John Nettles Books

As Bergerac, BBC's tough and fearless policeman, John Nettles has made the island of Jersey familiar to millions of viewers. In 'Bergerac's Jersey, ' he offers a personal view of the island he has now made his home. The book provides a fascinating tour of the hidden Jersey, away from the tourist beat, and offers Bergerac enthusiasts the opportunity of exploring those places so tantalizingly glimpsed on the screen.

John Nettles' Jersey: A Personal History of the People & Places - Heroines, Heroes and Villians by John Nettles...
Synopsis:
John Nettles - BBC Television's Sergeant Bergerac - is seen by many as a symbol of Jersey and has grown to love the island and its inhabitants. In this book he delves into its past to reveal stories of heroism and cruelty, murder, mystery and romance that form part of the patchwork of Jersey's colourful history. The book's topics include personalities such as Lily Langtry and Sir George Carteret, the German occupation and the unsolved mystery of the Newalls' murder, and the text is supported by colour photographs of the island's historic landscape.

Nobody does ironic wit better than the British. John Nettles was for years a classic theatre actor and enjoyed his privacy. Then he appeared in the tv series Bergerac and became, in his words, a "mini-celebrity" and children began to "hoot at him in the street and "predatory women of uncertain years" began to press themselves upon him. This is the story, in his words, of his bout with fame. Funny stuff!! It has cartoon illustrations by John Jensen too.

Friends in High Places is the 9th in Donna Leon's Guido Brunetti series of murder mystery / police procedurals set in Venice. The book appears to be out of print in the U.S., but is readily available in its British edition via several Amazon merchants.

As with most of the Brunetti series, the story has much to do with government corruption. In this case the means of corruption is Venetian real estate, and the outcome is murder. There is also a significant drug connection, leading to the death of one addict, and indirectly leading to the deaths of 2 others.

This is one of the best in the Brunetti series, and the series is among the best I've read. Leon has great sympathy for the crime- and corruption victims, as well as for those honest policemen who investigate the crimes. The characters in this novel, and in the series generally, are not just believable, but fully fleshed-out, unlike the stick-figures in many of the crime novels I've been reading lately.

There are no neat endings in any of the Brunetti novels. Justice is always thwarted, at least to some extent. Brunetti always solves the case, but the people in 'high places' always win in the end. Such is the case in this novel as well, though in this case Brunetti finds a way to make Italian reality work for rather than against justice.

In Italy, Buildings or Apartments should always be listed - officially, and should always have two sets of records for buildings with any reconstruction plans that have happened or happening - officially. When purchasing a property, the new owner retains one copy from the pervious owner - officially. The other would be retained by the Ufficio Catasto - officially. These plans are stored and used by the Ufficio Catasto to show that building permit's were issued and planning permission was given to improve upon such historical buildings and that the building does actually exist. This would be the official process, unofficially certain plans or records become misplaced.

Franco Rossi from the Ufficio Catasto pays a visit to Guido Brunetti's top floor apartment, to inform him that although his building plans exist, his apartment is not listed on the plans therefore he also believes that his apartment should not exist, not only does this amaze Brunetti as they are quite clearly sitting in his apartment, but the awkward situation would be Brunetti cannot produced any plans either. Franco Rossi informs Brunetti that his apartment is under investigation. Brunetti decides to start his own investigation using his friends to get this matter sorted out, unfortunately before this can happen the real investigation starts a few months later when Franco Rossi is found dead at another building site after falling from scaffolding, accident or foul play? Commissario Brunetti unofficially investigates.

This Story weaves itself into different directions giving Brunetti lots to deal with in the heart of his city, drug dealers, petty thugs, money lenders and day to day corruption ranging from the crook on the street to people in power, where does it all end.

Once again Leon gives to us life in Venice very vividly written; you can almost see it and smell it. The fictional comical characterisations come thorough again in this book as it does in pervious ones. My two favourites the wonderful Sicilian Vice-Questore Giuseppe Patta (Brunetti Boss), who's always up to his old tricks of power playing and Signorina Elettra (Brunetti hidden source), sharp as a razor mind, who's day to day outfits couldn't get any saucier their about to send Brunetti into a midlife crisis. This book also makes reference to, Through A Glass, Darkly which became the name of Donna Leon's 15th book in the whole Brunetti series.

