WRITEALOT: humour

Showing posts with label humour. Show all posts

Friday, 16 October 2020

DANGEROUS IN LOVE - Book review

DANGEROUS IN LOVE

Leslie Thomas

Published in 1987, this is Thomas’s second Dangerous Davies novel. It’s a long time since I read the first, The Last Detective. This one is a joy to read; it’s droll, with slapstick, social commentary, and just plenty of laughs.

Bound to upset those who are easily offended as it's decidedly non-PC.

Davies is curious about the drowning in the local canal of a familiar homeless person, Lofty Brock. He can’t have been drunk, he was teetotal. Was he pushed? Helping him investigate is Jemma Duval, a beautiful black hymn-singing social worker and Davies’s pal, the workshy philosopher Mod. It’s virtually love at first sight when Davies meets Jemma, who has a missing tooth in the centre of her mouth. ‘Until he had seen that missing tooth he had never realized that something could be so potent, even beautiful, by its absence.’ (p24).

There are two more Dangerous Davies novels in the series.

Saturday, 29 December 2018

A Dance to the Music of Time (8 of 12)

Anthony Powell’s eighth book in his sequence is The Soldier’s Art and was published in 1968.

It begins in 1941 with our narrator Nick Jenkins buying an army greatcoat in the neighbourhood of Shaftesbury Avenue, ‘where, as well as officers’ kit and outfits for sport, they hire or sell theatrical costume’. (p5) As ever, Powell provides an excellent scene setting for a humorous interlude where the tailor’s assistant, ‘bent, elderly, bearded, with the congruous demeanour of a Levantine trader’ is convinced he has seen Nick acting on stage, and can’t be swayed from this, ending with ‘I’ll wish you a good run.’ (p7)

England is in the midst of the blitz. ‘Announced by the melancholy dirge of sirens, like ritual wailings at barbarous obsequies, the German planes used to arrive shortly before midnight…’ (p9) and these air-raids are significant, notably towards the end of the book. The targeted populace could only hope and pray the raids were not too long – ‘… the hope that the Luftwaffe, bearing in mind the duration of their return journey, would not protract with too much Teutonic conscientiousness the night’s activities.’ (p10).

Besides pricking the pomposity of individuals, Powell puts in his sights the Treasury: ‘… the cluster of highly educated apes ultimately in charge of such matters at the Treasury.’ (p20)

Again, we’re introduced to several new characters. Cocksidge: ‘… the imaginative lengths to which he would carry obsequiousness to superiors displayed something of genius. He took a keen delight in running errands for anyone a couple of ranks above himself, his subservience even to majors showing the essence of humility.’ (p39) Soper, the Division Catering Officer, who stared at a piece of rejected meat on Biggs’s plate: ‘… to implyu censure of too free and easy table manners, or, in official capacity as DCO, professionally assessing the nutritive value of that particular cube of fat – and its waste – in wartime.’ (p71)

And we meet people from the earlier books, too. Nick is working for Widmerpool now, who has not improved in his manner: ‘We are not in the army to have fun, Nicholas.’ (p72)

Then there’s Chips Lovell who meets up with Nick: ‘I hope there’ll be something to drink tonight. The wine outlook becomes increasingly desperate since France went.’ (p115) How will we ever cope after Brexit…?

Another person from earlier is Mrs Maclintick, who is now sharing a house with Moreland; ‘What lax morals people have these days,’ Moreland says (p216). ‘Small, wiry, aggressive, she looked as ready as ever for a row, her bright black eyes and unsmiling countenance confronting a world from which perpetual hostility was not merely potential, but presumptive.’ (p118)

Charles Stringham turns up in the army, too, having become tea-total, and is quite happy to be an ‘other rank’, the officers’ mess waiter. He makes a telling statement, too: ‘How severe you always are to human weakness, Nick.’

Some characters we’ve known die – victims of the war. The scenes where Nick appears at the aftermath of a bombing are touching though Powell inevitably steers clear of sentimentality and any emotion.

