Brian L. Porter is a man of many literary talents, as demonstrated by his medical thriller Pestilence and his poetry compilation Lest We Forget. The native Liverpudlian shows what he knows in using Merrie Olde England as his backdrop for his works, going from the fictitious Olney St. Mary in Pestilence to the skies over Great Britain with his WWII prose collection. His lost treasure melodrama, Glastonbury, centers on the town in Somerset where two teams of fortune hunters square off in a death match, mostly ‘cuz they don’t like each other’s faces. There’s something almost American about this novel, from Joe Cutler’s wiseass attitude to Walter Graves’ casual duplicity. Even though the baddies, the villainous Malcolm Capshaw and his henchmen Maitland brothers, are bred and buttered Continentals, the hot-to-trot Sally Corbett, Charlotte Raeburn and her cousin Jennifer come off like pin-up gals from the Dallas TV series. For Anglophobes who generally steer clear of British-based novels, you’ll find that this whole storyline could have shifted to Los Angeles (or Dallas) without missing a beat.
Not that Porter doesn’t stay true to his roots. Capshaw is an old-school London mobster maintaining a veneer of respectability. Only he’s drawn offside by getting wind of a wild goose chase in Glastonbury where people are whispering about Excalibur, the fabled sword of King Arthur. He’s got the backstabbing Walter Graves on the high road and the cutthroat Maitlands on the low road, and who’ll be in Scotland---erm, Glastonbury, before ye? Professor Lucius Doberman (seriously!), that’s who, and he’s got our boy Cutler and sexy Sally doing the heavy lifting for him. The spit hits the fan when Capshaw’s S&M games with Charlotte take a fatal turn, and the Maitlands are compromised while doing their cleanup chores. It looks like Sally’s going to be the next in line when the whip comes down, and Cutler has to make some fast moves before Capshaw captures the fair maiden, the magic sword, and everything else on the round table.
Check out Brian’s Amazon page for a list of books on sale by this versatile author. Rest assured, Glastonbury is a great place to start.
Hidden in the shadows of Glastonbury Tor lies an ancient secret. After being hired by millionaire Malcolm Capshaw to search for a fabled artifact, Joe Cutler and his team from Strata Survey Systems are drawn into a web of lies, murder and betrayal.
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