Brunetti could do know wrong in the flow of corruption. This book shows Power Playing at all levels.

If you've liked the Guido Brunetti mysteries, you will probably feel that this is one of the best in the series.

What's it all about? Commissario Guido Brunetti meets an honest public official, and crime follows as those who cheat and admire cheaters seek to remain hidden from honest men.

If that's all this book represented, it would be but an average mystery. Ms. Donna Leon adds a more intriguing element to the story: Corrupt practices breed more corruption . . . both of the heart and of the pocket book. To make the story more effective, she places Guido and Paola Brunetti in the middle of temptations that he isn't able to resist.

In Venice, the Ufficio Catasto is in charge of approving building plans and being sure they are faithfully carried out. As in many cities, homeowners try to avoid extra taxes by keeping improvements hidden from the government. Franco Rossi arrives from the Ufficio Catasto to ask Guido if he has the plans for his apartment. Why? The Ufficio Catasto has no record of plans or permits for the apartment.

What does this mean? Guido may have to pay a large fine; he may have to make substantial changes in the apartment; or he may have to demolish the apartment. None of those choices seem attractive. What about using a little influence to avoid the problem? That temptation dangles before the Brunettis throughout the story.

But they are not the only ones who have such challenges -- Vice-Questore Patta also has the need for some help with public matters. Guido finds himself placed in the middle of that moral choice as well.

During the course of the story, Guido also learns about other unpleasant parts of the underbelly of Venice "civilization" that lurks beneath the beautiful exterior that the tourists love to admire.

It's a powerful story that will leave you seeing Venice differently than you have before.

Enjoy!

Having read all of Helen MacInness and Sherlock Holmes (after midnight) as a grad student I couldn't stand reading anything less and so gave up mysteries for over 35 years. Looking for something to read on the train, I bought my first Donna Leon book (A Noble Radiance) in the station in Stuttgart and have read nine of her novels so far. Commisario Brunetti and his sharp-tongued wife (who, like Leon, accidentally teaches English in Venice) are never boring. So far, I've not guessed the plot before it developed, and the description of Venice and Italian life is fantastic. A wonder that she's not been run out of town tarred and feathered, if not be the city fathers or the patrici, then by The Church. Enjoy, when you need something entertaining and intelligently written, with attention to geographic and cultural detail.

Commissario Brunetti gets a visit by a young civil servant to talk to him about his apartment. A couple of days later Brunetti gets an urgent phone call from the same man, who is very nervous and wants to talk to the commissario. Brunetti doesn't get the chance, because a couple of hours later, the young man is found ... dead. Then, a young man and a girl are murdered at the same location as the civil servant. Brunetti starts his investigation.

This silver dagger award winner is another exciting crime story from Donna Leon. As always, the characters come from all regions of the Venetian society. Some of the themes, like drug abuse and bribery, and the interesting writing style make this book into another page turner.

This book is a very good introduction to the main evangelical views on baptism. The book contains four views: 1) the traditional Baptist view (Nettles); 2) the traditional Reformed view (Pratt); 3) the traditional Lutheran view (Kolb); and 4) the "Christian" Church view (Castelein). The essays by Nettles and Pratt are the best ones. Both make a good case for their respective traditions (though, of course, I agree with Nettles more since I'm a Baptist too). Though Pratt and Kolb do a valiant job in defending their view that infant baptism is Scriptural, I don't believe history and exegesis supports the concept of infant baptism. The nature of redemptive history and exegesis of particular texts demands that only believers should be baptized.

The major concern I have with this book is that one of the contributors (Castelein) unashamedly denies the biblical doctrine of justification by faith alone. On page 132, he writes: "Working with James's definition of faith, in contrast to Paul's definition, salvation by 'faith only' is simply impossible." However, Paul also states that those who reject the true gospel (like Castelein) will also find that salvation is impossible (Gal 1:8-9). Dr. Castelein and all those CoC members who explicitly deny justification by faith alone are heretics and will not find salvation unless they repent of their grievous error. Adding one's own works to the finished work of Christ on the cross is an insult to God.