Throughout, and as evinced by the above examples, Powell has a good turn of phrase. ‘I began to tell my story. He cut me short at once, seeming already aware what was coming, another tribute to the General’s powers of transmuting thought into action.’ (p89) And ‘The comparative enthusiasm Farebrother managed to infuse into this comment was something of a masterpiece in the exercise of dissimulation.’ (p194)

We’re barely aware of what is happening in the war, apart from an occasional line such as ‘military action in Syria’ and ‘the Germans attacked in Crete’ (p168) And Germany invades Russia (p219) bringing some kind of hope…

The book’s title comes from Robert Browning’s Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came: ‘Think first, fight afterwards – the soldier’s art;’ (p214)

Eight books down, four to go. We, the reader, shall soldier on!

Next: 9 – The Military Philosophers.

Thursday, 2 June 2016

A treasure of a book

Odd Shoes and Medals is the memoir of the late Ron Hudson. It was pleasing to read this 4-star review:

A most brilliant book. I was able to relate to most of this account, not only because I knew Ron but because I was in the Fleet Air Arm during the same time Ron was.

Most ex-servicemen will be able to follow this with some kinship especially those born around early 1940s and joining the mob when 17.

There is a lot of Ron's humour brought out; you sometimes have to read between the lines but it really is a great read, whether you were in the mob or not.

I treasure this book now, as sadly Ron is no longer with us, but anyone who knew him would know what a great story teller he was.

[I'd like to think Ron would like the review too!]

Amazon K - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Odd-Shoes-Medals-Ronald-Hudson/dp/1484172140/ref=sr_1_20?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1464869242&sr=1-20&keywords=nik+morton

Odd Shoes and Medals Ronald Hudson Non-fiction from Manatee Books.
“War broke out when I was eight. My short pants had holes in the backside, which was doubly embarrassing because I didn’t have any underwear and anyone could see my bum. So I used to walk sideways to school if any other kids or grown-ups came by. Miss Grafton, the teacher, let me stay at my desk during playtime to avoid embarrassing exposure. She liked me a lot and I used to take love letters for her to an American soldier. “

These reminiscences cover a span of over seventy years and will jog several memories and remind people that the so-called poverty of present times is nothing compared to the 1940s and 1950s. Young Ron and his sister Audrey were shunted from one home to another, in excess of a dozen, ‘fostered’ by ‘aunts’ and ‘uncles’, and indeed for many years the pair of them didn’t know where the other sibling lived! His absentee father barely gave him a thought – though he did present him with ill-fitting clogs, once…

Occasionally, he was shown kindness and, despite moments of great despair, he carried on and eventually joined the Royal Navy. Ironically, for the first time he found a place he could call his home: the navy. He travelled the world, saw the sights, and ‘learned a trade’. When he was demobbed prematurely by politicians, he embarked on a career in British Gas, and has a few amusing tales to tell about (nameless) customers! He set up his own business and became the oldest registered gas fitter in the country, until he retired at age eighty.

As told to Nik Morton

[Ron died 11 April, 2015, aged 84]
See http://nik-writealot.blogspot.com.es/2015/04/rip-ron-hudson.html

Saturday, 4 July 2015

Saturday Story - Word Widower

WORD WIDOWER

Nik Morton

“Your pronounciation leaves a lot to be desired, madam,” the interviewer said in a rather curt manner to his subject. The woman looked nonplussed, but not half as bad as I felt.

I was fuming; fortunately we didn’t have any smoke detectors. I turned the television off in haste.

“Dan, why’d you do that?” Sheila demanded from the depths of the sofa. “It was a really interesting interview!”

“Interesting? It was pathetic! He decries the poor woman’s pronunciation yet he can’t even pronounce the word “pronunciation” properly!” Try saying that after a few drinks, I thought.

I threw on my jacket – well, put it on, really. Ever tried throwing on any type of clothing? It goes all over the place.

“Switch on, if you must. The television, not me,” I quipped, trying to defuse my loving spouse’s incipient long silence.

“I’m going down to the pub,” I said. “At least at the local they don’t pretend they can talk properly.”

Those ruby red lips were clamped shut as she pointedly gazed at the blank screen, arms folded. Resolutely staying quiet, Sheila grabbed the remote, jabbed the relevant button and the machine’s single eye glowered accusingly at me.

“Do you want me to bring you back some crisps?” I sallied in an inane attempt at a peace offering.

