The plot starts when an IRA bomb kills George’s brother Richard, a few other members of the Royal Family and the Prime Minister.  George is quite like Prince Henry in real life – a bigoted and flamboyant rich kid.  Now King, George has to cool the relationship he has had for a while with Rebel Fitzpatrick – a very successful Catholic American singer.

In this book George is a King more than usually involved in politics and frequently has talks with the Prime Minister Rupert Kitchener about various problems such as union strikes, and the complete evacuation of British troops and willing Protestants from Northern Ireland.

Various events such as getting stopped by a traffic policeman in Germany for speeding, getting into a barfight with members of an Irish sports team,  and an arrogant and racist confrontation with two black Americans in the military make this book full of twists and turns.  One event in this book that stands out is when George sneaks off to Northern Ireland unannounced and without security to join his old army mates.  Upon taking a ride in a tank… the group of tanks he is travelling with are attacked by the IRA using rocket propelled grenades.  Instead of shrinking away from the attack, the King commands his gunner to engage and kill the IRA members who come very close to killing him.

George eventually becomes interested and starts courting the Prime Minister’s daughter Anne.  After a while George marries Anne and she becomes the Queen.  The relationship is fraught by George’s emotional attachment to Rebel, and Anne’s insecurities about Rebel.  George commits adultery with Rebel and eventually makes her pregnant.  George convinces his long time friend Harry to publicly admit to being the father so that Anne doesn’t find out.

Eventually Anne does find out about George’s philandering which turns their marriage into one full of coldness and suspicion, and provokes her into doing something irrational which is eerily similar to an alleged incident that happened with Diana, Princess of Wales.

All in all this book I think is a remarkable insight into the minds and way of thinking of our real life Royal Family… right down to the ingrained bigoted view of England’s old school aristocracy regarding anyone who is not a WASP.

This is definitely an awesome read which I have done so numerous times and definitely reckon you should too.

Buy ‘Long Live the King’ by John Rowe from Amazon >>

One thing I liked about this book is that in this day and age, the chances of the United States of America having an Arab Muslim in their highly trained special forces ranks just doesn’t seem to be realistic.  However, Kyle Mills manages to write the story in a way that makes it believable.  You’d think that with the main character having an Arabic name the storyline would be about him being a spy for a country hostile to the United States like Iran or Syria – the plot is excellent and so is the car in it.  This is one of the ones you need to check out for real!

Synopsis:
A former Navy SEAL who speaks perfect Arabic, Salam al Fayed (a.k.a. “Fade”) had been one of the deadliest weapons in America’s arsenal – until a mission gone wrong put a bullet in his back, requiring risky surgery the government refused to pay for.

Embittered by a wound that could one day paralyze him, Fade isn’t exactly cooperative when Homeland Security insists on putting him back on the payroll. But they’re not taking “no” for an answer – and what is meant to be a foolproof deceptions turns into an explosive bloodbath.

It falls to an estranged friend of Fade’s named Matt Egan to clean up the mess made by his superiors. But it isn’t going to be easy – because Fade is gunning for the men who set him up. And Matt is at the top of the list…

Buy ‘Fade’ by Kyle Mills…

Edwin Kreiss is a retired FBI agent – a manhunter whose speciality is making rogue operatives disappear. When Kreiss’s daughter vanishes in the backwoods of rural West Virginia, and the FBI has no leads to follow, Kreiss follows his own – with a vengeance. Exercising the lethal maneuvers that made him the best “sweeper” in the business, Kreiss plunges back into action – this time as the dangerous loner he was once trained to kill.

Unknown to Kreiss, corrupt agency brass have their own reasons for keeping the kidnapping low-profile – and making the job of eliminating Kreiss high priority. Called in to take him down is a deadly female assassin with a killer instinct that surpasses that of her prey. Now, as hunter becomes hunted, Kreiss finds himself and his daughter trapped in an elaborate game of political scandal and personal revenge. And whatever secret has been buried by Kreiss’s elusive enemies is sure to trigger open season on anyone who discovers it.

