#BlogTour A Statue for Jacob by Peter Murphy

 It's a pleasure to take part in the BlogTour A Statue for Jacob by Peter Murphy.

About the Author

Peter Murphy graduated from Cambridge University and spent a career in the law, as an advocate, teacher, and judge. He has worked both in England and the United States, and served for several years as counsel at the Yugoslavian War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague. 

He has written nine novels: two political thrillers about the US presidency, Removal and Test of Resolve; seven historical/legal thrillers featuring Ben Schroeder, A Higher Duty, A Matter for the Jury, And Is There Honey Still for Tea?, The Heirs of Owain Glyndwr, Calling Down the Storm, One Law for the Rest of Us and Verbal. He is also the author of three Judge Walden of Bermondsey collections of short stories. He lives in Cambridgeshire. 

Follow on Goodreads, on Amazon, Visit petermurphyauthor.co.uk,

About the book

'This debt was not contracted as the price of bread or wine or arms. It was the price of liberty'  -Alexander Hamilton

Kiah Harmon, a young Virginia lawyer, is just emerging from the most traumatic time of her life when actress Samantha ('Sam') van Eyck walks into her office, unannounced, with the case of a lifetime. She asks Kiah to recover a 200-year-old debt from the US Government - a debt that Alexander Hamilton may have acknowledged. 

The selfless generosity of Sam's ancestor, Jacob Van Eyck, in making a massive loan of gold and supplies at Valley Forge, during the freezing winter of 1777-1778, may well have saved George Washington's army, and the War of Independence, from disaster. But it reduced Jacob to ruin. Despite the government's promises, the debt was never repaid, and this hero of the American Revolution died in poverty, unknown and unrecognised. Two hundred years later, Sam and Kiah embark on a quest to change that. But first, they will have to find the evidence, and overcome a stubborn Government determined to frustrate their every move. Will there ever be a statue for Jacob?

Review

In good faith and in pursuit of liberty. If Jacob made the same gesture in the 21st century and it made the difference in a battle of unprecedented importance for the country of America, well the family would sue and the majority of the country would support them in their decision.

Sam walks into Kiah's office  with the case of a lifetime - trying to recover a debt from the US government, a debt they made 200 years ago. To also gain recognition for the selfless act of a patriot who possibly helped to determine the outcome of the American War of Independence.

From a fictional perspective it's a great homage to a man who appears to have been forgotten when it comes to the narration of history. From a factual perspective Judge James Turner made the wrong ruling. Jacob's story and the subsequent case is not so dissimilar to descendants of victims trying to regain possession of property stolen in wartime and as such should be given a specific dispensation when it comes to the statute of limitation.

Murphy does an excellent job of bringing this hidden, forgotten and quite important injustice to light in this fictional story. The core element of the Jacob's tale is turned into a riveting historical fiction read, which is simultaneously also a legal thriller and a story about a family fighting for justice for their ancestor.

Buy A Statue for Jacob at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher ‏: ‎Oldcastle Books pub date 5 July 2021. Buy at Amazon com.

#BlogTour The Mercenary by Paul Vidich

 It's a pleasure to take part in the Blogtour The Mercenary by Paul Vidich.

About the Author

Paul Vidich has had a distinguished career in music and media. Most recently, he served as Special Advisor to AOL and was Executive Vice President at the Warner Music Group, in charge of technology and global strategy. He serves on the Board of Directors of Poets & Writers and The New School for Social Research. A founder and publisher of the Storyville App, Vidich is also an award winning author of short fiction. His novels, An Honorable Man, The Good Assassin and The Coldest Warrior, are available from No Exit Press.

Follow @paulvidich on Twitter, Visit paulvidich.com

About the book

From acclaimed spy novelist Paul Vidich comes a taut new thriller following the attempted exfiltration of a KGB officer from the ever-changing - and always dangerous - USSR in the mid-1980s.

Moscow, 1985. The Soviet Union and its communist regime are in the last stages of decline, but remain opaque to the rest of the world - and still very dangerous. In this ever-shifting landscape, a senior KGB officer - code name GAMBIT - has approached the CIA Moscow Station chief with top secret military weapons intelligence and asked to be exfiltrated. GAMBIT demands that his handler be a former CIA officer, Alex Garin, a former KGB officer who defected to the American side.

The CIA had never successfully exfiltrated a KGB officer from Moscow, and the top brass do not trust Garin. But they have no other options: GAMBIT's secrets could be the deciding factor in the Cold War. Garin is able to gain the trust of GAMBIT, but remains an enigma. Is he a mercenary acting in self interest or are there deeper secrets from his past that would explain where his loyalties truly lie? As the date nears for GAMBIT's exfiltration, and with the walls closing in on both of them, Garin begins a relationship with a Russian agent and sets into motion a plan that could compromise everything.

Review

Garin has been sent to sort out the mess of a colleague. In the midst of trying to make contact with a possible Russian defector, who happens to have a pipeline into the kind of secrets that can bring down a country, everything goes pear shaped. Is there a mole? Can Garin get on with the job without his real identity being divulged and in doing so putting himself and others at risk?

At times the reader isn't sure where the most danger is coming from for the main character. His own side appears to be just as invested in exposing him. Is there such a thing as loyalty in the world of espionage and counter-espionage, and most importantly can someone ever be free of their past when it comes to being perceived as loyal to the cause? Is there always a lack of trust when the word traitor is bandied about?

