Chanticleer Book Reviews

Category: Reviews

  • ETHYR by M.P. Follin – Middle-Grade Fantasy, Gamers, Action/Adventure

    ETHYR by M.P. Follin – Middle-Grade Fantasy, Gamers, Action/Adventure

    Twelve-year-old Skyler Beam cops a squat onto his bean bag chair and logs into his favorite game Ethyr – his only real form of pleasure these days. He powers up his avatar, SkyWyz12, and goes in search of his friends across the lunar surface but strikes out. He is alone for the moment. Soon, a nameless player appears, who possesses impressive skills beyond the game’s design, and takes an interest in Skyler. Within minutes, the silent companion gets a bit too clingy for comfort, but SkyWyz12 can’t shake the irritating avatar and then discovers why. “Skyler Beam, I’ve been looking for you.” Skyler freaks, logs out, and slams his laptop cover closed.

    Ethyr is a multi-player game offering different scenarios such as the House of Dragon dojo where players spar (clobber) each other to earn colored belts, or Lunarscape, where, propelled by jetpacks, they can fly around the Moon.

    Skyler tells his friend and fellow Ethyr enthusiast, Ellie, of his encounter with the silent avatar and asks her to join him in the game later that day. She agrees, and they meet inside the dojo, along with two friends from his old school, Eddie and Brian. Soon, a mysterious, silent opponent appears, and the game morphs into something real. Skyler’s friends disappear, and he is locked in hand-to-hand combat with his opponent – with actual swords. Skyler gets his butt kicked and ends up with a sword point tickling his throat. His opponent, Neshama, suddenly allows him up and begins to answer a few questions. Once Skyler escapes the game, he grows more determined to learn more about Neshama’s and his secrets.

    Now Skyler’s world begins to tilt off its axis. Unexplainable incidents and events occur all around him. He craves answers, but there is only one way to find them: he must re-enter Ethyr. Unfortunately, to do so, may come at the incredible cost of his life or lives of those closest to him.

    Follin excels at creating the settings for Skyler’s everyday life both inside and outside of Ethyr. Her smooth prose, realistic dialogue, tension and conflict between the characters, descriptions, surprising twists and turns, and solid pacing make for a delightful read for all ages.

    Ethyr – the novel – is a real pleasure to read!

    M.P. Follin won 1st Place in the 2016 Gertrude Warner Awards for Ethyr.

     

     

     

     

  • HOPE of AGES PAST by Bruce Gardner – Historical Fiction, Thirty Years War, Historical Romance, Family Saga

    HOPE of AGES PAST by Bruce Gardner – Historical Fiction, Thirty Years War, Historical Romance, Family Saga

    A saga writ large on the stage of 17th Century Central Europe,  Hope of Ages Past portrays the deeply personal impacts of religious faith and love amidst the brutality of war.

    Peter Erhart and Hans Mannheim are teenagers when they first meet in the Bohemian capital city of Prague at the outbreak of the Thirty Years War in 1618. These are two of the three central, fictional, characters in Bruce Gardner’s noteworthy interweaving of fact and reasoned conjecture set during the first half of the war. The boys represent the two religious factions in that conflict: Peter is Protestant; Hans, Catholic. The meeting in Prague, based on a real event including actual historical participants, provides the backdrop for a fictional drama that is set in motion when Peter reaches beyond the sectarian divide to help Hans at a moment of deep disgrace. Hans will never forget that kindness.

    As rebellion and conquest fire up across Europe, Peter, in his twenties, becomes a contentedly married Lutheran pastor in Magdeburg, Germany. Opposed by powerful rivals and threatened by the Catholic imperial army now approaching the city, he encounters Anna Ritter – a country peasant girl of uncommon beauty and inner strength who has secretly admired him for years and who is destined to share his trials. Each must fight bravely for the survival of their families and friends when local villains invade countryside cottages and the army, led by an awe-inspiring Black Knight, besieges the city. At the pinnacle of their trial, unthinkable tragedy brings Peter and Anna together and links their fates with Hans, now a grown man with a reputation to prove. Events eventually bring the three together in the siege’s aftermath, and a strange and unexpected reconciliation occurs — one that is put to the ultimate test in a final, horror-filled ordeal.

