Seeking the Spoils is a fast moving thriller from James Eno that contrasts the raw beauty of Scotland with the machinations of the European Parliament. Young MEP Seona Mackenzie and New York Times journalist Gaynor Schultz finds themselves in a battle to save the landscape from the combined threat of corporate greed and political corruption.

Silent Movements brings all Simon Mundy’s experience in politics and the music business together. Set in 1980 at the end of the Cold War it tells the story of a Soviet violinist being helped by a young British cellist to defect. Along the way Mundy accurately depicts the challenges and excitement of concert performance. As Julian Lloyd Webber says, ‘Simon Mundy really knows the point where music, politics and history collide. He also understands the processes of a performer’s life.’

In Beyond Gospel Pass Jessica Meredith explores the emotions that underlie a woman’s desire for children and delivers a story with the skill of a seasoned storyteller and a hauntingly vivid sense of place. The action revolves around the marriage of Beth Powell, a thirty-something barrister who, frustrated by her lack of contact with her indecisive husband, starts a relationship with a farmer in the Black Mountains.

The Caribbean island of St. James in the 1980s should have been paradise. Instead the post-independence rulers turned it into a perverted and corrupt private fiefdom. The US would not act because its government is anti-communist and American privateers wanted to keep it that way. Britain didn’t care enough to intervene officially. 

The disgusting practices of the Prime Minister and his family were too much to ignore, though. Philip Goshawk was sent to try to find a solution. 

In this atmospheric political thriller James Eno catches the dark mood just beneath the surface glamour of islands in the sun.

"Brims with sardonic humour." Daily Telegraph 
4 Stars

The Full Review
James Eno's tale of trouble in paradise is a doubly nostalgic antidote to the modern thriller's fixation with big bangs and silly body counts. It's set in 1982 but cheerfully harks back further to the pre-war "Clubland Heroes" - gifted amateurs who went out to bat for Britain armed only with wit, finesse and a pistol for emergencies. Pining for a time when resourceful chaps toppled despots with style and guile, this book brims with sardonic humour.

Jeremy Jehu
Daily Telegraph
23 July 2011