Agrippa by Robert Harris

 

Oir rating 4.5⭐s

384 pages. First published 2026

You can buy Agrippa...here

You can find out more about Robert Harris...here

• The Blurb...

Julius Caesar is dead, and the lives of two teenaged boys are about to be changed forever. One is Caesar’s 17-year-old nephew, Octavius, whom he has made his heir.

The other is Octavius’s closest friend, Agrippa.

To claim Octavius’s inheritance, they must fight the giant figures of the Roman Empire – and, against all odds, they win. Octavius becomes the Emperor Augustus. For twenty years, they rule the world together.

Now Agrippa is fifty. Ailing and alone, betrayed by his wife’s infidelity, he takes refuge in his house on the Bay of Naples and begins to write his memoirs. Yet to stir up the past can be dangerous. From his earliest meetings with Julius Caesar, through the epic conflict with Mark Antony and Cleopatra, the great naval battle of Actium and the endless wars to expand the empire, he describes how one man has dominated his life: the cunning, ruthless, unknowable Octavius.

When it comes to power, does friendship exist at all?

• Our Review...

I like Robert Harris as an author, probably in my top three. I can think of only one book of his that was mediocre in my opinion,  (The Second Sleep.) It was a clever premise but the story didn't match up to the big idea. My two favourites are Fatherland (great premise, great story) and Enigma (didn't need a premise as it was all true but again great story.) So where does Agrippa sit in the cannon of Robert Harris work.. Short answer, along with the rest of his Roman histories It's right up there. When Harris writes historical fiction he is very good, when writes Roman historical fiction he is very, very good. His past Roman novels, Pompeii together with his Cicero Trilogy (Imperium, Lustrum and Dictator) all set a very high bar which he matches with Agrippa.

Having read his Roman books I think that Robert Harris is very much influenced by my favourite book. I, Claudius by Robert Graves (click link for review.) Which I think is a good thing 

The story is a first person narrative of Agrippa, the best friend of Octavius, who happens to be Julius Ceaser's nephew. As they grow it becomes obvious together they are better than the sum of their parts. The cunning Octavius is not physically strong and while he can command military it is definitely not his strong point. While Agrippa is his mirror opposite. Together they are ying and yang that make a perfect circle, much like Brian Clough and Peter Taylor at Nottingham Forest in the 1980s, or the dwarf and the muscle bound brute that made up Master Blaster in Mad Max3. 

When Cesear is murdered, a teenage Octavius is unexpectedly named heir to the Empire. However the great gift will not just be given. He will have to fight the great General Mark Anthony and navigate the even more dangerous enemies in the Senate. At least he can see Mark Anthony coming. Octavius is forced to rely on Agrippa, his Louka Brazi as they fight their to the top in the Roman game of thrones. But just as Clough and Taylor and Master Blaster eventually ended in entropy so might the same happen to the boyhood friends? 

The pressure on the two of them is immense and jealousy is a crow bar to even the strongest friendship. More so when Agrippa learns more of his own history.

Harris has a wonderful gift of pacing and depth. His one liners about history, politics and life in general just capture the zeitgeist of Rome (and of today also) just perfectly. Hence why I have included so many in the Selected Quotes section. His gift is enough history and facts so as to be accurate and interesting but not getting bogged down in detail. Reading Harris's history novels is a good way to learn about history. They give a real sense of immersion, while not losing the scale of times. And at the end it's all little clearer and infinitely interesting.

• Selected Quotes..

I am known – and have been for fifty years, ever since I was hauled by my heels from my mother’s corpse – as Agrippa.

The first rule in battle is to hold the line, whatever the cost. A fleeing army is defenceless.

All power depends on force. All force depends on money.

To lose a father to whom one has been close must be a terrible sadness for any son. And yet to lose a father from whom one has been estranged may perhaps be even worse.

power is like a muscle. It must be exercised constantly, otherwise it will turn flabby and weak.

Ignore the historians of warfare, with their neat blocks and arrows set down carefully on maps years afterwards. All battles are chaotic.

