August Reading and Writing
Gone to Sea in a Bucket + The Skipper’s Dog’s Called Stalin + turn Left for Gibralter (Harry Gilmore novels) by David Black
Three stories following RNVR (Wavy Navy, Royal Volunteer Officer in World War 2) Sub Lieutenant Harry Gilmore, from non expectance and bullying aboard a capital ship to successful submarine officer. Great ripping yarns stuff, weakened slightly by having an obsessive senior officer trying to destroy his career over a instance early in book one. The rate of attrition of the RN Submarine Service being such that in reality Gilmore was unlikely to a threat to the Senior Officer for long! But I nit-pick.
Bed Breakfast and Bones + Dune, Dock and Dead Man (Ravenwood Cove mysteries) by Carolyn L Dean
Nice little cozy mysteries set on the NW coast of the USA. The central character is Miss Goody Two-Shoes, her friends are wonderful and the love interest is a rugged good looking detective. Wonderful escapist froth, book 3 is ready to read!
Death on the Line by Derek Fee
Better than Rebus. As the Scottish detective slowly became a less interesting character dealing with more complex crimes; Ian Wilson’s character is slowly coming to life. The story is a case of murder and Wilson’s almost only friend, is that almost his only friend or his only ‘almost’ friend, is wounded.
Corruption and old allegiances of Ulster not with standing Wilson goes after his man.
Song of Edmon by Adam Burch
I don’t read much Sci-Fi these days. Too much of it is fantasy with new words for existing technology. This one starts that way. However it gets going in Dune type political model. Apart from the fact that there could be no life on either side of a non rotating planet .. it is a clever story of power and manipulation.
Writing
I hit a bit of a problem, I thought I had a Rags to Riches short story that could be published for the England and Wales Bank Holiday at the end of August. No such luck, the story is at 18000 words and still not at mid point, so watch out for the next instalment in the adventures of the Uncovered Policeman in the next month or two.
To make up for my missing that deadline I ran a free book promo on Amazon offering The Uncovered Policeman Abroad as a free download. On August 26th it was top seller 726 in the Amazon UK Kindle All Books chart!