‘Et tu Brute’ – these are the immortal words of Shakespeare, recounting the treacherous death of one of Rome’s greatest Emperors, Julius Caesar. This book, by Peter Stothard, is a historical novel, recounting the last days of Caesar and the Empire of Rome immediately after his death and how, to…
There is irony in this tale as Bill Browder was following in his grandfather’s footsteps in some ways but was also radically poles apart. Browder’s grandfather had stood for Presidential election in the USA on a Communist ticket. Bill Browder was drawn to business possibilities behind the Iron Curtain and…
View More Review: Red Notice – How I Became Putin’s No.1 Enemy – by Bill Browder
Frank Kane and his girlfriend, Sam, after their business was failing in the U.K. made the fateful decision to become cocaine drug couriers in Venezuela. Whilst attempting to fly out from the airport on Caribbean Island, Isla de Margarita, the airport authorities stopped and searched them and discovered the smuggled…
View More Review: In The Shadow of Papillon – Seven Years of Hell in Venezuela’s Prison System – by Frank Kane with John Tilsley
Roberto Saviano is the Italian Salman Rushdie. After writing his exposé on the Neapolitan mafia that is the subject of this book, Gomorrah, Saviano had serious death threats from organised crime and had to go into hiding and lives under security protection to this day. He is only a young…
View More Review: Gommorah – Italy’s Other Mafia – by Roberto Saviano
Graham Greene is a classic early twentieth century English novelist. I remember studying Brighton Rock for my school GCSEs.The Third Man is set in the murky underworld of post World War 2 Vienna. The Austrian capital has been quartered into four allied zones: English, French, American and Russian. A front…
View More Review: The Third Man and The Fallen Idol – by Graham Greene
Author, Norman Parker served a 24 year jail sentence for murder. On his release, wanting to experience life to the fullest, he took advantage of his writing skills to become a journalist for lads mags and the Daily Express and set about tackling the niche market of visiting dangerous places…
View More Review: Dangerous People, Dangerous Places – by Norman Parker
I read this book really quickly- it was enticing and a good tale. Gypsy Jane is something of a crazy phenomenon who rocked the London underworld with some pretty brutal firsthand tales. It didn’t take much for the Gran to pay a visit to any dissidents and she’d be brandishing…
View More Review: Gypsy Jane – by Jane Lee with David JarvisThis Mexican author, Elmer Mendoza, is about as vibrant a writer of fiction that I have encountered since Hemingway. A truly unique flowing style that is amazing to digest. The hero of the book is policeman Edgar ‘Lefty’ Mendieta. He is a drunken womaniser and the tale weaves in his…
View More Review: Silver Bullets – by Élmer Mendoza
When you see the title ‘The Cartel’ you might immediately imagine a book about Colombian or Mexican drug lords. Yet, this book covers a 30 year history of a homegrown cartel, based in Liverpool. Back in the 1970s a pioneering Fred the Rat grouped together his criminal comrades and they…
View More Review: The Cartel – The Inside Story of Britain’s Biggest Drugs Gang – by Graham JohnsonThis autobiographical account of Brit drug smuggler, Pieter Tritton, is a flowing, page-turning journey that documents his twelve years locked up in Ecuador’s notorious, corrupt and highly dangerous prison system. Tritton is already in trouble back in the UK where he is being sought by police for large scale international…
View More Review: El Infierno – Drugs, Gangs, Riots and Murder – My Time Inside Ecuador’s Toughest Prisons – by Pieter Tritton