 I was a soldier not a politician. He cut me off with a wave of his hand. – These days you cannot be one and not the other. Politics is warfare in civilian clothes.

Hypocrisy is the essence of diplomacy.

Yet the truth was, I trusted no one, not even my wife. Thus does power warp us.

Power makes monsters of us all.

Like many young men, he did not allow his iAuggnorance to curb his eloquence.

I looked around my comfortable room, in my comfortable house, on my comfortable island, and realised I was living a comfortable death.

It was a choice between the bear and the fox. And in politics there is no choice. It has to be the fox.

• If You Liked This You May Like...

Augustus by John Williams

Memoirs of Hadrian by Margueritte Yourcenar

The First Man in Rome by Colleen McCollough

The Midnight Library by Matt Haigh

 

Our Rating 4⭐s

You Can Buy "The Midnight Library"...here

304 pages

First Published 2020

You Can Find Out More About Matt Haigh...here

• The Blurb...

Nora's life has been going from bad to worse. Then at the stroke of midnight on her last day on earth she finds herself transported to a library. There she is given the chance to undo her regrets and try out each of the other lives she might have lived. Which raises the ultimate question: with infinite choices, what is the best way to live?

• Our Review...

This book was recommended to me by someone who, in a short space of time, has become a well liked and respected friend.

Well what a lovely and thought provoking ride this turned out to be. Sort of a mirror image of "It's a Wonderful Life," in which George Bailey in the holding pen between life and death gets to see what the world would be like if he never existed. In our case Nora Seed  gets the opposite. She gets to try on numerous lives. Nora thinks the life she is in, her root life is a bit, well...shitty. One of the various books containing her other lives must be perfect so she sets out reading each one in the hope of finding a personal nirvana. Crossroads, sliding doors and the butterfly effect run through this book like a stick of rock. Wow I've used far too many metaphors in that last sentence.😕

Spoiler Alert Of course long before the end of her stay in purgatory we realise that Nora will choose her root life because, as we all know it's not the life we choose or strive for that is important, it is the way we deal with our current lives. 

As Robert M Pirsig author of The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance puts it "The only zen at the top of a mountain is the zen you bring with you."

 Or as i recently saw a quote by Ryan Jones, former Wales rugby captain now suffering early onset dementia,  "the good old days are now" 

Or as Seneca put it "make haste to live and think of each day as a single life."

You only get one shot at life so give everything, give it 100%. and if you don't like the view, change your frame of vision. 

And there in a nutshell is the beauty of this book... it makes you think about your life. I love novels that do that. 

• Selected Quotes...

“We don't have to play every game to know what winning feels like… Love and laughter and fear and pain are universal currencies. We just have to close our eyes and savour the taste of the drink in front of us and listen to the song as it plays”

“If you aim to be something you are not, you will always fail. Aim to be you”

“Never underestimate the big importance of small things”

“And that sadness is intrinsically part of the fabric of happiness. You can’t have one without the other. Of course, they come in different degrees and quantities. But there is no life where you can be in a state of sheer happiness for ever. And imagining there is just breeds more unhappiness in the life you’re in.”

• If You Liked This Then You May Like...

The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Anxious People by Frederik Bachman

The First Casualty by Ben Elton

Our Rating 4 ⭐s

You Can Buy The First Casualty...here

You Can Find Out More About The Author...here

381 pages

First Published 2005

• The Blurb...

The first casualty when war comes is truth . . .
Flanders, June 1917: a British officer and celebrated poet, is shot dead. ,
He is killed not by German fire, but while recuperating from shell shock well behind the lines. A young English soldier is arrested and, although he protests his innocence, charged with his murder.

Douglas Kingsley is a conscientious objector, previously a detective with the London police, now imprisoned for his beliefs. He is released and sent to France in order to secure a conviction. Forced to conduct his investigations amidst the hell of The Third Battle of Ypres, Kingsley soon discovers that both the evidence and the witnesses he needs are quite literally disappearing into the mud that surrounds him.

