I Claudius by Robert Graves

 

Rating 5⭐s

416 pages

First published 1934

You can buy I, Claudius...here

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

• The Blurb...

Despised for his weakness and regarded by his family as little more than a stammering fool, the nobleman Claudius quietly survives the bloody purges and mounting cruelty of the imperial Roman dynasties. In I, Claudius he watches from the sidelines to record the reigns of its emperors: from the wise Augustus and his villainous wife Livia to the sadistic Tiberius and the insane excesses of Caligula. Written in the form of Claudius' autobiography, this is the first part of Robert Graves's brilliant account of the madness and debauchery of ancient Rome.

With an introduction by Barry Unsworth

• Our Review...

Claudius was born into a great family. A descendant of both Julius Caeser and Mark Anthony but alas he was lame, partially deaf and with a stammer. However his curse was also his blessing. Because of his failings he was never seen as a potential contender for the title of Roman Emperor, however due to his family connections he was always in the room. His calling was to be an historian, which puts him in the perfect position for the author to choose him to be our "unreliable" author. The historical record is correct, the names, dates and battles are correct. The only point of conjecture is what the characters thought and felt, and the author conjures up the characters with such tone and personality as to become very real to the reader.

Thus we learn all the court intrigues through three generations of Roman Emperors. Augustus the practical one, Tiberius the depraved one and Caligula the absolutely bonkers one.

We see through Claudius's eyes the life and times of Imperial Rome. There are orgies, and gladiators and plots and depravity. The body count is huge and all through the decades Its feels like we are being given all the gossip from the most powerful family in the world by our mate who is telling us all this over a pint at the pub. 

My favourite character is Livia, Claudius's scheming grandmother. From now on whenever I see a debate about the most evil female character in literary fiction on social media, I am going to throw Livia's hat into the ring. She is the ultimate wrong 'un. For me she takes the crown from Cruella Deville by knock out in the first round. No spoilers, I will let you uncover her wicked ways for yourself.

I must mention the BBC adaption for TV in the 1970s, with a stellar cast of Derek Jacobi, Sian Phillips, John Hurt, Patrick Stewart, Bernard Hill, Peter Bowles, Kevin McInally. It was a wonderful production. I'm afraid that the BBC couldn't do something similar today. But no matter how good the TV show, the book was still better. 

Yes it is 2000 year old history and there are some instances where it is very apparent that this is a very, very different society to todays. However for the vast majority of the tale, the reader feels very "in the moment." Imagine a Tory government cabinet member from in 2010 and the glorious rise to power to the scandal riddled collapse and chaos of 2024. Now imagine this intelligent and eloquent but non descript cabinet member telling you everything that went on from the affairs, scandals and powers grabs. All this from someone who was actually in the room when the big stuff happened. That's how up to date this still feels. Human emotions never get outdated they are timeless.

If you look at the "If you liked this, then you may like..." section you will see that I have recommended Wolf Hall set in the Tudor area of England and The Godfather set in the 1950s of New York. Not very much like Rome AD34 you say? Yes but the politics of family, time, dynasty, power, money and death are very much the same.  There is a reason why Hilary Mantel loves this book. It is basically Wolf Hall set 1500 years earlier.

I first read this book as a 16 yr old studying for my Classical Studies O level. Yes I am that old. This book along with The Iliad and to a lesser extent the Odyssey fired my passion for reading in general and the classical period in particular.

Loved it then. Love it still.

• Selected Quotes...

I, Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus this-that-and-the-other (for I shall not trouble you yet with all my titles), who was once, and not so long ago either, known to my friends and relatives and associates as ‘Claudius the Idiot’, or ‘That Claudius’, or ‘Claudius the Stammerer’, or ‘Clau-Clau-Claudius’, or at best as ‘Poor Uncle Claudius’, A.D. 41 am now about to write this strange history of my life; starting from my earliest childhood and continuing year by year until I reach the fateful point of change where, some eight years ago, at the age of fifty-one, I suddenly found myself caught in what I may call the ‘golden predicament’ from which I have never since become disentangled.

Augustus ruled the world, but Livia ruled Augustus.

Most women are inclined to set a modest limit to their ambitions; a few rare ones set a bold limit. But Livia was unique in setting no limit at all to hers,

The gift of independence once granted cannot be lightly taken away again.

