Timothy Jay Smith

Fire on the Island by Timothy Jay Smith is an addicting, fun and thrilling ride around a small Greek village.

In this thriller, an FBI agent finds his way to a Greek island where fires keep happening. He is investigating why they are happening and who could have caused him. Along the way, he comes across local islanders and business owners trying their best to succeed and living their lives. He meets himself a fancy man who he begins to fall for, and who might not be who he says he is. Many other islanders face the same fate: there's a priest who isn't so saintly, a family struggling to keep their business afloat, an Albanian waiter who has lots of drama going on, and his new lover's sister is trying to get with every man no matter the relationships she ruins for them along the way.

This book is WILD. I was instantly stuck to it and truly intrigued about the ending. It took a bit for the entire story to piece itself together, but when it does it's absolutely marvelous. I can easily say this is one of my top 2020 reads. I couldn't put the book down!

There are some difficult topics in this book, like suicide and rape. Reader beware - this book doesn't go too crazy into these topics, but they are still there. The mystery and romance is much more in the fore front.

On another note: This book is LGBT friendly! Huzzah!

Overall, this book was excellent! I'd highly recommend picking this book up if you love mystery and suspense with a dash of romance.

Five out of five stars.

Thank you to Timothy Jay Smith and NetGalley for a free copy of this book in exchange of an honest review.… (mais)

If you're looking for a book full of mystery, thrills and deceit then The Fourth Courier by Timothy Jay Smith might be for you!

This book was action packed, fast paced and full of intriguing characters (all of which seem to meet at the final climax of the book). Not only that, but Timothy Jay Smith had such a way with words that it was hard to put down! To just quote the opening lines of the book, "their steel girders booed thunderously" had me hooked, and his way with his prose continued to be spotless and marvelous!

In this book, we follow Jay Porter the FBI agent while he is in Poland. Dead men are popping up everywhere and they all have very specific pieces of evidence about them suggesting there's a murderer on the loose. Throw in the 90s setting with Russia, Poland and nuclear weapons, and you've got yourself a great start to a thrilling mystery novel. Along the way we meet characters who seem to belong to the mafia, a lovely lady named Basia who feels like a Bond girl, and lots and lots of deceit.

This book gave me Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and James Bond vibes. It's really intriguing and dark yet still made me feel totally hooked on the book. I read it all in one sitting because I NEEDED to know how it ended. To top it off, having the incredible writing style of Timothy was just amazing! It was enchanting to read the story and see it happening in front of my eyes so well! He's so descriptive!

If I had to give this book a rating, it would be R. There's blood, guns and sex (lots of sex, among different genders too!).

If I had to list some of the "cons" of this book, it would be as followed:
1. There's a lot of small side plot/comments that may throw some readers off. For example, Jay's trouble with his ex-wife and son pop up briefly a few times. It's not totally necessary to know all of that information to know about Jay, but it's there. I could see that being a distraction for some readers.
2. Jay and Lilka had more chemistry than Jay had murder-solving capabilities, in my humble opinion. I would have liked to see him work a little harder on his crime solving abilities or flesh out the romance full out. But that's just me - I like romance novels and I like mystery novels and I find them hard to mix together.

Overall, this is one great addition to your mystery and thriller shelf! I would 100% recommend this book if you like a good mystery novel or want something to spice of your reading! And, it's relatively short! The copy I received was under 300 pages which made it nice and quick for me!

Four out of five stars!

I received a free copy of this book from the author, Timothy Jay Smith, in exchange for an honest review.… (mais)

This is a book that could so easily have become derailed and ‘preachy’, as the subject covered within its pages is one we see and hear about daily on our national news; the conflict between Israel and Palestine. So I was wonderfully relieved to see that the Author dealt with this volatile area with an unbiased and caring pen. Too many Authors take sides in their writing when covering this topic and, I’m happy to say that Timothy J. Smith is definitely not one of them; he conveys through his writing a feeling of truth, familiarity and understanding.

There is not one main lead character but many, as the novel is written from a variety of different points of view that are all equally represented; there is no hint at all as to whether the Author leans one way or the other in his beliefs. Through the eyes of his characters, the people who live in Israel and are subject to this everyday (to give spoilers would really be wrong in this review), we are able to understand the history of the area, what has happened and why it is still happening now. To me this was the absolute strong point of the novel; it meant I could really empathize with the characters, and see through their eyes how futile and complicated the situation there really is. For some readers though, they may feel it hard to empathize with the characters as this, after all, is a novel about the concept of war. Whilst all the characters are dynamic and complicated, they will incite one of two emotions in the reader, empathy or a general disdain.