This is a great addition to the Counterpoints series. The format of previous volumes is retained. Each theologian has an essay about his view of baptism, and the others give brief replies.

The first one up at the plate is Thomas Nettles, who represents the Baptist view. He points out that the pattern for baptism is that it is something which follows belief. Therefore, Nettles would not baptize an infant. Nettles struggles somewhat as he tries to explain how difficult texts such as 1 Peter 3:21 and Acts 22:16 fit into his system.

The Reformed view is presented by Richard Pratt, Jr. He contends that infant baptism has a similar function to circumcision in the Old Testament in that it incorporates the child into the visible community (even though it does not confer saving grace on the child).

Nettles and Castelein countered Pratt by noting that Pratt placed an equal amount of emphasis on the Westminster Confession as he did the Bible, and that non_Reformed Christians would object to this. They note that our doctrine should come straight from Scripture.

Robert Kolb presents the Lutheran view, and it is very similar to the Reformed perspective. The main difference is that Lutherans believe that babies ARE born again when they are baptized. Nettles counters this by noting that that there are no known instances of salvation in the New Testament apart from hearing and responding to the gospel, an argument which struck me as quite cogent.

John Castelein presents the Church of Christ view. His presentation is very similar to the Baptist view. The one difference is that Castelein contends that baptism is the occasion for justification, a teaching that Pratt and Nettles effectively challenge.

Armstrong has a short essay encouraging continued dialogue, then there are appendixes which list all the scriptures about baptism and some of the confessional statements issued by the Church in the past.

I don't think that any one of the writers delievered a knockout punch, but my own understanding of Scripture fits best with the view of Thomas Nettles. I am surprised that non one discussed Acts 2:41, which says that "all who accepted the message were baptized." I wonder how infant baptizers would respond to this.

But I thought the essays were crisp and clear, and I like how each one ended with practical questions that people might ask, along with some good answers. Buy this book if you are sifting through your understanding of baptism.

This is a fantastic summary of four Protestant understandings of baptism: from the Baptist, Reformed, Lutheran, and Church of Christ perspectives. Each of the authors does a marvelous job of stating his case briefly and succinctly (all chapters are under 20 pages) and yet thoroughly -- I felt as though I grasped the core teachings of each perspective after I finished. The editor (John Armstrong) also offers a helpful introduction and conclusion, which point out some of the universally-held points of agreement among all the contributors, as well as the key issues on which they differ.

I fall within the Reformed perspective, and I was impressed by how the Reformed writer not only included several classic terms from Reformed theology (e.g., "covenant", "sign and seal", "means of grace") but also defined these terms and showed how they emerge from the Bible and not just from the Reformed Confessions. Other reviewers will have to assess whether they think the other 3 perspectives were as well-represented, but I thought all the chapters were very well-written. (Perhaps a few additional comments could have helped in a few areas. For example, neither of the two proponents of Infant Baptism addressed very strongly how the biblical data is somewhat inconclusive: just as there is no explicit command to baptize infants, neither is there an explicit command forbidding it; and just as there is no clear-cut example of an infant being baptized in Scripture, neither is there any example of an infant being presented for baptism by his or her parents, and being denied. But this is a small point.)

The respect that each of the authors has for each other is also evident: Several times they list points of agreement with the other positions which sound like they spring from genuine appreciation, and not from a patronizing attempt to avoid sounding too critical. Also, the editor readily admits in the opening introduction that there is no single position on baptism which is the definitive "Christian" or "biblical" view.

Other than the brevity of the chapters and the possibility of a few additional comments that would have solidified the authors' positions, the only other thing (that I can think of) that would have strenghtened this book would have been to include a Roman Catholic viewpoint: I'd be especially interested to hear how a Roman Catholic might respond to and critique the four views that are contained.

But this is a minor quibble. Overall, this book gives a wonderful presentation of four major views on baptism. The reader will come away with a well-balanced understanding of the main strengths and weaknesses of each position. And as an added bonus, the back of the book contains a series of appendices which include a concordance of all the occurences of the word "baptize" (and its derivatives) in the Bible, and a series of quotations from creeds, catechisms, and well-respected theologians that offer additional examples of the differing views on baptism. This book will be a welcome addition to the library of anyone wanting a broader understanding of baptism, as it is viewed by differing Christian traditions.