    Gardner, delving deeply into the philosophical issues at the core of the Thirty Years War, very deftly maintains an over-arching theme of religious differences – and similarities – in the midst of a thrilling, continually evolving panorama of warfare, intrigue, and romance. Interlocking the two storylines – interpersonal and international – is the repeated possibility for human compassion to emerge despite deep religious disagreements. Gardner’s skillfully drawn characters, both Catholic and Protestant, are confronted with choices – to kill, to help, or to ignore their fellow human beings in times of terrible suffering. Gardner fairly and intelligently presents the positions of both groups.

    Love conquers hate and uplifts two great faiths in Bruce Gardner’s Hope of Ages Past, contrasting romance, religion and family cohesion with the upheaval of battle and blood, all balanced by a thought-provoking, well-considered overview of the western world’s Christian heritage.

    Ultimately, Gardner has gifted us with an epic novel of enduring faith and love set amidst the brutality of the Thirty Years War in Europe. A very good read.

     

  • SCHOOL of DEATHS (The Scythe Wielder’s Secret Book 1) by Christopher Mannino – YA Fantasy, Coming of Age, Magical Worlds

    SCHOOL of DEATHS (The Scythe Wielder’s Secret Book 1) by Christopher Mannino – YA Fantasy, Coming of Age, Magical Worlds

     

    Christopher Mannino’s young adult fantasy novel, School of Deaths, opens with a portrayal of adolescent angst that goes waaaaay beyond “I have nothing to wear!” or “Oh, no!  I have a zit!”

    Readers will immediately sympathize with the main character, Suzie Sarnio, who’s having the worst first day of eighth grade ever. For starters, she looks like death. Seriously. For mysterious reasons, she’s lost so much weight over the last three months that her bones are about to burst through her skin. Her black hair is stringy, and she peers out at the world through lifeless, gray eyes. There’s no chance of her blending into the crowd.

    Everyone wants to talk about her appearance. Her parents, her brother, her friends, her teachers, everyone comments on how terrible she looks. Just what every girl wants to hear, right? As if being thirteen wasn’t hard enough! No matter how much Suzie eats, she can’t gain weight. Of course, everyone assumes she’s anorexic.

    To top it off, she’s having nightmares in which a grim-reaper-like dude tells her, “I’ve come to take you back. You are a Death.” And then it really happens. The doorbell rings and there he is, the Grim Reaper in all his glory, and he does indeed take Suzie away.  Take a deep breath and join Suzie as she travels – not over the rainbow – but to The World of Deaths.

    Once over her bafflement of how she got there, Suzie learns about her locale at the School of Deaths. It’s a bit like Hogwarts, but she’s not learning to be a wizard. No, she’s in training to be a “Death,” one of those who reaps and transports souls that have died from the World of the Living to the World of the Dead. She doesn’t study the use of a wand but instead takes classes on how to use the iconic scythe pictured with grim reapers. It’s very difficult but Suzie is determined to wield it like a pro, to reap and transport with the best of them.

    If at the end of one year she passes the test given to all first-year Deaths, she can return home to her family, her memory of time spent in this ghostly school erased. The odds are heavily against her; most Deaths fail the test and must remain forever. To make matters super worse, Suzie is the only female in the school! The last one, Lovethar, attended more than a million years ago and the school hasn’t fully recovered from her scandalous dealings with dangerous dragons. So, Suzie has her work cut out for her.

    Students and even some faculty are cruel and go out of their way to throw shade her way. She’s no cream puff, however, and refuses to be intimidated, at least in public.  Hermione Granger herself would be impressed. After all, she had female classmates and professors while poor Suzie manages all girl-stuff entirely on her own. Fortunately, there are a few kind students who dare to befriend her and stick up for her when she’s bullied by the nastiest of the boys. Billy, Jason, and Frank help Suzie stand her ground in and out of the classroom. She and her squad become thick as thieves and join forces to discover what really happened to Lovethar.

