By Evelyn Waugh.

Well, that went well as my plan to break down the review of Sword of Honour into three parts corresponding to the original novels went out the window faster than a randy nun’s knickers. I ought to have consulted the Internet first.

I’ll start with Trimmer, who finally gets sent on a Commando raid, but delivered to France instead of a ( Read more... )

By Terry Pratchett.

The Low King of the Dwarves is going to be crowned, and the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork needs to send an ambassador, the Duke of Ankh-Morpork. And who would this high-ranking member of the nobility be? None other than Sam Vimes.

The coronation of the Low King is under threat from other dwarves, vampires and werewolves, but Vimes ( Read more... )

By Evelyn Waugh.

Sword of Honour is the combination of Men at Arms, Officers and Gentlemen, and Unconditional Surrender incorporated by Waugh in a single volume. Rather than write a single review of a 900-page book, half-remembering about half of a half of it, I thought I’d review it in instalments. I’m relatively confident that I’m now at the start ( Read more... )

By Peter Oxley.

Bart and Spencer are a couple of petty criminals who have been set adrift in the world of crime, no longer being part of a gang. Spencer, the brains, suggests that they should go straight and comes up with the Great Big Demon Hunting Agency, which doesn’t exactly get off to a good start because the demons nearly brain the pair of ( Read more... )

By DC Farmer.

The book starts fairly slowly. We learn that Matt Danmor was in a car crash in which he was badly injured. His girlfriend, Silvy, was with him, but vanished, and the conclusion seems to be that Danmor took a bit of a knock to the head. He’s in a hospital working as a porter, but is meant to be in his second year training to be a doctor ( Read more... )

By Terry Pratchett.

You might, dear reader, think I’ve gone utterly book-mad in my old age, but on this occasion, I have an excuse. The power was off from about quarter past eight, and as there was nothing else to do, I went and stood in the sun in the annex reading most of the rest of Monstrous Regiment until it was time to head off for lunch, ( Read more... )

By Ellis Blackwood.

After Samuel Pepys’ sister, Paulina, is accused of witchcraft, our man sends Jacob Standish and Abigail Harcourt to Brampton to clear her name. The pair are Pepys’ inquisitors.

They have to deal with the obnoxious Goody (mostly; sometimes Goddie) Grimston, who’s a bullying rural ass, and Bulstrode Bennett, local magistrate and ( Read more... )

By Frank Chalk.

Frank Chalk has been working as a supply teacher at St Jude’s where he’s a nearly permanent fixture because teachers are constantly absent from stress, depression and training courses.

St Jude’s is an inner city school populated by children who are feral, illiterate and innumerate, whose parents are wastrels, and whose children will ( Read more... )

By Russell Winnock.

This will be another short review as it sort of covers the same kind of ground as May it Please Your Lordship. Winnock’s oeuvre is more novel-like in that we have the love interest and a recurrent storyline.

Winnock recounts a range of cases, including the some of harrowing ones involving child abuse by people who are so awful ( Read more... )

By Toby Potts.

If Charlie Walden’s world is rather gentlemanly and fair, Potts’ world is closer to Rumpole’s without Horace’s experience. Like Walden and Rumpole, the chapters are like a series of mostly standalone stories of Potts’ early experiences at the Bar through which the main continuity is his relationship with the delectable Susie.

His ( Read more... )