Fever City by Tim Baker – a review BLOG TOUR

This was another free book that I picked up at the festival. It hadn’t really made it onto my reading radar until I had an email from the publisher inviting me to this blog tour. The description they sent intrigued me so I dug out my copy and I am delighted to be hosting the last stop of the Fever City Blog tour.

Fever City by Tim Baker is set around three different main story lines. It starts with the kidnapping of the son of rich businessman Rex Bannister. Private Investigator Nick Alston is asked to investigate and during this investigation he meets hitman Hastings. We then meet Hastings again in 1963 heading towards Dallas. The third of the three stories is set in 2014 when the journalist son of Nick Alston is researching the conspiracy theories of the 60s and looking at the assassination of JFK. The book switches backwards and forwards between the characters and their actions.

When I was at University I studied American History and have always been interested in the whole Kennedy era so mixing in some crime and some modern day meant this book was right up my street. Interspersed alongside the kidnapping plot we get to read about numerous historical characters that are synonymous with that time. Joe Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, J Edgar Hoover, they all make an appearance as we head towards the actual assassination.

This was a thoroughly fascinating novel that kept me gripped through to the end despite the rather long length (compared to my normal reading matter) There was a lot of mixing between time frames and viewpoints which took a while to get into. However once you got into it the book flowed easily and didn’t get as confusing as can sometimes be the case.

It is certainly not a book for the fainthearted as it doesn’t portray the romantic gentle Kennedy’s often seen. This is a much more hard boiled take on them, with some very violent scenes which is to be expected as soon as you get the know the characters a bit. Corruption, violence, mobsters – all those fascinating elements of 60’s America are covered here.

This novel cleverly mixes fact with fiction and creates an interesting mix of political thriller, historical conspiracy and family drama.  I would thoroughly recommend this novel for anyone with an interest in thrillers and the Kennedy assassination.

If you would like to find out more about the author then pop over to Crime thriller girl’s blog for a q and a.