Book Review: No Good Deed by Mary McDonald

No Good Deed is a book that I had noticed getting a lot of praise from kindlers online,  the synopsis caught my eye and being in the mood for a thriller it was the next book summoned from The Stack - my list of books to be read.

Mark Taylor is a Chicago-based photography with a good business but one piece of kit that doesn't provide him with the images he wants. The old camera purchased in Afghanistan produces images of death and accidents. Mark then has dreams that give more details about these deaths, and if he can intervene in time he is able to save the people pictured. Unfortunately for Mark he is able to predict 9/11 but despite his best efforts to alert authorities he is passed off as a crank. Worse yet the CIA and FBI then decide he must have been involved to have known as much as he did prior to the attacks, arrest him, declare him an enemy combatant and detain him without charge or trial. The product description on Amazon, which I only actually read after completing the book, reveals too much of the plot for my liking so I won't post any more on the storyline than that.

I really enjoyed this book and if it wasn't for extreme tiredness brought on by weeks of sleepless nights with my little one I would without a doubt have finished it in one evening. Mark is a likeable character who, as we see at the very beginning, is trying his best to help save people. As per the title no good deed goes unpunished and although he is an innocent man he is subjected to highly questionable methods of torture. I found these scenes quite harrowing but not gratuitous.

The book started at a fast pace, settled in the middle (although I never felt it was dragging as I was so keen to find out whether Mark would survive his captivity) and then rapidly picked up pace again towards the end. Unusually for a thriller it really made me think. It certainly provides a graphic demonstration of why the erosion of civil liberties as a result of rushed laws on terrorism in the aftermath of 9/11 should be such a cause for concern. I appreciated that both sides of the argument were presented, as the CIA agents try to defend the methods they use in dealing with Mark. It also made me wonder whether in Mark's position I would want to take on responsibility and try and save lives or whether I would try and get rid of the camera.

I am full of praise for this book and was delighted to see at the end that the sequel is due out this month!

Book Review: Jimmy Stone's Ghost Town by Scott Neumyer

I don't read a lot of YA fiction but since I got my kindle I have been trying to read a wider range of books. The author has been promoting the book on Amazon's kindle forums so I thought I would give it a try.

Jimmy Stone has been having a hard time of it, first his parents come home from the hospital without his soon to be baby sister, then his mum dies and his dad decides they should move and turns into a beer swilling couch potato. Jimmy has no friends, other than faithful dog Trex, until David befriends him to help him avoid the school bullies. The 3 of them, exploring woods behind Jimmy's house, end up in mysterious ghost town and discover that to return home they have to complete a series of tasks.

This is obviously setting up a series,  it is revealed Ghost Town is one of seven other realms outside our world. The first third of the book is primarily setting up Jimmy's back story and introducing him as the main protagonist. The next part introduces Ghost Town and the boys find out a bit about what is in store for them, and in the final third they carry out their first task.

I'm quite a bit older than the target audience and my daughter is only a toddler so I haven't got anyone of that sort of age to help me judge the book from the ideal viewpoint. For me Jimmy's hardships were covered for too long and repeated more than necessary, but I suspect for a younger reader it is setting up the idea that you can overcome any difficulties to become as strong person. There is still an element of mystery about what became of his soon to be sister and mum though, which I'm hoping will be revealed in future books. We do see Jimmy developing in the book, which I liked, especially becoming more assertive. David is more mysterious, I think he is meant to seem that way to Jimmy but I hope that in the next book the reader will find out more about his background. I would also like to know why Jimmy is the chosen one, although if this is indeed a series of 7 it's early days yet.

I thought the book was well written, it raised a few smiles and I imagine would have kids of the right age laughing. It must say something about the way it is written that despite it not being one of my usual genres I want to read the next one to find out more. 

Blog Hop time!

Thank crunchy it's Friday, and that means it's Book Blogger Hop time - the first one of 2011. The Hop is hosted by Crazy-For-Books.com, runs from Friday to Monday and is a fun way to find other book bloggers. This week's question is:

What book influenced/changed your life? How did it influence/change your life?

I had to really think about this, and decided it would have to be JG Ballard's Empire of the Sun. I read it when I was quite young and have revisited it many times since. It made me realise how much more there was to the dry history I was being taught at school, and the impact of war on individuals. Fabulous book.

Book Review: The Up-Country Man by Kenneth Ryeland

My interest in the war in Nigeria in the 1960s was piqued some time ago when I read Half of a Yellow Sun, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, a fictional account of various characters' experiences of the foundation of Biafra. Being a child of the 70s it was something I knew virtually nothing about. Therefore when I came across this book I thought it would be really interesting to read a first-hand account. The author Kenneth Ryeland moved to Nigeria as a young man in 1967, working as an engineer. His company had played down reports of previous unrest and Ryeland planned to move his young family to the country to join him after the completion of his probation period.

The book intially details the culture shock experienced by the author and another young colleague upon their arrival, having to adjust to a new geography and culture. Ryeland is moved to a posting in Enugu amid rumours that secession will occur, and when it does he finds himself living in the new state of Biafra. The "police action" seriously disrupts life for the Europeans as well as for the rest of it's new citizens.