He was always boasting of his ancestors, as stupid people do who are aware that they have done nothing themselves to boast about.

To use the majesty of the law for revenging any petty act of private spite is to make a public confession of weakness, cowardice, and an ignoble spirit.

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

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantell

Imperium by Robert Harris

The Godfather by Mario Puzo

• About The Author...

Robert Graves (1895-1985) was an English poet, translator, and novelist, one of the leading English men of letters in the twentieth century. He fought in World War I and won international acclaim in 1929 with the publication of his memoir of the First World War, Good-bye to All That. After the war, he was granted a classical scholarship at Oxford and subsequently went to Egypt as the first professor of English at the University of Cairo. He is most noted for his series of novels about the Roman emperor Claudius and his works on mythology, such as The White Goddess.

Blood On The Broadcast by S.D.W. Hamilton

 

Rating 3.5⭐s

318 pages

You can buy Blood On The Broadcast...here

You can find out more about SDW Hamilton...here

The Blurb...

A Locked Room. An Improbable Murder.

When Private Investigator Jacob Kincaid is approached by mystery podcaster Natalie Amato, he senses a case that matters may have finally fallen across his desk.

The former journalist hires Jacob to investigate the death of a colleague, convinced what was initially written off by police as an accident, was actually murder.

With an unlikely crime and a cult of Ireland’s elite watching from the shadows, Jacob must navigate an increasingly deadly case to get the answers he needs and where every new truth uncovered puts his life, and Natalie's, at risk.

Our Review...

While writing this review I have decided to include a spoiler (well sort of ish) Dont worry before you come to it I will announce it red letters so you have the opportunity to either carry on or look away. 

Set in Northern Ireland. The story focuses on Jacob Kincaid an ex-police officer drummed out of the force for reasons unknown. Now down on his luck he is running a one man (with a secretary) sleazy private investigator business. He is hired by a female, podcast journalist to investigate the death of her colleague who was found dead in a totally locked room after an apparent drunken slip and fall.  At the time she was investigating a shadowy but highly influential cult in Northen Irish society. Add in ex boyfriends, other podcast colleagues, unloving wealthy father, scheming brother and a murky MI5 agent and the gangs all here.

The Northen Ireland (N.I.) setting is interesting with little nods to the past and some colloquialisms. I haven't heard the term Peelers since I was a kid and I still don't know what "hoking" is despite trying to look it up, but the location was a plus. The only downside here was that the author does, I feel, get dragged into too many road names and routes eg.

They came off the motorway at Stockman’s Lane and took Kennedy Way up to the Andersonstown Road,

in the centre lane through Dunbar Link onto Great Patrick Street and saw Natalie follow the road towards the M3 and her home in the East of the city.

through town and onto the M2 motorway. It was only a short distance before they exited and turned into the Harbour estate, following the road down into Sailortown.

circled back onto the M2, following the road until it merged with the M5. As they exited the motorway

crossed back through Writer’s Square. Instead of continuing across the road to Talbot Street, she took a right, heading along Donegall Street.

While reading, these instances of specific directions took my head out the narrative. If you are familiar with N.I. then I am sure it all adds to the ambience. However I feel for an audience not familiar with N.I. a generic description would suffice. 

 As a reviewer one of the prompts i set is "ask the main question." In this case the main question was not Whodunnit? but how they committed murder in a locked room. This question is consistently teased through out the story. More of this later.

The road directions/names thing aside., the writing is simple and concise as befits the breathless pace of the story. The writer did keep me turning the page with the several action sequences including fights, car chases and even even a bit of arson thrown in. It reminded me of the Alaistair McClean stories I used to love as a teenager. This is clearly a strong point for the author.  

This is the author's first novel and as such augers well for a future writing pacy thrillers.

SPOILER (sort of ish) 

As I have stated earlier, the main question asked was how do you commit a murder in a locked room. Again as stated earlier this question was highlighted a number of times through out the texts thereby raising the stakes continually. When the payoff was finally revealed the scenario that kept popping into my head was "Kobayashi Maru" from Star Trek. Where Kirk is confronted with the ultimate no win scenario in a battle situation simulation. No one has ever passed this test but Kirk wins a commendation for his approach to the problem. What does he do? he breaks in the night before and changes the programming of the simulation so what is billed as a " no win situation" isn't really a "no win situation." I remember feeling a little let down by this "cop out." If you are advertising a no win situation then that is what the viewer, wants to see. Similarly in our case the locked room 

mystery isn't really a locked room. You want to see it solved by ingenious but potentially possible methods (some were even suggested in the text) rather than changing the parameters of the security of the locked room. 