“Is that potato chips or crisps?” she retorted without looking up,

“Very funny,” I snarled, quite impressed despite myself, and walked out the door.

Her obscure reference alluded to the inventor of crisps, George Crum, an American Indian chef – as opposed to chief. He’d actually been trying to get one over on an obnoxious diner, railway magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who complained about the undue thickness of his French fries. Crum’s frivolous attempt at extreme thinness backfired and in fact was a hit with the magnate and soon the Saratoga Chips caught on, even if their name didn’t.

Sheila probably got that piece of useless information from the Discovery Channel. If she isn’t watching game shows or soaps, she’s hooked onto educational television. But she never reads a book. Except dictionaries.

Crosswords – and we have plenty from time to time, though we deign to call them “differences of opinion” – word-searches and daily doses of Countdown – when it was being televised – kept Sheila quite content. As long as she had the Big Dictionary within reach. Numbers were another matter entirely. She was no good and marvelled at the Carol Vorderman replacement’s ability. And she always got frustrated over that new craze, sudoku – those Japanese have a lot to answer for – karaoke and sushi, for starters – well, not in the meal sense, thanks very much, as sushi sounds like a raw deal, to say the least.

In every room in our house there are half-read – or is that half-dead? – books, lying face down, spines uppermost, like tents pitched to accommodate all those words. And they’re all dictionaries: foreign words and phrases, allusions, euphemisms, idioms, religious quotations, contemporary quotations, eponyms, slang and proverbs spring to mind, though there are others...

I won’t beat about the bush. I’m attracted to words too, though not as seriously as Sheila. I must confess to having a fondness for the odd idiom or two – or even the plain straightforward normal idioms. Idiotic, I know, but there you are. Certainly, Dr Johnson disparaged their use – “colloquial barbarisms, licentious idioms and irregular combinations” – and I don’t think he was talking about underwear. Not to mince words, I suspect my predilection for idioms indubitably explains why all my short stories get rejected.

The Big Dictionary is seventeen centimetres thick, all 3,333 pages of it. Thumb-indexed and very heavy, it has been in our family since 1935 and has all the names of each relative on the flysheet at the front. You could say that, up to a point, it reveals the etymology of our family as well as that of each word it contains.

It was love at first sight for Sheila: she fell in love with this book first, then me.

A thirst for knowledge doesn’t adequately describe her deep and seemingly insatiable urge. She just wants to know everything. And since she has what amounts to a photographic memory for facts –though not numbers, it’s quite possible that one day she will actually achieve her aim. But what can she learn then, when she knows it all?

Frightening thought, to know everything. They called her a “know-all” at school, but they don’t know the half of it!

Of course I know that she’ll never know absolutely everything. It isn’t going to happen, because in so many different areas of research they’re discovering new information every day – even new planets.

We’ve known each other six months and been married two of those. Naturally, the only place we could go to for our honeymoon had to be none other than Wordsworth country. As it was a February, while we stayed in Grasmere there wasn’t a daffodil in sight; it seemed like poetic justice to me, though Sheila was a bit peeved. I cheered her up with a visit to the great writer’s home Dove Cottage where William stayed with his sister Dorothy. Strange, the associations you make with names, but I always think of The Wizard of Oz when I hear that name.

Fortunately there were no dictionaries in evidence in the cramped little cottage; I had really feared that Sheila might have attempted to purloin one.

Just like an addict who needed an instant fix, the day after our honeymoon, Sheila started reading the Big Dictionary from the beginning.

It didn’t take long after that for me to realise that I was shaping up into a word widower.

Marriage and in fact any serious endeavour can be a leap in the dark, a leap of faith, if you will, and to begin with I’d faithfully hoped she would turn over a new leaf but the only leaves she turned belonged in dictionaries.

When I returned from the pub, arms brimful with assorted flavoured crisps and a bottle of her favourite stout, Sheila was listening to the television – something about the engineering feats of Isambard Kingdom Brunel – while reading the Zed section of the Big Dictionary.

This was not good news. I must have blinked for a few days. When had she managed to get so far into the book?

Once she read about zythum, a drink made in ancient Egypt from fermented malt, she’d be thirsting for a replacement dictionary. And nothing but a new edition would suffice.

