Saturday, June 18, 2011

Spycatcher






Matthew W. Dunn's Spycatcher is an espionage novel that reads like reading eye-witness newspaper reports from the Middle East.
Due to be released in July, Mr. Dunn brings years of experience in the field as an M16 operative who writes under his own name. Spycatcher is not a biography, but fiction that will keep you glued to you chair as Dunn sweeps you from Central Park across Europe and back again in an outstanding thriller of the dark side of undercover work.
Will Cochrane knows he must kill his contact to Iran before the man is captured and tortured to reveal secrets no man must divulge. The contact is not a friend in Will's friendless world, but his job and the safety of many others demands he must act with hesitation.
Will is wounded in the resulting gunfire and pulled from the fray in time to save his life. He awakens in a blank room and is confronted by a man who knows about his entire life. As they sit on the floor of a bare room Will knows the stranger must be a CIA operative who has a use for him outside of the conventional bonds of spying.
Patrick knows of his code name, Spartan. This is a position that can be held by no other man while he lives. His controller, Alistair is one of the most senior officials of M16. Only the British prime minster authorize the release this name. Patrick is a powerful and trusted man in the world of international intrigue.
Between Alistair and Patrick they send Will on a mission that will uncover his own past to flush out an operative high in the Iranian command to convince him to "betray" his country or die. Betrayal is a two-way street when power and wealth beyond imagination are at stake.
Spycatcher moves with the speed of jet planes and each character has an agenda that must be completed. The innocent become embroiled in the morass of empire decaying and rebuilding. No life is too valuable to be allowed to be a hindrance to success. I lost count of the bodies that fall across the landscape as Will endeavors to bring Megiddo out of hiding before he can complete his plans for world domination.
Nash Black, author of Sandprints of Death.




Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Sandprints of Death



Nash Black's Sandprints of Death opened to a five star review from Alina Holgate, a resident of Australia. I normally talk about other writer's work on Bird's Eye View, but this time I want to toot our own horn and share with you Alina's review.


"Set a While"

"The best thing about this book for this Australian was that reading it was like going on holiday. I was transported to an island off South Carolina, rich in unique history where various members and neighbors of the Young clan have congregated to lick their various wounds. A series of murders occurs on the island thus trapping them together. They are further trapped by the weather. In the course of dealing with these challenges the Youngs become integrated into the local community and the history of the Young clan and the island is revealed.
"The murder mystery, which is the occasion for all these different characters being thrown together in a particular locale, could have been more carefully plotted and its resolution seemed rushed. However the strength of the book is not a great murder mystery. The strength of the book is the beautifully drawn characters and their intricately portrayed clan stories that make you feel connected to them like family. The strength of the book is in the incredibly atmospherically drawn portrait of this island, its history, its inhabitants, and the constantly shifting mood ot the weather and the sea that seeps into our characters bones. The strength of this book is that it makes you want to set a while and just listen to the cadences of the stories and the voices in which they are expressed and watch as island life passes you by.
"I think if you like The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society: a Novel you would like this. It has a similar feel in terms of becoming drawn in to an isolated, self-reliant community of loveable people who have a tough life but who welcome the right kind of strangers into the fold.
My best recommendation is that I immediately rushed off to buy more of Nash Black's books. And there is a recipe at the end of this book that's worth the price of admission alone."

Thank you, thank you Alina.

Nash Black (Irene & Ford)