i libri della serie Jason Green sono romanzi autonomi e possono essere letti in qualsiasi ordine.
Il Pupazzo di neve di Zanzibar
Le acque azzurre di un sereno paradiso tropicale nascondono una sinistra corrente criminale e omicida.Un oscuro segreto svelato porta a spaventosi spargimenti di sangue e al caos.Come è potuto andare tutto così terribilmente storto?
L'ex soldato Jason Green era alle prese con la depressione e annegava nell'alcol. L'interminabile inverno londinese era stato amaramente freddo. Il lavoro freelance alla ricerca di frodi assicurative era banale, ma tutto cambia in una gelida mattina di febbraio.
Un ricco cliente disperato voleva sapere come il suo giovane figlio potesse fare così tanti soldi…
Sembrava un incarico da sogno. Una fuga dalla città e un po' di viaggio. E per un po' lo era stato. Ma su un'isola idilliaca e utopica, qualcuno li osserva e uno spietato impero della droga opera silenziosamente nell'ombra.
Quando Green scava più a fondo, scopre la verità, ma si verificano una serie di eventi sfortunati. Eventi che sfuggono al suo controllo. Eventi che sfociano in una violenza e in un orrore indicibili.
Il cartello deve essere fermato, ma la conta dei morti aumenta.
In questo elettrizzante primo capitolo della serie di successo, l'azione si intensifica fino a raggiungere un livello febbrile, coinvolgendovi in un vortice di suspense. Preparatevi a un climax così profondamente scioccante che vi perseguiterà per molto tempo dopo aver girato l'ultima pagina.
Molto, molto tempo.
Si tratta di un intrattenimento da brivido, di quelli tosti, che vi lascerà senza fiato!
A new to me series which I read because I have been to Zanzibar and absolutely loved it, so of course I had to read a book which was set there.
I liked the main character of Jason Green immediately. He is an ex Selous Scout from the Rhodesian army so it is apparent from the beginning that he will have some serious talents in guerrilla warfare. I suppose his usual work as a PI in England would not require these skills but up against a drug lord in Zanzibar he shows up well!
I enjoyed the whole book up until the end which the blurb describes as "profoundly shocking" and I thought was page after endless page of gratuitous nonsense. But that's just me, and it will not put me off trying more of this series in the future. One complete star off for a pointless ending and four stars for the rest of the book.
The Snowman of Zanzibar starts off slow, giving the reader time to get to know the characters and the location. Then, when the action picks up, the book takes you on a wild ride.
I love the writing style of Gordon Wallis. He has beautifully descriptive sentences that took me away and dropped me into the story, making me feel as though I was there. He’s also an expert at creating characters you feel like you know. I really got to know and sympathized with Jason Green.
Once the action started, there wasn’t really time to put the book down. I was glued to the pages the entire time. The synopsis isn’t over exaggerating, when the end came, I had to take a minute to catch my breath and process.
I loved this book. I’m a fan of Gordon Wallis and I’m really looking forward to reading more from him. I recommend checking this one out!
*I received a copy of this book for a blog tour with Rachel's Random Resources. All opinions are my own.*
The Snowman of Zanzibar by Gordon Wallis is easy to read….by this I don’t mean simple, but his writing style is a joy to read…..not fast paced, but slowly building the compelling atmosphere and mystery in this clever thriller.
An ex- Rhodesian soldier who now works as an insurance fraud investigator. Jason is hired by a London investment banker to look into his son’s seemingly inexplicable spending, just where did he get his money ?..and so the story starts , first London, then to Cape Town and to Zanzibar…
Jason seems quite a lonely person his unexpected friendship with his target, Richard makes for an interesting situation….
Wallis has written a wonderfully detailed and well crafted story to take your time over and enjoy, hard to put down, full of emotion and yet an action filled detective and mystery thriller with a marvellously explosive end…..
Thank you to Rachel’s Random Resources for the opportunity to participate in this blog tour and for the promotional materials and a free copy of the ebook in exchange for my honest, unbiased review.
Gordon Wallis' writing style makes for easy reading. His use of short, highly descriptive sentences efficiently transports the reader through time and space. The book is good; in fact, it is very good. The somewhat slow start allows the author to fully develop the characters to the point where I, for one, had become quite endeared to all of them (villains excepted) before the real action began. It also allowed the detailed descriptions of Cape Town (and surrounds) and Zanzibar to take the reader there. A great first book by Mr. Wallis - I look forward to the sequel and/or his next book.
Loved this Book!... I am not a 'kindle' kind of person... (I love the feel of paper in my hands...so give me a book any day!)... However... my daughter kindly downloaded the book and lent me her kindle! From the beginning.... I fell in love with Jason Green!