I found the book fascinating. I really liked the use of Pidgin English in the book as I felt it illustrated one of the most obvious difficulties the author must have faced on arriving in Nigeria and lent real flavour to the book. The story of Adam and Eve in Pidgin at the start really helped my understanding, so while I couldn't translate it I certainly got the gist. The story was so descriptive of the places and people, but without being unnecessarily wordy.

I can imagine some people might be uncomfortable with some of the portrayals of the white man as master and the locals as servants but it is illustrating how things really were at the time, is basically a historical account of events and it would be wrong to sanitise the book to appease people.

This book contained enough description of Nigeria and it's people to satisfy me as a travel book, enough about factual historical events to make me feel like I was learning something by reading it, and enough emotion and anecdotes for it to be a thoroughly enjoyable read.

To censor or not to censor?

Last night on the way home from work I was sat on the train talking to a couple of ladies who commute from the same place at the same time as me. We often have a good old gossip and set the world to rights as a way of passing the time. I'd been reading my kindle on the platform when they arrived so inevitably the conversation started with reading and went from there. One of the ladies then mentioned that she'd heard the publishers of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn were now going to publish it changing the "n" word to slave and changing the word "injun" with something deemed to be less offensive.

I'm not particularly comfortable with this sort of censorship and dislike the idea that by changing a few words we sanitize the past, or worse still pretend it never happened. I haven't read any Mark Twain (is this a heinous ommission on my part?) so I can't comment on the use of the offending words in the particular books causing the row, but is it really so unreasonable to use certain words where they suit the context? I would certainly never use the "n" word but historically it was widely used.

The book I am reading at the  (review coming soon) is an account of life in Nigeria in the 1960s, and parts detailing the relationship between the Europeans and the Nigerians may make for uncomfortable reading but it is a factual piece and pretending things were different would be re-writing history. 

The consensus on the train (after a couple of others who overhead what we were chatting about joined in) was that you should look at when the book was written, accept that it is of it's time and maybe put a page in at the front to indicate some of the language is no longer considered acceptable but that it has been left as was to maintain authenticity. The general feeling was that in an attempt to make sure nobody could ever be offended by anything we are losing something, and becoming overly concerned with words, when what actually really matters is the feeling being expressed. Personally I have friends of all faiths, and I don't know any of them who are offended by being wished a Happy Christmas, and I've definitely never come across anyone who has a problem with Hot Cross buns.

So, are we becoming too sensitive and should  we rein it in, or am I ,and the people I was chatting to, racist and anti-other religions?

Book Review: The Losing Role by Steve Anderson

It's winter 1944 and Max Kaspar is pulled from the Eastern Front for a role in a secret mission. Before the war Max was an actor and having lived and worked in New York, and as an English speaker, he is considered ideal for the task at hand. The role - masquerading as an enemy US officer, his aim -  to use the opportunity to escape the war and return to the States. Having been trained and put into a team Max finds himself caught up in the Battle of the Bulge, and his plan goes far from smoothly.

This book is based on the true story of German false flag operations but the characters are largely fictional. I'm not very knowledgeable about WWII and what happened where and when but from the authors note at the end of the book and what I do know it seems very rooted in fact.

I thought this book was amazing, the author's descriptions are so evocative I could almost feel the chill in the air and really imagine the discomfort the soldiers were enduring. I haven't read many war books, but particularly few written from a German perspective. In the end it didn't really matter as one of the things that comes strongly across is that it doesn't matter which side you are fighting for, the soldiers are people and the casualties are all human.

I'd hate to include any spoilers so had best not say too much more, other than that I will now be hunting down other work by the author, it was a fantastic, well written read. I'll definitely be recommending it to family and friends.

Book review: Crescent Dawn by Clive Cussler

I have read a lot of Cussler's books in the past and after a few I hadn't particularly enjoyed I had decided to steer clear for a while. I clearly didn't mention it to my husband though, as a hardback copy of Crescent Dawn was waiting for me under the tree on Christmas morning. Fortunately this book seems to be a return to form for Cussler and I found myself enjoying it, although there were still a couple of negatives for me.

The book starts in 327AD with a pirate attack on a Roman bireme. It then moves on to 1916 and the sinking of HMS Hampshire with Lord Kitchener aboard. Moving to 2012 we find Dirk Pitt and the NUMA team dotted around in the UK, Turkey and Israel, attempting to discover the fate of those ships while becoming caught up in a series of linked atacks in the middle East. What is the connection between the ships and the series of artefact thefts and explosions? Cussler deftly weaves the various strands of the stories together in a way that left me cursing that I couldn't sneak in a bit more reading time.

As a plot terrorists trying to destablise the middle-East and the plundering of ancient artefacts aren't really anything new, I've read a couple of books with similar plots in the last few years. However Cussler writes it well and his unique point of view comes from the marine archeology side of things. I also find the parts written from the historial viewpoint very interesting and I always feel like the author has done his research due to the level of detail.

One of the things I had found off-putting about other books was Dirk Pitt Snr's sexist demeanour and some of the daft catchphrases the characters seemed to be regurgitating over and over, so I was pleased that neither were present in this book. I also enjoyed seeing the characters of Dirk Junior and Summer being developed. However I do still feel that Cussler's female characters are less well written and have less depth than their male counterparts.

Overall I felt this was much more like Cussler at his best and will forgive him some of the recent books I didn't enjoy.