recent read; MEMO FROM TURNER

MEMO FROM TURNER by Tim Willocks

Taking a break from his Tannhauser historical fiction trilogy, Willocks delivers a thriller set in modern South Africa.

What happens when a man of absolute integrity finds himself trapped in a world of absolute corruption?

During a weekend spree in Cape Town a young, rich Afrikaner fatally injures a teenage street girl with his Range Rover but is too drunk to know that he has hit her. His companions – who do know – leave the girl to die.

The driver’s mother, a self-made mining magnate called Margot Le Roux, intends to keep her son in ignorance of his crime. Why should his life be ruined for a nameless girl who was already terminally ill? No one will care and the law is cheap. But by chance the case falls to the relentless Warrant Officer Turner of Cape Town homicide.

When Turner travels to the remote mining town that Margot owns – including the local police and private security force – he finds her determined to protect her son at any cost. As the battle of wills escalates, and the moral contradictions multiply, Turner won’t be bought and won’t be bullied, and when they try to bury him he rediscovers, during a desperate odyssey to the very brink of death, a long-forgotten truth about himself...

By the time Willocks's tale is finished, fourteen men have died. He shows once again that he is the laureate of the violent thriller.

As you can see from the synopsis, this might be filed under crime thriller but the story is a modern western. An incorruptible officer of the law, wading into mining territory controlled by a big boss who will stop at nothing to protect their offspring? What could be more western?

Warrant Officer Turner is determined--a man of honor who will uphold the law until the bitter end, like any good sheriff of old. He encounters corruption and resistance at every turn.

With Willocks, we can expect a spaghetti western, too. We get one, sure enough. Willocks lays out the characters like chess pieces, and the tension builds as events and people are moved into place for the showdown.

Willocks pulls a bit of a feint. The violence arrives and it starts off not quite so visceral as I would have expected. But then the plot hits its major twist and Willocks again casts an unflinching brutal eye over the madness of violence and survival. Not for the squeamish.

I enjoyed this one a lot. Recommended if you like crime fiction and/or bloody westerns. It moves right along. I read it in a few days.

MEMO FROM TURNER has not been published in the U.S. It is available via second-hand sellers through Amazon, ABEBooks, and other sites.

Words from Tannhauser's creator

I did my usual rounds on the REH/Conan forums this morning.

I was pleasantly surprised to find this note awaiting myself and other enthusiasts on our discussion thread concerning The Twelve Children of Paris by Tim Willocks.

(I believe you can read the post without being a member.  But, for convenience, I am assuming the author won't mind my repost here.)
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Dear Fierro, Deuce, PaulMc, et al,

I am Tim Willocks. I registered on this site to thank you guys for your support, which I greatly appreciate. I am honoured that you should give Tannhauser a place in Valhalla with Conan himself.

REH's Conan was one of my great inspirations when I was but a lad. Along with Sergio Leone's 'Man With No Name', the western novel character 'Edge' by George G. Gilman (the first ten were amazing; I don't know if they are still available but worth looking for), and the novels of Sven Hassel (again, the earlier ones are best - Wheels of Terror in particular).

T's body count, by the way, is over 150 in Twelve Children, all individual deaths. The only wound he receives is from a boy with a sling. I based his fighting attitudes and style on the great karate masters I have trained with over the last thirty years. I achieved a respectable level, 2nd Dan, and won a minor competition here and there, but whenever I came across the real virtuosos I was completely stunned, dazzled, overwhelmed, by their speed, insight, foresight and above all decisiveness. A different dimension, almost supernatural. I felt like a two-year old. And no matter how hard a modern martial artist trains, he sleeps in a bed and his life is not at stake. So how much more extraordinary must the fighters of the past have been? When not just their lives were at stake but also notions of honour that are now incomprehensible.

Unlike in The Religion, where he had the janissaries to contend with, in Twelve Children he is facing, essentially, volunteer policemen and street thugs.I couldn't bring myself to let them lay a glove on him - or rather, I just didn't believe that he would let them. Personally, it often annoys me in movies when the hero gets wounded just for the sake of making his life a bit more difficult, a fake tension. If you are that good, you don't lose a single point. Why wouldn't you kill them all? Why would even cross your mind to show mercy? My main frustration in writing the action was that it takes sixty-seconds' worth of words to describe a move that would take only two seconds (or less) to execute.