    Their investigation will also lead them to unlock the mysteries of the school’s servants, the “Elementals,” usually referred to with the slur, ‘Mentals. The author does a bang-up job describing these fascinating beings that come in various sizes and colors, with multiple attributes of plants and animals. Suzie and the boys are awed by a plant-like woman and winged boys, a seer with black eye sockets and a man whose skin has blue stripes.

    They’re even more intrigued by the rivalrous history between the Deaths and the Elementals. It’s not surprising the Elementals revolt on the school’s campus, but it makes the foursome’s contact with them incredibly dangerous. Suzie feels tremendous compassion for them, but she can’t lose sight of her goal to get through the year, pass the test, and finally get home. That’s the plan, right? Hmmm, but if she succeeds, she’ll have to leave her friends and, well, one of them may be more than a friend. Yes, there’s a bit of romance tucked into all the suspense, and it adds a yummy complication.

    From start to finish, this book rocks! It’s a story of female empowerment, the gifts of friendship, the curse of slavery, and the mystical mysteries of great beyond. It also makes the grade nailing the ubiquitous sexism and bullying students deal with as teenagers.

    The YA audience will devour School of Deaths, as well as adults who love the genre. The prose and the plot sizzle with smarts and confidence. One finishes the book wanting more and thank goodness there is more. School of Deaths is the first volume in a series, The Scythe Wielder’s Secret.  You’ll want to travel on with Suzie to volume 2, The Sword of Deaths, and to volume 3, Daughter of Deaths.

    Christopher Mannino won 1st Place in the 2016 Chanticleer Int’l Writing Competition, in the Dante Rossetti Awards, for YA Fiction.

     

  • SOME KIND of ENDING by Conon Parks – Literary, Contemporary, Pacific Northwest

    SOME KIND of ENDING by Conon Parks – Literary, Contemporary, Pacific Northwest

    Blue and Gold Somerset First Place Winner Badge for Best in CategoryIf you were 18 or older in 1984, if you were from or migrated to Seattle in the latter half of the 20th Century, if you used far too many drugs, drank too much alcohol, thought Alaska was the Promised Land, thumbed your nose at the conventional American culture of the ‘80s, explored life aboard fishing boats, had too much sex, and had madcap adventures in global hotspots from Honduras to Cambodia, then you are the right audience for Some Kind of Ending by Conon Parks.

    Calling this book an experimental novel is appropriate; there is little approximating a cohesive narrative. But that’s not a bad thing. It’s the tale of several drunken, chemically dependent people—not the kind you would take home to Mother—who converge on Seattle in 1984, wind up on a variety of fishing boats bound to Alaska in search of great fortunes to be made from the fishing industry and return to Seattle. More specifically the dives and women of Seattle’s Ballard seafaring community. Nothing in common seems to draw them together except the desire to live according to their Rabelaisian taste for life.

    There are at least two explosions—one breaking out a colleague from a mental hospital, the other blowing up a submarine that may have rammed a Greenpeace sailing vessel and in turn, was blown up by another boat carrying an inordinate amount of military ordnance. There are fights galore, long meditations on the Foreign Legion, Gurdjieff, the Iran-Contra hearings, and disparaging comments about “Hanoi Jane” Fonda.

    The closest to recognizable characters may be Andre, a literate college drop-out with at least one prison sentence in his past; and Doug, an idealist from the Midwest. But even identifying those names gives no sense of the swirl of characters and stories that circle through this picaresque novel. Characters pop up like moles in a garden, or more appropriately, whack-a-moles.

    What is the book about? It’s a question not easily answered except to call it a diary, a 20th Century Samuel Pepys observation of a particular 1980s-based time and space. “Diatribe” is an equally applicable description. At one point, Andre reminisces about all the many images he has witnessed in his life, “from riots in Barcelona, to martial laws and Gestapo goons after the Kurds he was runnin’ within Istanbul, to Guatemalan guerillas and Mayan Indios, to Easy St. Louis hoods, to Israel and the West Bank, to Wounded Knee, to polio victims hobbling about with their knees above their ears.”

