Secrets of the Fire Sea by Stephen Hunt, my comments

I've spent the last number of days reading Secrets of the Fire Sea by Stephen Hunt. This is the latest in his series set in a alternate/future steampunk world. I was a big fan of the previous books in the series so I was looking forward to this one.

While the other books included voyages into dangerous foreign lands a lot of the action took place in the Kingdom of Jackals (imagine a version of 19th Century Britain with an aerial navy). Fire Sea in contrast takes place almost entirely on the island of Jago, a volcanic isle inside the arctic circle that is habitable because a civilization developed around the generation of electricity from geothermal energy.

But the human population on Jago is decreasing and now the only city left inhabited is the underground Hermetica City where humans depend on the mercenary army of ursine soldiers to protect them The ursine are a large bear-like people who as it happens have their own claim on the island.

Into the mix is Hannah Conquest, a student at the Circlist cathedral in Jago. Her parents were killed years before after stumbling across a dangerous secret and now Hannah finds herself having to find out what the secret is if she is to survive.

As usual we have a number of imaginative companions for her adventure such as a detective from Jackals and his steamman friend Boxiron. Also returning from the previous books is u-boat commander Commodore Black who once again finds himself in wicked trouble.

Another entertaining adventure, I look forward to the next one.

Gerald Seymour's The Dealer and the Dead blurb

Amazon UK now have a short blurb for Gerald Seymout's next novel, The Dealer and the Dead...

Eighteen years after the barbarous war with the Serbs that tore their communities apart, a group of Croatian villagers discover the identity of the Englishman who they believe betrayed them by welching on a deal to supply arms.

With revenge in sight at last, they hire a professional killer from London to track him down . . . but is the story as simple as they think?

A brilliant, bruising thriller, told in a unique way, about what happens when the hand of the past suddenly reaches out to the present - and is holding a gun.

Source: www.amazon.co.uk

The Spy by Clive Cussler and Justin Scott

Amazon UK now have the cover image and blurb for The Spy , the third book in the Isaac Bell series by Clive Cussler and Justin Scott. As I have mentioned before Justin Scott is one of my favourite authors and this one looks interesting.



Here's the blurb.

It is 1908, and international tensions are mounting as the world plunges towards war. When a brilliant American battleship gun designer dies in an apparent suicide, the man’s grief-stricken daughter turns to the legendary Van Dorn Detective Agency to clear her father’s name. Van Dorn puts his chief investigator on the case, and Isaac Bell soon realizes that the clues point not to suicide, but to murder. When more suspicious deaths follow, it becomes clear that someone—an elusive spy—is orchestrating the destruction of America’s brightest technological minds . . . and the murders all connect to a top-secret project called Hull 44. As the intrigue deepens, Bell finds himself pitted against German, Japanese, and British spies, in a mission that encompasses dreadnaught battleships, Teddy Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet, Chinatown, Hell’s Kitchen, and the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Isaac Bell has certainly faced perilous situations before, but this time it is more than the future of his country that’s at stake — it’s the fate of the world.

That reminds me a little bit of Scott's Normandie Triangle (aka The Man Who Loved the Normande) which featured spying and sabotage in New York during World War II.

Here's the link to the book on www.amazon.co.uk.

The book is due on 24 June 2010.