Ben Elton's tenth novel is a gut-wrenching historical drama which explores some fundamental questions:
What is murder? What is justice in the face of unimaginable daily slaughter? And where is the honour in saving a man from the gallows if he is only to be returned to die in a suicidal battle?

• Our Review....

I've read a few Ben Elton books and always enjoyed them. I think he is a very underrated writer. Ask Joe Bloggs in the street and he would probably know him as 80s stand up comic, sitcom writer and possibly writer of West End shows. I think of him more as 100% author and a sort of working man's Robert Harris.

A good book will have at least three targets to hit. 1} Setting, 2} Character and 3} Plot. The First Casualty does a bang up job with all three.

1} Setting.  Obviously World War 1. It is self evident that Mr Elton is very knowledgeable in WW1 (see selected quotes.)  No doubt this in part is knowledge gained when he was co writing Black Adder Goes Forth, one of the funniest and most heart-breaking sitcoms ever made. We are immersed in viscous trench raids, the terror of charging directly in machine gun fire in huge frontal assaults, surviving artillery barrages in no-mans land. The mud, blood, rats, shit and lice. But we are also shown the political times as well as the human cost. The rise of the working class unions. The secret shame of hidden homosexuality. in addition to these issues the  suffragettes were changing attitudes of women and to women. We even become aware of the washable, reusable condom. The point being we feel engulfed in 1917. He does this really well.

2} The Characters. These too are well drawn Kinglsey is probably the most nuanced. A police inspector who is in favour of the death penalty but is also a conscientious objector, now that is a very thin line to walk.. He loves his wife who has abandoned him thinking him dead but he is also sexually attracted to nurse Murray. He also loves his job as a an inspector working for the state apparatus but they are the ones manipulating (and destroying?) him. So lots of internal conflict going on here. The other two main characters are a bit more stereotypical nurse Murray is a suffragette. A modern independent woman. She is a fierce ball of energy with her own motorbike and aforementioned condom. Think a working class Queenie from Blackadder 2.  Captain Shannon a sexual predator continually searching for his next adrenaline rush. Confident and brash a sort of darker and more malevolant Captain Flasheart again from the Blackadder TV show.

3) The plot is the final hook from Elton that gets under the skin and drags you into the narrative. Who murdered the secretly gay, poet and war hero? The spurned lover? the left wing barrack room lawyer? the commanding officer? and why? Where Elton is so clever here is taking a well known incident involving a famous person at time and "what iff ing it" i.e. what if x had happened, what if y had done it, and what would the consequences be and so one. The plot is pure speculative fiction and all the better for it

If you read through other Ben Elton novels that I have reviewed on this site, you will have seen that in the past I have been slightly critical of his endings. Not so with this one, he wraps it all up together neatly and leaves the reader with a smile on their lips.

Note to self...in hindsight I should have left this book to read near to Armistice Day.

Good story. Good setting. Good Plot all well delivered equals Good book and a good read.

• Selected Quotes...

"This war is … stupid. It offends my sense of logic. It offends my sense of scale."

"Kingsley was fast learning that within the collective madness that gripped the nation any attempt at rational argument was useless."

"Abercrombie was different now to how he had been at the Lavender Lamp Club. A little louder and a little coarser. He was wearing his mask."

"Kingsley had never defecated in front of anyone before but the men he was travelling with – all experienced soldiers and comrades of old – thought no more about it than if they were pissing up against the same wall."

"A bayonet is a weapon with a worker on both ends.’"

"War is the last stage of the capitalist cycle and as long as we have capitalism we’ll have wars. If you want to get rid of war you’ve got to get rid of capitalism.’"

"only three things lived amongst the trenches: rats, lice and men."

• If You Liked This Then You May Like...

Two Storm Wood by Philip Gray..... our review here

Goodbye To All That by Robert Graves (autobiography)

All Quiet On The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque... our review here

The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammet

 

244 pages

You can buy The Maltese Falcon...here

You can find out more about Dashiell Hammet...here

Our Rating...4⭐s

• The Blurb...

