The time has come again to face an impossible task of narrowing the 117 books I have read into a top ten list. As always it was difficult to do but I have managed and I will list them in no particular order. Apart from my favourite book of the year which I will reveal at the end. You can see my review for each book by clicking on the title.
Ethan Scofield returns to the place of his birth to bury his father. Hidden in one of the upstairs rooms of the old man’s house he finds a strange manuscript, a collection of stories that seems to cover the whole of his father’s turbulent life.
As his own life starts to unravel, Ethan works his way through the manuscript, trying to find answers to the mysteries that have plagued him since he was a child. What happened to his little brother? Why was his mother taken from him? And why, in the end, when there was no one else left, did his own father push him away?
Swinging from the coral cays of the Caribbean to the dangerous deserts of Yemen and the wild rivers of Africa, Turbulent Wake is a bewitching, powerful and deeply moving story of love and loss … of the indelible damage we do to those closest to us and, ultimately, of the power of redemption in a time of change.
My Review
With thanks to the publisher for the copy received. I have read Paul Hardisty’s series of books that featured Claymore Straker and enjoyed them. Turbulent Wake is completely different and I loved every bit of it. It tells the story of a family that is estranged and full of regret for the things that went wrong. It was nothing like I thought it would be.
Ethan returns home for his father’s funeral. They have had no contact for years, no explanation, they just have separate lives. Whilst he is there he finds a manuscript that was written by his father which tells the story of his life. His mistakes, his regrets and his hopes for the future.
Warren, or War, is described as the young engineer throughout much of the book. You see him as a child, what he wants to be when he grows up, fear and his first love. You see him becoming a teenager and married man who wants to do the right thing, who tries to help but faces setbacks along the way.
The narrative features the manuscript but also Ethan’s reaction as he reads. He is more like his father than he imagined. Both have major family problems, have careers that are not what they expected and wish things could be different. As he reads he starts to see what understand what went wrong in his own life and ways of making it better.
But it was the manuscript that I became anxious to read, wanting to know what happened in each stage of the young engineer’s life, his errors of judgement, and his attempts to make things right. It’s not all about family. It’s about the damage that humankind are causing in the world with greed and power. He describes war torn areas, communities, nature and habitat being destroyed by mankind. All of it is brutal and devastating to read. Especially toward the end when he is no longer young.
Heartbreaking, honest, wonderful. This novel needs to be read by many, so they can see what damage they cause.
Today it is my pleasure to finish a week of blog posts that have highlighted the Claymore Straker series by Paul Hardisty that is published by Orenda. Other posts appeared on
ON this final day Paul will tell you about the most recent book in the series. I will show the synopsis first.
About the Book
Sequel to the critically acclaimed The Abrupt Physics of Dying, The Evolution of Fear and Reconciliation for the Dead. Claymore Straker returns in another gripping, page-turning, socially conscious thriller, with more at stake than ever…
It is 1997, eight months since vigilante justice-seeker Claymore Straker fled South Africa after his explosive testimony to Desmond Tutu’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In Paris, Rania LaTour, journalist, comes home to find that her son and her husband, a celebrated human rights lawyer, have disappeared. On an isolated island off the coast of East Africa, the family that Clay has befriended is murdered as he watches.
So begins the fourth instalment in the Claymore Straker series, a breakneck journey through the darkest reaches of the human soul, as Clay and Rania fight to uncover the mystery behind the disappearances and murders, and find those responsible.
Events lead them both inexorably to Egypt, where an act of the most shocking terrorist brutality will reveal not only why those they loved were sacrificed, but how they were both, indirectly, responsible. Relentlessly pursued by those who want them dead, they must work together to uncover the truth, and to find a way to survive in a world gone crazy. At times brutal, often lyrical, but always gripping, Absolution is a thriller that will leave you breathless and questioning the very basis of how we live and why we love.
 Guest Post
For the fourth and latest Straker novel, I wanted to give Rania her own voice, without altering the essential point of view narrative of the rest of the series. I use Rania’s own words to tie together the plot threads from the previous three novels. Absolution opens with Clay on a lonely island near Zanzibar, on the coast of East Africa. His explosive testimony in South Africa has awakened old enemies, the inevitable consequence of fighting the establishment and telling the truth. The young family he has befriended on the island are murdered as he watches, unable to help. Meanwhile, ten thousand kilometres away in Paris, Rania returns home to find her husband and young son have disappeared. Events lead them both to Cairo, where their destinies converge in the cauldron of modern terrorism, greed, crushing poverty, and appalling pollution. Again, the action is based on real events, both historical and autobiographical, and as before, I bet that you won’t see what’s coming until it hits you. A big chunk of the book was written in Egypt.
