Brian Payton – nigeladamsbookworm

Buried Secrets T.J. Brearton

A happy young couple, Brett and Emily, buy their dream small holding in upstate New York.

Digging an area of garden, close to the edge of some woods, Brett uncovers some human bones.

Meanwhile reformed criminal James Russo is arrested for failing to pay his fines for driving whilst uninsured. With no means of paying the fines he is sent to the famous Rikers Island Jail in New York. His cell mate is an ex mixed martial arts fighter Nate Reuter. Nate is in jail for being part of a lame group of bank robbers the press labelled “The fighting Bandits”

The Police Investigators seem to be going through the motions with the investigation into the buried bones but one of the Officers casually shows the mug shots of the Fighting Bandits to Brett, stating it’s an unrelated inquiry.

As a failed journalist/writer Brett sees an opportunity to resurrect his carer and write a book and starts his own investigation. Unfortunately he reaches out to his ex-girlfriend Meg to help him, much to Emily’s frustration; but is Meg really helping, or is she in it for her own gain, journalistic or personal.

In jail Reuter is attacked and Russo steps in to his aid. Because of the fight his jail time looks set to increase until a visit from a female prisoner changes everything. She will post his bail if he does one job for her, and just as an encouragement she sends a psychopath to his wife and daughter.

And so begins a story which kept me thoroughly entertained from start to finish. The two storylines are obviously connected but how and why. Who do the bones belong to, and why are they buried with a cryptic note.

This story doesn’t hide anything, there are no surprises. Its hook is the naive innocence of Brett; the attempts of Russo to stay on the straight and narrow and still protect his wife and daughter; the conniving drive of Meg. To have captured all of these characters so well is a testimony the writing of T.J. Brearton

Pages: 328

Publisher: Bookouture

Available to pre-order on Amazon

Publish date 18^th August 2017

All This Will Be Lost Brian Payton

A few weeks ago I asked Sophie Orme at Pan MacMillan if she had any books that I could review. She asked if I wanted to stick to my usual genre, Police Procedural, Spy, anything legal, and I said no I’ll give anything a go.

That’s how I started of reading my first book with a tag line of “Sweeping epic romance, war-torn drama” on the front page.

All This Will Be Lost by Brian Payton starts off like many good adventure books with 2 people parachuting into enemy held territory after their plane has been shot down. The territory in question this time is the Alaskan Aleutian Islands, and the enemy is the occupying Japanese Army of the Second World War.

The two are an unlikely pair, a young aviator from the USAF, and one of the books protagonists John Easley, a journalist.

The second protagonist is John’s wife Helen.

The story alternates between the two characters, Johns struggle to survive behind enemy lines, and Helens search for her husband who she refuses to believe is dead.

This book kept me reading well into the night, and I picked it up to finish it as soon as I woke up.

It’s not what I expected. There is no mushy love. The love is the love between a woman and the husband she is scared to admit she might have lost; the same love that drives the husband to survive.

There is another relationship in the book, the one that builds between John and the airman he survived with. The battle between the two initially to establish who is the leader becomes an almost brotherly reliance on each other for survival.

There are twists and turns along the way that caught me by surprise. I am not sure whether that’s usual in genre but this story is bought alive by the fact that nothing can be taken fro granted.

It’s not a long book at about 327 pages but it packs all of those pages with a very enjoyable tale.

I try to learn something from all books. With the internet it is easy to research something you read in a book. This little book introduced me to a part of the Second World War that I had never heard of. I have now, and I feel sorry about my ignorance of it before.

Thank you Brian Payton.

Thank you for a good story

Thank you for opening my eyes to a new genre

Thank you for expanding my knowledge.