Showing posts with label Political Thriller. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Political Thriller. Show all posts

Thursday 31 August 2023

Book Review: Mole Creek by James Dunbar

Mole Creek 

by

James Dunbar

A hellish war. A deadly secret. 
Fifty years on, in a small Tasmanian town, 
the truth unfolds and the killing begins again....

Publisher: Echo Publishing
Publication date: 1st August 2023
Genre: Crime / Mystery
Pages: 352
RRP: $32.99AU (paperback)
Source: courtesy of the publisher
 

Review: Mole Creek

Mole Creek is an edgy murder mystery. The story alternates between present day Tasmania and Vietnam 50 years ago, during the Vietnam war.
 
Journalist and crime writer Xander McAuslan hears that his grandfather, a retired cop and Vietnam Veteran, has taken his own life in the small town of Mole Creek in Tasmania. A place he and his grandfather had spent many holidays together.
Feeling as though he failed his grandfather, Xander travels to Tasmania to ease his own mind and to find out what happened.
 
Mole Creek is a fast paced read. Xander has a few enemies of his own and they seem to have followed him across the Strait. It's only his cunning and skill that get him out of a few deadly situations and his dry humour and wisecracks that get him into those situations.
 
I couldn't connect with the scenes in Vietnam, feeling they were unnecessarily taking me away from the present-day action.
Mole Creek is a complex mystery with a few red herrings thrown in. I was shocked at the unexpected ending and I certainly didn't see it coming. 
The richly described Tasmanian landscape is a treat within itself; evocative, dangerous and remote.

James Dunbar has written a compelling crime novel with Mole Creek, which has me looking forward to his next offering.

My rating 4 / 5  ⭐⭐⭐⭐

About the author

James Dunbar is a journalist, television scriptwriter, travel writer, university lecturer and website editor. Mole Creek is his first venture into the serious crime thriller and espionage genre.


Thursday 22 April 2021

Blog Tour Guest Post: Author Michael R French

 Today's guest on The Burgeoning Bookshelf is author 
Michael R. French.
 

 
Michael will be speaking on; Why Politics Excites Some People and Turns Off Others.
 
 
I  have friends who  think most politicians  are naive, unethical, lazy, liars, or egomaniacs, and they refuse to vote for anyone in any election. Some believe  there is too much government in their lives…others are  frustrated that government isn’t doing enough for them. Still others are too busy with their lives to worry about politics or volunteer to help at a nonprofit.

A  democracy is inherently fragile  because there are so many moving parts.  It is on life-support much of the time. Those who participate in change by voting are heroes, in my mind, always looking for new opportunities to make their voices heard.  This is not an option for them.  It’s mandatory.

The divide  between exercising one’s  legal right not to vote, and the moral obligation to nurture our democracy, is a visceral, historical split, going back to the birth of our country. To dislike politics connotes a  level of  distrust and suspicion, amplified by social media.  To  be excited by politics, with or without social media,  is to understand that lasting change is a generational or multi-generational effort. It’s not unlike rooting for your favorite sports team, even when you know they haven’t won in a long time and prospects for a future title are dim.  You have to hang in with patience.  You have to believe in hope.

Cliffhanger: jump before you get pushed looks at our country ten years from now.  Politics, from Washington D.C. to high schools throughout the country,  are experiencing radical changes as America tries to dig itself out of unforeseen seismic holes.  Who are the heroes and who are the villains in 2030?  The only constant is surprise.
 
 Thank you Michael for taking the time to write this post. 
 
*(Voting is compulsory in Australia)

Michael's  latest book Cliffhanger was published on 1st December 2020.
Publisher: Moot point Productions
Genre: political Thriller
Pages: 276


About the book
 
In 2030, viruses, spy drones, terrorism, joblessness have eroded American optimism. People want something to believe in. As demonstrated in a Midwest high school election, politics have taken on the inflexibility and dogma of a new religion. Only true believers will survive and prosper. Or so they think.
 
About the author

Michael R. French is a National best-selling author and graduate of Stanford University and Northwestern University. He is a businessman and author who divides his time between Santa Barbara, California, and Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is an avid high-altitude mountain trekker, world traveler to developing countries, and is a collector of first editions of twentieth-century fiction.

He has published twenty-two books, including fiction, young adult fiction, biographies, and art criticism. His novel, Abingdon's, was a bestseller and a Literary Guild Alternate Selection. His young adult novel, Pursuit, was awarded the California Young Reader Medal.

You can discover more about Michael’s work on his website:

http://www.michaelrfrench.com

https://www.facebook.com/MichaelRFrenchAuthor/?fref=nf

https://www.instagram.com/mrfrenchbooks/

 
Follow the blog tour: 
 


 

Monday 18 November 2019

Book Review: Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister by Jung Chang #BRPreview

Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister
by
Jung Chang

Three Woman at the heart of Twentieth-Century China


Publisher: Penguin Books Australia 
Imprint: Jonathon Cape
Publication date: 15th October 2019 
Genre: Biography / Historical
Pages: 400
RRP: $35.00 AUD
Format read: Uncorrected proof paperback
Source: Courtesy of the publisher via Bettter Reading

 



The best-known modern Chinese fairy tale is the story of three sisters from Shanghai, who for most of the twentieth century were at the centre of power in China. It was sometimes said that ‘One loved money, one loved power and one loved her country’, but there was far more to the Soong sisters than these caricatures. As China battled through a hundred years of wars, revolutions and seismic transformations, each sister played an important, sometimes critical role, and left an indelible mark on history.

