerk from Epsom, Eric Roberts had spent the years before World War Two dedicated to rooting out Communist infiltrators and members of the British Union of Fascists.

But at the onset of the Second World War, he became known as Agent Jack King and was given the dangerous task by spymaster Maxwell Knight of seeking out potential traitors and convincing them that he, Jack King, was a Gestapo agent.

It was called Operation Fifth Column and none of the traitors were ever aware that, rather than working for the Gestapo, they were actually working for MI5.

Jack King, working virtually by himself, built up a network of hundreds of Nazi sympathisers and was able to neutralise the impact that their treasonous behaviour would have had, should they have been recruited by a genuine Gestapo agent.

How did he do this? Eric Roberts had an amazing ability to convince people to place their trust in him.

Robert Hutton's book is very well researched and very well written and it casts a strong light on a hitherto unknown part of World War Two.


Why was it kept secret for so many years after the war? Hutton reveals these reasons.

This book is a must have for students of war history and the general reader.

It's published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson and the published price is £9.99, although it may be available for less on Amazon (check out the Amazon link to the right of book reviews) and other stores, also available as an e-book and an audio book.

I can heartily recommend this book as a must read.

ISBN-10: 1474605117
ISBN-13: 978-1474605113.

Hitler's Secret Weapons of Mass Destruction

Hitler's Secret Weapons of Mass Destruction is a book by Michael Fitzgerald.

It examines a number of "secret" weapons (often based on new technologies) that Hitler insisted were "miracle weapons" that would halt the advancing allied armies in their tracks, reverse the fortunes of the German armed forces and bring the ultimate victory that he had long promised the German people.

However, what were these "miracle weapons"? Were they real or fantasies within the mentally diseased mind of Hitler?

In his book Fitzgerald examines the remaining records and archives of both Germany and the allied armed forces and he proves that some of the weapons were real attempts to use science to create weapons that would defeat the allied forces. A problem faced by researchers such as Fitzgerald is that many of the records were destroyed in allied bombing campaigns or were destroyed by the German armed forces or taken by Soviet army units.

He looks at the rocket programme of the Germans, flying discs, so-called foo fighters, alternative energy production and much more besides.

He also takes time to debunk some of the more hysterical claims so beloved of conspiracy theory fanatics.

For example he makes a detailed examination of The Bell. He writes about what The Bell wasn't (it wasn't anything to do with anti-gravity for example) it might, he speculates, have been designed to breed uranium or plutonium or could have been an early type of particle accelerator. 

He shows that one of the apparent mysteries surrounding The Bell project was merely a mistake in transcribing the name of a female scientist involved in the project.

It's an interesting and informative book and is published by Arcturus Publishing and costs £7.99.

The Philosophy of Humour

The Philosophy of Humour is a book by senior academic, published comic author and poet Paul McDonald, who is a Senior Lecturer at Wolverhampton University.

In this book McDonald takes the reader through the various and multiplicious theories of comedy and humour.

There is no one, single unifying theory of what makes people laugh and it is the aim of this book to do that, at least to some extent.

It critically examines the philosophical approaches to humour of great minds down through the ages such as Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Descartes Hobbes, Bergson, Kant, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Freud and Bakhtin.

However, the book also dips in to several other disciplines such as psychology and psychoanalysis, the theory of literature, religion, cultural studies, philosophy.

However, this is not a dry, theoretical work as it offers the student/reader the opportunity to partake in humorous creative writing exercises.

The book is published by Humanities-Ebooks and costs £11.75 and is also available as an e-book via Amazon at £3.72.   

Tales of Mossycup Wood Frogbit and the Big Gloop

Tales of Mossycup Wood Frogbit and the Big Gloop is a wonderful children's book debut from Emma Jane Dunne.

At the heart of Mossycup Wood you will find Poggle Hollow few people know about its existence and those few people who do know about it, tend to try to keep it as a secret.

The Pogglewitts live there, they are small, very friendly and fun-loving people who have made nests for their homes in the oldest of the trees in the heart of the woods.

Their lives are full, but filled with wondrous things to do to help keep them happy. Waking up to the singing of the dawn chorus, watching the clouds as they float on by, collecting dust from butterflies,or singing to the minnows in the water.

It's a great book for children aged 4 to 7 and adults alike who will be utterly charmed by the stores and the colourful illustrations.

It's published by Matador at £9.99.