Sam Spade is hired by the fragrant Miss Wonderley to track down her sister, who has eloped with a louse called Floyd Thursby. But Miss Wonderley is in fact the beautiful and treacherous Brigid O'Shaughnessy, and when Spade's partner Miles Archer is shot while on Thursby's trail, Spade finds himself both hunter and hunted: can he track down the jewel-encrusted bird, a treasure worth killing for, before the Fat Man finds him?

• Our Review...

Well this was a pleasant surprise. I don't really know why I decided to read this novel, probably a sense of lacking depth. A sort of " i haven't any 1930s hard bolied noir before, it's a notable genre, I suppose i had better read the daddy... The Maltese Falcon." I'm glad I did. I found it very enjoyable. I Genuinely returned to it night after night out of a desire to find out "what happens next" rather than out of a sense of duty, and that hasn't happened for a while.

It's got all the tropes, cynical tough Private Investigator (P.I.), duplicitous femme fatale, sneaky oily villains. The plot has more twists than Chubby Checker's corkscrew. So very stereotypical, but sometimes that's a good thing. The reader knows the route to follow. 

The characters are great too. We come for the plot but stay for characters. Whenever I hear that saying the example that always appears in my head is Only Fools And Horses. Originally we start to watch for the storyline but the gems are Del Boy, Trigger, Grandad, Trigger et all. The same applies to this Sam Spade isn't really a good guy, he's having an affair with a married woman. How he feels about his Miss Wonderly, his distraught client, who throws herself on his mercy is very mercenary. He is cynical to the point of being emotionally dead inside. The three villains are very different but all are very self-centred (as indeed is Sam Spade.) To this end having now read the book, I must commend the casting of the black and white film directed by John Huston. The acting troupe of Bogart, Greenstreet, Lorre and Astor fit precisely into the characters on the page.

Throughout the book a question that kept me on tenterhooks was what would Spade end up doing with Miss Wonderly. While not as overly evil as Gutman, Cairo or Wilmer she was the cause of much destruction. Would Spade rescue her or destroy her or maybe something in between. I think this was the question that intrigued me the most.

It may be a me thing, but while reading this novel I feel there are underlying themes of good and evil and particularly the bible (see first selected quotes in describing Sam Spade.)  Spade calls his secretary his angel on several occasions, and indeed she is probably the most moral character, while Miss Wonderly is very contrasting in her duplicity and using her womanly charms to lure men to their doom like a siren. While the falcon itself may be seen as a false idol that drives men into greed, betrayel and murder. Or perhaps I am thinking too much and seeing patterns that exist only in the chocolate fudge of my brain.

One thing that did surprise me, after reading the novel I was browsing an afternote that stated throughout the novel Hammet did not have an inner monologue. No thoughts or emotions are described and to my surprise I realised that this was true. The author had just discarded one of the writer's best, most versatile rules. I hadn't noticed, that may be a testament to the skill of the author. I have read Cormac McCarthy and I did notice when he did it. Also this very visual style of writing maybe why The Maltese Flacon transferred so well to the big screen. 

Whatever the ins and outs this was an enjoyable thrill ride through the dangerous jungle of deception and double cross. Well worth a read.

• Selected Quotes...

his pale brown hair grew down from high flat temples in a point on his forehead. He looked rather pleasantly like a blond satan.

Tom Polhaus poked his own left breast with a dirty finger. "Got him right through the pump with this." He took a fat revolver from his coat-pocket and held it out to Spade.

Spade nodded. His face was stupid in its calmness.

We believed your two hundred dollars." "You mean?" She seemed to not know what he meant. "I mean that you paid us more than if you'd been telling the truth", he explained blandly "and enough more to make it all right."

the lie was in the way I said it, and not at all in what I said."

