Tag Archives: james bond

November 15, 2016 · 4:34 pm

The Seven Trials of Cameron-Strange by James Calum Campbell – A review BLOG TOUR

 I was sent a copy of this book by Impress books and am delighted to be today’s stop on the blog tour.

 

The Seven Trials of Cameron-Strange was an intriguing book advertised as a thriller with a medical twist. Being a big fan of Lisa Gardener and Tess Gerritsen this sounded right up my street so I was very pleased to be asked to review.

 

The novel starts with Dr Cameron-Strange being tried for manslaughter of one of his patients. We then go back in time to find out how he arrived in this situation. Having returned to New Zealand following an event from the previous novel (which I hadn’t read but this didn’t detract from the the story) he is soon tracked down by two British agents. They want him to look into the death of a man who collapsed whilst taking part in a reality TV show owned by American Business man Phineas Fox.

 

I read this on a train ride down to London and back after having had a pretty bad morning waking up to snow, cancelled buses and worst of all the news that Donald Trump had been elected  as the US President. Ironic then that I should chose this day to read The Seven Trials of Cameron Strange where one of the main characters within the story – the millionaire Phineas Fox – would seem to be closely based on him.

 

This is probably not my usual type of thriller if I’m honest but I did still enjoy it. Cameron-Strange is a medical doctor, who seems to be a cross between James Bond and Kay Scarpetta. As well as saving people’s lives with medicine, he is a qualified pilot, a runner who likes to run up volcanos for a past time and has an amazing abililty to escape predicaments. This is all lucky as he needs it to escape from seven trials set by the hideous Fox who is hoping to run for President.

 

This was a fast paced novel, that certainly made the train trip pass by quickly. Cameron-Strange is a likeable character, that you do actually feel has been accidently thrown into a world he was trying to avoid and so I almost felt sorry for him. The novel is well written and I enjoyed the fact it was set in some unusual places. Definitely one for fans of Lee Child and action films.

 

To hear what others thought of this novel head over to the other stops on the tour:

 

Damp Pebbles: https://damppebbles.com/tag/the-seven-trials-of-cameron-strange/

Never Imitate: https://neverimitate.wordpress.com/2016/10/24/book-review-the-seven-trials-of-cameron-strange/

Best crime books and more: http://www.bestcrimebooksandmore.co.uk/2016/11/blog-tour-kats-review-of-seven-trials.html

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May 12, 2016 · 3:29 pm

Soho Honey by A.W.Rock – a review BLOG TOUR

I was sent a copy of this by the publishers Clink Street in exchange for an honest review.

The premise of this novel sounded interesting, and not like my usual choices which can often be a good thing. As the title suggests Soho Honey is set in Soho, London. The main character Branen had to leave the UK six years earlier due to his criminal past. He returns when his daughter is brutally murdered and Branen is asked to return to hunt down her killer. However he soon realises that unless he wants to spend the rest of his life running he will have to face up to his past.

I must admit to being slightly overwhelmed by the start of this novel. The book begins with a long list of names of characters such as Snowman, and Whitey and abbreviations of the varying secret agencies that are involved in the story. It looked like an awfully long list, however I skipped over that and carried on.

This is a very gritty novel that covers pretty much all the darkest elements of society including drugs, gangsters, and prostitutes, even a bit of bee keeping. It was quite an evocative novel with descriptions vividly conjuring up the seedy side of Soho that you imagine would make a great film.

Soho Honey was quite a slow story to begin with. You know from the blurb on the back that Branan’s daughter is going to get killed, but it takes a good third of the book for things to start to happen. Despite the ending I suspect that this is the start of a series, and therefore this book was very much about setting the scene for later novels.  Once the story gets going however the pace picks up.

The writing was good and it seemed to flow well. The book is split into different parts with very short chapters which I liked. Once you understand whose viewpoint each part comes from then it was easy to follow. None of the characters, including Brenan, were I thought particularly likeable but that’s not always a bad thing especially in a book like this.

Overall despite the slow start this was a good novel. There were some elements such as the writing style I really enjoyed although I suspect it was not really my kind of thing. I would imagine that for fans of 007 this would be a real treat.

 

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