Neil Grimmett

A vividly enthralling depiction of the voracious world of bands, fame, fortune and fury, Neil Grimmett’s Mud Dance is an invitation to share the life and trials of a gifted drummer, and the tribulations of an honest man in a world of contorted music and artistic demands. The novel is filled with enticing contrasts, music and dance, souls with hope and hapless emptiness, soaring sounds played by musicians stuck in the mud of reality… The complexity of musical terms balances perfectly with the unmeasurables of human relationship, while the narrator’s voice brings drum playing out of darkness into artistry and heart. The present day narrator, wounded and aged by years, reveals a different sense of time that surpasses the timing of his instrument—no longer “the master of time; but its servant like everyone else.” And a sense of mystery haunts the pages as readers wait to learn how he got to here from there.

As evocative in its descriptions of scenery, town and countryside, as in its recreation of music and dance; as relevant to the present day as its song titles are to the past; The Mud Dance is a haunting tale, filled with haunted characters; a warning to those lured by fame; a coolly bleak and honest evocation of a different era; and a soaring dance of heartfelt joy and pain. By the end, “into the mike from a long way off. ‘Goodnight to you now,’” completes the story perfectly.

Disclosure: I was given an ecopy and I’m just sorry it took me so long to get around to reading it. I love this author’s work, and this is my favorite of his novels.… (altro)

Neil Grimmett’s The Bestowing Sun balances art, literature, love and the ragged hard work of country life in a truly compelling story set in rural England. The book is beautifully, lyrically written, smooth as the rolling hills, yet dark and jagged as the weather. A large cast of characters peoples a well-knit farming village, bustling with gossip, fact and fiction intertwined. But the scenery tells its stories too, and the artist paints them.

Sudden shifts in time and place mirror shattering relationships, distracting readers initially, perhaps, before hooking and reeling them in. The fisherman farmer releases his catch. The woman in search of love heads to warmer climates. And the broken artist turns memories and insights into paint, then chases his muse across the world, leaving cracked dreams in his wake. But there is a “grace of love” worth seeking, even when love is lost. And there’s an intensity and beauty in being forced by the author to look through this artist’s eyes—seeing more and grasping for truth, story and love, no matter how deeply disguised.

The Bestowing Sun bestows its light on very real characters who live very different lives. Telling more than words can say, it reveals dark and light through its briefly open window, until in the end, “That was enough.” A wonderful novel!

Disclosure: I was given a copy and I offer my honest review.… (altro)

A beautifully evocative and grimly real tale, set on the Somerset Levels, Neil Grimmett’s The Burnt Fox frees failed author Eliot from the misery of life on a council estate into the world of a rich man’s servant. Together with wife Donna and son Bradley, he embarks a new life filled with hope, and learns to tend game birds, shoot squirrels, and keep the fox-hunters pleased. Meanwhile his wife cleans house, his son goes to school, and a rather strange farmer introduces him to the joys of dehorning bulls.

The story’s very English, set in a broken world trapped halfway between what was and what will be—or between the ordinary crowd and the isolated stranger. Intense descriptions bring everything to life, or death, and the countryside is as cruel as it is kind. The story, the tasks, the world—all are endlessly fascinating and alluring. But Eliot’s falling for a different allure, and a haunted sense of brooding darkness looms. The language is beautiful. The countryside is vividly real. And a satisfying sense of what’s untold adds almost frightening depth to the tale that’s filled with fascinating detail, honest affection, unforced symbolism, and hints of mystery and intrigue.

Intimate, haunting, beautiful and sad, The Burnt Fox runs the gamut of emotions and tells a tale that feels vividly real, from first page to last. Highly recommended—especially if you’re interested in England.

Disclosure: I was given a copy and I offer my honest review.… (altro)

It’s not that I haven’t read a lot of British fiction. Like many Americans (especially those of us of a certain age), I grew up on books by British writers. I have read hundreds of them over the years, books covering just about every period of British history right up to contemporary life in the U.K. And I lived in London for much of the nineties. But the England Neil Grimmett describes in The Hoard is such a surrealistically haunting place that I find myself still thinking about it some two weeks after I turned the last page of Grimmett’s dark thriller.

The Hoard is based upon a real-life explosion that occurred at Bridgewater’s Royal Ordinance Factory in 1951, a horrendous, never explained, explosion that killed an entire production crew. Starting with that incident, Grimmett builds a scenario in which the factory’s higher-ups are involved in a complicated plot through which they are hoarding unaccounted for high-explosives to be smuggled out of the factory later as they are sold to the highest bidder. Now, almost thirty years later, it is time to cash in. The culprits are all old men looking to feather their nests before calling it a day – time is running out.

But there is one problem, a big one, and his name is Byron.

Byron’s father, you see, was killed in the original explosion, and Byron has come to suspect that his father’s death was murder – not an accident. More importantly, he has gotten a job inside the ordinance factory and he is determined to find out what really happened on the day his father died. But whom can he trust? And what will happen to him and anyone helping him if he is exposed for what he is: a man on a mission to bring down some of the most powerful and influential men in all of Bridgewater?

The Hoard is a rather complicated, first-rate, thriller but I will remember it primarily for its distinct setting and atmosphere. The Bridgewater of Grimmett’s novel can be described as a one-company town gone terribly bad. Everything one can imagine to be wrong about a town completely dominated by a single employer whose every resident depends entirely upon the company for his livelihood is here in spades. The corrupt managers of the Royal Ordinance Factory demand complete loyalty and silence from employees. What they see and do inside the factory is never to be spoken of outside the factory gates. Workers who dare get a little too curious are dealt with harshly – that is, if they even live long enough to regret their curiosity.

The Hoard is quite a ride even for experienced thriller fans.… (altro)