Rapscallion by James McGee (My Goodreads Review)

Rapscallion by James McGee

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the third Matthew Hawkwood story that I have read. This one was very exciting too. Our Bow Street Runner is sent, undercover, as an American prisoner of war. He is among French prisoners on a prison hulk that is at anchor in the River Thames close to the Medway and the Isle of Sheppey. Very soon, Hawkwood and an escaped French sailor are caught up in a smuggling ring of dynamic and well organised criminal abilities. The reader is taken on a lavish and nail-biting adventure. Great story and I look forward to the next Matthew Hawkwood story. I would also like to add that these stories would make for a fabulous TV period drama show.

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Blood and Ice by Leo Kessler (My Goodreads Review)

Blood and Ice by Leo Kessler

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Usual blood and guts story of German SS soldiers fighting against enormous odds during the second world war. I was a teenager when I read these Leo Kessler War stories. I think the group was SS Wotan or something like that. Kuno von Dodenburg is no longer with the group and Sergeant-Major Schulze is all the remnant of the elite SS group can turn to. Another inhuman mission awaits the do or die group of soldiers. The remnants of a once-renowned fighting force. The dreadful killing and destruction of WWII is coming to a bloody end. Only small groups of fanatics keep trying to attack. Among such are SS Wotan - the late Kuno Von Dodenburgs' men. This is pulp war fiction at its extreme, but if you like such things, then this is a ride of exhausting reading violence. Even for a hard nut who drinks strong coffee with no sugar and knows no word for... fluffy, nice and subtle.

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Blitzfreeze by Sven Hassel (My Goodreads Review)

Blitzfreeze by Sven Hassel
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Our usual crowd of vagabond heroes are at it again. The characters of Porta, Tiny, the Legionnaire and, of course, Sven the Danish writer who tells these stories in the first person singular.

These soldiers are in Hitler's German army on the Russian front. They are a cannon fodder and a penal battalion of political deviants, murderers and other criminal elements. Sven is a deserter who fled to Denmark, his country of birth. When Germany occupied the country in 1940. He got a knock on the door for going AWOL.

All the men of the penal battalion have their own stories to tell. Some of the antics are so comical; you will hold your stomach trying not to laugh. These are kind moments during leave or lulls in the battle of the Russian steppe. The other side of the coin is the horror of the war and the violent and often heartbreaking things that happen to the men as they become more brutalised in their endeavours to survive the madness and Hell on Earth about them.

There are many Sven Hassel stories with the same characters we all grow to love. They are meant to have really existed. However, perhaps some of the stories are made up more with old friends entered into the tales. Great read and easily hooks many readers for this type of genre.

C.A. Powell
The Black and Tan Summer: Ireland's Turbulent Year of 1920


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