It is 1997, eight months since vigilante justice-seeker Claymore Straker fled South Africa after his explosive testimony to Desmond Tutu’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In Paris, Rania LaTour, journalist, comes home to find that her son and her husband, a celebrated human rights lawyer, have disappeared. On an isolated island off the coast of East Africa, the family that Clay has befriended is murdered as he watches.
So begins the fourth instalment in the Claymore Straker series, a breakneck journey through the darkest reaches of the human soul, as Clay and Rania fight to uncover the mystery behind the disappearances and murders, and find those responsible.
Events lead them both inexorably to Egypt, where an act of the most shocking terrorist brutality will reveal not only why those they loved were sacrificed, but how they were both, indirectly, responsible. Relentlessly pursued by those who want them dead, they must work together to uncover the truth, and to find a way to survive in a world gone crazy. At times brutal, often lyrical, but always gripping, Absolution is a thriller that will leave you breathless and questioning the very basis of how we live and why we love.
My Review
With thanks to the publisher for the copy received.Absolution is the fourth and final book in this series and the third that I have read. After reading this book I would strongly advise that you read them in order.
It takes place in 1997 and the first thing that comes to mind is that in some parts of the world nothing has changed since then. These are areas where people live in horrendous conditions, in fear of disease, terrorism and people in power. I had to keep reminding myself that I was reading a novel that was set twenty years ago.
There are two narrators, Rania’s story is told via a diary. Clay is taking you through events as they happen. Some of their tales overlap and you realise how desperate they are to find and help each other.
At times, I found it a bit confusing, I don’t have much knowledge of either African or Egyptian politics and groups but the writing is so gripping I found it didn’t matter. The author made it all very believable, shocking and at times upsetting.
There are many bad people in the novel but there are also some who stand out for their bravery and kindness. These are the people who I will think about occasionally for a while.
A fascinating conclusion to a great series.
Fresh from events in Yemen and Cyprus, vigilante justice-seeker Claymore Straker returns to South Africa, seeking absolution for the sins of his past. Over four days, he testifies to Desmond Tutu s newly established Truth and Reconciliation Commission, recounting the shattering events that led to his dishonourable discharge and exile, fifteen years earlier.
It was 1980. The height of the Cold War. Clay is a young paratrooper in the South African Army, fighting in Angola against the Communist insurgency that threatens to topple the White Apartheid regime. On a patrol deep inside Angola, Clay, and his best friend, Eben Barstow, find themselves enmeshed in a tangled conspiracy that threatens everything they have been taught to believe about war, and the sacrifices that they, and their brothers in arms, are expected to make. Witness and unwitting accomplice to an act of shocking brutality, Clay changes allegiance and finds himself labelled a deserter and accused of high treason, setting him on a journey into the dark, twisted heart of institutionalised hatred, from which no one will emerge unscathed.
Exploring true events from one of the most hateful chapters in South African history, Reconciliation for the Dead is a shocking, explosive and gripping thriller from one finest writers in contemporary crime fiction.
My Review
Reconciliation For The Dead is the third book in the series to feature Claymore Straker. I have only read the previous book The Evolution of Fear and this book being a prequel goes some way to explaining the reasoning for some of the events that happened there.
In this book, Clay is testifying at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission about events that happened during 1980. Most the book takes place in 1980 but does return to 1996 for updates on Clay’s experience in front of the panel. There is no doubt about it, the scenes described are horrifying and brutal.
I should confess that I found the political aspect of the novel confusing. I was only twelve years old in 1980 and had no idea what was happening outside of my own little world. I have learned since about some of what happened but some of the scenes described were a bit of a shock. Even though it is fiction I felt that much of it was based on fact.
Clay had done things he wasn’t proud of. He was only twenty years old at the time. Much of what he did would have been as the result of direct orders. But he was trying to make amends and it was impossible to dislike him.
On a different note, I enjoyed reading this novel feeling like I could hear the South African accent. Most the words I didn’t know the direct translation for but I didn’t need to use much imagination to work it out.
I found it a great follow up to The Evolution of Fear and would be interested in what happens next.
With thanks to Karen Sullivan for the copy received.
You can buy a copy at Amazon or Waterstones
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