Richardson leaned closer to the man’s face, squinting through his spectacles at the aftermath of four operations. The world has been waiting for a worthy successor to Sebastian Faulks's Birdsong-now Philip Gray has delivered it. Drawing on titles from 31 countries and six continents, it's a fitting tribute to the most widely travelled monarch in history.

Such a well written book, Two Storm Wood immerses us into the world of Amy as she tries to find her fiancé Edward, who is missing from the destruction of WW1 and its wake, and uncovers a whole host of secrets.One who is tasked in coordinating the retrieval of the thousands of bodies left in the battlefields of France and the second one who is a detective tasked with investigating a horrific find relating to a massacre that was perceived as not a war crime but murder. In this strange, cold and foggy city where the natives can be less than friendly at the sight of a black face, has Galahad met his Waterloo? Amy fell in love with Edward Haslen, a school choirmaster, but WWI intervened- especially after he was terminated from his protected position and sent to the front.

Their humanity was what came through, their personal experiences creating compassion that didn’t disappear even in the face of the most gruesome revelations.The least she can do is ensure his body is found and reburied, and she is going to need her nerves of steel to survive the obstacles in her path, this is no place for a woman, most witnesses are dead, information is scarce, not available, or non-existent. Philip Gray, under the pseudonym of Patrick Lynch, is the coauthor of six thrillers that have sold over a million copies worldwide. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque was a standout novel in my teenage reading and beyond the need for English Literature set exams I have always been drawn to the poets from Wilfred Owen to Siegfried Sassoon. Meanwhile, Captain Mackenzie cannot bring himself to go home until his fallen comrades are laid to rest. In his historical novel Two Storm Wood, Philip Gray portrays the reality of World War I mostly from the perspective of a young British officer, showing everything from the gruesome and harrowing details of war to lesser-known facts of everyday life for those serving in it.

The story unfolds in different locations and times: the comparatively peaceful city of Cambridge in 1916 and the tentative beginnings of Amy and Edward′s relationship; France and Amy′s journey to try and find out what happened on the 17th of August 1918, aided by the mysterious Major Westbrook; a series of episodes in Edward′s war; and a burial party of Captain Mackenzie with a labour company of Chinese whose task is to find, exhume and possibly to identify bodies to lie in the new mass cemeteries. I was a little apprehensive going in to read this book, as it was way out of my usual comfort zone, despite the fact that I love to read factual books on both WW1 and WW2. Philip Gray has written an evocative thriller set in the abandoned trenches and No-Man’s-Land in the year after the end of WW1. Philip Gray has written a novel about WW1 , and it’s aftermath, it’s effects on soldiers and those who love them that once read will linger in the reader’s memory.Traumatic and gruesome and heartbreaking, but beautifully written and I plan to lend it to anyone and everyone. An aspiring lifestyle influencer with a terrible and wayward boyfriend, her life has shrunk to the size of a phone screen. The unravelling of the mystery is not a sudden reveal, but a gradual discovery like the identification of a decayed body. I often felt I was there, in the abandoned trenches, not just because of the tactile and sensorial impressions but also for the atmosphere. Can Sergeant Lindsay Boxer solve one of her toughest cases yet – the murder of her estranged father?

Amy was a fantastic character and I loved seeing her come to life throughout the book, I very much doubt I could do half of what she achieved in this one. This is a riveting read, where the answers only start coming near the end, about the complex nature of violence, brutality and the crimes that can occur under the cover of war. Defying convention, hardship, and impossible odds, she heads to France, determined to discover what became of the man she loved.There are a number of military officers (perhaps too many) to keep track of, but the story is propelled by the .