Review of ‘Though the Treason Pleases’, by Pat Cunningham

This review is by Julie Bunting, and was published originally in The Peak Advertiser, the Peak District's local free newspaper, and is reproduced with Julie's kind permission.

Though the Treason Pleases is the latest title from Derbyshire author Pat Cunningham and, being fiction, is very different from his earlier titles which include the series on Peakland Air Crashes. Set against the troubled history of Northern Ireland and amidst its glorious coastal scenery, the novel combines the author's trademark skills of exciting action - this time centred on a revenge abduction - peopled with a cast of characters working through professional and romantic challenges. In the latter respect, the detail is considerably more X-rated than Barbara Cartland, with one particularly rude nickname and many enthusiastically amorous encounters.

The author's many years of experience as a professional pilot, coupled with references to actual air tragedies, including in and around the Peak, make for grim realism. The prologue is textbook-perfect and unsettling: a chapter to which the reader will intermittently return as the plot thickens and suspense escalates.

Festering, forgiveness and a knotty plot combine to provide a scorcher of a 300-page story which finally makes sense, with every apparent loose end tied up 'just so'.

Review by Julie Bunting