    Stream-of-consciousness at its best, Some Kind of Ending drives readers on a colorful, and somewhat perplexing journey of absurdism. Recommended.

    Parks won First Place in the 2017 SOMERSET Book Awards for Contemporary and Literary Fiction Novels for Some Kind of Ending.

  • The ADVENTURES of FRANK and MUSTARD: STUCK in the MUD by Simon Calcavecchia, Illustrated by Arturo Alvarez – Children’s Literature, Encouragement Friendship

    The ADVENTURES of FRANK and MUSTARD: STUCK in the MUD by Simon Calcavecchia, Illustrated by Arturo Alvarez – Children’s Literature, Encouragement Friendship

    Little Peeps 1st Place Best in Category Blue and Gold Badge ImageThe Adventures of Frank and Mustard: Stuck in the Mud, written by Simon Calcavecchia and illustrated by Arturo Alvarez is a heartening picture book that tells the story of an afternoon spent between two friends, and what happens when one of them finds himself in need of help.

    Frank, a differently-abled wiener dog with wheels for back legs, and Mustard, a small yellow bird, are out adventuring when they find a new trail they want to explore. Everything is going wonderfully until Frank literally gets stuck in the mud. He tries his best to get himself out, and then Mustard helps him as well, but to no avail. Frank seems hopelessly stuck. Undaunted, Mustard has an idea and rallies a group of new friends to help them. For a brief while, Frank despairs that he’ll be stuck forever, but together they succeed in helping Frank pull himself out of the mud.

    Illustrated with bold, colorful images and large text bubbles, The Adventures of Frank and Mustard is an excellent, encouraging book to read with children ages three to five. The story is all the more affirming given the author’s own life and experiences. There are questions in the back to get young minds thinking and involved in the story. The action is easy to follow and the message is spot on: Sometimes we need a little help from our friends, and that’s okay. And when you succeed, celebrate!

    The Adventures of Frank and Mustard: Stuck in the Mud won First Place in the Chanticleer Awards category for Early Readers – Little Peeps – in 2016.

    5 Stars! Best Book Chanticleer Book Reviews

     

  • DRAGON ASCENDANTS (Luminess Legends Book 1) by Paul E. Vaughn – Epic Fantasy, Paranormal & Urban , Young Adult

    DRAGON ASCENDANTS (Luminess Legends Book 1) by Paul E. Vaughn – Epic Fantasy, Paranormal & Urban , Young Adult

    Dragon Ascendants, Luminess Legends Book 1 WON First Place in the CIBA 2018 OZMA Awards for Fantasy Fiction. Congratulations!

    A boy comes of age when he learns his true heritage in a magical, mountainous land of dwarves, elves, men, and dragons, which is threatened by a powerfully malevolent force.

    Tallian is the adopted son of Meerkesh, a dwarf whose wife died when his only child, Killmesh, was just five years old. Killmesh and Tallian are the same age – 18 – but have very different personalities. Killmesh tries to please his father, but his responsibilities are almost overwhelming as the apparent heir to the role his father holds as Spokesman for their burrow.

    Tallian works with all the others in the gem mines of the Furin Mountains, and because he towers over his co-workers, he works faster and finishes sooner than the others. Tallian spends his spare time walking alone in the woods where he discovers a dragon he names Emerald Wildfire.

    When terrifying bats formed of rocks invade the burrows, things go from bad to worse. Killmesh, charged with guarding wagonloads of jewels, is drawn away by a villain who shows him an axe he longs to buy. It’s a set-up. While he is gone, all the gems go missing. Killmesh can’t take the disgrace. He runs away, finds the axe and uses it for violence, which he finds very satisfying. He joins up with the evil elf-dragon monster Fearoc, who is bent on finding Tallian’s birth parents. They slipped from his cruel grasp 18 years before, and he has vowed savage vengeance.