This book is helpful and accomplishes it's task of presenting 4 views on Baptism and in essence salvation. I am taken back at Richard Pratt stating on page 115 that the Lutheran view, which holds to Baptismal regeneration, is closer to the Reformed view than the Reformed Baptist Tom Nettles presentation. Pratt must deem ecclesiological ritual more important than soteriology.

This book is a balanced, accessible and well organized summary of four major views on baptism. I had some questions about my church's stance on baptism in relation to other Protestant traditions, but found that most of the material out there is either heavily biased or overly academic and lengthy. This material is set up in a point/counter-point formula with each of the four authors succinctly articulating their view on baptism followed by a response from the other three authors. The views represented are: Reformed, Baptist, Lutheran, and the Church of Christ. Although it is clear that each of the authors is firmly committed to their view, they disagree respectfully with each other and are even able to find some common ground. This allows the reader to quickly and easily understand the arguments for all four positions. If you've got some questions about baptism, this book is a great place to start.

This book was either a new book or well taken care of. I am perfectly satisfied.

Dr. John Gill was an ultra-strict Calvinist pastor in England. This book is his systematic dismantling of Arminian theology, topic by topic, and text by text. No stone is left unturned. This really is the book to own if you would like to read an exhaustive rebuttal by a Calvinist theologian against Arminianism. I would warn you against the very-small print. This edition has not been re-formatted, but rather I guess it must be a fresh reprint of an old version. Your mind may enjoy thinking about the theology, but your eyes will go buggy!

Second, Gill habitually resorts to a weakness among many theologians -- he re-interprets the texts in terms of his presuppositions, rather than re-evaluating a system in light of the text. There were numerous times when Gill's argumentation about an "Arminian" verse amounted to, "Well, we _already know_ that God can't/doesn't/won't, so therefore..." and then Gill devises some implausible interpretations. This illustrates a chronic danger in systematic theology -- it aims at air-tight logic, but stumbles over (or ignores) specific verses that just won't quite bend to fit into a Procrustean bed.

John Gill was a Reformed Baptist, and in The Cause of God and Truth, he deals especially with those texts which some raise in opposition to Reformed doctrine. Gill carefully shows the biblical basis for the Reformed view of those texts in question.
This book is an excellent reference resource due to the careful, thorough indexing of all Scripture references in the volume.

One of the best reference books supporting the Doctrines of Grace (Calvinism) in this millenium. It is an essential for witnessing to those pesky Arminians about the True, Living and Sovereign God of all things. This book has all kinds of ways to cross-reference Scriptures with the subjects and vice-versa. It is the most helpful tool I have found on the Doctrines of Grace. It even has references to the early church writers and their ideas on absolute predestination,unconditional election,
peculiar redemption,original sin,efficacius grace, etc. A fine buy for all of its help. Don't be caught without it.
Try and find the Primitive Baptist edition as the print is larger than The Sovereign Grace Publisher edition. Both are hardbacks. There is a paperback edition by GO Publcations and Mr. Ella which is a biography even though it bears the name of "The Cause of God and Truth". I own the PBL and SGP editions and often give loved ones this book for very special occasions. Elder Bradley R. Guildner

This is the definitive biography of Joseph Vissarionovich Djugashvili (Stalin) and his evil dictatorship. From his birth in 1878 through his rise to power in the 1920's, the "Great Terror" of the late 1930's, the conflict of World War II, the horrific post-war period to his death in 1953, Stalin's evil nature is documented in terrifying detail. Fascinating!