Sadly, Sheila was in for a shock. I’d tried to prepare her more than once, explaining that the family tree had sort of obliterated the date of printing on the flysheet, but she just ignored me and devoured another half-dozen exotic words.

What do you do with unfamiliar words if you’re not a writer like Anthony Burgess? They might come in useful for the Times Crossword, I suppose, or for showing off in a pub quiz – both of which Sheila has resorted to since she began reading the Big Dictionary.

But how was I going to tell her that a new dictionary, printed seventy-three years since ours, was going to contain thousands of new words? Indeed, many of those words she’d memorised were either obsolete or had changed their meaning or even been hijacked for politically correct or socio-political purposes...

Scientific discovery alone continually threw up new terminology; many branches of science even had their own lexicons. Modern media dispensed slang and neo-words by the hundred every day, or so it seemed. Jargon was everywhere. The hungry English language simply laps up new words from any and every source and makes them its own.

She closed the big book with about two pages left to read and I breathed a sigh of relief.

“I’m off to get some zeds,” she said. “Let’s eat the crisps in bed, shall we?”

“What about the crumbs?” I countered. She was a stickler for cleanliness though not tidiness.

“Don’t make any,” she suggested sternly.

“Impossible!” I protested cravenly.

“Is that two words?” she teased at the door.

My heart lurched. “You’ve been reading the dictionary of quotations as well, haven’t you?”

Sheila nodded. “Samuel Goldwyn. In two words: im possible.”

“And where are you up to in that book?”

“Francis Bacon.”

“A while to go yet, then?”

“It might take some time, yes,” she replied. “As Bacon said, I have taken on all knowledge to be my province.”

“Which dictionary are we reading tonight, by the way?” I asked, ever hopeful.

“Dreams,” she said.

“Oh.”

“You’ll have to wait for the next few pages of the Sex Dictionary until you buy me the latest New Oxford English.”

I sighed, crestfallen. “All right,” I said with a sinking heart. “It’s a deal.” Once she got into that tome, with all its new words, I knew full well that she’d have no time for me at all. Yes, word widower summed me up precisely.

***

Previously published in Pen and Plot Webzine, 2013

Edited by novelist Rosean Mile, Pen and Plot has now been removed from the web

***

Short stories can contain humour as well as drama. Some of my tales in Spanish Eye contain humour, while others are tragic, dark or poignant. An assortment of emotions in 22 cases of Leon Cazador, half-English half-Spanish private eye.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=nik+morton

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=nik+morton

Monday, 6 October 2014

Book Review - Friendship Cemetery

Adele Elliott’s debut novel Friendship Cemetery is something to be savoured. Halfway through the first page, I realised I was going to enjoy the book, and, happily, I wasn’t wrong.

The narrator, Emma Grace Lee, is almost nineteen and has a strange affection for Friendship Cemetery, Columbus, Mississippi. ‘A few benches are also scattered around. I guess this is so that the ghosts who come out at night can sit and chat with each other,’ observes Emma, which may be construed as ‘maybe a bit morbid for an eighteen-year-old’.

Emma’s friends are Pea, Beau, and Tyrone, all of whom are well drawn. Pea is fragile and vulnerable, yet has a strong will, and is a lovely creation. Tyrone is shy and withdrawn, while Beau is clever and hiding a secret. Their parents and neighbours are distinct human beings, with their tragedies and petty jealousies, too.

Throughout, the observations and description put you in Emma’s world, where she is still suffering the loss of her father who died in New Orleans, a man whom her mother seems to have expunged from memory. ‘When you lose someone there is always one more thing you wanted to say to them.’

The voice of Emma is captured perfectly – reminding me a little of Harper Lee’s Scout Finch, despite an age difference of several years. There’s the humour, pathos, compassion, irony and even satire. She has never been to New Orleans, but knows all about it from her late father, and rather hankers after leaving Columbus to go there. ‘In this city, unlike New Orleans, dead people prefer to stay in the ground and are apparently quite comfortable there.’