    Meerkesh, seeing the desperate situation in the burrows, finally tells Tallian the story of his origins, setting the stage for a colossal battle between Tallian with his dwarf family and the dreaded Fearoc and his minions.

    Dragon Ascendants (Luminese Book 1) is a well-constructed soon-to-be-classic YA fantasy by debut author Vaughn, who envisions this as the first part of a series. He has carefully laid the scene: Tallian, aided by his brash but brave friend Briskarr and Briskarr’s gentle sister Briska, faces a barrage of challenges from Fearoc, with more to be revealed in future volumes of the Luminess saga.

    Vaughn conveys a steady, credible view of his mystical setting. Tallian is a readily likable hero, someone who has such love for his adopted dwarf clan that he will do everything in his power to save them. Killmesh, by contrast, is disturbed and impulsive, driven by some anger within that causes him to wreak havoc among his kin.

    Magic interspecies transformations, sparkling gems, and powerful weapons that make great mischief in the wrong hands all underpin Vaughn’s plot, resulting in a fast-paced page-turner for every age.

  • NEW YORK CITY BUM: A NEW AGE JOURNEY THROUGH the SEWERS of PARADISE – Ten Years on the Streets of New York City by David Boglioli – Memoir, Social Science, Poverty/Crime

    NEW YORK CITY BUM: A NEW AGE JOURNEY THROUGH the SEWERS of PARADISE – Ten Years on the Streets of New York City by David Boglioli – Memoir, Social Science, Poverty/Crime

    Portrayals of bums and hobos in American culture are often comic (Red Skelton’s “Freddie the Freeloader,” carefree (Rodgers and Hart 1932 song, “Hallelujah, I’m a Bum,”) or sociological (“Hobos, Hustlers, and Backsliders” by Teresa Gowan).

    Not so in David Boglioli’s first-person narrative of ten years spent on the streets in his aptly titled New York City Bum (Midway Books, 2017): in turn a memoir, guidebook, and first-person exploration of Dante’s Inferno, 20th-century style.

    Readers may want to listen to Lou Reed’s classic street ode, “Walk on the Wild Side” to get into the mood for this book.

    Boglioli started using crack cocaine in the mid-1980s. A highly successful chef (New York’s Ritz Carlton Hotel, among others) from an affluent background, well educated, living the life in a luxurious apartment, he was dissatisfied with his well-appointed life. The “netherworld,” as he calls it, fascinated him: “The street was the gutter, the very bottom of the barrel, always a trek through new territory where experience, caution and instinct are one’s only guide… A long way from anyplace with places that might not even exist. Such was my challenge; my catharsis. My escape.”

    He becomes a bum by choice, with his crack habit as his mentor, releasing the person inside—the person trapped by his Middle-class American roots. He offers no apologies nor excuses for his downward spiral. Instead, he embraces his desire for more, always more of the life. Whether it is trashing several apartments, a methodical listing of all the places for him to score dope, his seemingly endless friendships with hookers that were more about using drugs together than sex, and the sheer paranoia interwoven with his lifestyle of choice, he sets out on his newly chosen life with the intimacy of a diary and the mindset of a reporter.

    The greatest surprises of this book may be his portrayal of how he and his fellow bums find shelter and work in the often-squalid streets of Manhattan. He describes every conceivable way that people survive, from cardboard “houses” to charitable housing provided by churches and other institutions. It is possible to be a bum and yet find life’s basics—provided, of course, that the self-destructive behavior on his part and at the hands of others that went with The Life didn’t destroy these respites from the streets.

    He also shows the many jobs that street people have access to, from fast food places to hotel services, putting enough cash in their collective pockets so they can score more dope. “One’s entire waking existence, which was often incessant for days at a time, was directed towards getting high. Get the money, cop, get off.” He shows how selling stuff, often his own as well as someone else’s, provides a steady cash flow. At one point he makes money by renting out his apartment by the half-hour to crack users or whores. The jobs are there if you know how to find them.

