The Hoard by Neil Grimmett

Genre:  Adult, Mystery, Thriller

Source:  I received a copy to facilitate my review. The opinions expressed here are my own.

From Goodreads:

The Hoard is a thriller set in the secretive, dangerous world of a Royal Ordnance Factory; a vast, surreal place full of some of the most volatile elements on the planet.

Thirty years before the main story, the nitration house at the ROF in Bridgwater exploded in a fireball that could be seen for miles around. The entire crew was killed, and the source of the explosion was never found; authorities claimed that the charge in the nitrator had gone critical and that the chargehand was unable to stop a lethal cook-off. But Gunner Wade, the man the nitration crew sent for help that day knows differently: they were murdered; and he was branded a coward.

Now Byron, the son of one of the victims, enters the sprawling Gormenghast-like compound of the top secret factory to discover the truth about his father's death. But what he finds in the dark heart of this world is a hidden hoard of super-high explosives; illegally produced and drenched in the blood of those killed to conceal its existence. As the threat of discovery mounts, Byron finds himself at the centre of a struggle between good and evil; both to prevent a destructive force from being unleashed again and to bring the sadistic mass murderers who killed his father to justice. He is aided by an unlikely alliance of helpers, including the beautiful widow of a murdered chemist and Gunner Wade. Against them are the original perpetrators and their new legion of evil acolytes.

Inspired by a massive explosion that killed six men at the real-world ROF Bridgwater facility in 1951 - no cause was ever found - The Hoard is a gripping, grim novel that offers a glimpse into a self-contained apocalyptic landscape scarred both by the birthing of the materiel that fuels war, and the hearts of evil men who would do anything for greed.  

My Thoughts:

If you are looking for a book that is dark, and full of people you can’t trust then this might be the book for you.

This book starts out in 1951 where we find a factory that is in definite trouble.  There are secrets within and they are secrets worth killing for.  Fast forward to the 1970s where we meet the son of one of the victims.  At the time of his father’s death he was unborn.  Now he has gone to work for the very factory that took his father’s life.  He needs to know why his father died. Unfortunately there are still those who don’t want anyone to find that information and once again they are willing to do whatever it takes to keep those secrets hidden. This is not one of those books  you quickly skim through and move on to the next.  This book is full of deeply drawn characters. The author has made sure that by the end of the book you know them well.  The idea that it is based on an actual factory accident made it all the more interesting to me.  Like I said.  If you like the dark side of things then this is definitely the book for you.  This is highly recommended for anyone who loves deep, dark thrillers.  I enjoyed this one much more than the threshing circle.  When asked if I would be interested in reading it, the thing that clinched it for me was being told that it was much darker than the first one.  This is something that I love in a thriller.  

Student Saturdays – The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Here we go again.  This is the first student review of the school year.  Please respond, but also remember these are written by sixth graders.

Student Reviewer: Yazmin A.

Genre: Young Adult, Realistic Fiction

Do you know what it’s like to love a book so much you cry when you’ve finished with it? Do you know what it’s like when a book is so good you finish it in a week? That is how it was and how I felt when I read The Fault in Our Stars. It’s beyond spectacular. Mrs. Stiles, I remembered one time you said you were interviewing a girl and she abandoned a book, and you asked her why. She said because it was boring. You asked her how far she had read and she said the first page. A girl said The Fault in Our Stars was boring. But, really if you dig down deep you’ll find the gold. In the book there is this girl named Hazel, she has cancer and she goes to this support group called the Literal Heart or Jesus. Anyway, she meets this guy and ends up spending a lot of time with him. I don’t want to tell you what happens, a lot though. Let’s see, she has this book she loves called the Imperial Affliction by Peter Van Huten. She feels as if the book was written about her. Well, if I tell you anymore I’ll spoil the story. I love this book and if it were not the library’s book I would keep it. This book makes me appreciate life. It touched my heart and put me to tears. I would recommend this book to anyone, except younger children, because the book cusses a lot. Also, if you haven’t already seen the movie, the book is better. The movie leaves out a lot of key information. If I could rate The Fault in Our Stars I would give it five stars.

Guest Post: The Infinity Program by Richard H. Hardy

Topic Suggestion:
Would you consider the Jon-Lettie-Harry dynamic a love triangle? Why or why not?

Yes, I think of the Jon-Lettie-Harry dynamic as a love triangle.  But I don’t think it’s a classic love triangle since Harry is not really capable of a serious relationship at all.  He is a damaged man, deeply hurt by his father’s early death and his mother’s alcoholism.  While Lettie sincerely wants a deep and meaningful relationship, she is reluctant to enter into such a relationship. She is afraid of being hurt.  Jon is different from both of them.  He knows without question that he loves Lettie, almost from the beginning, but his cautiousness gets in the way of showing her how he really feels.

A love triangle can have many dynamics.  Two men can compete with each other for the same woman or two women can compete for the same man.  It can also have the dynamic I use in The Infinity Program.  Lettie is so involved with Harry that she is unaware that Jon really cares about her.  Their mutual concern about Harry’s problems draws them together.  Their budding relationship, with all its ups and downs, is an important subplot in The Infinity Program.

The Infinity Program Summary

Jon Graeme and Harry Sale are unlikely friends. Harry is a world-class programmer, but his abrasive personality alienates co-workers. In contrast, Jon is a handsome and easy-going technical writer, the low man on the IT totem pole.

Sharing a love of nature, the men set out together, planning to go their separate ways--Jon on a hike and Harry, fly fishing. Three days later, Jon arrives at the rendezvous point, but his friend is nowhere in sight. When Jon finds Harry unconscious on the floor of a cave, Harry claims to have been lying there the entire time. But he is neither cold nor hungry. What Jon doesn't know is that Harry fell into an underground cavern, where he came into contact with an alien quantum computer.

Back at work, Harry jettisons his regular tasks and concentrates exclusively on inventing new operating language to access the alien system. In the process he crashes his office's Super Computer and is fired. Jon convinces the company to give Harry a second chance, arguing that the system he has invented will make them millions.

Jon has no idea what havoc Harry is about to unleash.

Richard H. Hardy's Bio:

Richard H. Hardy was born in Glasgow, Scotland, during a week of relentless bombing raids just before the close of World War II. The day he was born an incendiary bomb fell on the church across the street from where he lived, so he is fond of saying that he entered the world with a big adrenaline rush.

His family later moved to England and then on to America.

After college Richard bounced through a series of temporary jobs as he traveled around the country, wanting nothing more than to write fiction. A job driving a library van allowed him free time to write several short stories and work on a novel.

He and his wife moved to New Hampshire, where he took an entry level job at a software company. He was soon promoted to the technical writing department and ended up producing over 500,000 words of online documentation. After a few years he was promoted to the programming department and ended up as the Senior EDI Programmer, creating EDI maps and writing UNIX scripts and troubleshooting on AIX systems throughout the U.S. and Canada.
After he retired, he started writing fiction again. The Infinity Program is his first published novel.

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