Red Sister, Ching-ling, married Sun Yat-sen, founding father of the Chinese republic, and later became Mao’s vice-chair. Little Sister, May-ling, was Madame Chiang Kai-shek, first lady of the pre-Communist Nationalist China and a major political figure in her own right. Big Sister, Ei-ling, was Chiang’s unofficial main adviser. She made herself one of China’s richest women – and her husband Chiang’s prime minister. All three sisters enjoyed tremendous privilege and glory, but also endured constant attacks and mortal danger. They showed great courage and experienced passionate love, as well as despair and heartbreak. The relationship between them was highly charged emotionally, especially once they had embraced opposing political camps and Ching-ling dedicated herself to destroying her two sisters’ world.

 
 


Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister is the biography of the amazing Soong sisters who together made a huge impact on history.
The three sisters became a modern Chinese fairytale. They were much talked about and fanciful gossip about them was often passed around.

“In China there were three sisters. One loved money, one loved power, and one loved her country.”

Charlie Soong being very forward thinking sent each of his daughters to an American boarding school at a young age. He made influential friends who were then introduced to his daughters. The sisters were very intelligent and interested in the politics of their country. They also believed that women should be man’s equal and the three sisters all rose to positions of influence.

Jung Chang divides the book into five parts spanning the years 1866 – 2003. It features the rise of Sun Yat-Sen and the overthrow of the Chinese monarchy to May-Ling’s marriage to Chiang Kai-Shek.

I’m not normally a great fan of non-fiction, especially political tales, however this riveting biography is so well written it at no time becomes weighed down. The three sisters, their lives and loves, make for some fascinating reading. Moving from grand parties in Shanghai to penthouses in New York, from exiles’ quarters in Japan and Berlin to secret meetings in Moscow we read about power struggles, godfather style assassinations, secret talks and bribes making this a book that is compulsive reading.
 




Jung Chang is the internationally bestselling author of Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China; Mao: The Unknown Story (with Jon Halliday); and Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine who Launched Modern China. Her books have been translated into over 40 languages and sold more than 15 million copies outside Mainland China where they are banned. She was born in China in 1952, and came to Britain in 1978. She lives in London.







Tuesday 20 August 2019

Book Review: I Know Who You Are (Mystery/Thriller)

I Know Who You Are
by
Alice Feeney


Publisher: HQ Fiction 
Publication date: 20th May 2019
Pages: 352
Format read: Paperback
Source: Courtesy of the publisher

 
Meet Aimee Sinclair: the actress everyone thinks they know but can't remember where from. Except one person. Someone knows Aimee well. They know who she is and they know what she did.

When Aimee comes hme and discovers her husband is missing, she doesn't seem to know what to do or how to act, The police think she is hiding something and they're right, she is  - but perhaps not what they thought. Aimee has a secret she has never shared, and yet, she suspects that someone knows. As she struggles to keep her career and sanity intact, her past comes back to haunt her in ways more dangerous than she could have ever imagined.

 

Aimee is an up and coming actress. She has always been an introvert but when she is acting she can be someone else. She is very good at acting in front of and away from the camera. One night she arrives home after a long day on the set to find her husband missing. He has gone out without his car, wallet and phone. They’d had an argument the night before. Surely she couldn’t have killed him! Could she?

“The lies we tell ourselves are always the most dangerous”

I do love an unreliable narrator and Aimee plays the part perfectly. She quite often second guesses herself; she can remember what happened and then she can’t. This has you questioning everything that Aimee says. It’s impossible to tell if she is lying or not. Despite the uncertainty in Aimee’s mind she shows a real vulnerability and it’s hard not to like her and feel some empathy towards her.

The story plays on the mystery of Aimee’s missing husband and the fact that Aimee isn’t sure of her movements that night.  

“My secrets are my own and I don’t like them being shared”

We get to learn Aimee’s insecurities, her upbringing and her secrets.
This mystery pulled me in and kept me glued to the pages. Nobody can be trusted; from fellow actor and nemesis Alicia White to co-star Jack, she feels everyone is out to get her.
When the twits appear they just keep on coming. The suspense ramps up and the tension intensifies. I was absolutely shocked by the final twist.

I Know Who You Are is a dark, addictive, twist filled thriller that will shock you to the core. Highly recommended for readers of Girl on the Train & Before I Go to Sleep.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

My rating 5/5 



 
Alice Feeney is an author and former BBC journalist. Her debut novel, Sometimes I Lie, was a New York Times and international bestseller. It has been translated into over twenty languages, and is being made into a TV series by Ellen DeGeneres and Warner Bros. starring Sarah Michelle Gellar.

Alice has lived in London and Sydney and has now settled in the Surrey countryside, where she lives with her husband and dog. Her second novel, I Know Who You Are, is being published in Spring 2019.