Absolute. Jack, Absolute. The parallels between Jack Absolute, C. C. Humphries' dashing Revolutionary-era British intelligence officer, and the iconic James Bond are unmistakeable. In the first of series of historical adventure novels centered upon the titular character, actor-turned-novelist Hum...
C.C.Humphreys has a standing reputation for his intricate attention to detail in his research for one of his novels. Though this book, " A Place Called Armageddon " is a fictionalized version of the events, this would apply mainly to the characters interaction and not the actual basis of the stor...
I enjoyed the beginning of this book when the protagonist Lieutenant Jack Absolute was at sea returning to England from America with his new friend, the Irishman Red Hugh McClune. Jack and Red make a great pair. I don't know naval terminology at all but I still found the battle sequence exciti...
Originally published at Reading RealityThe Blooding of Jack Absolute could be called “the portrait of the spy as a young man”, or even as a “young sybarite” or even simply as a young fool. Although the man that Jack has become by the time we read of him in the first book in this series, Jack Abso...
It is 1536 and the expert swordsman Jean Rombaud has been brought over from France by Henry VIII to behead his wife, Anne Boleyn. But on the eve of her execution Rombaud swears a vow to the ill-fated queen - to bury her six-fingered hand, symbol of her rumoured witchery, at a sacred crossroads. Y...
Judging by its height, it was about mid morning – the only thing he was able to tell before a hard shove in his back propelled him from the doorway on to the street. It told him little – except he was no longer in Southwark. He’d have recognised the dwellings, smaller in the main, and usually bes...
He moved to the parapet and let others pass him. He looked back up Ludgate Hill, to the great square tower of St. Paul’s. People were coming from the church to cross Fleet Bridge. When they reached its midpoint, the more sharp-eared heard what he had heard. Faces changed. Men and women each took ...
The darkness was intense, for huge clouds had rolled over the sky, blotting out the waxing moon. To the north, downriver, a storm lashed lightning, thunder crashed. Gaka had told her that it was the sound made by a giant bird in the sky, flapping its wings. So far their village had escaped the ra...
‘No, Sir Joseph.’ The king slapped the table. ‘I tell you, no. I cannot make myself plainer. I will not cower. I never have and I never will. By God, ’tis not the Stuart way.’ ‘I only suggest it for a time, Majesty.’ The Under-Secretary of State took off his spectacles to pinch the deep red groov...