The fat man was flabbily fat with bulbous pink cheeks and lips and chins and neck, with a great soft egg of a belly that was all his torso, and pendant cones for arms and legs. As he advanced to meet Spade all his bulbs rose and shook and fell separately with each step, in the manner of clustered soap-bubbles not yet released from the pipe through which they had been blown.

distrust a close-mouthed man. He generally picks the wrong time to talk and says the wrong things. Talking's something you can't do judiciously unless you keep in practice.

The looseness of his lower lip and the drop of his upper eyelids combined with the v's in his face to make his grin lewd as a satyr's.

I want you to know that I couldn't be any fonder of you if you were my own son; but well, by Gad! if you lose a son, it's possible to get another and there's only one Maltese falcon.

the shortest farewells are the best.

I'm a detective and expecting me to run criminals down and then let them go free is like asking a dog to catch a rabbit and let it go.

• If you Liked This Then You May Like..

Cape Fear by John D McDonald

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

LA Confidential by James Elroy

Pilgrims by M.R. Leonard

 

Our Rating 3 ⭐s

You can buy Pilgrims by M.R. Leonard ...Here

You can find out more about M.R. Leonard...Here

• The Blurb...

Out-of-work Latin teacher and borderline alcoholic Austin DeSantis is determined to spend his final days in the arms of a prostitute—that is if the aliens don’t exterminate humanity first.

But when the aliens land at the Vatican, begin speaking Latin, and reveal themselves to be Catholic, the world turns upside down.

Pressed into service as a translator and thrust into the center of humanity's first contact with a cryptic alien race, Austin must uncover their true intentions before religious turmoil rips the planet apart. But with Austin caught between the Catholic Church, the US military, and an enigmatic alien AI, he'll have to decide where his loyalties lie as the fate of humanity hangs in the balance.

• Our Review...

Spoilers ahead.

Well, where to start with this one. Its an absolutely bat-shit crazy bonkers premise but is nicely delivered. Aliens approach Earth but when they eventually get here, they are latin speaking fundamentalist Roman Catholics. Yeah I know! Totally headshot. Upon reading I immediately thought that this author is definitely Roman Catholic and very probably from the USA. Turns out I was right. What's more after Muslims kill the Pope and top level Cardinals, The aliens start a lightning fast, brutal genocide of all  Muslims. Sounds like a President Trump fever dream. Imagine if a Muslim had written a Muslim version of this. I guess the aim of narrative is to point out if we don't all get along together, we are all doomed together. But wow, just wow.

If you can get over the right wing religious bonkers stuff, the writing is decent. But it's like being given a hand grenade wrapped up in a nice bow. This one is not for me.

• Selected Quotes...

“Terror is the most brutal kind of pain. At least when we nuked the Japs, they didn’t see it coming.”

if you don’t want to be told by the pope to go up to an alien spaceship, then don’t join the priesthood.”

“Said like a man who only sees power.” Father Ambrose took off his glasses and began cleaning them on his shirt. “One who is blind to compassion and mercy.” “Compassion and mercy?” General Fergusson scoffed. “Those are mere luxuries for those at the top of the food chain.”

• If You Liked This You May Like...

Nope... I got nothing soz

This Must Be The Place by Maggie O Farrell

 

Our Rating 3⭐s

401 pages 

Published 2016

You can find out more about Maggie O'Farrell here

• The Blurb...

A reclusive former film star living in the wilds of Ireland, Claudette Wells thinks nothing of firing a gun if strangers get too close to her house. Why is she so fiercely protective of her family, and what made her walk out on her career at the height of her fame?

Her husband Daniel, reeling from a discovery about a woman he last saw twenty years ago, is about to make an exit of his own. It is a journey that will send him off-course, far from home. Will his love for Claudette be enough to bring him back?

This Must Be The Place crosses continents and time zones, creating a portrait of an extraordinary marriage, the forces that hold it together and the pressures that drive it apart.

• Our Review...

Full disclosure, this was a buddy read with my daughter who loved Hamnet. 

The characters are all fully developed and all have a hinterland that drives them. This book is about love and death and loyalty and missed chances. All life is here. It is a complex novel in that there are numerous characters and zigg-zagging timelines for most of the main ones. 