It’s a Southern Gothic tale, not just because of the ghostliness of the cemetery, but also the healing ability of Tyrone’s mother; and the general behaviour of many citizens and their concealed past that is gradually disinterred. As Emma muses, ‘Willowbrook is the mental health facility connected to Baptist Hospital. There are no willows, and no brook. I think a crazy person named it.’

In truth, you’d be crazy to miss this book.

A shorter version of this review will appear on Amazon and Goodreads.

Thursday, 31 July 2014

Writing - the recruitment scene in The Magnificent Mendozas

Here’s the promised excerpt from The Magnificent Mendozas. I'm not giving anything away - almost everything here can be gleaned from the book blurb. Descriptions of all the characters were given earlier in the book.

This is the important recruitment scene.

I hope you like it – and itch to find out what happened before and also find out how the story pans out. Notes of interest can be found at the end of the excerpt.

Diego is the circus owner; for the rest, I’ll repeat part of the blurb here, which might help: The gringo town of Conejos Blancos has just hosted the Mexican circus; no sooner do they move on to their next venue when Hart and over thirty desperadoes take over the town – and the adjacent silver mine! The sheriff is slaughtered and many of the citizens are held hostage.

In desperation, two boys escape from the locked-down town.

They recruit seven Mexican circus performers, the Magnificent Mendozas: the troupe comprises Mateo, the leader, and his wife Josefa, both expert knife-throwers; José, younger brother of Mateo, a trick rider who lusts after Josefa; Antonio Rivera, sharpshooter; Juan Suaréz, gymnast and trapeze artist with his companion Arcadia Mendoza, who is also expert with bow and arrow; and Ramon Mendoza, escapologist.

***

Josefa smiled down at the two boys where they sat on the edge of a narrow bed of furs in the capacious wagon, sipping mugs of coffee. Standing at the entrance flap, Mateo studied them also, stroking his pointed beard. Diego sat opposite them on another bed.

She laid a hand on the shoulder of the freckled lad. ‘Didn’t I see you in Conejos Blancos?’

Lowering his coffee mug, the boy said, ‘Yes, Ma’am. Name’s Emmett – Emmett Rosco– ’

‘The sheriff’s son,’ she said. ‘Yes, now I remember.’

‘I’m Gene, his best friend.’

Josefa studied them both, surprised at their appearance.

Diego growled, ‘Don’t you know you could be in deep trouble, sneaking in without paying?’

Looking glum, the pair nodded.

‘Leave them be, Diego, they’re doing no harm,’ Josefa said. ‘The show’s over.’

‘That may be so, but I’ve a good mind to send these two back to the sheriff. His father will know how to chastise him.’

Emmett’s lips quivered. Something was wrong; Josefa felt it in her bones.

Gene stood and moved protectively in front of Emmett, his face screwed-up. ‘Leave him be! His pa’s dead – murdered on Sunday!’

‘Oh, Madre de Dios.’ Her heart somersaulted and she knelt in front of Emmett. She grasped his shoulders gently. ‘Is this so?’

Tears rimmed his eyes as he nodded. ‘Yes… We escaped to get help – your help,’ he croaked.

‘Escaped?’ Diego echoed.

‘The town’s been taken over by a bunch of desperadoes,’ Emmett said in a quavering voice.

‘And they’re going to rob the mine!’ Gene added. ‘We’ve been walking all night!’

Josefa eyed Mateo. ‘That explains the state they’re in.’ She gestured at their muddy clothes, dirty faces, and tired eyes.

Emmett shrugged off her concern. ‘It doesn’t matter about us, Ma’am. They’ve taken everybody’s guns…’ Then, haltingly, he explained how the town was so swiftly taken over, mentioning the wounding of the doctor’s wife and the murder of the town drunk, Mr Watzman. Between them they enumerated the number of sentries and guards they’d spotted – sixteen plus five leaders. ‘We need your help, Ma’am.’ He delved into his pants pockets and brought out a weighty handkerchief bundle, opened it and displayed many coins. He held them out to her. ‘We can pay.’

‘Yes,’ said Gene. He looked at Emmett, seemingly at a loss to say more.

Emmett said, as though his words were rehearsed, ‘You’re all heroes. We’ve seen how good you are with so many weapons. And I – we – reckon you could whup the bad guys real good.’