I enjoyed Gordon Wallis's writing style tremendously - since I live in South Africa. His descriptions made London real to me... and it was a trip I really enjoyed going on. Arriving in Cape Town, South Africa.... was a breath of fresh air as it too - was the 'real thing'! No peculiar descriptions of a place I know so well - (some authors present the city is such a way in their writings.... it fails to sound familiar to me. I saw the story develop through Jason Green's eyes.... and my trip alongside him..... to Zanzibar was a treat! I felt like I was finally getting to 'see' and experience this 'want-to-visit' Holiday destination in a interesting way.
High drama.... throughout.... which began with the descriptions of places and people in the story mounted to a true thriller senario as the story continued to unfold. I found that not wanting to put the book down until the ending was revealed had me reading far into the night. And... hoping against hope all the time... that the new-found hero, Jason Green would come to no harm as he continued to out-think and outwit a cruel villain!
A good story, well told. For me... an enjoyable read from an author who bears the same surname as myself. (Which in truth....was my first attaction to this book!) Well done, Gordon Wallis in creating for us.... an enterprising, capable 'African' hero. Totally refreshing and believeable!
It doesnt happen often but I could not finish this book. They always say that stake outs arent exciting and in reality they are very boring. I read half the book and we were on a stake out and had a blow by blow discription of all the boring details.The most exciting events were the streak dinners with blue cheese sauce, beers and smoking lots of cigarettes.All of this could have been covered in a few chapters . I was generous with giving this book 2 stars.
Gordon Wallis' The Snowman of Zanzibar is a fantastic story that hits all the right buttons for a thriller mystery. While the story proceeds at a fairly fast pace, the telling of it is anything but rushed. The book goes along at a pace that feels almost sluggish until you think about what has happened so far. However, despite the fact that it feels like it's taking forever to get anywhere, the story and writing are compelling enough that you keep going. The writing reminds me of Jon Land's Blaine McCracken series. The investigation and mystery are far more important than the action, but the action is integral to the resolution.
I think what really made the story something that I had to finish was the way that Richard and Jason start to become part of each others' lives. The wall between investigator and target begins to crumble. This is where you start to really see the growth in Jason. In all his interactions with others, he keeps his distance. He never has a moment where he meets friends, leading to a very lonely and depressing picture of his life. The accidental friendship he cultivates with Richard, his target, seems entirely out of character for the man in London. However, you can see that the Jason Green of London is not the same Jason Green in Africa. The bits of him that were suppressed by his exile to the UK seem to come out more and more. Interestingly enough, he doesn't turn into the hardened spec ops character of his past. Death and torture affect him in very real ways, and his friendship with Richard turns the job into something very personal. However, it is this training that makes the whole story plausible, as without it his reactions to what happens on Zanzibar would be largely different.
Wallis takes care and time in setting up the entire story. What feels like a sluggish start to the story is actually a well-crafted backstory. Wallis drops minor details that seem unimportant, but generally come out later as the key to understanding motivations for Jason as well as extremely well-hidden foreshadowing.
I really enjoyed this read. It's been a long time since I've delved into this sort of story and I realized, again, why I liked it. I definitely found it hard to put down and recommend it for anybody who likes realistic characters and some action with your mystery.
The snowman of Zanzibar is a story that travels around the world. Jason Green is an ex Rhodesian soldier and now is he working in London as a freelance insurance fraud investigator and is a bit depressed. Then he got an interesting and well paid job to search, what, the son of a wealthy businessman is doing to make money. In this case he has to travel to Zimbabwe and Tanzania, where he ends in a cruel and sad history. By this novel I get an intriguing glimpse of the African way of living and the lovely people who live there. The bad ones are in fact evil and the good ones will do what they can to protect each other.
The snowman of Zanzibar is an easy written book and the characters are well developed. It’s a fast paced novel with a good plot line and with a message inside. The atmosphere and locations are well-described and the personalities are lively.
This is a book full of action, but besides that it looks between the lines is some depth in it and I am looking forward to read other adventures of Jason Green.
Just finished: The Snowman of Zanzibar - Gordon Wallis. Ex Rhodesian solder who works as a freelance insurance fraud investigator is hired by a wealthy London investment banker to look into his son’s inexplicable spending sprees and so the story begins in London, moves to Cape Town and then on to Zanzibar. I thoroughly enjoyed this great action packed story line which had my attention throughout the book. Looking forward to Gordon Wallis’ next book.
Through the dreary world of an almost has been , comes a thrilling tale of suspence and intrigue. A rollercoaster ride of emotion. This page turning thriller will keep you riveted and perplexed until its final explosive conclusion....... A modern day masterpiece
This is a great book introducing a new character to our reading world. The author does not make it easy to see what is coming next and some of the twists in the story made me wonder what just happened! I am looking for the next chapter!
Gordon Wallis captured my attention from the very first chapter. His writing style makes for a page turning read and being from Africa myself, it was easy to identify with the main character Jason Green. Well done and I hope to see more of these novels in the years to come.
