One Man’s Flag by David Downing is the second title in the Jack McColl series. It was preceeded by Jack of Spies (2014). World War I is a decidedly difficult era for a modern espionage thriller. Most modern readers are less familiar with the full scope of the conflict. This is particularly true when the subject […]
Review: A Bridge to the Stars by Henning Mankell
This short novel by Swedish writer Henning Mankell is the first of four books about Joel Gustafson, a 12 year old growing up in a remote part of Northern Sweden with his father. It is followed by a second book, Shadows in the Twilight and, The Boy Who Slept in the Snow (also known as […]
The Girl in the Testamentary Fracas
I have mixed feelings about the Lisbeth Salander character phenomenon. Stieg Larsson’s three books were indeed thrilling, compelling reads. Were Larsson alive and releasing the fourth installment written by his own hand, I would without question be reading the final pages of the book instead of writing this. But what can we say about a […]
Review of Kennedy’s Brain by Henning Mankell
In starting a review of Kennedy’s Brain by Henning Mankell, it is important to take note of something that the reader discovers only after the book’s last page. The epilogue to this book begins with the following three sentences: “Twenty years ago, close to Zambia’s western border with Angola, I watched a young African man die of […]