Today it's my turn on the BlogTour A Matter of Latitude by Isobel Blackthorn. It's an environmental thriller about corruption combined with the eccentricities of expats.
Isobel Blackthorn is a prolific novelist of original fiction across a range of genres, including psychological thrillers, gripping mysteries, captivating travel fiction and hilarious dark satire.
Isobel holds a PhD in Western Esotericism for her ground-breaking study of the texts of Theosophist Alice A. Bailey. Her engagement with Alice Bailey's life and works has culminated in the biographical novel, The Unlikely Occultist.
Isobel carries a lifelong passion for the Canary Islands, Spain, her former home. Many of her novels are set on the islands, including The Drago Tree, which was released in 2015 and is now in Spanish translation, Clarissa's Warning and A Matter of Latitude. These novels are setting rich and fall into the broad genre of travel fiction, and the novels are as much stories about the islands themselves as they are straight-ahead entertainment.
Isobel has led a rich and interesting life and her stories are as diverse as her experiences, the highs and lows, and the dramas. Some of her writing is dark, like the psychological thriller, Twerk, which is based on six years of research and first-hand accounts of dancers working in what are euphemistically called gentlemen's clubs.
A life-long campaigner for social justice, Isobel has written, protested and leant her weight to a range of issues including family violence. A Londoner originally, Isobel currently lives near Melbourne, Australia.
Follow @IBlackthorn on Twitter, on Facebook, on Instagram, on Goodreads, Visit isobelblackthorn.com
Buy A Matter of Latitude
About the book
From the acclaimed author of The Drago Tree comes a riveting thriller about survival, revenge and long-hidden secrets.
When local Lanzarote anti-corruption activist, Celestino, is T-boned on a lonely stretch of road, he knows the collision was no accident.
Wounded and fearing for his life, he hides in an abandoned fishing village, waiting for a chance to make it home. Meanwhile his wife, English expat Paula, is distraught. Her pursuit of answers is deflected when her neighbor, troublesome retiree Shirley Mobad, co-opts Paula on her escapades around the Canary Islands.
Paula’s search for her husband quickly descends into mayhem, danger and intrigue. Before long, she realizes she’s being followed. She needs answers, and fast.
But where is Celestino, and will he ever make it back alive?
I really enjoyed the way Blackthorn combined suspense with an authentic feel for the surroundings and the native inhabitants. The struggle of ex-pats to fit in, despite loving the country they have adopted. You can live in a foreign country, speak the language fluently, adapt to the country and new culture, and yet many decades after living there still be considered an outsider or the foreign person.
Paula does something I found quite pedantic, despite admitting to not being fluent enough in the new language to be hired in the industry she trained in, she keeps correcting others. Be fluent - then correct others.
The story starts with the attempt on Celestino's life, and I will admit for a moment I thought I was in a post-apocalyptic plot. The beginning of the book really set the stage, even if it threw me for a minute. Meanwhile his wife and child are waiting for him to turn up, and when he doesn't Paula starts to investigate his disappearance.
I thought the subtle pressure pot plot of the paintings was an extremely interesting way to go about this storyline. The guilty know exactly what is staring them in the face, hence the reactions, but it takes a while for the meaning of the pictures to sink in for others.
At the heart of this plot is the corruption that allows companies and people to profit off the destruction of our environment, but instead of going for other more well-known industries who are guilty of this, the author shows us how corrupt works at a lower level.
The kind the working man can see and is dragged into, albeit inadvertently. The real estate industry is highly exposed to corruption. It is a way to launder money and evade taxes, and on a more fundamental level it exposes the environment and thus humans, to an even greater risk. When land, fields, property and houses are gained by fraudulent means and sold on to developers.
Bought under false pretences, with the sellers pass on property on the basis of it not ruining or the buyers changing the environment. To do so these buyers have to be working hand in hand with the local and sometimes national government departments to get planning permissions. The corruption flows deep and steady.
It's an environmental thriller about corruption combined with the eccentricities of expats.
Buy A Matter of Latitude at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Buy at Amazon com.
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