Customer Reviews

Knight of Swords

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This is a many layered story of people caught up in the final days of World War II. These people just happen to be waiting for the end of hostilities - in a castle. Not some fairytale castle, but an old, worn bunch of rooms, some of which are totally dilapidated.

The family we meet is perhaps not the same family that came to live there or the same family that our main character gets to know. Brookes, the man who was left to die before being rescued by the family, is (in today's parlance) a "person of interest". He is a soldier, probably. He is with the Allies, probably.

He could be of help to the family, but only if they are who they want him to believe they are - and he is who he wants them to believe he is. We get to know these people as we spend the winter with them in their castle. Or do we?

This is sparsely worded. Breckon doesn't waste our time with niceties. He kept me turning the pages and being constantly surprised. And, he showed me not only the brutality of war, but the brutality of people to one another. Or is it love?

This multi-layered story continually draws the reader in, folding both the reader and the main character into a depth of mystery as isolating and enveloping as the deepening winter outdoors. And the finesse of the ending is that it turns the whole story before it on end. I found myself jotting down the author's name and hoping his next book is out very soon.