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SAS Ghost Patrol: The Ultra-Secret Unit That Posed as Nazi Stormtroopers by Damien Lewis

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The backdrop to this story is the British attempt to mount a large military operation comprising Special Forces coming from the desert plus a sea-borne force of marines, navy and air force to retake the important port of Tobruk (located in Libya, North Africa) and release 30,000 POW’s during WW2. The author’s focus is the success and bravery of the motley crew of Special Forces – comprising army commandos, the SAS (Special Air Service), the SBS (Special Boat Service) and the SIG (Special Interrogation Group). SIG was a specialist group of German speaking Jews from Palestine who wore German uniforms to allow them to penetrate the German/Italian/Arab units entrenched around Tobruk.
Unfortunately, despite the brilliant success of the Special Forces Tobruk remained in the enemies’ possession. The major force of regular troops aboard British ships could not land due to inferior equipment, lack of air superiority and shortages of ammo etc. However, the partial British successes did weaken the Axis powers and enabled them to kick the Germans and Italians out of North Africa for good later that year.
This is the first book by Damen Lewis that I’ve read and I found it somewhat confusing. Was I reading a novel? Or an accurate work of non-fiction? Neither, I concluded. There was little dialogue all thru the story and zero character development. 99% of the book is written in the third person so it came across as dry. The author did complete extensive research so it must be historical? No, because he admits he fictionalized people and events to make the story flow.
The most impressive and interesting part of Lewis’ work is the beginning and conclusion. The author describes in some humorous detail the differences between the SAS and the commandos – the SAS lived and operated in the desert where water is scarce, clothing is what works for you in the heat and food is rationed; in comparison the commandos though rough and tough were regular soldiers wearing proper uniforms, were well shaved and just couldn’t understand how such a ragtag bunch of gaunt, hairy, disheveled guys could achieve any military success. At the conclusion Lewis describes what happened to all the leading characters after the British withdrew. Most of them were wounded, some badly. Most escaped capture, some wandered the desert for months living off the kindness of Arabs. A few died but many survived, received medical treatment, got medals for their gallantry and returned to fight in Europe. I found the conclusion to be most moving part of the story as the will to live, get better and then carry on fighting is a true example of British fortitude.




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SAS Ghost Patrol: The Ultra-Secret Unit That Posed As Nazi Stormtroopers

West With Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


In her varied career before becoming a novelist, the author was a freelance journalist, copywriter, film reviewer, book collaborator and travel writer while also earning an MA in American literature and an MFA in creative writing. And, of course, she’s a lifelong animal lover.
I liked West with Giraffes – it grew on me, as they say, reading thru the exploits of the three main human characters and the two animal characters on their long, arduous journey to San Diego Zoo. It must have been uplifting at that time in the thirties to receive such good news against the backdrop of rampant unemployment, the dust bowl depression and the coming menace of Hitler along with his Axis Allies (Italy and Japan).
I like the author’s style – she’s easy to understand, her story is tinged with subtle humor and she has an amazing feel for the two giraffes as she describes their eating habits, their affection for each other and their love of poking their heads thru the truck’s roof. Their tranquility throughout the story despite all the difficulties they faced was remarkable. I remember feeding a giraffe at Niabi zoo in Illinois some years ago – I was surprised when its huge blue tongue emerged and it gently ate the lettuce from my hand!
The only critical comment I’d make about the book is the limited character development in the novel – the Old Man was a crusty, good hearted fellow all the way thru, Red was an enigma most of the time but Woody Nickel did grow more confident as the story evolved.
A final note - One of the best examples of the author’s feel for the two animals happens towards the end when Woody writes-
“Then, like Red, I stretched out my arms, until I was touching them both . . . and, at my touch, the two blessed giraffes begin to hum! They had been humming to each other back in quarantine, and now they were humming with me.”

This review was written by Shawn Callon, author of The Simon Montfort Spy Series




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West With Giraffes

Close Your Eyes by Teresa Driscoll

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Another gripping novel from this British author who specializes in psychological thrillers.