As i am writing this it feels a bigger issue than it actually was.. It feels that I may be making mountains out of molehills. and this is a "just me then" issue. I feel It just would have added a little more to what was a very good, engaging first novel.

Selected Quotes..

Old suspicions died hard in Belfast. It was the third time in the last hour Jacob had noticed the twitching of the curtain in the upstairs bedroom. Belfast’s housing estates were still divided by ancient grudges and on a street like this, memories lingered and a stranger in a strange car stood out.

Half an hour ago he had thought the investigation was nothing more than him pissing in the wind. Now, a slow shiver crept up his spine. Not fear, but excitement. It had been a once familiar sensation. The anticipation that came with a sudden crack in an investigation, a previously unseen avenue opening up,

The man was on him. Small and junkie thin,

“And you think they’re capable of murder?” “Any religion is capable of murder. Anyone from here knows that well enough.”

He had read once that coincidence was the word used when you couldn’t see the levers and pulleys.

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

Country by Michael Hughes

Divorcing Jack by Colin Bateman

Fear is the Key by Alastair McClean

About The Author...

S.D.W Hamilton is a writer from the North Coast of Northern Ireland. 

His debut novel, Blood on The Broadcast, a crime and mystery thriller set in Belfast, released in February 2024.

He has also recently completed his first foray into the Young Adult genre with a mystery novel titled Our Strange Town, and is currently working on the sequel to Blood On The Broadcast.

His writing can also be found in CrimeBits and over at Punk Noir Press.

When not writing, he geeks out over video games and most things Star Wars related.

He lives with his wife, daughter, son, and two doggos in Belfast.

The Gathering Storm by Alan Jones

 

Rating 5⭐s

You can buy The Gathering Storm..here

You can find out more about Alan Jones...here

The Blurb...

The Gathering Storm: Book 1 in the Sturmtaucher Trilogy, a powerful and compelling story of two families torn apart by evil.

Kiel, Northern Germany, 1933. A naval city, the base for the German Baltic fleet, and the centre for German sailing, the venue for the upcoming Olympic regatta in 1936.

The Kästners, a prominent Military family, are part of the fabric of the city, and its social, naval and yachting circles. The Nussbaums are the second generation of their family to be in service with the Kästners as domestic staff, but the two households have a closer bond than most.

As Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist Party claw their way to power in 1933, life has never looked better for families like the Kästners. There is only one problem.

The Nussbaums are Jews.

The Sturmtaucher Trilogy documents the devastating effect on both families of the Nazis’ hateful ideology and the insidious erosion of the rights of Germany's Jews.

When Germany descends ever deeper into dictatorship, General Erich Kästner tries desperately to protect his employees, and to spirit them to safety.

As the country tears itself apart, the darkness which envelops a nation threatens not only to destroy two families, but to plunge an entire continent into war.’

Our Review...

This is a heart rending cautionary tale of politics gone wrong. It tells the tale of Eric (played in my head by Curt Jurgens!) and Yosef. Childhood friends who saw out the first world war in action together. Now Erich is a General working for German military intelligence and Yosef is his domestic help/driver. However its 1933 in Kiel. Yosef and his family are jewish but not fervently so. This is the first part of a trilogy that encompasses 1933-1945 in total.

We meet both sets of families. Erich's two sons progress from the compulsory Hitler Youth into the Army. Franz honourable and thoughtful like his father, Johann a womanising hot head. We also meet Erich's wife Maria, desperate to be a leading socialite and accepted by the aristocracy. To this end she is seeking a high society match for her oldest daughter.

Yosef's family is less aspirational. His wife is the Kastner's cook. They along with their children live with them in a small servants house on the Kastner's estate.

So now the scene is set we follow the slow, inexorable rising tide of the nazi party.  With each new law, diktat and convention the pressure builds a little more. Step by small step the tension continually ramps up. until it is unbearable. Yosef's family's freedoms and rights are eroded, the thugs both in brown/black shirts and in civilian garb get a little louder and a little closer. How can Yosef protect them without being taken to the camps as a criminal. What can Erich do with being denounced as a traitor. 

