Local author invites llanblogger to review his latest novel
David Ebsworth has produced a new all-action
novel which manages to deliver a fascinating history lesson into the bargain.
Despite the rising popularity of books with a military
history theme, works about the Spanish Civil War of the late 1930s are still
not all that common.
And consequently our knowledge of this episode of
blood-letting which presaged the Second World War tends to be perhaps a little
sparse.
But Until the Curtain Falls by Ebsworth, who already has a
handful of historical fiction novels covering periods from the Dark Ages to the
Zulu War to his credit, goes a long way to correct this imbalance. |
* Author David Ebsworth.
|
While displaying all the nail-biting drama and plot twists of
a classic spy or detective story, it also tells us much about the epic battle
of fascism v socialism which is its backcloth.
The book is actually a sequel to the author’s earlier novel,
The Assassin’s Mark, which placed left-wing journalist Jack Telford right in
the heart of the conflict leading to the rise to power of the dictator Franco who
went on to rule Spain with an iron hand until his death in 1975.
In the first novel Telford finds himself in plenty of
trouble when a press facility trip to the war-torn country designed to show
Franco’s Nationalists in the best possible light takes some seriously sinister
turns.
Until the Curtain Falls, set in the closing stage of the war
in the autumn of 1938, takes the plot on
from there and places Telford in some even more perilous predicaments.
But he’s no plastic James Bond figure and doesn’t always
manage to escape unscathed. Although Telford must at times turn into a killer
it’s a reluctant one and in one stomach-churning episode in which he is
tortured by a fascist henchman he ends up with a life-changing injury.
The plot roars its way across a Spain where both the
landscape and the people are deeply scarred
by civil war – always the most wounding of conflicts – and, thanks to some
meticulous research, every step of the way the detail against which Ebsworth
sets the action is little short of superb, right down to the
correct-for-the-period price of the tickets when Telford spends a night at the
theatre.
Every key character is magnificently drawn and the dialogue
entirely believable.
The book pulls no punches either when it comes to its
references to Britain’s less than glorious influence on the war which was a
dress rehearsal for the much larger conflict destined to erupt in September
1939.
In every sense this book is a cracking read and also an
absorbing backward glance at a very dangerous age.
* Until the Curtain Falls is published by Silverwood Books at
£10.99. For more information, go to: http://www.davidebsworth.com/
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