Matthew’s and Sally’s worlds come crashing down when he receives a call from his sobbing spouse telling him that their 8 year old daughter, Amelie, has gone missing during a shopping trip. He’s a private investigator and former police officer used to finding lost children but on this occasion he struggles to sit on the sidelines as the authorities move fast to find Amelie. The nightmare worsens as we learn that Matt left the police force after a woman blames him for her son’s death and promised that he too would one day feel her pain.
The clock is ticking fast towards the 48 hour deadline for finding their daughter alive. We get to know the perpetrator quite soon and discover he’s gone off the grid, off his medication and has taken his daughter, his granddaughter together with Amelie to a run-down trailer where he waits for the voices in his head to tell him what to do.

The author descriptions of the couple’s utter despair and their feelings of mutual guilt are heart rending; Matt interferes in the investigation and ruins his chances of returning to the police force; Sally is so grief stricken that she spends most of the time crying and hugging herself. They start blaming each other for their daughter’s disappearance.

The police struggle with several false leads resulting in the investigating officer being humiliated by her immediate boss while we learn more about the kidnapper’s frame of mind and location from his daughter’s monologue with the reader. It’s not usual for a thriller to reveal the criminal so soon in the story but it works well in this novel.

Shawn Callon, author of The Simon Montfort Spy Series, wrote this review.



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Close Your Eyes

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


My spouse read this novel and found it an intriguing book in general. She felt it had a rather slow start but once the premise was established, it rattled along at a good pace.

Early 1960’s, Chemist Elizabeth Zott is fighting chauvinism in all its worst forms. Until the day she meets unattractive, grudge-holding, Nobel prize winning chemist Calvin Evans (whilst she was appropriating beakers from his lab!). After an inauspicious start, they fall madly in love in a very unconventional way. Unfortunately, the relationship ends suddenly & badly and Elizabeth ends up the struggling, single mother to Mad (Madelaine). Along with their almost supernaturally intelligent dog named 6:30 (don’t ask!) and their neighbor Harriet, they eke out an existence after Elizabeth is fired. In one of life’s strange turns, Elizabeth ends up hosting a TV Show – ostensibly a cooking show in a women’s hour slot – but she runs it like a chemistry lesson.

There are a lot of well-known & documented feminist issues – like ‘women should stay at home’, ‘women should make themselves pretty for their husbands’, ‘women just aren’t smart enough’ etc. Elizabeth fights hard against all these hurdles. These issues will ring true to women of almost any age.

Well & thoughtfully written, I’m looking forward to reading ‘The Most Fun We Ever Had’. I will also NEVER look at a #2 pencil in the same way again!!!!

Shawn Callon, author of the Simon Montfort Spy Series, published this review



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Lessons in Chemistry

The Light Over London by Julia Kelly

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This is a very light novel that moves between wartime and ‘current day’ England.

Cara Hargreaves is struggling to move forward with her life following the death of her parents in a car crash and the end of her disastrous marriage to her alcoholic, gambling-addicted husband. Immersed in her work with an antiques dealer, she comes across a diary from WWII. She feels the need to find out what happened to the author and find any possible remaining family.

In 1941, Louise Keene feels stifled in her tiny Cornish village, working in the village shop, when what she most wants is to attend University and study Math. At a local dance with her cousin, she is swept off her feet by charming, dashing Flight Lieutenant Paul Bolton. Too soon he is posted away. Desperate to do something more important for the war effort, she joins the ATS (Auxiliary Territorial Service) and is ultimately assigned to an anti-aircraft gunnery battery in London. The book is divided into chapters relating to the unfolding story of these 2 young women’s lives.

It is an easy read, no huge surprises but some good background information on England in The Blitz and the little discussed but vital branch of the armed services at that time. The Gunnery Girls were the first British women allowed into the active theater of war in this time period.