The story moves at a cracking pace; it’s tragic, suspenseful, desperate and desolate and the conflict at times is brutally confronting; something we all need in this present day to make us take note to what is happening outside our own comfort zone. Unlike our daily media reporting this novel is able to give the situation an underlying human perspective, which we all too often fail to acknowledge.

Ultimately, this story is a depiction of how continuing conflict can cause individuals to lose track of what is going on, and the actual reason they are at war. How it tears families apart while at the same time it bringing them back together.

To get a better understanding of how this works, how the characters and circumstances work together in this region, you really need to read the novel. To try to describe it here would be to do an injustice to a sensitively covered topic, which has us reeling in the modern media.

I would definitely recommend this novel to lovers of international political and contemporary fiction and anyone who takes a keen interest in world affairs.

Originally reviewed on: http://catesbooknuthut.wordpress.com/2013/07/15/review-a-vision-of-angels-timoth...




This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.… (mais)

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: For International Espionage Fans of Alan Furst and Daniel Silva, a new thriller set in post-Soviet era Poland.

It is 1992 in Warsaw, Poland, and the communist era has just ended. A series of grisly murders suddenly becomes an international case when it's feared that the victims may have been couriers smuggling nuclear material out of the defunct Soviet Union. The FBI sends an agent to help with the investigation. When he learns that a Russian physicist who designed a portable atomic bomb has disappeared, the race is on to find him—and the bomb—before it ends up in the wrong hands.

Smith’s depiction of post-cold war Poland is gloomily atmospheric and murky in a world where nothing is quite as it seems. Suspenseful, thrilling, and smart, The Fourth Courier brings together a straight white FBI agent and gay black CIA officer as they team up to uncover a gruesome plot involving murder, radioactive contraband, narcissistic government leaders, and unconscionable greed.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Atmospheric, dark thriller about the immediate aftermath of the USSR's fall, its consequences for the former Warsaw Pact countries (especially Poland), and a morally ambiguous story of how the balance of power stays balanced.

I was unsurprised to see the homophobia of the Eastern Bloc countries brought into focus...remember Swimming in the Dark? Nationalist Love?...but was quite surprised to see it used to make a US spy into a honey trap for a General known to be, um, susceptible. It's such a realpolitik maneuver that I've always assumed it was simply unknown. Silly me. If something can provide leverage, of course it's been used by both sides.

Kurt, our gay character, is both Black and a CIA honey trap for the self-loathing General. He's...fine with it. He uses his body, its beauty and power, to further the interests of his chosen side. This means he's not a good gay, or a good guy. This being Reality I'm all down with this in theory. In practice, as it's handled in this story, it's a bit more like prostitution than it is noble self-sacrifice. I'm not criticizing here but analyzing what it is that the two things have in common: Exchange of value. The sheer mercenary chill of Kurt giving the General what he craves is perfectly appropriate, if distasteful.

Again, the consummation of the act isn't explicit. It's more detailed than it was in Fire on the Island. It's staged in a shower, and that made me chuckle...let's keep it clean, boys!...and the ending, which is indeed Happy, is somewhat heavy-handedly made into a political commentary. But I wasn't anywhere near as creeped out as I routinely am in these sorts of situations when it's a woman using her body to get a man to do something for her side. My primary issue is: That's it. That's what Kurt's there to do, he does it, and buh bye now!

As with all the gay characters in the book, they serve a role and vacate the scene when it's fulfilled. I found Jay, straight and narrow Jay, uninteresting really. He was an investigator who didn't investigate but ran across answers. It's not like that is unknown in thrillerdom. It just doesn't endear him to me. And honestly I just do not care about his ex-wife or about his borning relationship with Lilka the Polish lady, which yet again (see review above) is clearly stated as Not Going Anywhere.

Nowhere near as much fun to read as Fire on the Island, but I wanted to finish the read. I was involved, I was entertained, and yet still I was unsatisfied because Kurt was underutilized. Why tell me about him at all if all he was there to do was fuck one guy and then melt down the shower drain with his jizz?

I don't doubt that straight people will like it more than I did.… (mais)