AT THE BACK OF THE NORTH WIND BY EWAN LAWRIE: A REVIEW

At The Back Of The North Wind is the third instalment of Moffat's adventures.

He returns to the land of his birth to seek out answers to questions surrounding his origins.

Meetings with old friends and foes ensue, before a final denouement that is both shocking 

and gruesome.  If a ripping yarn is your thing this is for you

 

Defintely one for your Christmas list!

 

Here's a review by Drew Gummerson:

 

At The Back of the North Wind is Moffat’s third outing in novel form, following Gibbous House and No Good Deed although you don’t have to have read these two before jumping aboard this one for it contains a self-contained exciting adventure. 

 

ATBOTNW opens with our hero Moffat arriving in Southampton. By boat. The time is somewhere towards the end of the 19th Century. And from the very beginning we soon learn what kind of man Moffat is. A cad. A bounder. Broke. And open to doing anything to get what he wants. Including murder. 

 

And yet you can’t help but like Moffat, be drawn into his world. And what a world it is. 

 

ATBOTNW is a fast paced adventure in the style of Dahlquist’s Glass Books of the Dream Eaters. There are detectives, secret societies, mysterious letters, magical boxes and, not to give too much away, certain blood-sucking creatures. 

 

We learn of all this via Moffat’s strange encounters, travelling by every means necessary further and further north, staying in insalubrious hotels, lodging houses, asylums, meeting a cast of ne’er do wells, dodgy characters and members of aforementioned clandestine organisations, as he, and we, try to understand just what is going on. And what needs to be done. 

 

Expect fireworks. And get them. 

 

ATBOTNW is the kind of book that doesn’t seem to get written, or at least published, much these days. Because it’s fun. Unashamedly fun. It’s the kind of book you want to sink into on a long train journey, under your covers late at night, the wind beating against your windows.