Avon first edition - 2021
Another action-packed thriller from Mariani, to add to the other twenty-three first edition paperbacks I have. His hero, ex-SAS Ben Hope - someone who was used to encountering sudden, random outbreaks of violence - has got into more scrapes and near-death experiences than I have had the proverbial 'hot dinners'. For much of the story, the action moves no further than Hope's fortified base, Le Val in Normandy (the book doesn't leave the area until page 224 of a total of 381). Hope, with one leg in plaster due to an accident, is alone (his faithful partners, Jeff Dekker and Tuesday Fletcher are sunning themselves in Australia and Jamaica respectively), but for his pack of dogs and three men on duty at the gate. The latter are 'taken out' on Christmas Eve - in the Prologue. Sadly, the dogs - Blitz, Sabre, Diablo and Bomber - soon follow.
Storm - Hope's long-time favourite of the German shepherd dogs - is as much the hero as his master in this tightly-written tale (should it be 'tail'?), regularly coming to the rescue and recovering from a nasty wound to figure in future novels.
The story? A crusader's cross is discovered in a stone chamber just off a tunnel under Le Val's land. (Taken to the Louvre in Paris, it is identified as linked to Eleanor of Aquitaine and, thus, enormously valuable!) Unfortunately Hope breaks his ankle just after the discovery and is whisked off to the Louis Pasteur Hospital in Cherbourg, where his ex, Dr. Sandrine Lacombe gets him plastered. Off go his mates on their hols - a different 'break' from Hope's. A bunch of 'nasties', employed by a Corsican crime boss, overpower the gated trio and advance on Ben's H.Q., where they intend to purloin his armoury. No way - unbelievably (well, no, it is Hope), five of them are captured by Hope and Storm. However, a sixth, Petru Navarro, a real asshole and ultra baddie, escaped - minus an ear, but with the cross.
The rest of the novel deals with Hope's successful pursuit in his blue Alpina D3 - which, inevitably, is written off in a James Bond/Jason Bourne chase through France to Corsica - first Porto Vecchio and then Ajaccio, the capital of of the island (is Mariani hoping for a movie tie-up at last?). He is aided by Petru's uncle, Titus, a Corsican crime boss who is trying to reform his family's ways.
Along the way, Petru's murder trail mounts up: Victor Vermont, Hope's archaeologist friend, in Le Val itself, plus a hi-jacked car driver, four policemen, and Alcide Brambilla, an old guy with a scraggy neck like a chicken and crazy white hair sticking up at all angles; whilst Robert Blondel, who first 'cased' Le Val, Rocco Vanucci, an antiques fence in Corsica, and, Carla, a girl with dark hair, who happened to be in the wrong place, were merely 'done over'. Not to mention the four dogs,
Hope doesn't hang on to girlfriends for long, although there are rarely hard feelings. Two help him out this time - Dr. Sandrine and Madison Cahill, the American bounty hunter chick. Another is introduced as a possible flame for the next thriller - Nathalie from the local restaurant. But the Hope series are essentially male-orientated.
There is an epilogue. Hope gets re-plastered by Dr. Sandrine; Storm recovers thanks to Uncle Titus (who loves dogs, so there is hope for him yet); and the Crusader's Cross is given, gratis, by Hope to the ecstatic Louvre. No reference to Nathalie, though. What is mentioned, on the next page, is Ben Hope returns in a thrilling new book, May 2022, available to pre-order now. And what have I done?
Grosvenor House first edition - 2021
I am uncertain what to say about Rosie Lear's fifth outing with her Matthias Barton Mysteries. Firstly, there is very little mystery throughout. The tall dark stranger's origin is obvious from the first and Lear's method of seeing events through all the characters' eyes means we know exactly why, how, when and where everything occurs. Admittedly, in her Author's Notes at the end, she writes: I'm sorry there is no actual murder in this book! I didn't want Sherborne and Milborne Port to become like Midsummer murders...that must be the worst possible village for murders! (Quite apart from the fact that Midsummer has several villages, she has a point). However, the result is a rather tame tale about minor misdemeanours and rather 'stock' characters. The original personnel in the previous books are not really developed, apart from getting older.
The level is more akin to the children orientated tales of, say, Cynthia Harnett, Geoffrey Trease or Rhoda Power rather than Susanna Gregory, Sarah Hawkswood or Edward Marston. Her photograph on the back cover shows everyone's idea of a kindly grandmother. She hopes to publish a sixth, final, book in the series to reveal the political leanings of my main characters as the Cousin's War begins... Since it will be the last, I will probably purchase it to make up the set.
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