Here at Frost we’re having a bit of a bookfest, as the books pour in for review. We’re glad we have Milly Adams, author of Sisters at War on the team. She’s been catching up on her reading and has some good ‘uns for us.
The Reykjavic Assignment by Adam Lebor is an international thriller from renowned political journalist Ada Lebor. He takes us behind the corridors of power and let’s face it, those corridors are looking totally fascinating now.
UN covert negotiator Yeael Azoulay has been sent to Reykjavik to broker a secret meeting between US President Freshwater and the Iranian President. Though both parties want the violence to stop there are others, enemies, but who, pulling the strings?
Are they people who are protecting their profits?
I love this kind of writing. Sharp, evocative, rhythmic, visual, terrifying. Buy it, read it, give it.
Adam LeBor lives in Budapest and writes for several international newspapers, as well as Hitler’s Secret Bankers. Margaret Graham said some had kept her awake recently. Perhaps this will be the same for you.
Hof Z hb £18.00
Find Her by Lisa Gardner
I agree with a friend of mine who couldn’t put this down. Hardly surprising as Gardner is a Sunday Times top ten bestseller. And is a master of the psychological suspense novel.
There are a lot of these about these days, but this is one of the best. Taut writing, tight plotting, a story to turn your hair grey. Flora Dane survived her hell of imprisonment locked for more than a year in a pine box by a madman. She has only one goal: to develop all the skills necessary to make sure she’s never caught again. But then another girl goes missing. The female detective thinks Flora could be the key to finding her. But Flora has no intention of following Detective Warren rules. I wouldn’t read it last thing at night, or you’ll never put it down,
Headline. Pb £7.99
The Longest Winter by Kevin Sullivan
This debut novel is a portrait of a city and its people in a moment of enormous suffering. Margaret Graham was in Bosnia and Croatia soon after ‘peace’ was brokered researching a novel. Desolation of mind, people and places was the only word she could think of to describe it, but then realised there was hope too . Sullivan brings this sense into our sitting rooms as he intertwines three life stories all of which seem to be on the path for redemption. Terry is a British doctor on a mission to rescue a sick child, Brad an American journalist trying to save his reputation following the disasters of his last posting. And in Milena, we have a young woman from Eastern Bosnia who is seeking refuge from betrayal amid the devastation of besieged Sarajevo.
This was a brave project for a debut novelist, but he’s pulled it off, driven I suspect by an inner passion. Sullivan was wounded in a landmine explosion in early 1993 as he covered the siege of Sarajevo and the war in Bosnia. It was as he recovered that he wrote the first draft of The Longest Winter.
Read it.
The Longest Winter pb Twenty7. £7.99