About
Reviews
Search
Submit
Home

Mystery Books for Sale

[ Home ]
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]


  

VORPAL BLADE, THE
by Colin Forbes
Simon & Schuster, June 2003
407 pages
16.99 GBP
ISBN: 0743220528


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

THE VORPAL BLADE continues Forbes' long-running Tweed series, but at the outset, threatens to deviate from his normal pattern, with Tweed being asked to investigate a series of murders, rather than in his usual role as Deputy Director of the SIS. However, Tweed's investigations take him from Britain to the USA, as well as Switzerland, so nothing has really changed. However, has Tweed's luck finally run out this time? Will he fall victim to the eponymous Vorpal Blade?

At times, reading THE VORPAL BLADE is painful. There are some dreadful phrases and ideas that become grating as they are reused throughout the novel, as they have been used in Forbes' previous novels over the years. One of the most obvious is the idea that Paul Grey, Tweed's assistant, cannot see the dead bodies, as she will be shocked. Of course, Grey wants to show that she is not the stereotypical weak woman and insists on seeing them, without vomiting. However, she then has to drink water to calm her down. Everyone, after a shock of any sort, has to drink water before they are allowed any type of alcoholic drink.

As I said, the repetition of ideas and phrases, such as "rap bacK" and the lack of modern words, such as swearing, leave the book feeling false, as though it is a throwback to an era when criminals and spies were a nicer class of people than they are today. Since this is the case in all of Forbes? novels, should we not now be asking why I continue to read the novels in the series' The answer is that they are still interesting and do possess a certain skill of writing, for example, in his descriptions. Forbes certainly uses America more these days, but he is still very much Eurocentric, preferring to use locales such as Switzerland, as he seems to have a general distrust of the USA.

If you have never read a Forbes novel before, there are better ones out there. His novels of the eighties are so much better than these modern ones, since Forbes seems to be struggling to come to terms with the development of technology. The Internet is dismissed out of hand; mobiles are an anathema for Tweed and really, the list goes on. Even the most diehard of Forbes fans must surely be wondering how long the Tweed series can continue.

Reviewed by Luke Croll, November 2003

[ Top ]


QUICK SEARCH:

 

Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
[ Home ]