I must admit I am not a fan of literary fiction. It feels to me like reading a tv soap opera. I just dont get the point. Describing someones life is, well just a bit....boring. I love a murder, a denuemont, and arrest and an end point. That said this a fine example of writing. The ups downs of Daniel and Claudettes love life tug on the heartstrings and there are moments of comedy. Maggie O Farrell does have a wonderful way of writing about real life. She has depth and warmth and a wonderful turn of phrase as can been by our selected quotes.  But I think that's my problem. I dont want to read about real life. I read to escape real life. Its not that the author or book is not for me I think the issue is that the genre is not for me. I love to read about The Godfather, or Emporer Claudius or George Smiley. I have seen numerous reviews that gave this book 5 stars and my daughter loved the book. Its just not my jam. 

• Selected Quotes...

Here is what my brother smells of: paper, computers, cotton, emollient, toast, soap substitute, herbal tea, windowless rooms. My brother smells of hard work. My brother smells of intelligence, of all-nighters, of education, of dedication and sometimes, I think, loneliness.

On the surface I am one thing but underneath I am riddled with holes and caverns, like a limestone landscape.

The groom will rarely look at the photographs and, when he does, will be struck most by how many of the guests – considered, at the time, to be crucial presences in his life – he no longer

Spry’ is the word used for people of her age, isn’t it? Horrible word, Rosalind reflects, like a mixture of ‘spray’ and ‘why’.

When Todd and Suki heard that an American exchange student was being billeted in the vacant room in the eaves of their graduate flat, they were not pleased. They pictured a toothy type with trainers and V-necks and white socks. They pictured someone who might, of all things, attend church. Americans were religious, weren’t they? He would have hotdog-scented breath, a penchant for soft rock and a backpack full of college sweatshirts. He would want to join fraternities.

• If You Liked This Then You May Like...

Standard Deviation by Katherine Heiny

Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O'Farrell

A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler

Kill For Me, Kill For You by Steve Cavanagh

 

Our Rating 5⭐

401 Pages

First published 2023

You Can Find Out More About Steve Cavanagh...here

• The Blurb...

One dark evening in New York City, two strangers meet by chance.
Over drinks, Amanda and Wendy realise they have so much in common.

They both feel alone. They both drink alone.
And they both desperately want revenge against the two men who destroyed their families.

Together, they have the perfect plan.
If you kill for me, I'll kill for you...

• Our Review...

A standalone by Ireland's answer to John Grisham. Obviously heavily influenced by Patricia Highsmith's Strangers On A Train, (which we have also reviewed.) Cavanagh does a bang up job of updating and twistifying ( adding more twists!) to the original. The original's plot still stands up but it does feel very dated now. Cavangh's updated plot is slightly more complex but doesn't feel forced. It's not twists for twists sake. I started reading unconciously just expecting a rerun of the original but with modern day language and sensibilities. This would have been a worthwhile enterprise on it's own but the deciously dark corruption of the plot is just a juicy bonus. There are a couple of cracking twists. I read a few other books at the time I read this and this is the one that stays with me. If you loved the original, or even if you didn't this is well worth a read.

• Selected Quotes...

“That kind of death didn’t ride alone. It brought more dark horsemen with it: unemployment, debt, addiction and pain that at times was too great to bear.”

“In any other world that meant he would lose his job—but not when his father owned the company. Some people, those with money and the ear of power, never pay for their crimes the way ordinary people do.”

“Stronger than lover’s love is lover’s hate. Incurable”

• If You Liked This Then You May Like...

The One by John Marrs

The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

Look Closer by David Ellis.

Sleepyhead by Mark Billingham

 

You Can Buy Sleepyhead...here

Our Rating 4.5 ⭐s

436 pages

first published in 2001

You can find out more about Mark Billingham ...here

• The blurb...

