The Forbidden Zone

In The Forbidden Zone retired mining engineer and author Jon Gliddon bring his readers a story of African diamonds, Nazi smugglers and bloody, violent revenge.

It's set at the very start of World War 2, in the August of 1939, in the diamond-rich Republic of Namibia, previously the German colony of German South West Africa.

In the build-up to the looming conflict, diamonds were in very high demand for the precision manufacture of high tech military equipment. 

The nations of Europe including Britain and Nazi Germany and America and Japan were desperate for diamonds, but due to the previous decade's Great Depression many diamond mines had closed down and diamonds as a consequence were in short supply.

Theft of diamonds and diamond smuggling became more and more prevalent and Great Britain and the Union of South Africa were working to protect their mines and smashing the Nazi smuggling rings who were attempting to supply their Nazi masters with diamonds for the Nazi war effort.

A Cornish mining engineer by the name of Harvey Tremayne is an employee of the largest diamond mining company in the world in South West Africa. He is given the job of stopping a planned attack by Nazi thieves to steal diamonds.

But Harvey has a larger and more personal goal. He seeks revenge against the person who murdered his wife. His search takes him to some extremely dangerous locations and he finds himself drawn into the ambit of the British Secret Service. For they, too, are seeking the same target as Harvey, but for entirely unrelated reasons.

Who was Sidewinder? Had he killed his wife? And what was Sidewinder? What was he hoping to achieve? Could Harvey and his colleagues defeat him and thwart his intentions?

It's a rip-roaring exciting adventure novel with more twists and turns than on Nurburgring's  Nordschleife race track. It's an ideal Christmas gift for lovers of well-written and well researched old school hard-bitten adventure yarns. So, add this to your Christmas gift list!

It's published by The Choir Press at £7.99.

Algernon Arbuthnot Arrives

 

Algernon Arbuthnot Arrives is a wonderful story for children. 

P. G. Bogle tells what happens when a suitcase is opened after their family has arrived back from a cruise on an ocean liner and Luke and Lexi meet Algernon Arbuthnot, who has arrived at their home, with them.

The remarkable thing? Algernon Arbuthnot is a small white mouse who can talk.

He reveals that he has descended from a popular Hollywood movie star, who had been on a Grand Tour of Europe.

The children convince their parents to allow  Algernon Arbuthnot to stay with them (as their pet white mouse) after an interesting first night Luke and Lexi introduce Algernon to their Aunt Rita who has a background in fashion and is able to turn her skills to creating an absolutely stunning wardrobe of clothing for his trip.

So, what on earth could go wrong? Unfortunately quite a lot. In fact, a great deal, because Algernon has the ability to bring chaos and confusion when there was none!

The family join him on the Grand Tour. Algernon boasts about the great and daring deeds of his ancestors, but are they really what happened? 

This is a fantastic present for any child of nine and above, or younger if they are an advanced reader.

It's from Matador at £6.99 and will be ideal for family reading sessions and bedtime stories.

 

Child X

 

In Child X former private investigator and gambler Mick Lee brings his readers a new novel, this time he has penned a psychological thriller.

What happens to a child who kills but who feels absolutely no remorse? Does he deserve a second chance? 

What if there is a second child who did not do anything to prevent a murder, who is offered redemption? What should happen?

The novel opens in 1999 at the cusp of the new millennium. We are introduced to Ray. Ray is a private investigator who is having something of a hard time both professionally and personally. He is addicted to gambling and his debts are dangerously out of control. Why dangerously out of control? Because Ray owes money to some very, very dangerous people who would not hesitate to use violence against him now that he has stretched their already very slim patience beyond breaking point.

However there comes a chance of redemption for Ray from a rather unlikely source. A gangster (a retired gangster, to be more precise) comes to Ray with a business proposition. If Ray will use his experience and resources to find a man, he will pay off all of his gambling debts.

I mean, what could possibly go wrong? But Ray really has no choice in the matter under his current perilous circumstances and he begins to track the man down. He discovers that the man is hiding within a cult that is pretending to be nothing more than an ordinary telemarketing outfit.

The man has employed several different identities over the years but is now enmeshed in a death that means he will become much more visible.

As Ray closes in on the subject of his investigation he finds a dark secret from the man's childhood. However, there is a eerie link to something in Ray's past. 

The story will end badly. But for whom?

It's a rapidly paced, dark novel that will be in the Christmas stockings of many fans of psychological thrillers.

It's published by Matador at £8.99.  

Gethsemane Revisited

In Gethsemane Revisited James Brophy, in his debut novel introduces us to a fairly ordinary young man, Jerome.

But Jerome is not as ordinary as he might appear at first sight. Because Jerome has a remarkable and very special gift. Jerome can travel back through time.

However, there are certain rules that affect Jerome's adventures. He will never be able to prove to anyone else what he can do, only he can remember his visits and he is unable to change history. 

Obviously his visits to the past mean that anything he does or says has already taken place in the past.

He finds that he can meet historically famous people and ask them questions that he has always desired answers to. 

However, eventually as one would expect, Jerome has a strong need to actually share his secret of being a time traveller with other people. Obviously his family should know of his wonderful gift, right?

So Jerome shares his secret with members of his own family, by telling his brother. But his family are concerned about Jerome's stories of time travelling as they are convinced that he is suffering from some sort of delusional condition.

Are they right? Or is Jerome right? Is he a genuine time traveller or someone who is suffering from a delusional mental disorder?

