Mariani and Hawkswood Return

 

Published by Avon and  Allison & Busby in 2021

Breaking out - at last - for a few days' holiday in Salisbury, Wiltshire, I decided on a change from early 19th century Scottish novelists. Two paperbacks had waited for me for over a month, both by authors whose series I have collected . The Pandemic Plot is Scott Mariani's 23rd in his Ben Hope saga and Blood Runs Thicker is Sarah Hawkswood's 8th in her Bradcote and Catchpoll Medieval Mysteries. Both authors have further books due out in the Autumn.

Mariani's tale was very up to date, dealing with the effects of a pandemic virus in the hands of nasty people. Although it starts with the millions killed at the end of the Great War by the so-called 'flu, and seems to be repeating itself through the aegis of an evil descendant in modern times, the meat (purpose?) of the book occurs a few pages from the end and is worth quoting in full.

Ben thought about all the awful shit that was already cooked up and lurking in thousands of labs around the world, ready for use. Most people had no idea of the extent of it...think of the power something like that would give to an evil maniac secret ruler of the world, over nations, over economics, over everything. Even if the virus wasn't half as lethal as Achlys-14. Even if it killed one percent as many people. Imagine the fear it would cause today, what with social media and all the ways information spreads around the world in the blink of an eye nowadays. I mean, apeshit panic. Everyone afraid of each other, people terrified to go outside in case they get it and drop down dead. Whoever had that sort of power could shut the entire system down and make slaves out of the lot of us, force whole populations to do whatever they wanted...

Welcome to the 2020-2021 world! Welcome to the evil regime that rules China. Covid-19 either escaped from a Wuhan Laboratory by accident or on purpose - incompetence or power-mad evil.

This is the second successive Mariani book based entirely in the U.K. Perhaps, once restrictions are lifted he will be able to go on his travels again and return to more exotic settings.

As for Sarah Hawkswood's novel, the reader is getting more attached to the three mainstays of the series: Hugh Bradecote, the under sheriff of Worcestershire, Sergeant Catchpole and the young assistant Walkelin. The interchanges between the three of them and lifelike and pleasantly amusing. The story itself is slight but well-written and is a relaxing break from the early 19th century wordsmiths I have been reading since January. Hawkswood has not yet run out of interesting plots but must not fall into the trap of, say, Susanna Gregory, whose Matthew Bartholomew series is really now past its sell-by date.