New books for July

Here are a few books that I bought last Thursday and am looking forward to reading over the next few weeks.

First of all Gerald Seymour's new novel The Dealer and the Dead has just been published in hardback in the UK. I've been reading Seymour since 1987 and he's my favourite author currently writing, so his new novel is always something I look forward to.

This new book deals with a hit-man being sent after an arms dealer who never delivered weapons to a Croatian village that was under siege during the civil war in the 1990s.


Next up is the new Robert Harris paperback, Lustrum. As with a previous novel, Imperium, the book is set in ancient Rome and takes the form of a fictional biography of Cicero. Put like that it sounds quite boring but Harris can make anything exciting and is great at describing his characters.


Finally there's the new 800 page plus door-stopper from Stephen King, Under the Dome. This books deals with a mysterious barrier appearing around a small town that cuts it off from the outside world. (I know at least one other novel that dealt with a similar set-up, All Flesh is Grasss by Clifford D Simak.)

The UK publisher has the gimmick of a "limited edition" set of different covers, four of which are shown below. I think there is at least one other that I have not seen online yet. I went for the "young woman" cover oddly enough, although the "old man" cover is growing on me!

Robert Harris reissues

Every time a new Robert Harris book comes out it's a bit of an event for his publishers because they always reissue his previous books with new covers. Lustrum, the second of his Roman "trilogy", is just out in hardback so the previous novels have all received a make-over.

This time the paperbacks have also been increased to the larger format that is now prevalent and the cover design matches the "silhouette" design on the paperback of his last novel, The Ghost.

Here are the covers of the six paperbacks. Notice how little silhouette men find their way into the book titles!


And here is the hardback cover of Lustrum. Notice that there are no little silhouette Romans on that cover.


I think I like the cover of Enigma best.

And here are my quick thoughts on some of the books.

Fatherland was an excellent "what if" novel about life in Nazi German in the 1960s.

Enigma was one of the best WW2 novels I have read.

Archangel was an entertaining look at post-Soviet Russia and was made into a BBC drama featuring a pre-Bond Daniel Craig.

The Ghost has been in the news lately due to the incarceration of the film adaptation's director, Roman Polanski. The movie was due out next year.