    With all the lengthy description of his life of choice, he is somewhat chaste while describing his personal cravings. He gives us all-too-brief glimpses of his coming out as a cross-dresser and some vague references to his pansexuality, but he gives us few glimpses of his intimate relationships. A typical peek-a-boo remark on the women in his life goes something like this: “Although my steady girlfriends were top of the line, I too enjoyed the scuzziest of skanks, depending on my current level of degeneracy. From five star to closed by order of the Board of Health.”

    Whether he is describing his many walkabouts in New York’s streets or detailing the many ways that people ingest crack, he writes with an almost manic level of detail. He wants us to see his world precisely as he sees it. And while he mostly paints his life and his fellow bums with broad strokes, there are some downright frightening gems, such as the whores who are happy to have contracted AIDS so they can have a warm, safe place to stay and get off the hustle—for a while, that is.

    There is no simple way to explain how his street life ends for him, other than the reality that he had lived it as much as he could. There is no magic friend, family member or therapist, only a bird, some hamsters and his discovery of “the kid” within him that takes him from his mean streets to the streets where most of his readers are only too happy to live.

    A gritty, hard-knocking plunge into the gutters of New York City in Boglioli’s self-inflicted journey to hell and his subsequent rise. A Dante’s Inferno for the 21st century.

    Highly recommended.

     

  • The IMPROBABLE JOURNEYS of BILLY BATTLES: Book 2, Finding Billy Battles Trilogy by Ronald E. Yates – Action/Adventure, Historical Fiction, War, Literary

    The IMPROBABLE JOURNEYS of BILLY BATTLES: Book 2, Finding Billy Battles Trilogy by Ronald E. Yates – Action/Adventure, Historical Fiction, War, Literary

    Blue and Gold Somerset First Place Winner Badge for Best in CategoryRonald E. Yates continues the robust adventures of a lawman, gunslinger, and journalist in The Improbable Journeys of Billy Battles, the second volume in his trilogy about the title character.

    As in the first volume of the trilogy, William “Billy” Battles addresses the reader, but Ted Sayles, Billy’s great-grandson, is the one who compiled Billy’s life story through studying his great-grandfather’s journals, letters, newspaper articles, tapes, and other materials. And what an adventurous life it is! Living a full one hundred years, William Fitzroy Raglan Battles was born in Kansas in 1860 but eventually travels the world. Readers familiar with the first volume will no doubt want to continue William’s journey with the second book which begins in 1894. The Improbable Journeys, however, can function as a stand-alone volume because Yates takes great care to bring the reader up to speed with what has already taken place.

    The opening chapters of Book 2 find William aboard the SS China, bound for French Indochina although the ship will make stops along the way. He is grieving the loss of his beloved wife and seeks to assuage that grief with travel, leaving behind his mother and young daughter, Anna Marie. However, the Pinkerton Detective Agency is hot on his trail, investigating William’s part in the deaths of members of the Bledsoe family back in Kansas.

    His future is also set in play when he meets Baroness Katharina von Schreiber, a brilliant intellectual who, despite her aristocratic German title and surname, was born and raised in Chicago. Like William, her spouse is dead but the circumstances involving Rupert’s death are suspicious, and she takes great pains to avoid questioning by the authorities. William learns that some officials believe she’s in possession of top-secret German documents that she confiscated from her husband. There’s much political intrigue, but Katharina and William delight in each other’s company, and he feels the first stirrings of romance since his wife’s death.

    William’s journeys bring him face to face with the realities of late 19th-century colonialism. As an American traveler and journalist, native peoples expect that he will sympathize with their struggles against colonial powers. After all, America set the example for the rest of the world by throwing off the chains of England more than one hundred years earlier. In the Philippines, Katharina’s brother, Manfred, supports a secret organization that seeks to overthrow colonial rule and establish independence for the nation. And while William has great admiration for the Philippine revolutionary leader, Aguinaldo, William is coaxed into military service. He fights alongside American soldiers from Colorado and Kansas – even though he knows all too well that McKinley’s “Proclamation of Benevolent Assimilation” is not truthful; the U.S. ultimately annexes the Philippines not as “friends” but as invaders and conquerors.

