Geoff Nelder's Blog

#Review of A Sixth of a Gill by Jean ... What the hell were you thinking?

Murder Most Rural – #Review

Murder Most Rural is one of a series of the Riz Sabir Thriller by Charlie Flowers.

Midsomer Murders meets the SAS with a touch of Hot Fuzz.

Holly (Bang-Bang) Kirpachi is the female half of an MOD troubleshooting duo with husband Riz having to deal with terrorists in the UK. Holly is marvellously described as an Essex Girl from Mars. “Non committal hazel eyes” Brilliant. Pages loaded with dynamic phrasing and humour some of which stay such as the Secretary of State who has eyebrows with a life of their own. I can imagine them semaphoring their own thriller novel right now.

The author writes this contemporary thriller with some authority because he has worked in security. The nearest I’ve come to working with terrorists is as a teacher but fending off flying chairs in a classroom and luckily, most of my pupils wanted to learn and were well behaved. However, I’ve been involved as an editor with novels written from the point of view of a Muslim and one was a terrorist plot to blow up the Olympics—The Last Olympiad—written by my writing buddy on Cyprus, John Goodwin.

Chapters are punchy short making them fly by and I liked the description of the part of Essex our two heroes went to: mud, wheat, sheep.

A fair bit of techie stuff from Holly but only enough to make her role convincing—along with her curry cooking. I knew some of it (not the culinary) eg Yagi aerials because in my capacity as an IT Advisory Teacher years ago, I’d installed them, along with 1 metre dishes on the roofs of most of the high schools in Cheshire. I’d encountered interesting caches of stuff on those roofs, some of which also related to the illicit goings on in MMR. Haha. I could write a book… Holly (Bang-Bang) is far from a typical housewife as you could get, she’s mad, clever but very loyal to Riz: not just his right hand, but arm and leg too.

Their ‘help’ was the all-female Black Eyes army unit one of whom, Calamity, wore a necklace of human ears whose previous owners were London gangland leaders. My ears twitched when I read that.

The plot is a grittier version of Miss Marple or Midsomer Murders eg nice Mrs Bradley dies but was it suicide? There are clues, side tracks and ironic humour. The setting in rural Essex evoked haunted old buildings, overgrown woods and shady goings on, exquisitely crafted.

I commend this book, which although is the fifth in a series can easily satisfy as a standalone thriller.

Link to buy Murder Most Rural here

#1812 History, Pride and Hilarity – Geoff Nelder – Science Fiction Writer

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Nelder News

I enjoyed a marvellous cycle ride from Chester to Warrington – to visit father-in-law convalescing after a fall – and back again. Perfect time alone on the 60 miles or so to dream up new plots.

Kathleen Bullock (illustrator) and I (writer) have completed the first of our Scoot illustrated books for infants. It’s a surrealistic story about string with no end which they follow through their favourite shops, woods and playgrounds. Now getting the query letter ready to send to agents. Here’s the front cover