Gene nodded vigorously. ‘Yeah, you’re handy with knives, guns and bow and arrows – sure, you could…’

Diego held up a hand. ‘Wait, that’s enough!’ He sighed, adjusted his tight-fitting vest. ‘I sympathise with your town’s plight.’ He pursed his lips. ‘And I’m sorry about the sheriff – I mean, your father… But I have a business to run.’ He was about to say more, it seemed, but stopped and stared at Josefa as she spoke.

‘Mateo, get the family together,’ she said.

Diego shook his head, his jowls wobbling. ‘No, Josefa, you can’t be serious about this.’

She offered him one of her smiles. ‘We’re just going to discuss it.’

A few minutes later, the rest of the Mendoza troupe crowded into the wagon.

Ramon said, ‘Mateo’s told us everything.’

Antonio eyed Emmett. ‘Is Naomi – I mean, Miss Gray – is she all right, son?’

Emmett evaded his piercing deep brown eyes. ‘I don’t know for sure, Mr Rivera, but I think so. She’s being held prisoner in the mine office with her pa.’

Josefa had never seen Antonio look so tense, so angry. He’d never seemed to care a fig for any woman before; he simply used them. But something now in his manner was different. Maybe he was a changed man.

‘I must go,’ Antonio said, casting his gaze on the others. The look was plain enough. Come with me.

Diego grunted in disgust. ‘How can you agree to help those gringos?’ he demanded.

José nodded. ‘We owe that town nothing!’

‘They beat up Ignacio,’ Juan argued.

Arcadia clung to Juan’s arm. ‘And our takings weren’t so hot, either.’

‘It wasn’t the whole town who attacked Ignacio,’ Josefa said, ‘just a couple of drunk miners.’

‘Josefa has a point,’ Ramon said, his tone reasonable. ‘We shouldn’t brand all gringos the same.’

‘Why not?’ snapped José. ‘They do exactly that to us!’

Arms akimbo, Juan said, ‘José is right. Why put ourselves in danger for gringos?’

‘Precisely!’ Diego shouted.

‘Then I will go alone!’ snapped Antonio.

‘No, you won’t,’ Josefa said. ‘I’ll go with you.’ She glanced at José and gleaned pleasure from his disapproval, his face twisting.

‘Where my wife goes, so must I,’ said Mateo, resting an arm on her shoulders.

‘This is ridiculous!’ José barked, glaring at Josefa.

‘You forget,’ Diego said, ‘you’re going up against desperate men – killers. You heard the boy, they’ve murdered two people, shot a woman… When was the last time any of you fired a weapon in anger or killed anyone?’

Ramon cleared his throat, pushed out his chest. ‘We’ve done our fair share of fighting, Diego – before we joined your circus. None of us might like it, but we’ve spilled blood in our defence and that of our loved ones...’

‘This is different!’ Diego snapped.

Mateo shrugged and stroked his moustache, studying Juan, Arcadia and José. ‘I recall my cousin telling me about seven gringos who helped his pueblo against many bandidos.’

Juan laughed. ‘That was just a story.’

‘No, it was true.’ Mateo pulled a gleaming knife from the sash round his waist. ‘Pepe showed me his bullet wound scars,’ He gently touched the blade point to his left arm, the bicep and the forearm. ‘Here and here.’ He jabbed his chest, below the heart. ‘And here… He was lucky to survive. Not all of the gringos survived.’

‘Precisely,’ Diego said again. ‘You would risk your life and the lives of your family – your entire troupe – for strangers?’

‘The two little gringos have offered us much.’

Diego guffawed. ‘Twenty dollars?’

‘Twenty two and forty cents!’ Gene corrected.

Smiling, Mateo returned the knife to his sash. ‘No, Diego, I do not speak of the money they have offered. It’s called faith. These boys have faith in us, my friend.’ He scanned the rest of them and one by one they nodded agreement. ‘Just so.’ Mateo smiled. ‘You go on, Diego. We will catch you up in Colorado Springs.’

‘This is utter foolishness.’ Diego shook his head and made his way to the exit flap. ‘You’re all crazy, but I will pray for you.’

