Philip Boast

Back in the late 1990s/early 2000s, I read four books by Boast that were sort of deep history occult/religious thrillers set in and around London: Resurrection, Deus, Sion and Era. I really enjoyed them. But as far as I could discover, they were the only four books like that Boast had written (and Era, published in 2000, was his last). His other novels appeared to be historical fiction, also set in and around London. But recently I stumbled across mention of his first novel, The Assassinators, described as a straight-up thriller. So I found a cheap copy on eBay, bought it, and… Um, it’s not very good. The writing is pretty poor, in fact. A self-made millionaire decides the world is over-populated and it will lead to catastrophe in a decade or two. So there needs to be a cull – in fact, the UK’s population needs to be reduced to around thirty million. So he arranges to poison the water supply in Merton Regis, a south coast town mostly populated by OAPs (I think I’ve been there, but it was called Eastbourne; horrible place). The plan, of course, does not go as, er, planned. The thugs he hired to poison the water tank screw it up. They put the poison in successfully enough, but leave clues which lead back to the industrialist. Whose wife has also learnt of the plan and is against it, straining their already-strained marriage. Meanwhile, the industrialist has vivid dreams about a post-apocalyptic wasteland caused by a nucealr war brought on by his plans to cull the world population. The Assassinator is not a great book, and in places reads like it’s set much earlier than its publication date – by at least a decade or two. I still like Boast’s last four novels – and I ought to reread them one of these days – but this was an inauspicious start.… (mehr)

The Son of Heaven by Philip Boast. Only through the efforts of interlibrary loan was I able to find the second book in Boast’s series featuring Septimus Severus Quistus during the tumultuous days of Rome under Nero in the middle first century, but the extra effort was definitely worth it. Boast’s introduction of Quistus in “The Third Princess” took his hero to the western edge of the Empire and Britain, whereas this adventure heads east, all the way to China. The Asian imperial family is having problems of their own and the favored Prince Zhang, only twelve-years-old, has fled secretly all the way to Rome in an attempt to avoid the assassins hired by his rivals to the crown. However, a traitor still lurks within his entourage and so he must resort to asking assistance from a “barbaric” Roman to uncover his enemy. Zhang finds Quistus in disgrace, his name all but erased by the Emperor, but he agrees to help the prince. Nero, fearing that the unrest to the east will eventually lead to an invasion of Roman territory, recognizes that, despite his enmity for the man, he also needs Quistus and reluctantly sends him to guide the Chinese prince back to the safety of his father’s capital city. Standing in their way is a Hun army and pursuing them are the Golden Head assassins.
Some may feel that the two stories are too similar as Quistus’s first mission for Nero was to guard the Christian princess Claudia on a peacekeeping journey to Britain. However, the details of each adventure are different and Boast does an excellent job keeping the pace of the story quite high and the variety of secondary characters, both Roman and Chinese, is also good. The interaction between the representatives of the two largest and vastly different empires in the world at that time also adds to the uniqueness of the book. Unfortunately, I had a strong inkling early on as to the traitor’s identity, which lessened the suspense level, but the danger the traveling group faces as they make their way across the miles and the creative ways that Quistus escapes every trap compensated for this flaw.
For another mystery featuring a Roman-Chinese combination, I recommend Paul Doherty’s “The Plague Lord,” set in China during the 13th century when Marco Polo was visiting the court of Kublai Khan.

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