Phillip Hunter

‘”I have a compulsion to summon everyone to the library and explain the plot.”
“We don’t have a library,” Martha said.’

You know what? I really enjoyed this addition to the period-crime-novel genre that is exploding just now. OK, it’s not going to win the Booker or the Costa, but it is what it is, and Phillip Hunter has produced a fun, fast-paced crime thriller with enough larger-than-life characters to make a whole series of books featuring our married couple of Martha and Max Dalton. There are flaws (more of them later) but, on the whole, this ticked most of the boxes that you would expect.

Max is a sometime journalist from lowly background, married to wealthy Martha (and whose parents disapprove of their son-in-law). Max is drawn into a plot whereby members of his former platoon from the First World War are being killed, and he quickly becomes a suspect. As the plot develops it takes in secrets and betrayal from the Great War and, being set in 1937, the looming catastrophe that was the Second World War as Hitler and his policies are starting to become clear to many in Britain. Indeed, in somewhat convoluted ways, the figure of Winston Churchill appears in the book. There are plenty motifs of the classic crime genre on offer: a couple of (seemingly) plodding policemen who, it turns out, are actually good eggs; the maid Flora and her boyfriend Eric; Nazi spies and secrets; a car chase; an escape from a train…. The author is savvy enough to name-drop Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, and there is a running joke about the characters from the film The Thin Man (and also a mention of The Thirty-nine Steps). The general tone is upbeat, often comical – and I can see why this might grate with some readers, given the very serious themes with which the book deals. But that is also part of its charm – this is a light, dare I say it ‘cozy’ (urgh, hate that word but you know what I mean) book. It doesn’t claim to be literary fiction, but it will amuse and pass a few hours of your time.

There are flaws: Martha’s continued inability to call their lawyer Mr Bacon by the correct name (Ham, Sausage, Onion…) becomes tiresome quite quickly, and the long-drawn out explanation of the plot at the end (in a pub, not the library as we have seen) is a bit complicated and confusing. There are several points throughout the book where the suspension of disbelief is at a premium, but what the heck – why not? The characters aren’t necessarily well-rounded but are enjoyable enough, and there are moments of seriousness (which may or may not jar with some readers), especially with Max’s memories of the Great War and the horrors which he witnessed.

Overall, yes, I would recommend it, and I am looking forward to more in the series. Flawed, yes, but a good old romp which has no illusions of grandeur. For what it is, 4 stars from me.

(With thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in return for an honest and unbiased review.)… (mehr)

Max is a freelance London journalist but his stories don't always make publication. He is particularly concerned about Hitler's rearmament of the Rhineland, and that a second World War is imminent. He meets up with a friend from the First War, Burton, but became too drunk to remember what Burton and he talked about. And now Burton has been found dead, and the police think Max has something to do with it.

Max manages to find out that Burton came up to London with another from their platoon and now both are dead.

The author has tried to recreate a Tommy and Tuppence feel to his characters Max and Martha, and even draws Winston Churchill into his plot.… (mehr)

To Fight For – Hard Boiled Crime Thriller

To Fight For by Phillip Hunter is a pulsating crime thriller run on adrenalin and revenge, powerful absolutely brutal but so engrossing, which follows on from his previous book To Kill For. This is a proper hard boiled crime thriller that has violence in most chapters. This shows the hard life when you live in the criminal world there is no romantic vision just the understanding live by the gun you will die by the gun and it will happen at some point. All this seen through the eyes of Joe are protagonist a hard man in a hard world we see his purview of the world and it is not very pretty.

Joe is a former British Falklands veteran who can still picture a young Argentine conscript who he killed during the war who visits him in his dreams. His life has turned in to worthless nothingness he is empty and lost everything who now carries out the dirty work of the London underworld, he is the hired hitman. He falls in love with Brenda a working girl on the hard streets the only person he has loved but she is murdered helping out others. Joe goes in to meltdown and swears revenge on all those that had a hand in her death.

Joe considers himself as the Angel of Death and those that come in to contact with him somehow always end up being killed. His body is trying to recover, from one to many boxing matches and street fights, his mind is leaking like a sieve and what he can remember is very patchy. But he can still see Brenda she is there with him he can hear her remembering the good times.

He is living with the washed out former GP, Browne who keeps patching Joe up on every occasion that he returns home as a walking medical disaster. Both have their secrets, Browne tends to keep his in the bottom of a whiskey bottle.

Joe is slowly tracking down those that had a hand in Brenda’s murder, those that betrayed her including the Police Officer who grassed her up. He knows that this will bring him in to contact with various Police Officers as well as other criminals all who want to see Joe dead and will try their best to kill him.

As Joe crashes his way around London, he knows what he has to do first before he lets his body shut down. It does not matter if he is hit; stabbed or shot he needs to do this he needs to continue. This really could be Joe’s last stand, just like when he was in the Falklands War, which keeps appearing in his dreams.

Once again Phillip Hunter has written a pacey crime thriller that hits all the right buttons for the fans of the genre. A fantastic character and the other criminals are even worse than Joe, he really is an anti-hero.… (mehr)

To Kill For – Revenge ain’t that Sweet

To Kill For by Phillip Hunter is a pulsating crime thriller run on adrenalin and revenge, powerful absolutely brutal but so engrossing. This is a proper hard boiled crime thriller that has violence in most chapters. This shows the hard life when you live in the criminal world there is no romantic vision just the understanding live by the gun you will die by the gun and it will happen at some point. All this seen through the eyes of Joe are protagonist a hard man in a hard world we see his purview of the world and it is not very pretty.

Joe is a former British Falklands veteran who can still picture a young Argentine conscript who he killed during the war who visits him in his dreams. His life has turned in to worthless nothingness he is empty and lost everything who now carries out the dirty work of the London underworld, he is the hired hitman. He falls in love with Brenda a working girl on the hard streets the only person he has loved but she is murdered helping out others. Joe goes in to meltdown and swears revenge on all those that had a hand in her death.

He takes out one crime boss at his casino and Kenny Paget is the man who murdered Brenda goes to ground. Joe does not care who gets in the way he swears revenge. As one crime boss wants him to find his missing heroin that Paget has stolen and who also wants to kill Paget. Another crime boss uses misdirect and a spy in the gang to try and double cross Joe and kill him using Albanians.

Bodies are dropping across London and the police do not have a clue except for a couple of undercover cops one of whom almost becomes collateral damage knowing the who and the what. Joe is hurt and crashing round London with concussion will he find Paget will he see the misdirection? Joe works things out somehow in the haze but whether he is able to gain revenge is a different matter.

To Kill For is a brilliant crime thriller that ticks all the boxes and delivers on all levels that leaves you breathless. Phillip Hunter has written an excellent thriller that draws the reader in and grabs them by the throat and does not release them until the end. This is a crime thriller that will leave you wanting more as a reader because you just do not want it to end. This book is everything the crime thriller reader wants.… (mehr)