This story has the ATF, FBI and CIA all mixed into one with enough techno and black ops to satisfy Clancy fans, back-pedaling internecine treachery to keep Carré fans reading and enough plot turns and suspense to keep Crichton and Higgins Clark devotees guessing.

Buy ‘Hunting Season’ by P.T. Deutermann from Amazon

My landlord in England had this in his vast collection of books, and I picked it up before I got on the aeroplane to give me something to read. Am I glad I did or what?

To understand ‘The Bluffer’s Guide to Espionage : Bluff Your Way into Espionage’ I think most people would need to be British. This book is full of that dry, sardonic sense of humour that you’d traditionally associate with educated upper classes. Having said that, I love this book! Of course, this was written back when Germany was still split into two nations.

For instance one passage in the first couple of pages in this book talks about international Intelligence service alliances which goes as follows…

‘Alliances
In the West, the basic alliances are between:
- the British and the Americans
- the Americans and the Israelis
- the British and the West Germans
- the West Germans and the Israelis
- the French and the French.
The French, unfortunately, are still suffering from the rumour that its DGSE agency effectively went freelance some years ago (and certainly there were times when it showed little sign of working for the French goverment or for France)…

…Overall, there is a general awkwardness felt by other agencies in dealing with the FBI, since so many FBI personnel are:
- accountants
- lawyers
- still reporting to J. Edgar Hoover.’

Phil Kimby has a smashing sense of humour and manages to convey it excellently as he makes fun of all the suppositions on espionage, pointing out various ridiculously funny but true aspects to real life espionage. I think what I liked about this book is that the author writes it in a way so subtle that he expects you to know when he’s being witty without making big punchlines.

Another passage in this book which I find hilarious goes as follows:

‘Bluffers should note that within specific ‘divisions’ of the world espionage league, it is impossible to show an overall champion, except perhaps Israel which remains the top intelligence and security team. Against that, it tends to play against weaker teams more often (i.e. the Arabs), although bluffers should also know that the KGB maintains an entire department targeted specifically against Israel, while the US is lumped together with Canada. (This rather annoys the Canadians, who resent being thought of as another American state. Informed sources suggest that the KGB have agreed to give Canada its own department in exchange for extra cod and salmon quotas for the Soviet fishing fleet.)

Both China and Japan find it a little difficult to spy on Warsaw Pact countries since they tend to stand out in a crowd. As a consequence, they have been forced to spend most of their time spying on:
a) each other
b) Korea
c) each other spying on Korea

In recognition of their own paranoia, the Koreans call their own agency the CIA. The official reason is that the letters KIA, as originally planned, and standing for Korean Intelligence Agency, also stand for Killed in Action.

All emerging nations (never say emerging from what) now see the possession of espionage and counter espionage agencies as being proof positive that they should be allowed the key to the executive washroom at the United Nations.’

I’ll say no more, and allow you to enjoy the book.

‘Buy Bluffer’s Guide to Espionage : Bluff Your Way in Espionage’ by Phil Kimby’

The story for K is set in 1940′s America, and is based around three main characters. British agent John Ridgeforth, Vice President David Stephenson, and his wife and Laura Stephenson.

During the Depression, America has voted in a fascist government. Charles Lindbergh is the hugely popular, but ailing President. His Vice President David Stephenson is the most powerful fascist in the country, and a thoroughly dangerous and evil man. As World War Two starts, America’s neutrality holds, but very thinly.

British intelligence can see that it won’t be long before President Lindbergh dies, and David Stephenson becomes President, making America join in the war, siding with Nazi Germany against Great Britain. Under the highest orders and greatest secrecy, Whitehall dispatch an agent to America to assassinate David Stephenson before he comes President.

