Charles Beaumont (1929–1967)

This is a collection of short fiction by a man who was a very prolific writer of the 1950s and also involved in iconic TV shows such as The Twilight Zone. As the introduction by his friend Ray Bradbury makes clear, he was very much an ideas writer and his fiction does not usually develop characters particularly, with a lot of the characters being rather unpleasant. Possibly this is why quite a few of the stories didn't make much impression or I wasn't keen although some are quite vividly written, such as one about a futuristic city built in what had previously been the jungle home of tribespeople.

The best in my opinion is one about a priest who is asked to go to the house of a dying friend and the challenging conversation which ensues. That story had some emotional impact, and the ending was quite touching. So on balance I would rate this as a 3 star read.… (mer)

Děj se odehrává na malém jižanském městečku, jehož klidný život je narušen příchodem mladého fašisty, snažícího se zorganizovat odpor obyvatelstva proti novému zákonu a proti černochům. Jeho činnost a otevřené hlásání rasistických myšlenek vyburcuje obyvatele městečka z jejich poklidné lhostejnosti a přivádí je k rozhodnému postoji proti němu. Přes četná umělecky slabší místa je román velmi důležitým i zajímavým dokumentem mentality amerického obyvatelstva.… (mer)

‘Ware the warlords of our modern times!

Slow start to what becomes a rather compelling story of international intrigue, based mainly on Russian oligarch connections.
Simon Sharmon is our key player, an ex Oxford man, ex intelligence officer who’s operating freelance now.
An acquaintance, Marcus Peebles, employs Simon to look into a mid level oligarch Georgy Sidorov, with reference to an endowerment to Sharmon’s Oxford College, especially at this time of the war in Ukraine.
The action switches between Simon’s Oxford student days, the late nineties and early 2000’s to the mid 2000’s—from Ukraine and Crimea, to the present.
By the end I’m feeling totally paranoid, haunted by the vision of a net of various intelligence agents and investigators from a variety of countries crisscrossing the United Kingdom like one of those diagrams of millions of interconnecting internet webs. Only to my mind they’re spiders webs spinning out of control in the underbelly of our world. Grrr! But who or what’s at the center?
Brexit comes in for a drubbing. Apparently forces were at work to make it happen, leaving Europe vulnerable and open to being ravaged by the Russian Bear. Or is it just the oligarchs and powerful corporations hiding their activities behind various shell companies? If I wasn’t paranoid before with the rise of populism, the spread of international drug lords, human trafficking, the craziness of Putin and his cronies, Britain isolating itself—then I am now. I could be wearing an al foil hat soon!
The question of was there an Oxford spy ring to equal the Cambridge fifties one of Blunt et.al. resonates and Simon’s investigations uncover so much more. Simon’s digging opens up a minefield of boggling possibilities.
An exciting thriller, seemly all too accurate, that left me breathless in its magnitude.
The fact that it’s written by an ex intelligence officer sends cold shivers down my spine.
Beaumont’s certainly up there with my favorite spy writers. The mind games of Le Carré are recalled.

A Canelo ARC via NetGalley.
Many thanks to the author and publisher.… (mer)

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley.

Simon, a former spy, is employed to investigate a Russian oligarch who apparently wants to make a substantial donation to an Oxford college, but in doing so, he uncovers evidence that a Russian spy ring may have been active at Oxford for decades. I enjoyed this and read it quickly, although there was quite a lot of complex information about Russia and Ukraine and economics and politics and history (sometimes helpfully explained by one character to another) and some of this went a bit over my head.

I thought the author did a good job of keeping the reader unsure of who Simon could trust. I loved the parts set in Oxford and the mention of my old college, and enjoyed all the spycraft - I'm always going to look at the shoes of people I think might be following me from now on. I found it flowed much better once the flashbacks were over and we were settled in 2022. I didn't really buy into the attraction Simon and Sarah were apparently feeling for one another and I found the ending depressing, although I am sure it was realistic.… (mer)