Love, Lies and Treachery (Book) - 3/13/2022 11:40:43 AM
Working and supporting a government of domination, Nathan Andrews, with a loving wife and two children, thinks he has a good life but when it all unravels - he is stripped of everything - job, wife, and children taken - he has to remake his life. After rebuilding his life, he learns he has been tricked again and is still in danger.
Love, Lies and Treachery shows a frightening side of governments when compared to countries around the world today. The storyline has as many twists and turns as a roller coaster and is quite the page turner. Brian Hill has provided strong characters and many countryside visuals of locations, especially when describing Nathan's walks, but can be considered a little excessive in places. This thriller has car chases and gunfights with a strong dash of love and romance.
I recommend that you check this one out. Definitely worth the read!
Love, Lies and Treachery (Book) - 12/18/2017 4:12:29 PM
WOW! What a story that kept me on the edge of my seat written by an author unknown to me. At first I had doubts as I thought I had to interpret British slang, but I had no trouble keeping up. I loved that Nathan Andrews agreed to go with his girlfriend to NSF meetings so they had more time together, but once they were married with children it was typical of a dad spending long hours at work. This book is a fast paced and action filled story, filled with twists and turns that boggles my mind!!
Love, Lies and Treachery (Book) - 9/4/2017 1:52:42 AM
Love, Lies and Treachery Review
This novel examines what could happen if an ultra right wing party were to be elected with an overwhelming majority in the UK. Parallels with Germany in the 1930s are obvious and the descent into a totalitarian state is well described. However, the political environment is a bit thin in places. Yes, there are Gestapo type secret police and they are as brutal as you would expect. Dissenters become slave labourers and the disabled disappear. What is missing are the scapegoats, people blamed for the perceived decline in the country’s prosperity. In Nazi Germany it was the Jews: here it could be immigrants, foreigners or particular ethnic or religious groups. We don’t hear much of the fanatical rhetoric either. Also, the involvement of the Royal Family appears almost as an afterthought
The story is told in the present tense and in the first person from the point of view of the protagonist Nathan Andrews. He seems to be easily led, especially if a woman is involved and he becomes a supporter of the Party for National Unity. From then on it is a rollercoaster of events involving our hapless hero. Nathan enjoys the power invested in him through his political connections but fails to predict the outcomes of his decisions. Thus he becomes a pawn in a much larger game of which he is initially unaware.
The real story starts when he is apparently tricked into having his wife executed by members of the secret police, the NSF. This event opens his eyes to the true nature of the regime he has been fervently supporting. Subsequently, he becomes embroiled with a resistance group or so he thinks. This turns out to be the opposite and he has been working for the regime all the time.
Eventually, the government goes too far even for members of the NSF and there is a revolt. If there had been a resistance movement, it was from within and not born of the general populace. Eventually, the regime is deposed and some sort of normality restored.
Technologically, the story is strange. At first it reads as if it is told in the 1960s but eventually mobile phones are mentioned and the Internet appears occasionally. However, they do not predominate as they do in our current culture even though the story is set in the present. There is no mention of social networking. Biotechnology and the use of satellites figure in the tale, so I would have expected smartphones and the Internet to be more prominent. At one point a camera phone yields pictures of low resolution. Modern phones can take photographs of 8 Megapixel quality.
In terms of storytelling, Brian Hill has constructed a fast moving tale of blood and thunder with car chases, gunfights and plenty of gore. He chucks in love and romance as driving forces for Nathan’s actions and this is what propels the story much of the time. There are times when the reader has to suspend disbelief when Nathan seems to be incredibly lucky in his choice of friends and colleagues. Without that there would be not much of a story, however.
The author has formidable descriptive powers and uses these to great effect especially when describing country walks and other journeys. At times the book reads like a travelogue and this detracts from the pace of the story, especially in the first part of the book. Conversely, the end of the book comes as a rush as if the author just wants to get it all over with but that comes after a build up of pace and therefore does not seem unnatural.
Putting on my editor’s hat, in general, the work is well written but reads like a second draft that needs a bit of a tidy up. Apostrophes litter the text: many of them are inappropriate or wrongly placed. Hyphenation is excessive and some of the sentences convoluted. Also, there is a fair bit of over writing with the author explaining the feelings of the characters even though they are evident from the dialogue.
Most of the characters, apart from a farmer, seem to come from the same class in educational terms, so they mostly sound the same in terms of the way they speak. Also, only two people are mentioned who are not white. Are there no black or brown people in Yorkshire or has the regime shipped them off somewhere?
In summary, Love, Lies and Treachery is a fast moving well written thriller and worth a read. I particularly like the biotechnological weapon devised by the government to control the population. For me, that’s what makes the story compelling.
