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A good action story

20/5/2022

Low Flying
by John Reynolds

This is a fast-paced, exciting book, involving Matt, a flying student, Jason, his instructor and Fleur an older but very attractive woman. Jason is involved in drug smuggling, using his aviation skills, and his contacts in the aviation world, to fly drugs into New Zealand from Australia via Lord Howe Island, landing in Northland at a private airstrip.
Things get complicated when Zhukov, a Russian crime boss, who was forced to flee Russia, uses his henchmen to muscle in on Jason’s smuggling; he is brutal, savage, and not afraid to use kidnapping or even murder to get his way.
The story reads well, and I could easily picture in my mind the Auckland location, and the action that takes place in it.
Some of the action scenes stretch the reader’s imagination, and echo a James Bond movie in that regard. Add to that several unexpected twists to the plot, and the whole can certainly not be regarded as boring or slow.
The author has obviously had an involvement with the private aviation scene, and has a knowledge of Russia and its people. It was a real co-incidence that I read the book just as the invasion of Ukraine was taking place.
I can recommend the book to anyone who likes a good action story, with a satisfactory ending.

Review by Harold Bernard

Title: Low Flying
Author: John Reynolds
Publisher: Starblaze Publications
ISBN: 978-0-473-55150-6
RRP: $15
Available: Print & eBook via Amazon
Print: tinyurl.com/y3azfvkn
Audiobook: audible.com or kobo.com
Or enquiries from author at [email protected]

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Novel a memoir of an era

12/5/2022

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Unholy Business
by Nora West

This part-memoir, part-novel work of 57,000 words in 164 pages very neatly encapsulates a world that was dying in 1963, the year of its setting.
Through its superbly-produced and edited pages come echoes of a public-school world redolent in its regulations, dormitory life, dining halls and pastoral constraints, of the Fifth Form at St Dominics or even Billy Bunter’s Greyfriars. It was an age when traditional boarding schools were as much on the way out as was the society of which they were a rite of passage; an age when Mantovani had already been displaced by those products of the local grammar schools, the Rolling Stones,
Alice, the child of a convoluted and complex family tree, is the central character and Head Girl-elect of The Pines School in Hove, East Sussex, who began her public-school journey at the age of eight because that was the sort of thing expected of her social class. The author is adept at creating atmosphere; something cleverly underlined by her evocation of a traditional English countryside complete with traditional village, traditional ‘Home Farm’ and traditional family retainers. And yes, Quentin drives a Rolls...
Further to this, her use of alternating present and past tenses reinforces the constraints surrounding a now seventeen-year-old Alice on the brink of womanhood yet still requiring the nurturance and safety-net provided by these constraints. This situation is beautifully represented by the illustration of young chicks cradled in supporting hands that twice form part of the front matter of the book. In itself this motif provides a well-turned double entendre as Alice’s wealthy father is so because of his poultry empire.
Alice’s mother, Sylvia, is a well-bred, neglected and somewhat narcissistic woman who apes her pretty daughter and dresses to match. Her husband, Quentin, is double-crossing her with his new secretary and this alerts us to the fact that, in many ways, Quentin definitely has an eye to the main chance. This is underlined not only by the vaguely-drawn and understated business venture in which he becomes involved with a consortium of Italian businessmen and the Vatican, but also by the determined way in which he thrusts Alice into the proximity of a sinister and lecherous cardinal who represents the Vatican’s interests in the business venture.
This leads the reader to wonder whether or not Quentin is prepared to prostitute his daughter to the success of the venture. Would he go that far? This reviewer vacillated between yes, demonstrably, because he is quite ready to betray Sylvia and embezzle money, and no, because Alice is “Daddy’s girl”. The reader is urged to decide for oneself...
After her Roman holiday and what might be regarded as a near escape, Alice is quite glad to put up with irritating convention and restriction in order to return to the settled serenity and ordered calm of her boarding school.
The plot of ‘Unholy Business’ hangs well because of what the work is: a memoir of an era that, like the ocean liner, was passing inexorably. Because of this and its focus upon a year in the life of a part-child and part-woman, the plot is necessarily somewhat slow. But all is, comfortingly, in order—the chick is safe in the hands of her supports; the villains get their lumps, truth will out and justice is seen to be done. To that extent, the worlds, morals and themes of Greyfriars, St Dominics and Rugby schools triumph again!

Review by M J Burr

Title: Unholy Business
Author: Nora West
Publisher: Kororā Press
ISBN: 9780473621179
RRP: $28
Available: bookshops

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Much to appeal to young readers

2/5/2022

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Flip Flop Bay, Elastic Island Adventures
by Karen McMillan

This is the sixth title in the Elastic Island Adventures series. I’ve read a couple of the previous five and am glad to see they are still coming.
Four main characters, two girls two boys, aged to correspond to the target readership of 8-12, are accompanied by two animal companions – a cat and dog with extra-special talents and appeal.
This time they are joined by an ice-cream-making and poetry-making parrot, and several other larger-than-life characters.
The magical elastic island that has taken the children on other fun adventures, this time transports them from their home in Browns Bay to a place largely inhabited by blue-footed boobies, one of which is the mayor of Flip Flop Bay.
But all is not fun on the day the companions visit, as a pirate ship sails into the harbour. They have met Captain Crook before. He is dastardly, dangerous, and a mean dufus. Once he is dealt with, things lighten up with the arrival of a crown-wearing king, a sarong-clad queen, quokkas, frivals, and lashings of ice-cream.
So, Flip Flop Bay has all the elements likely to appeal to young readers.
They’ll find the language clear and suited to their age group. And the formatting is appropriately informal and quirky.
Best of all, parents don’t get a mention.

Review by Emily R

Editor’s note: Other books in the series have been reviewed by FlaxFlower.
See July 2018, June 2019, June 2020.

Title: Flip Flop Bay – Elastic Island Adventures
Author: Karen McMillan
Publisher: Duckling Publishing
ISBN: 9780473616151
RRP: $19.99
Available: bookshops

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A good action story

Novel a memoir of an era

Much to appeal to young readers

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