It's rare for a young woman to die from a stroke and when three such deaths occur in short order it starts to look like an epidemic. Then a sharp pathologist notices traces of benzodiazepine in one of the victim's blood samples and just traceable damage to the ligaments in her neck, and their cause of death is changed from 'natural' to murder. The police aren't making much progress in their hunt for the killer until he appears to make a mistake: Alison Willetts is found alive and D.I. Tom Thorne believes the murderer has made a mistake, which ought to allow them to get on his tracks. But it was the others who were his mistakes: he doesn't want to take life, he just wants to put people into a state where they cannot move, cannot talk, cannot do anything but think.When Thorne, helped by the neurologist looking after Alison, starts to realise what he is up against he knows the case is not going to be solved by normal methods - before he can find out who did it he has to understand why he's doing it.

• Our Review...

Mark Billingham’s 2001 debut, "Sleepyhead," did for the British police procedural what a jagged blade does to soft tissue: it left a permanent, ugly scar. This isn't a polished "whodunit" found in a country manor; it is a masterclass in working-class noir, written with a blunt, rhythmic honesty that reflects the soot and exhaust of South London.

At the heart of this decay is DI Tom Thorne. Thorne is a refreshingly bitter protagonist, stripped of the "super-sleuth" polish. He is cynical, insomniac, and fueled by a steady diet of country music and disappointment. His world is one of grey skies and greyer moralities, where the police are overworked and the victims are often just statistics in a filing cabinet. Billingham’s prose mirrors this—it’s lean, gritty, and devoid of unnecessary flourishes, capturing the exhausted cadence of men and women who have seen too much.

The narrative’s darkness stems from its uniquely horrific premise. The antagonist isn't a serial killer who wants his victims dead; he wants them "locked-in." The descriptions of Alison Willetts—awake, aware, but unable to move a single muscle—are visceral and terrifying. It taps into a primal, claustrophobic fear that lingers long after the book is closed. The only thing that stopped this novel from being a 5 star for me is that I didn't quite get the motivation of the killer but perhaps thats the point. I'm never going to get the reasons for a deranged serial killer to do what he does unless I'm a bit deranged too?

Crucially, Billingham refuses to offer the reader a fairy-tale ending. There is no soaring triumph of the human spirit here. While the procedural elements reach a conclusion, the emotional fallout is heavy and unresolved. The "hero" doesn't ride off into the sunset; he simply retreats further into his own isolation, and the victims remain shattered. It is a bleak, uncompromising look at the reality of trauma, proving that in Thorne’s London, the "good guys" don't always win—they just survive to fight another miserable day. For readers who prefer their crime fiction with a shot of vinegar rather than a spoonful of sugar,

• Selected Quotes...

"Thorne didn't believe in closure. It was a word used by people who didn't understand that some things never shut."

"He lived his life in the gaps between the things that other people found important."

"Imagine being awake in your own coffin. Now imagine that coffin is your own skin."

"Evil doesn't always wear a mask. Sometimes it wears a suit and a tie and asks you how your weekend was."

"Thorne’s flat was the kind of place where dust gathered out of sympathy. It was a holding pen for a man who spent his life waiting for the next bad thing to happen."

 

• If You Liked This Then You May Like....

The Devil's Star by Jo Nesbo

The Mermaids Singing by Val McDermid 

Birdman by Mo Hayder

Pagan Rite by Leslie Scase

 

Our Rating 4 ⭐

You Can Buy Pagan Rite...here

You Can Find Out More About Leslie Scase...here

280 Pages

First published 2026

• The Blurb...

1897
Inspector Thomas Chard is sent to investigate the discovery of a mutilated corpse feared to be the work of Jack the Ripper. His investigation leads him to a ‘Festival of the Unknown’ and when a second murder occurs, rumours of demons and hell-hounds flood the public’s imagination. With the Queen’s Jubilee celebrations fast approaching, Chard has to fight his prejudices to deal with psychics, fortune-tellers, druids and scientists in order to expose a deranged killer.

• Our Review...

