Monday, July 20, 2015

Book Review: War Game

A Fair Trade Book

Title: War Game

Author: Anthony Price

Publisher: Gollancz, 1976; Futura, 1979

Date: 1976 (U.K.), 1979 (U.S.)


Length: 255 pages

Quote: “You improve the odds, for a fact. But you didn't call them.”

That's what a superordinate tells David Audley, the main protagonist of War Game, during Audley's assignment to uncover the sinister forces at work when a history buff is murdered during a “reenactment” of an historic battle.

It's a murder mystery with a bit of international espionage and an historical treasure hunt for flavor; a Communist Party type called Ratcliffe, “The Red Rat,” has infiltrated a group of English Civil War reenactors (identifying Cromwell's side with the Communist Party, although, as Price notes in the course of the story, Cromwell harshly suppressed the proto-communist or proto-hippie “Diggers”—and they were Protestants). Not my favorite genre, and Price's narrative style might seem easy-going to some readers who do like the genre, but I enjoyed the English-countryside-summer atmosphere.

If you like history, mystery, and the idea of Commie spies being tricked into suicide through their own hypocritical greed, you will enjoy War Game.

Anthony Price is still living, at last report, so War Game is a Fair Trade Book. Send us $5 per copy + $5 per package, we send $1 to Price or a charity of his choice. You could send us $45 for 8 copies and we'd send $8 to Price or his charity. E-mail and real mail addresses for this web site appear at the very bottom of the screen.

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