Vidich has a knack for the cold war espionage genre, so much so that I felt myself wondering about all the books in the old school spy genre I read quite a few decades ago. It's an homage of sorts to the cat and mouse games of forgotten spy chessmasters. Quite refreshing really to wander back into a Gorky Park, George Smiley or Le Carre world of spying, suspicion and Cold War tactics.

I would definitely recommend this book to readers who enjoy the very calculated bargaining nature of the war after the war. The insidious nature, which was always combined with a sense of mystery and adventure - almost as if living in the echoes from the World War 2 were a way of keeping the tumultuous times alive.

The author gives readers a riveting spy genre read - the foggy bridge prisoner exchange kind of read.

Buy The Mercenary at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher : Oldcastle Books Ltd pub date 18 Mar. 2021. Buy at Amazon com. At Bookshop org.

#PaperbackPublicationDay The Conviction of Cora Burns by Carolyn Kirby

Today it's Paperback Publication Day for The Conviction of Cora Burns by Carolyn Kirby. You can get the ecopy for just 99p for a limited time! Don't miss out on this fantastic read!

About the Author
Originally from Sunderland, Carolyn Kirby studied history at St Hilda’s College, Oxford before working for social housing and then as a teacher of English as a foreign language.

Her novel The Conviction of Cora Burns was begun in 2013 on a writing course at Faber Academy in London. The novel has achieved success in several competitions including as finalist in the 2017 Mslexia Novel Competition and as winner of the inaugural Bluepencilagency Award. Carolyn has two grown-up daughters and lives with her husband in rural Oxfordshire.

Follow @novelcarolyn @noexitpress on Twitter, on Goodreads, on Amazon, Visit carolynkirby.com
Buy The Conviction of Cora Burns

About the book
With the power and intrigue of Jessie Burton's The Silent Companions and Sarah Schmidt’s See What I Have Done, Carolyn Kirby’s stunning debut takes the reader on a heart-breaking journey through Victorian Birmingham and questions where we first learn violence: from our scars or from our hearts.

Birmingham 1885 - Born in a gaol and raised in a workhouse, Cora Burns has always struggled to control the violence inside her. Haunted by memories of a terrible crime, she seeks a new life working as a servant in the house of scientist Thomas Jerwood. Here, Cora befriends a young girl, Violet, who seems to be the subject of a living experiment. But is Jerwood also secretly studying Cora…?

Review
This is an intriguing read, but it will keep the grey cells busy as you track each thread. The author has built the plot in a way that asks the reader to backtrack and follow the main character through many doors, years and supposedly unimportant connections. Cora takes us on a trip to learn the truth about herself and her life.

Born to a prisoner and raised as an orphan in a workhouse, Cora has always been on the rough and more unlucky side of life. The only happy memories are the ones she made with her fellow workhouse friend Alice. Together they bonded over their loneliness, their tears and fears, and the instinct to cause trouble and harm.

When Cora is released she is determined to find Alice and reconnect, and perhaps fill in the blanks about something awful Alice did when they were younger. Instead her journey takes her on a trip that confronts her with her own past and how she became the Cora Burns we learn to like, but perhaps mistrust.

Aside from the tragedy of how the mentally ill, especially women, were treated during the 19th century this is also about how society treated women and children in general. At the very core of the premise however is the debate about nature vs nurture in regards to a propensity for violence, and the type that leads to violent crimes and homicides.

Scientists have been able to find a high correlation between certain genes and violent acts. The question is whether the genetic coding in combination with an exposure to neglect, abuse, trauma and maltreatment as a child, is a definitive recipe for a violent offender. In this story the question is whether the evil or propensity to commit violent acts is passed down genetically.

The doctors and scientists used lunatic asylums as a place to try out a variety of inhumane methods to cure patients, so it's not unusual for David Farley, the Assistant Medical Officer in Birmingham Asylum, to be using a relatively new method to help patients. He is using, or trying to use, hypnotism to prove his theory that there is a correlation between mental health and the economic status of a patient. In a way his research helps to connect the dots in this story.

It's historical crime fiction, it's a mystery and it's also a story about whether we are driven by our genetic code and instincts or by what we experience in our lifetime. I think the truth is somewhere between the two.

Buy The Conviction of Cora Burns at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: No Exit Press; Paperback pub date 24 Oct. 2019. Buy at Amazon com. Buy at No Exit Press.

Walden of Bermondsey by Peter Murphy

Think Judge Deed, with less moral constipation, with a flair of Kavanaugh QC and a smidgen of Rumpole of the Bailey. Walden of Bermondsey is the legal procedural equivalent of a cosy mystery.

I was highly amused by the way Charlie Walden kept referring to his wife as the Reverend. Their relationship is well-balanced, and she is the Tuppence to his Tommy. His hands are bound when he learns facts which could influence the outcome of a case he is presiding over, however legally he is not in a position to act upon the information.

His wife, the Reverend, seems to think she remembers the name of one of the men involved in the case Walden is concerned about. She stumbles upon something that could blow the whole case apart.

Murphy gives the reader fascinating insight into the UK legal system, combining facts with his fictional story to create a pleasurable read. He balances the legal case with a little mystery and a room full of cantankerous colleagues, who all have their very own personal input when it comes to legal cases.

Murphy is definitely an author I would recommend to readers who like Robert Thorogood or G.K. Chesterton. Readers who enjoy the more comfy read, as opposed to the crime read filled with gratuitous violence.

Buy Walden of Bermondsey at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer.

Follow @noexitpress @OldcastleBooks

Visit petermurphyauthor.co.uk