This is the fifth in the Inspector Chard series, the others being 

Fortunas Deadly Shadow

Fatal Solution

Sabrina's Teardrop 

Flames of Anarchy

Each has a slightly different taste but all under the genre of Victorian Industrial Noir. I dont actually know if thats a thing. I may have just made it up, but it sums up the field of expertise that the author writes in. I use the word expertise deliberatley. The author includes a section on his research at the rear of the book and it is almost as fascinating as the fictional narrative. So why do i keep coming back to this series, and why this book in particular. Well theres a few reasons..

Atmospheric Verisimilitude: Scase doesn't just describe the setting; he makes you smell the coal dust and feel the damp Welsh mist. The tension between the burgeoning industrial world and the deep-seated "old ways" of the hills is the book's strongest asset.

The Protagonist: Thomas Chard remains a refreshingly grounded lead. He isn’t a "super-sleuth" with flashes of divine inspiration; he’s a methodical, dogged, and often weary investigator who relies on local knowledge and persistence.

The "Pagan" Element: The title isn't just window dressing. Scase explores the revival of Druidic traditions and neo-paganism in the 19th century with historical nuance, avoiding the "occult thriller" clichés while keeping the stakes high.

"Pagan Rite" is a slow-burn procedural that rewards patient readers. While it helps to have read the previous books  Scase provides enough context that this functions well as a standalone mystery.

The story is set against the backdrop of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. While the British Empire is celebrating its height, Pontypridd is gripped by fear. A mutilated corpse is discovered, and the brutal nature of the crime immediately sparks a media frenzy, with headlines suggesting that Jack the Ripper has moved to the Valleys. As Chard investigates, he finds himself caught between two worlds: The Rational: A group of scientists and Victorian sceptics trying to debunk the supernatural and The Mystical: A "Festival of the Unknown" arriving in town, featuring fortune-tellers, psychics, and a revived interest in ancient Druidic rituals.

Some of the key themes and elements are mass hysteria: When a second murder occurs, the public’s imagination runs wild with talk of "hell-hounds" and demonic entities. Scase brilliantly captures how quickly a rational community can descend into panic when traditional beliefs are challenged. The clash of eras: The book highlights the friction of 1897—a time of rapid scientific advancement (the rise of forensic thought) clashing with a desperate nostalgia for ancient Celtic "pagan" roots.  The "Ripper" shadow: By invoking the specter of the Whitechapel murders, Scase raises the stakes for Chard, who has to solve the case quickly to prevent a full-scale riot during the Jubilee celebrations.

It may be a bit selfish but I also like the series because I know the locale in which it is set. I have drunk in the Llanover Arms. I have walked over the old bridge in Ponty. I have been on the Gower many times. Geographical experience always adds a little to the experience of reading a book. I recently found a website that suggests books set in the place that you are about to visit. Isnt that a good idea! The link is Trip Fiction

Unlike the earlier books, which focused more on industrial espionage (Fatal Solution) or anarchist plots (Flames of Anarchy), Pagan Rite is much more atmospheric and eerie. Chard is a fantastic "fish out of water" here; he is a man of facts and evidence who is forced to navigate a world of "miracles" and mysticism to find a very human killer. 

• Selected Quotes...

The tiny pistol’s hammer made a gentle click as it was cocked and placed against skin and bone. A crack, no louder than the sound of a snapped twig went unheard as the bullet found it’s mark…… then oblivion ………… at least for a while……

he’s a simple-minded soul, but pretty. It was her sixteenth birthday and fruit ripe for the plucking.’ ‘A chip off the old block!’ laughed the magistrate.

‘She asked about someone, and I consulted the cards. It was this one,’ said Sibylline, turning over the one in her hand, ‘the ten of swords.’ Chard looked at the image of a figure lying on the ground, pierced by blades, and felt a shiver through his spine.

Bugger won’t talk, despite walking into the wall a few times.’ ‘You know I don’t approve of prisoners having “accidental” injuries,’ admonished the inspector. ‘But as he’s a lying bastard of a killer, I’ll let it pass, just this once.

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