Jerome realises that he needs to set off one one last time travelling adventure to settle matters once and for all. Is he right? Or is his family right?

It's a stunning debut novel filled with adventures and well told at a rapid pace that keeps the attention of the reader.

The ending is truly stunning and very, very moving but I will not spoil it by letting slip what it is.

The book will make an excellent Christmas gift. It's published by Matador at £10.00.

Hopefully this novel will be the first of many from James Brophy.

Some of Millions

 

In his book Some of Millions Jethro Bor brings together the stories of a number of people from all walks of life who have undergone mental health breakdowns and other mental health issues.

He has carefully collated and edited their stories in a sensitive and constructive fashion. The book also has a forward by Patrick Cockburn.

Jethro is no stranger to the problems brought about by problems with mental health, having suffered with the impact of mental illness for many years himself, he wanted to shine a powerful but friendly light upon the impact of mental health issues on sufferers and their families. It's a sobering fact that at least one in four of us will have to cope with a mental health problem in their lives.

We read of the problems faced by journalist Patrick Cockburn when his art student son became mentally ill when Patrick was reporting on the war in Afghanistan. 

There is the story of Charlotte, who was shocked to be diagnosed as having bipolar disease, because as she points out, she had always considered herself a level-headed person.

We read of the first panic attack suffered by Rebecca in her twenties. The rages she had felt after her parents had divorced when she was seven were to have serious consequences in her adult life.

There's Edward, who had been diagnosed as having paranoid schizophrenia in 1990. He began talking back to the voices he was hearing, a bad thing to do, he would be told, later.

There's Pic, who became depressed at age eight or thereabouts, who began cutting herself as she became older, something she kept secret until she became married.

There's also cases where the mental illness of others can impact upon family members or close friends. For example Andrew's father committed suicide when Jim was 17, although nobody was quite certain why he had done it. Andrew was stoical about it for the sake of his mother, but later on he became depressed and attempted to take his own life.

The book contains highly relevant and helpful advice from Jim,  who offers sage and helpful advice.

There are some beautiful illustrations throughout the book by people who have been through the mill of life. as it were. 

This book is important as it enables the reader to have a glimpse into the lives of people who suffer from a wide range of mental health issues.

It will make a perfect gift for someone who has mental health issues or for every nurse and doctor in the land, so it deserves to be in Christmas stockings up and down the land. I think mental health professionals might like to order multiple copies for their practices.

It's published by The Book Guild at £9.99.

Perfectly Imperfect Mum

 

Perfectly Imperfect Mum is a new book from mum and author Sheena Tanna-Shah.

It's sub-titled: A Fun and Inspirational Guide for Busy Mums to Staying Mindful and Thriving Amidst the Chaos.

And that's exactly what this jolly and very helpful book is.

As well as being a mother, Sheena is ideally qualified to provide fellow mums (and future mums, too) with her mixture of wise and thoughtful advice because she has a wide variety of expertise. Her skillsets range from being an optometrist, an NLP practitioner, a rapid transformation therapist, a life coach, and a practitioner of mindfulness and meditation. If that wasn't enough, she's also a nutritionist who specialises in vegan nutrition.

So, what will mums (and dads!) learn from this book?

How you can feel calmer in even the most stressful of days, how to help you actually enjoy being a mother, but more importantly stuff you can do to help you get back on track when you are beginning to think that things are getting a bit much for you.

You'll learn coping skills, different ways to deal with difficult situations, how you need to master your thoughts and not let your thoughts master you.

Find out what foods help boost serotonin and dopamine levels in your body (both good for helping you boost your mental health) and other nutritional hints and tips for you and your family.

Learn how not to wave goodbye to your own identity, find out about yoga and other exercises, how to keep in touch with your social circle and how to be a great mum to your children, whilst still  being everything else you want to be.

It's nicely illustrated with fun line drawings.

It's published by The Book Guild at £9.99 and deserves to be in the stocking of every mum, mum to be and grandparents this Christmas.

The Mathematical Murder of Innocence

 

The Mathematical Murder of Innocence is a new courtroom drama, more chilling as it is based on a real miscarriage of justice.

Michael Carter brings us a harrowing case of a mother who, after losing two children to cot deaths, becomes wrongly accused of murdering her infants.

The court case becomes electrified when the judge invites a juror to cross-examine an expert witness, a professor who claims that the chances of a cot death is extremely rare, standing at only one in seventy-two million.

But was that the truth? Was the professor as "expert" as he claimed? Or was it the case that the professor was claiming expert knowledge that was well beyond his purview?

Was it that his knowledge of statistics so badly lacking that he risked accusing an innocent woman of committing murders that were not murders at all?

One field of expertise possessed by the author Michael Carter is that of statistical analysis. He immediately realised that the claim expressed by the expert witness in the trial was, as Michael Carter, opined: "The assassination of statistics."

He began to wonder what would have happened had he been on the jury and able to cross examine the "expert" witness?"

The result is a compelling story that, sadly, is based on a genuine case and a very real blunder that condemned an innocent woman to a living hell.

This book is of interest to more than (like your reviewer) lovers of mystery and "crime" novels. It should be read by every judge, magistrate, solicitor, barrister and legal executive in the country as it shows that sometimes what you are told in a court case might not, by accident, be the truth or correct. And as a result, it should be a Christmas gift for the law person in your life.

It's published by  The Book Guild at £8.99.