#Blogtour #Review - Till Morning is Nigh by Robert Parker

Till Morning is Nigh (Ben Bracken, 4)
Robert Parker
Endeavour Media, 13 December 2019
e-book, 225pp

I'm grateful to the publisher for an ARC of Till Morning is Nigh and for inviting me to take part in the blog tour.

I'm really enjoying Parker's series of short, pacy action adventures/ thriller featuring Ben Bracken. I particularly like the fact that while these are at times gritty and engage with current issues and problems - especially this latest instalment - Parker doesn't take things over seriously. His protagonist Bracken is essentially a man on the run, a disgraced ex-soldier who's served time in prison but escaped, irredeemably compromised in the eyes of the authorities and therefore apt to be used by them or back to Strangeways he goes.

Any kind of life he makes for himself therefore risks being blown apart and is an accommodation with powers and principalities which he detests. At times Bracken kicks over the traces and strikes out on his own (and mayhem ensures), at times he is more accepting of the realities. As a result, nothing lasts for long and in each book of the series Bracken is in a new setting, under a new cover, with different objectives and facing different dangers. Parker is happy to shake things up so these settings are very diverse - in the last book, The Penny Black, Bracken stumbled into trouble when hiding out on the Norfolk Broads, here, he is almost rehabilitated (enough time has passed that he and his girlfriend have a baby son) and working a desk job for a police agency based in Manchester.

Bracken is strictly forbidden to go into the field, but if you think that'll stick once the fan needs disinfecting then you don't know Ben Bracken. When an undercover police officer is tortured to death to send a message, and links emerge with ex-soldiers and the Far Right, would you expect him to stand by?

What follows develops - once some preliminaries are sorted in the the first part of the book - into a white knuckle ride of a thriller which benefits from the fact that Bracken is operating (albeit still under a false identity) more or less above the radar. He doesn't have to worry primarily about his own cover, but can work - as part of a team - to address an insidious threat. it's Christmas in Manchester, and after recent political events (but not the 2019 election - ironically given the publication of this book on 13th December!) fascist elements are on the rise. Parker carefully distances Bracken from any close interest in politics, but it's clear this faction is inimical to what he was fighting for in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nevertheless they're plausible, and Parker sketches a chillingly feasible strategy they're using to get close to power. More realistic and current than in previous Bracken thrillers, this second part of the book is topped off by an explosive conclusion where the stakes are very, very high indeed.

I don't think we've ever before seen Parker's hero as close to being broken as he is in Till Morning is Nigh. Not only are the issues more personal to him - he feels real comradeship with the ex-soldiers here - but he has more at stake, no longer being a fugitive (even if he does still have secrets to keep). The book had a thrilling end, and the series as whole seems to have changed up a gear.

You can buy Till Morning is Nigh as an ebook from Amazon here and find out more about it on Goodreads here. If you'd like to connect with Rob here he is:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/robparkerauthor
Website: https://robparkerauthor.com/

Blogtour review - The Penny Black by Rob Parker

The Penny Black (Ben Bracken, 3)
Rob Parker
Endeavour Media, August 2019
E-book, paperback (225pp)

I'm grateful to the author and publisher for a free advance copy of The Penny Black and for inviting me to take part in the book's blogtour.

This is Parker's third thriller featuring ex soldier and ex con Ben Bracken, following A Wanted Man and Morte Point. I'm interested how Parker is developing the series. While Bracken (under a variety of aliases) remains centre, in this book he feels rather more detached from the conspiracy themes of the first two (though some familiar and unwelcome faces still pop up).

Bracken is hiding out in the remote village of Horning on the Norfolk Broads. I last read about Horning in Arthur Ransom's Swallows and Amazons children's series, about forty years ago and as one might expect Bracken's experience of it is rather different from how it is portrayed there! Behind the idyllic seeming English village with its boatyards and quaint pubs, there are dark goings-on. Bracken ought to leave well alone - he's hunted by an entire alphabet of acronymed law enforcement agencies, crime syndicates ands spooks and should be keeping his head down.

Needless to say, being Ben Bracken, he doesn't, and thus begins a fast-paced and tension-filled story. It isn't, though, perhaps quite as relentless as Morte Point with more time for Bracken to reflect on who he is, where he has been and on his responsibility to those around him. Put simply he is a target and those hunting him have shown that if he appears in their sites they won't be too fussy about who else gets hurt. That's part of the atmosphere of these books - it's not a question of who Bracken can trust or the lengths they are prepared to go to, it's a matter of how bad things will get and what he might have to do. That's what triggers his sense of guilt and responsibility.

I wouldn't have it any other way but that didn't stop me almost shouting "don't do it!" several times as he stuck his neck out.

So, all in all, another fun and tense episode with some deeper themes beginning to emerge. A couple of details seemed a little far-fetched, perhaps, but the think that's inherent in this genre (go back and re-read The Thirty Nine Steps if you want proof of that).

Ideal reading, I'd say, if you're off for that boating holiday on the Broads...

To connect with Rob on Twitter, go here. His website is https://robparkerauthor.com/.