    These fascinating chapters are narrated with an experienced journalist’s objective and encompassing eye. Yates, also a journalist, does an exemplary job of having William note every angle of the despotic nature of colonialism and the vast and complex difficulties involved in native peoples achieving independence.

    The book is not without humor. William is witty and candid, occasionally sliding into cowboy-speak, and he knows a cast of characters, real and fictional, who provide surprising hilarity throughout the book. Bat Masterson is on hand, as is Jefferson Randolph “Soapy” Smith. We leave William anticipating more dangerous exploits, one involving Francisco Villa, better known as “Pancho Villa.”  Thank heavens this is a trilogy because it’s clear Billy Battles adventures are far from over.

    Ronald E. Yates won first place in the 2016 Chanticleer International Book Awards for Somerset, Literary category.

    5 Stars! Best Book Chanticleer Book Reviews

  • DEATH by DISPUTATION: A Francis Bacon Mystery by Anna Castle – Historical Mystery, Suspense/Thriller, Literary

    DEATH by DISPUTATION: A Francis Bacon Mystery by Anna Castle – Historical Mystery, Suspense/Thriller, Literary

    Bartholomew Leeds interrupts the young men’s studies at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University in 1587 when he is found hanging from a roof beam. Is it suicide or murder? He sent warnings to His Lordship about the rising Puritan rebel underground. Were his communications intercepted somehow? Thomas Clarady, a spy in their midst assigned to investigate the Puritans, must now ponder and debate this Death by Disputation by author Anna Castle. Fascinating suspects abound at the college, and beyond its borders.

    Philosopher, statesman, orator, and spymaster Francis Bacon is anxious to determine and jail the instigator, the suspected head of the Puritan rebels, as well as track any connection to “Barty” Leeds untimely demise. He’s impatient for resolution and demands daily, written updates from Tom Clarady, his recruited spy. Posing as a student, Tom methodically follows clues while chased by three enamored women, dogged by well-meaning friends, diligently turning in his homework, and risking his own life more than once. Tom is enthusiastically determined to catch a killer, and to solve the mystery, as he plunges into this grand adventure. But this mystery has ominous layers, uncovering one leads to a more dangerous set of clues.

    As Tom follows leads, he finds that the victim had interesting curricular and extracurricular activities, any of which could make him a target. Tom takes his undercover duties to heart as he masks himself as a student who is swayed by Puritan ways and infiltrates the local group. He decides “in order to stop them he has to become one of them.”  But will they discover his de facto assignment? He becomes such an ardent follower that the apparent changes in his personality and lifestyle concern his friends and even his spymaster. Tom treads carefully, but has he gotten in over his head? As he examines clues and analyzes suspects, the reader participates in working out theories and ultimately guessing a villain.

    The delightful dimension to this mystery is the fascinating characters the author showcases. Along with the smart spy who sleuths along a tightrope between warring factions, the highlight is the fictionalized historical figure of Christopher Marlowe, a treasured rogue. Marlowe’s loyalties are continuously in question, but his wry humor and dramatic actions hit their marks. The three romantic women also particularly surprise with their hidden skills, knowledge and vibrant personalities. References to the historical period setting naturally weave into the plot and dialog, and enhance rather than detract from the pacing of this thrilling spy tale.

    For author Anna Castle, writing fiction combines her lifelong love of stories and learning. She chose the Elizabethan period for her Francis Bacon series, seeing it as one of the most colorful periods of all times and places. Retired from one of the world’s great research libraries, the University of Texas at Austin, the author enjoys the extensive research she does for the series and the details of the historical period that she shares with her readers.

    There’s no debate – Anna Castle brings to life a page-turning thrill of a mystery where “there are hazards other than jail or bodily harm” in Death by Disputation.

     

    Death by Disputation is the 1st Place Winner in the 2015 Chanticleer International Book Awards in Chaucer, the Early Historical Fiction category.