Shawn Callon, author of the Simon Montfort Spy Series, published this review.




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The Light Over London

Real Tigers by Mick Herron

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Critics claim that Mick Herron is the next John Le Carré. They both write about the same world – spies, traitors and confused politics. However, Herron’s world is darker, more flippant and more acerbic that Le Carré’s.
Herron describes Slough House as the building where failed MI-5 operatives go – alcoholics, drug addicts, gamblers, screw-ups and so on. To quote the author “Nobody left Slough House at the end of a working day feeling like they’d contributed to the security of the nation. They left it feeling like their brains had been fed through a juicer.” And here’s another quote that exemplifies the boredom and futility of the ‘slow horses’ working in Slough House – “Eight and a half hours of this, minus whatever he could get away with for lunch. Five times that to make up the week, and forty-eight weeks in the working year . . . He might see this task off before his fortieth birthday, if he really hammered it. Yeah: get a wiggle on, and he could celebrate putting this to bed alongside the big four-oh. Or he could just beat himself to death with a hole punch.”
To add to the depressive tone, Herron depicts London as drab, hot, humid, in the middle of a heat wave with its trees/lawns/flowers all brown and dying. But to break the monotony of their work and the weather, one of their own, Catherine, is kidnapped on the streets of London. Although a recovering alcoholic, she is the most mature and stable member of Slough House. She is the calming influence on her boss, Jackson Lamb, an experienced, sharp, uncouth, sarcastic, dirty operative who is described as having the grace of a hippo steering a barrow.
Herron reveals a complex plot involving the power- hungry Minister for internal security, the Head of MI-5, a senior security officer and a very disgruntled pair of former army officers – all fighting an internecine war feeding off power and revenge.
Herron tells the story in a lively and amusing manner as the ‘slow horses’ speed up in pairs to find out what’s happened to Catherine and get involved in a rather banal shoot out at the and where the slow team win against all odds but as usual the rich and/or powerful carry on as if nothing has happened.
Herron is a very witty author but you have to read his prose very carefully as otherwise you might miss some of his irony and consequently the flow of the plot.

Shawn Callon, author of the Simon Montfort Spy Series, wrote this review.




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Real Tigers

Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Alice Hoffman is a prolific American novelist writing for both adults and children; she has published 42 books over a period of more than 45 years. Many of her works fall into the genre of magic realism and contain elements of magic, irony, and non-standard romances and relationships. This is the second book of hers that I’ve read, the first one was The Marriage of Opposites published in 2015. This novel relates a lyrical story about forbidden love set on the tropical island of St. Thomas, a fictional tale about the extraordinary woman who gave birth to the painter Camille Pissarro, a major leader of the Impressionist Movement.
Magic Lessons was published in 2020 and is one of 4 books in Hoffman’s Practical Magic Series and takes the reader on a long journey about love - both filial and amorous. Set in 17th. century England, the Caribbean and the American colonies it’s an imaginative tale about spells, potions and rituals that give the reader a look into the healing properties of white magic and a taste of the dark world of black magic – but beware whatever you put out into the world will come back to you threefold.
The story is also about revenge where one of the main characters, Faith, punishes her father for abandoning and mistreating her mother, Maria. The reader might also see the book as a tribute to women’s struggle against misogyny, malice and bigotry. Here the author uses the symbols of church-going hypocrites of both sexes as they resolutely carry out what they refer to as God’s work – these images reinforce how her strong leading characters overcome threats of torture, banishment and death. The book has two endearing and faithful non-human characters – a crow called Cadin and a wolf named Keeper who protect Maria and her daughter Faith and add some light humor to the story.
Hoffman’s style of writing might not appeal to every reader – it’s highly descriptive, some may say wordy and over-blown. At times it’s like reading poetry except it’s actually prose you are reading. Her style certainly held my attention because it’s so original and so imaginative. The way she describes her spells that keep evil at bay and her potions that heal the sick and the rituals of both white and black witchcraft I found entertaining and credible.