This is in part a epistolary novel. The writer is very clever in using telegrams between military intelligence departments and letters between Jewish friends to increase the temperature without telling you that he is increasing the temperature dial. 

Often you see two questions posed about WW2 and the nazis. 

1. How did the German people just go along with the race hatred policies of the nazis?

2. Why didn't the Jewish population do something about it?

If you read this book, it transfers into you by osmosis into the feel of the time and place, you will understand how both these situations occurred. And it is truly horrific and a scenario that one can see playing out around us in populist politics today. 

Any negative things about this book? It felt heavy, serious and important. Although given the subject matter there was no way around this. It was never going to be rainbows and lollipops although perhaps it could have been a little shorter.

However this does not deflect from an excellent book. You really feel for the characters and it's heartbreaking that you now whats coming while they don't.

Like being with a friend who you know has a terminal illness but he is oblivious to it.. This book should be studied in schools in History or English classes to see how media manipulation can lead to societal control. Read this as history and then read 1984 to see the next evolution. 

The research is amazing and the reader would do well to read the appendages to appreciate this mammoth 5 year undertaking.

This is a tour de force and I can give it no higher praise than to say it could be a "Schindler's List" prequel.

Selected Quotes...

The thing is, Yosef, people are disillusioned. Unemployment is soaring, living conditions are worse than ever and our politicians are indecisive and do nothing but bicker and prevaricate. We are being bled dry and treated as pariahs by the rest of the world and our armed forces are emasculated. Is it any wonder that people see him as some sort of saviour?’

We went from a democracy to a dictatorship in a few short months, without so much as a whimper.’ ‘Because deep down, the German people don’t really like us, and if we’re the price they pay for putting Germany back on the world stage, they’ll give him anything.’

He paused again, looking around at the faces of people desperate for guidance, both temporal and spiritual. ‘I am leaving Germany with reluctance because, until recently, I regarded myself as German, and I loved this country. If it were just our leaders who were trying to impose their anti-Semitic views on the nation, I could live with that. But the German people; not all of them, but a significant proportion of them, are embracing those views and, in my view, it can only get worse.’

She gave him a worried smile. ‘You too? It’s getting to the stage when I think everyone is looking at me.’ ‘Maybe we’re just overthinking it all. Surely everyone hasn’t become Jew-haters overnight?’ ‘Maybe they’ve always hated us, but only now do they feel they can show it.’

the alcohol slowly glued the group together, and loosened their tongues,

wasn’t the National Socialists or the government who threw the bricks and lit the fires of Kristallnacht, although they stood back and let it happen. It was the German people who smashed and burned our homes, shops and synagogues.’

Memo: Geh.KdoS. ABW 31/08/39 CAC0842.1 For Attention Only: General Erich Kästner, Abwehr, Kiel office, Abwehr. From: Vice Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, Chef der Abwer

The British fleet has mobilised; all leave has been cancelled and all naval ships have been made ready to go to sea. [END]

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

The Unwanted Dead by Chris Lloyd

The Nightingale by Kristen Hannah

Living With The Enemy by Jack Higgins

About the author...

Alan Jones is a Scottish author with three gritty crime stories to his name, the first two set in Glasgow, the third one based in London. He has now switched genres, and his WW2 trilogy was published in the second half of 2021. It is a Holocaust story set in Northern Germany.

He is married with four grown up children and six wonderful grandchildren.

He retired in 2020 as a mixed-practice vet in a small Scottish coastal town in Ayrshire and is one of the RNLI volunteer coxswains on the local lifeboat. He makes furniture in his spare time, and maintains and sails a 45-year-old yacht in the Irish Sea and on the beautiful west coast of Scotland. He loves reading, watching films and cooking. He still plays football despite being just the wrong side of sixty.

His crime novels are not for the faint-hearted, with some strong language, violence, and various degrees of sexual content. The first two books also contain a fair smattering of Glasgow slang.

He is one of the few self-published authors to be given a panel at Bloody Scotland and has done two pop-up book launches at the festival in Stirling.

He spent five years researching and writing the Sturmtaucher Trilogy.