About The Lighterman
The Lighterman is the third book in the bestselling series of legal thrillers starring barrister Charles Holborne. Simon Michael's follow up to the bestselling The Brief and An Honest Man, continues the adventures of criminal barrister Charles Holborne.
Gangland leader Ronnie Kray is not a man to forgive or forget. Holborne has 'taken liberties' and revenge will follow. But how to get at a tough and resourceful Brief with his own history of criminality and a penchant for violence? The answer: find a man who can’t be hanged twice.
Now Holborne must dig up the secrets of the past to save two lives…one of them his own.
Simon Michael brings the past vividly back to life across a beautifully rendered 60s landscape, and delivers a gripping piece of thriller fiction that will excite any fan of the Britcrime genre.
My review of The Lighterman
The Lighterman is the third instalment in the legal thriller series staring barrister Charles Holburne. I have not read the previous two books, so can say that this book works very well as a standalone novel. This fantastic book, that is set in the 60s and at the time of the Krays, hooked me in from the very beginning. It's a fantastic thriller.
I'll start by saying that this thriller is hugely refreshing, partly I feel because It is a legal based thriller, as we follow Charles's story, as opposed to a police procedural, plus, it's set in the 60s, so has that wonderful retro feel. No one is glued to their iPhone or trawling the Internet, and I liked this. Charles is also a likeable character. I just couldn't help but fall a little bit in love with him, and I rooted for him, to keep safe and to seek justice. He oozes charm, is an educated man, but ultimately he talks to everyone as an equal. A cockney boy 'done good'.
The cousin Izzy was also a captivating character, that had me constantly questioning his intentions. However, even though I didn't completely trust him, I did like him, I also liked the descriptions of working on the river as a Lighteman, a term that I had never heard before. The atmospheric descriptions in this book, of when Charles worked on the barges on the River Thames with his cousin, really helped to shape the character that Charles was, and who he was to become.
I also loved the chapters in the book that described the Kray twins. They made my skin crawl and made the novel even more sinister, with the feeling that nothing good was going to happen by being involved with them.
The Lighterman is a fast paced legal thriller with a truly likeable and interesting protagonist. I now need to go back and read the previous two books in the series. If you love thrillers with great depth, captivating characters and a few unexpected twists along the way, then you'll love The Lighterman.
I purchased my own paperback copy.
The Lighterman was published by Urbane Publications on 11th May 2017. It can be found on Amazon here.
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