This review was written by Shawn Callon, author of The Simon Montfort Spy Series.




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Magic Lessons

The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This poignant novel is an autobiography of Brendan Slocumb's early life as a struggling black violinist. Ray inherited a Stradivarius from his grandmother - it belonged to his Pop Pop who as a slave used to play this 'fiddle' to his white owner on the plantation. While Ray was travelling to a concert the violin was stolen. He was devastated but with the help of his friends, in particular Janice his music teacher, he got back on his feet and achieved his overriding ambition of participating in the prestigious Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow, where he won second place.

Ray grows from a very assuming young man to a highly assertive adult who has learned to use his wiles and intelligence to get where he wants to go. There are abundant examples of racism that anger him but also motivate him to carry on; most of his family expects to share from his good fortune; also the Marks family, the slave owner's descendants, are determined to get the Strad back.

The author's style makes the book an easy and entertaining read though at times it's a bit heavy on music terminology. There's an unexpected twist at the end when the violin thief is revealed.

Shawn Callon, author of The Simon Montfort Series, wrote this review,



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The Violin Conspiracy

The Empty Kayak by Jodé Millman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I received a copy of Millman's new novel as a Goodreads Giveaway. I enjoyed the complex plot featuring the drowning death of Kyle in the Hudson River; the circumstances surrounding his drowning were ambiguous - was it suicide, was it accidental or was it murder? As so often the initial police and family reactions favored misadventure; others favored suicide and a few went for the killing option. Millman expertly walks the reader thru the investigation's painstaking work to discover the truth with Kyle's former fiancé Jessie adding her own dogged efforts to find the reasons for his untimely passing.

The initial opening of the novel sets the stage so strongly that it motivates the reader to want to know what's going to happen. Kyle's new fiancé, Olivia, seems suspiciously distracted by her phone and her appearance at the scene by the river; we learn about a missing plug in his kayak - is this a red herring? Why did Kyle change his insurance beneficiaries just before his death? What were Kyle and Olivia's brother Augie arguing about? Millman wraps up this thriller into a exciting package of forensic evidence, passionate finger-pointing and outright lies.

At times the novel suffered from overuse of adjectives and descriptive phrases that didn't really drive the plot forward but this observation didn't detract from my enjoyment of the book.

Shawn Callon, author of The Simon Montfort Series, wrote this review.



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The Empty Kayak

Yellow Wife by Sadeqa Johnson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Yellow Wife relates a love story amidst the brutality of the American slave trade. The main character Phebe is the daughter of a black slave and a white plantation owner. She takes care of his wife Delphina who is pregnant by Pheby's lover Essex; Delphina drowns her baby so her husband doesn't discover her infidelity. Pheby is moved onto a jail in Richmond where she is selected by the jail owner and slave trader Rubin to be his mistress. She finds out she's pregnant by Essex who has escaped from the plantation.
The author details Phebe's life over the following years in harrowing detail - Rubin's never-ending sexual appetite keeps her constantly pregnant; she entertains Rubin's business partners in the tavern; she has to prepare slave girls for auction on a regular basis; she is forced to witness the savage whipping of Essex as a punishment for running away from the plantation. There are several references in the novel for the punishment meted out to slaves who are caught learning to read - sodium hydroxide or lye is put into their eyes.
Finally she helps Essex and their son to escape but she remains behind to protect her daughters. The end of the civil war gives somewhat of a happy ending to her plight.
There is a lot of genuine slave dialog throughout the book which gives the story considerable authenticity. I liked the references to many of the natural remedies used to treat the variety of illnesses that constantly occurred in such filthy conditions and I appreciated their understandable reluctance to use any white medicine. The story has a simple, straight line plot with no diversions or complications. The author has depicted plenty offensive people balanced by her portrayal of innocent, brutalized characters. Unfortunately, it's sad to say but we can still witness this culture of brutality in our world today.



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Yellow Wife