Aided in secret by Stephenson’s wife Laura, John Ridgeforth becomes employed by David Stephenson as legal counsel to replace a former counsel who dies of a ‘freak accident’.

Concentration camps are set up all over the United States for blacks, gypsies, Jews, atheists and a slew of other groups of society. The Klu Klux Klan are shoved into a powerful position, given approval from the government and set up in many areas of public life. America becomes a prison for the ‘undesirables’, muchlike 1930′s Germany was for Jews and other minorities. Suspected enemies of the state are monitored by the dreaded Federal Bureau of Internal Security (FBIS) and its hardnose chief, J. Edgar Hoover. The Ku Klux Klan, whose members compose the core membership of the ruling AAA (Aryan American Alliance), rampages through the countryside, committing violence and murder with the full authority and assistance of the State.

Unbeknownst to Ridgeforth, Stephenson is already concocting a plan to assassinate Lindbergh. His co-conspirators, a concentration camp commandant named Jim Jackson, FBIS Chief Hoover, and a German diplomat named von Schillendorf, want Lindbergh eliminated before he discovers the secret alliance that has been made between German and American scientists for research on the atomic bomb. Stephenson has Lindbergh murdered, frames two Jewish prisoners and quickly is sworn in as President.

Stephenson invites Hitler to the US to witness the first test of the Nazi-Alliance atomic bomb in New Mexico. Delighted by the destructive force of the A-Bomb, Hitler is given even more to smile about when one of his US-based secret policemen provides him with proof that the President’s wife is a traitor, she’s been having an affair with a British agent, and Stephenson himself has been sexually abusing their daughter. Hitler confronts Stephenson with the evidence, radically shifting the balance-of-power between Nazi Germany and KKK Amerika.

This story is riveting and I absolutely loved it. This is another one that can be read over and over. Mostly whilst sitting on the toilet hahaha!

Buy ‘K’ by Daniel Easterman from Amazon

The story includes two main characters – FBI Agent Mark Beamon and former DEA Agent John Hobart. Secondary but very important figures are Colombian drug lord Luis Colombar, preacher Reverend Simon Blake, and Colombar’s lawyer Alejandro Perez.

The story starts out as DEA Agent John Hobart has a suspect in custody during an assignment. He uses torture, and physical brutality to glean information from this suspect. FBI Agent Mark Beamon walks in the middle of it, disgusts, and walks out with Hobart’s suspect under the train of Hobart’s pistol. The torture ends Hobart’s career.

The story then focuses on Reverend Blake, who is a preacher and the head of a financially successful church, disguised more like a corporate environment. His head of security is John Hobart. After one day finding out his child has experimented with drugs, Reverend Blake uses the vast funds from the Church’s accounts and orders John Hobart to hit back at the main drug suppliers to America.

Using those funds, John Hobart finds a chemical nerd and commissions him to find a deadly untraceable poison, with a time delayed reaction. Using the toxins of a mushroom found in Eastern Europe, John Hobart takes this poison to South America, where he uses an old buddy to find the main chemical plant manufacturing cocaine. Inserting the poison into the heavily guarded narcotics using an ingenious method, John Hobart successfully poisons all of the cocaine coming from the drug plant of Luis Colombar, destined for America.

Cocaine users in the U.S start dropping like flies in their hundreds. Then thousands start dying. Cocaine users simply keep dying and show no signs of stopping. Finding the perpetrator has become the FBI’s priority! Mark Beamon is put on the case. Aided partially by a Mafia boss from the Eastern U.S, the story definitely keeps the reader fascinated.

This books gives a realistic report on how things would transpire if someone did try to poison the American drug supply. It taps into that tiny hidden part of most good people who are fed up with crime, drug use and narcotic related murders, who secretly want all drug dealers and users dead, but would never actually do anything to make that happen.

I was fascinated by it… and have read this book three times in the last year. Buy ‘Rising Phoenix’ by Kyle Mills from Amazon.