I think some readers will doubt the realism of all that, but to me it is true realism. I have absolutely no doubt that such men existed. Shakespeare is full of them. I once saw a former New York state tennis champion play a former Polish national champion and Grand Slam contender. There are a lot of really good tennis players in New York State; but the Polish guy crushed him - he didn't concede a single point, let alone a game. The local crowd fell into a kind of horrified silence. The Polish champion just lived, breathed, perceived in a different dimension. Tannhauser is essentially a kind of five-times Grand Slam champion of combat. It's not that there are not others in his league, it's just that I couldn't imagine any of them being in Paris at that time - or certainly not among the packs of rabid murderers.

Anyway, thanks again for your generous and thoughtful comments.

I will sign off with this REH quotation, to which I often return for reassurance when I worry that Tannhauser is going too far (which is often):

“Let me live deep while I live. Let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.” Conan in 'Queen of the Black Coast'.

All the best
Tim Willocks
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The extra insight into the believability of Tannhauser and his actions is very spot-on.

Anyway, this was a great post to read first thing in the morning.  The Internet/Web can still be a very neat place where cool things happen.

The Twelve Children of Paris

Even though I already posted a bit about this novel, I wanted to log an official, albeit short review now that I have finished it.  To avoid too much retread,  suffice to state that what I posted while reading The Twelve Children of Paris held true right through the end of the novel.

Willocks pulled it off again. It's as good as The Religion and entirely different from it, too - which is how any truly great sequel should be - a new story, not a retread.

There are surprises plenty plot-wise, and I never knew who would survive or who would die right until the final page.

If Willocks sticks to his vision of a trilogy, he needs to outdo himself twice over. After The Twelve Children of Paris, I have utter confidence he can do that.

Truly an awe-inspiring novel.

One hard bastard; Mattias Tannhauser

I usually don't blog about a book before I've finished reading it, but for Tim Willocks and his incredible character, Mattias Tannhauser, I will make an exception.

The sequel to The Religion has arrived.  At least, it has arrived in the UK.  It's not clear if it will get North America distribution.  I ordered mine from Amazon.co.uk.  As I reported when I reviewed The Religion, I wouldn't wait for the remainder bin this time around.

The Twelve Children of Paris takes place during St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre.  Tannhauser arrives in Paris to find his (very pregnant) wife, who traveled to the city to attend a wedding while Tannhauser was away.  Tannhauser quickly finds himself in the heart of the city, and in the center of a spider web of court and political intrigue and madness.  As the killings begin, Tannhauser must locate his wife and save his stepson from the spreading riots and chaos.

Here's an idea of what the reader can expect;

I don't know - does that poster count as a "spoiler"? ;)

Before you think it's all about the violence, it's not.  The violence is not gratuitous - it's brutal and unflinching, but it's true to the tale.  Tannhauser lives in a violent time, and violent world, and he is one the most dangerous men of the time.  The violence is intrinsic to his existence and integral to the story.

The Religion took place over many locales and months, making it a sweeping epic.  The Twelve Children of Paris is more condensed, staying in Paris for the 36 hours of the Massacre.  In some ways, that imparts even more intensity to the sequel than to the first novel.

I am having a blast reading this one!

(p.s. - It should be noted, that knowledge of The Religion and The Twelve Children of Paris existing at all leads back to Jim Cornelius.  If you don't already follow his wonderful, unique and informative historic blog, Frontier Partisans, you should check it out.)

Recently read; The Religion

The Religion by Tim Willocks

It took me a while to read this, but that is in no way a reflection on the book.   It has been a while since, as a reader, I became fully immersed in a thick novel.

The Religion takes place mostly during the 1565 siege of Malta.  ("The Religion" are better known to history as the Knights Hospitaller. )  The protagonist, Tannhauser, is a former janisssary who managed to escape his servitude with his head intact and now operates as an opium and arms merchant.  The Religion conspire to bring him into the conflict, because his knowledge of the Turk will aide them.  But, the conspiracy to bring him to Malta might be at the cost to his own head, as a vindictive member of the Inquisition has his own reasons for keeping him from Malta.