I just finished your book and greatly enjoyed it. Jason Green's exploits to follow a client from the London area to Zanzibar was quite descriptive and entertaining. Can't wait to see what next lies for Jason.
Great read which draws you into a web of darkness.
The. contrasting backdrops of dreary London in the winter and vibrant Zanzibar lend this detective story atmosphere and surprise. The character of Jason Green reveals his hidden depths when back in African territory. The story has passion and a strong message.
Great beginning but the overly long and overly dramatic ending was just silly. The author also neglected to wrap up the main story line. Disappointing .
Jason Green is a retired soldier turned insurance fraud investigator. He doesn't find investigating insurance fraud very exciting, so he takes side-job as a private investigator. Usually, his side jobs are simply things like investigating spouses who are suspected of cheating. However, he is contacted by a very wealthy potential client who wants to hire him to find out out how his son, whom he doesn't really give money too, is suddenly making enough money to live a pretty luxurious life.
Green's investigation takes him around the streets of London to first Cape Town and the Zanzibar, where things quickly grow complicated as he accidentally runs into the subject of his investigation in a bar and a rather odd sort of kinship grows between Jason and Richard, the focus of his investigation.
The premise of this book held promise, but the plot turned out to be a bit predictable in some ways. What I found most frustrating about the book was that it was very slow going in the beginning because if felt like Wallis needed to include every single detail that Green observed during his investigation of Richard along with every single detail about how he went about his detective work. This made the writing, in the beginning a bit repetitive, and it felt like the writing in this beginning section of the book was a bunch of short, choppy sentences that only led to the writing feeling more repetitive and, frankly, a bit boring.
The second aspect of the book that I also found frustrating was that when the mystery and the tension began to build, the rest of the book seemed rushed until the last three chapters that seemed completely unnecessary. The last three chapters switched from Jason Green's point of view as the former soldier, turned investigator, to that of the criminal that Green deals with. These chapters seemed completely unnecessary and did not bring to fruition a resolution regarding Green's and Richard's characters even though it did bring a resolution to how the criminal was dealt with as a way to protect Richard (as the son of Green's client).
2.25 stars, round down to 2 here on GR since I can't do partial stars.
I wish I had the luck of Jason Green. At the start of the book he seemed a complicated soul earning a crust. However as he ventures abroad, and has to find work arounds, for the case he has undertaken, it seems his plans always work, his brief encounters never seem to have a real element of danger. The plot is fairly staid, none of the characters are anyone you would honestly care about. The final pages, with a change from a first person perspective to the third, I found gratuitous. An attempt to really make the “villain“ get what was coming in full glorious Technicolour! A simple synopsis of what ensued would have been more fitting perhaps? But it passed a few evenings for a cheap price, just not wishing to continue Jason’s further adventures anytime soon.
I found the story quite a reasonable one, and enjoyed the unfamiliar settings in Africa. There's a good load of intrigue to keep up with and some well dealt with romance (all the detail left to the reader's imagination). Downsides for me: It's written in the first person, but doesn't have much of a sparkle in the writing. It took me back to junior school and being told about all the things that were wrong with my "what I did in the holidays" essay. The march of technology has not been kind, and what was probably cutting-edge when the book was written is now quite old-hat. And the last section, where the main villain gets his come-uppance, seemed overly long, unnecessary and rather took away some of the pleasure in rest of the book. I shan't be in a hurry to read any more in this series.
I don't know if it is just me who could not bear page after page of description of Jason's actions in details. (Many other reviewers praise the easy style and say they enjoy them very much.) Jason often told the readers that he didn't have a full plan before doing something but everything turned out to be smooth without even a slightest fault. After one-third of the book, I scanned the pages just want to know the main plots which are good enough but not too exciting. If you want a book with the last three chapters describing the suffer in alone confinement Jason designed for the villain, it would be a good one for you.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Got it free and unlike so many freebies I have got it was a pleasant surprise. Really good read - couldn't put it down. The main character was very believable unlike the super hero which is so common in African books of this type. I would rate this Author in the same league as Tony Park. Look forward to the next book!
An enthralling tale of a latter day crusader who is caught up in an exciting modern day mystery. The pace is fast moving but can be read in chunks. Very descriptive writing brings the characters alive and the surroundings can be felt and sometimes even smelt! Looking forward to reading the next adventure of Jason Green.... Thank you Gordon for writing this tale.
Disappointing. I hoped that the private eye was being stichted up either by his client or by his target, or even by the taxi driver helpful over and beyond the course of duty, or at least that the villain would emerge from captivity to fight again.
It started out l through it was going to be a book I liked but sorry to say it wasn't ! You want to know why because every thing Jason Green done every thing he did he got away with ! He was just to perfect and I don't like books like that!