Josefa smiled at the circus owner. He clearly wanted to be angry, but he couldn’t bring himself to be, and she understood this as she looked at the trusting faces of the two boys, Emmett and Gene. They melted all their hearts, she felt sure.

‘But I don’t know what I will do to replace the Magnificent Mendozas!’ Then Diego flung the flap aside and left.

Emmett stood up. ‘Ma’am, I thought all of the circus people would come back to help.’

Mateo chuckled. ‘Sorry, young man, but your rate of pay is not very enticing. You get seven of us – the Magnificent Mendozas. That should be enough.’

Eyes and mouth wide, Gene stared, then said, ‘Seven against twenty-one?’

Mateo nodded. ‘Three-to-one – not bad odds, I think. Your Texas Rangers would be comfortable with these odds, no? Besides, we will have the element of surprise.’

***

Notes of interest, perhaps.

1. In fact the odds are somewhat greater than three-to-one, but they don’t know that at this stage.

2. I’ve tried not to be too blatant with the allusion to the seven gringos who saved a Mexican village.

3. I’ve attempted to inject humour, pathos and the kindness of strangers.

4. Already implied in the book, José covets his brother’s wife, Josefa, hence the interchange here.

5. Antonio had developed an attachment to Naomi Gray, the mine owner's daughter, hence his concern here.

6. If this were a film, each speech would be short, perhaps no more than two or three lines; in fact, even in a book, the length of a speech should be broken up, to reflect real life. So that's what I've attempted here. The only potentially long speech is Emmett’s, but that is broken up by reported speech, briefly relating the events that the reader is already privy to.

7. Ideally, each character present should contribute to the dialogue or why is he or she there? The downside of that is that giving each character something to say or contribute means that there’s the strong risk of overdoing the use of ‘said’. In this scene I’ve tried to reduce the frequency by using actions tied to speech.

8. Bravery is down-played; no histrionics (well, just a little – ‘not bad odds’).

***

The Magnificent Mendozas is available now in hardback only.

From the book depository, post-free worldwide here

From Amazon UK here

From Amazon COM here

Wednesday, 28 May 2014

Get to know different writers and genres perhaps not visited before!

That heading’s the comment from one of three 5-star reviews for the anthology Crooked Cats’ Tales, 20 short stories from some of the publisher’s authors.

Anthologies like this are ideal for reading in waiting rooms, while travelling or in between reading novels. And they have the happy knack of introducing new authors without huge commitment on the part of the reader. Yes, very much like a sampler in old record parlance (that dates me!)

Please give these tales a try. It’s possible you might not like all of them. But I guarantee that there’s something for every taste here, and it’s a bargain for such little outlay.

The blurb goes like this: You will find twenty tantalising tasters from Crooked Cats from the UK and the US, all keen to showcase their writing skills with glimpses into their existing releases, or with something new altogether.

Twenty stories of historical and contemporary fiction, crime and drama, fantasy, humour and ghostly shenanigans. Murder. Love. Adventure. Gossip. Growing up. Scheming. Friendship – Crooked Cats’ Tales has it all:

Cocktail Hour by Pamela Kelt
A Rescue in Graphite by Maggie Secara
Once Again by KB Walker
The Pied Piper of Larus by Kathy Sharp
Her Visitors by Ailsa Abraham
White Rose by Carol Hedges
A Bright New Copper by Catriona King
Altared by Adele Elliott
Misgivings by Nancy Jardine
Saturday Fever by Sue Barnard
The Wanderer by T.E. Taylor
Sheffield Steel by Trevor Ripley
The Blue House by Carol Maginn
Processionary Penitents by Nik Morton
The Second Summer of Love by Michela O’Brien Young Loves by Jeff Gardiner
Cradle of Man by J.L. Bwye
Silken Knots by Frances di Plino
The Thread that Binds by Mark Patton
Boo! by David W Robinson

Amazon UK Reviews

Stories to suit all tastes 25 May 2014 - By Sue Roebuck

Twenty authors from one publisher (Crooked Cat Publishing) have created an anthology of twenty short stories that vary in genre and style. It's a book for dipping into when you want to enjoy a twenty minute or so break and need to be entertained by a new narrative voice that comes with each story. I cannot say I disliked any of the stories since each covered a cross section of themes that were enjoyable in their own way and I found I was moved, unsettled, and definitely entertained as I was taken on journeys around the world: UK, US, France, Holland, ancient Greece, Spain (where one of the characters mistakes the Spanish ancient religious ceremony garb for Klu Klux Klan!), Kenya (a very atmospheric story). Since I love quirky stories, my favourite was The Pied Piper of Larus by Kathy Sharp and I laughed aloud at David Robinson's Boo. From this anthology I've found new authors whose books I want to read and that can never be a bad thing.

