Review: A Thousand Splendid Suns

BY Anushka IN A+, Historical Fiction, Khaled Hosseini, War fiction 18 COMMENTS

By Khaled Hosseini; Grade: A+

While reading The Kite Runner, I could not stop marvelling at the sheer impact that the story had on me. While I had read countless emotional novels, never had I felt so depressed because of a certain character’s plight. In retrospect, I suppose the novel had such a tremendous effect on me because I knew that what I was reading as fiction was real for thousands of people. But to give the entire credit to that factor would be wrong. The effect of the novel also has to be attributed to the author’s terrific storytelling capability; The way he wrote that novel was indescribably captivating. After finishing it, I thought it would not get better than this.… Continue Reading?

Review: The Teeth of the Tiger

BY IN B, Thriller, Tom Clancy, War fiction 2 COMMENTS FBI

By Tom Clancy. Grade: B

A man named Mohammad sits in a café in Vienna, about to propose a deal to a Colombian. What if they combined his network of Middle East agents and sympathizers with the Colombian’s drug network in America? The potential for profits would be enormous – and the potential for destruction unimaginable. A young man in suburban Maryland, who has grown up around intrigue, is about to put his skills to the test. Taught the ways of the world firsthand by agents, statesmen, analysts, Secret Servicemen and black-ops specialists, he crosses the radar of “The Campus” – a secret organisation set up to identify local terrorist threats and deal with them by any means necessary. His name is Jack Ryan Jr.

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Review: Ice Station Zebra

BY IN Alistair Maclean, B+, War fiction NO COMMENTS YET murder

By Alistair Maclean. Grade: B+

Alistair Maclean has proved time and time again that he is the master when it comes to war fiction. Ice Station Zebra is no exception.

The atomic submarine Dolphin has impossible orders: to sail beneath the ice-floes of the Arctic Ocean to locate and rescue the men of weather-station Zebra, gutted by fire and drifting with the ice-pack somewhere north of the Arctic Circle. But the orders do not say what the Dolphin will find if she succeeds – that the fire at Ice Station Zebra was a sabotage, and that one of the survivors is a killer,


The plot begins at the time of departure for Dolphin, the nuclear submarine of the United States Navy.… Continue Reading?

Review: Only Time Will Tell

BY Shriya Garg IN A, Family Saga, Jeffrey Archer, Mystery, War fiction 2 COMMENTS

By Jeffrey Archer. The Clifton Chronicles #1. Grade: A

The Clifton Chronicles is Jeffrey Archer’s most ambitious work in four decades as an international bestselling author. The epic tale of Harry Clifton’s life begins in 1920, with the chilling words, ‘I was told that my father was killed in the war’.
But it will be another twenty years before Harry discovers how his father really died, which will only lead him to question: who was his father? Is he the son of Arthur Clifton, a stevedore who worked in Bristol docks, or the first born son of a scion of West Country society, whose family owns a shipping line?

Only Time will Tell covers the years from 1920 to 1940, and includes a cast of memorable characters that The Times has compared to The Forsyte Saga.

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