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The Secret Fire
The Secret Fire
Oct 4, 2024 7:25 AM

Author:Martin Langfield

The Secret Fire

Sotheby's, London, 1936. A paper by Sir Isaac Newton is sold at auction to a bookseller's agent and within minutes of leaving the auction house, he is killed and the paper stolen. For the Nazis are desperate to get their hands on a Newton formula that will unleash the Secret Fire - a weapon beyond all imagining that can wipe their enemies off the face of the earth. And this document is the key . . . unless the French Resistance and SOE operatives also on its trail can stop them.

New York, 2007. Katherine Reckliss learns her grandmother's SOE radio has started picking up disturbing messages from occupied France, warning that a V1 containing the Secret Fire is being launched by the Nazis. Its target? Present-day London.

So begins the desperate race to halt the Secret Fire - both in 1940s Nazi-occupied France and modern-day London. The clock is ticking as history starts to re- write the future in a new and terrifying script . . .

Reviews

Sensational ... Unger's gifts for dialogue and pacing set this far above the standard novel of suspense and will leave many anxiously awaiting her third book

—— Publishers Weekly

Unger's plot bursts from the starting gate and never lets up, as Ridley pieces together the puzzle that is her past

—— Booklist starred review

Suspenseful, sensitive, sexy, subtle ... The best nail-biter I have read for ages. Highly recommended

—— Lee Child

Unger's plot bursts from the starting gate and never lets up

—— Booklist

A stunning, powerful novel! Lisa Unger's taut prose grabs the reader from word one and never lets go

—— Lisa Gardner

A tense exploration of what lies beneath the white picket fence of ordinary life. Harlan Coben has a new rival for his thriller crown

—— John Connolly

A brilliant, deeply unsettling thriller which promises to be among the best reads of this year

—— Daily Mail

A weird, beautiful scary slice of British magic realism

—— Herald

Myerson is a master of suggestion and builds up the suspense layer by layer

—— Irish Times

Fans of Julie Myerson will adore this, the latest edition to Myerson's very own sub-genre within the broader class of 'novels of the uncanny'

—— Financial Times

A beguiling story

—— Independent on Sunday

A sinister, beguiling tale that brilliantly evokes a childhood world

—— Woman and Home

Brilliant and nightmarish, this modern fairytale is beautifully written

—— Eve Magazine

A ferocious firecracker, ablaze with hilarious one-liners, plot switchbacks, gore, sex and even a James Bond-style tank full of sharks...Josh Bazell manages to make hitman/doctor hero Peter Brown a sympathetic, even lovable leading man of such intensity, he practically drags the reader along by the hair

—— Big Issue

It's the kind of stuff you should roll your eyes at, but it's too much fun to do anything but keep flipping pages to see where Bazell will take Peter next. And there are more pages yet to come, apparently; this is merely the first installment in a planned series, with a Leonardo DiCaprio-led movie also on the way. Read Beat the Reaper now, so you know what all the fuss is about later

—— Bullz Eye

Maybe not quite blown away so much as having my jaw drop to the floor on several occasions and having to endure the snap as it reconnected with the rest of my face. Beat the Reaper is like having a bucket of ice cold water poured over you - shocking, invigorating and certain to get your attention - but leaving you shivering and feeling a bit queasy after the initial assault on your senses is over

—— The Truth About Books

High octane thriller that moves along at a cracking pace

—— Bookseller

Fast, fun, furious, fierce...or better yet, stop reading the accolades for Beat the Reaper, open up to page one, and start reading. See you at the cash register

—— Harlan Coben

Outrageously funny ... This may be the most imaginative, albeit the most violent and profanity-laden, debuts of the new year ... If you don't like extreme gun violence, blow-by-blow descriptions of surgical procedures performed by doped-up, angry doctors, the lack of care administered by bitter nurses, misdiagnoses and a huge dose of vulgarity, this novel is not for you. If, however, you can take all of the above, you'll be treated to a story that gets at the heart of one man's immense loneliness and heartbreak. Be warned: One of the final scenes reaches new heights for gory. How then, you might ask, does this novel earn its comedic stripes? Bazell, a medical resident at the University of California, brings a Scrubs mind-set to his story and jacks it up to an outrageous level that will never be seen on network TV

—— USA Today

An unusually talented writer...Genuinely entertaining...The story is so engaging that you don't want to be yanked out of it...Darkly comic...Bazell has a knack for breathing new life into the most timeworn genre conventions....The climax of Beat the Reaper finds Brown locked in a medical freezer waiting for his arch-nemesis to arrive and finish him off. The plan Brown concocts to save himself is the novel's most original flourish. It is also completely outrageous, so much so that I had to stop and think about whether I could really suspend my disbelief. In the end I decided that Bazell had more than earned my indulgence as a reader. If there's a better recommendation for a story than that, I don't know what it is

—— New York Times Book Review

Suffering from Post-Holiday Stress Syndrome? Dr Josh Bazell has the prescription...he has written the first flat-out entertaining novel of 2009...It's an ingenious premise for a thriller, and Bazell pulls it off...Told with exquisite acerbic humour without sacrificing intrigue or tension...Beat the Reaper only gets better, turn by turn, page by page. Savvy and savagely diverting, it's a Tarantino movie made with Scorsese looking over his shoulder

—— New York Daily News

[a] breakneck cross between a hospital drama, "The Godfather" and a Quentin Tarantino film

—— Bloomberg.com

A propulsive, savvy read featuring characters both well shaded and shady, this debut thriller by a physician polymath with a BA in writing from Brown also offers the garnish du jour in the form of elaborate and funny footnotes (à la David Foster Wallace). You can prescribe this to fans of Carl Hiaasen and quirky abrasive fiction

—— Library Journal

[a] quirky and darkly humourous novel... Beat the Reaper is a wonderfully engaging novel that starts with a full-on beginning and doesn't let up until the end

—— Crimesquad.com

This is the second funniest health care-based fiction to come out of the United States this year after the Republican Party's descriptions of the NHS

—— Daily Telegraph
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