Something for Everyone 16 May 2014 - By Ms. Carol Hunter

This is an eclectic collection of short stories from every genre and a brilliant read. I found crime, romance, suspense, historical fiction just for starters. Some stories are shorter, some longer, and all are well written. Definitely recommended.

20 fine reads 26 May 2014 - By J Gundlack

A great collection of murder, mystery, humour, and different cultures. A perfect travelling companion on the train or a late night read. Anthologies are a great place to get to know different writers and genres perhaps not visited before.

Amazon UK - £not-a-lot - here

Amazon COM - $1.22, a bargain - here

Tuesday, 27 May 2014

Leap of Faith - Book review

Richard Hardie’s YA novel, Leap of Faith, the first in the Temporal Detective Agency series, is great fun. Narrated by Tertia, it brings to mind Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next novels and Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, as the same kind of wry and dry humour is in evidence.

Teenage Tersh and her cousin Unita (Neets) are apprentices of Merlin. The famous wizard is actually a woman, wouldn’t you know? Well, now you do. Keep up. These nearly-wizards are Merl’s Girls (hoping that the BBC doesn’t ban this term!), members of the Temporal Detective Agency (along with Marlene, the sister of the more famous Merlin), that is time travellers who happen to have the odd handy nifty time portal. Beats commuting. Zzzzzzzp.

When the duo investigate the missing statue of Nelson, having vanished off his column, they end up on the Welsh coast in the past; Port Eynon, 1734. They meet up with Bryn; as Tertia muses, ‘… he wasn’t all that bad looking for a boy. If he played his cards right he stood a chance of a date, I reckoned, even if I was a thousand years older than him. Maybe he liked older women.’

Hardie never lets up with the pace, thrusting Neets into one predicament after another. There is quite a bit of history behind her, obviously! And it now, perhaps predictably, turns up to haunt them in the guise of the Black Knight, who escaped his due comeuppance at Camelot. Problem is that Sir Galahad isn’t interested in chasing bad knights, he’d rather attend to his new restaurant, the Olé Grill, not to be confused with the Holy Grail, which he purportedly found...

Zzzzzzp.

Thrown into the mix is police inspector Smollett, with his illegal truncheon; he was snatched into the time portal and his life was never the same again: ‘water poured from his shoes onto the carpet and added to the pool I’d created earlier. Of course his feet were several times larger than mine so he dripped longer and more thoroughly.’

The most calming thing is a cup of Merl Grey, apparently. And we need bucketsful as the pace quickens. We soon learn that Bryn’s father isn’t quite who he seems… Mystery and plot thicken, though the Merl Grey remains digestible and drinkable. There are a few likeable characters to meet too, notably Mrs Jones, a fantastic cook and marvellous eater. Not to be confused with Miss Jones, the head teacher, who employs Tersh briefly to mesmerise the children with her tales of derring-don’t do this at home stuff. There’s romance in the air, too, but not too soppy – this is a YA book, after all, and there are more serious things to write about, like swordfights and betrayal and hidden ill-gotten treasure…

Temporal paradoxes are acknowledged too – ‘One of Neets’s temporal anemones…’ Tersh observed knowingly.

Zzzzzzp.

The title relates to the cliff-top – from where people can make a leap of faith… and die… Very significant, that. Won’t say more on the subject, save that the ending is moving and the imagery works very well. I liked the sentence and sentiment – ‘Time for a group smile, then.’

I felt that maybe some of the chapter headings gave away too much about what was to happen; or perhaps they were intended to reassure the reader. Minor quibble.

Recommended. Please zzzzzzzzp it into your e-reader or buy the book and enjoy.

[A shorter version of this review will appear on Amazon…]