On March,9 1953 Stalin's funerals announced the closing of an era.
Molotov, Krushev and Beria pronounced the official speeches praising the virtues of the father of Nationalities.
It was a great show of unity and official harmony from the workers' paradise, but reality was different from the official show.
Stalin had died a lonely man and his heirs had been in the past months a miserable lot of frightened men.
*
Polina, Molotov's wife, was still in the Lubianka, under interrogation, while her husband had been on the verge to be purged under Stalin's malevolent and dangerous suspicions.
Beria had been in disgrace as well and extremely worried for his fate, and life (there is still a lingering suspect he had poisoned Stalin to prevent being outmanoeuvred). Still - relieved as he could be by Stalin's death, he did not know that in a few months he would have been nonetheless eliminated, being too compromised with the past.
Krushev had been at times protégé and outcast, but his ability to shade his real feelings and his apparent candidness had saved him more than once from Stalin's congenital distrust.
*
Molotov, Krushev and Beria represented the last "court of the Red Tsar".
They were survivors in an entourage repeatedly decimated by bloody purges that followed - one after the other - since 1937.
And they were collectively responsible for atrocities unparalleled but for those of Nazi Germany, and eager - each one separately - to shove off the burden of responsibility on the dead despot.
There was no Nuremberg trial for the "murderous magnates".
*
This essay is both a biography of the red tsar and the story of his courtiers.
History of Soviet Russia - unlike that of Nazi Germany - is still too open to disputes to present a common ground of evaluation.
Many disagreements rise from lack of first hand reliable sources and the persistence both of Soviet mythology and visceral anti-communist hatred.
This is one of the reasons we must be obliged to Simon Sebag Montefiore: he has done an excellent work of research, having had the opportunity to scrutinize declassified official documents of the era and to interview survivors and descendants of the family elites of Stalin's inner circle, an enormous amount of work that inevitably cost the author a good deal of time.
*
"Stalin. The Court of the Red Tsar" is a well written and interesting work.
Sebag Montefiore casts new light on Stalin portrait, sometimes in unexpected directions.
He is one of the few historians to document the dictator refined intellectual curiosity, spanning from politics to poetry and literature (he even attempted translation of Georgian epics).
Stalin was not the brute we've been accustomed from the "revisionist" studies produced by historians like Helene Carrere d'Encausse (in her "Lénine" he is liquidated as little more than a loutish bank robber) and neither the dim-witted monster imagined by most writers (last a popular writer as Robert Harris in his - rather deluding - "Archangel").
He was an avid reader, did show exceptional abilities to express complex ideas in clear and concise language, and revealed above average managerial skills.
These features help to explain both his rise to power and the ability to maintain it.
*
Stalin was also a ruthless, paranoid and resentful dictator.
He was a committed politician and a fanatic Bolshevik, persuaded that ends are always superior to mean, no matter personal and collective sacrifices.
These qualities were to become his blessings and damnation: the curse of tyrants, who after killing all the dissenters, end up lonely prisoners in the golden cage of sycophantic courtiers.
*
The pervading biographical dimension of this essay represents the main limit of this work, that cannot attain a higher level of historiography.
Montefiore produced an extremely informed work, but critical evaluation of the historical events is reduced to the bone.
Moreover psychology is most of the times massively used to explain historical events, to detriment to other reasons.
*
These features are especially visible in the description of Stalin's rise to power: from revolutionary agitator, to leader of a Bolshevik oligarchy, ending as sole ruler of an immense empire.
There are but confusing explanations on how he was able to attain such place: nothing is said about the role of the new burocracy in normalizing the revolution and supporting stronger and less idealistic leaders, the role of terror and propaganda in cementing the new Soviet State.
*
Some parts of Stalin's biography are completely neglected: the formative years as a pre-revolutionary leader (not just his intellectual milieu, but his travels and his contacts with the European intelligentsia) and the first years of the revolution.
Few words are spent for the "foreign" court of the red tsar: all those intellectuals and political leaders who at different times made part of his entourage and from time to time represented the revolution abroad.
The list could be longer...
*
Unsatisfactory is also the cursory censure of Stalinism, mostly based on an honest and void indignation for all the suffering it caused.
The mission of history is to understand AND remember.
To paraphrase George Santayana, those who cannot understand the past are liable to repeat former errors.
The recurrent famines and the frightening purges can be described but most important is to understand why they came to happen and their inner reasons outside insanity.
And yet this was the best place to debate heated arguments as the essence of totalitarian power, the reasons of emergency and survival of the revolution, the claim of humanity in an age of extremes.
Did Stalin and his elite chose the lesser evil, as Bolsheviks still claim to day?
Was the emergency a sufficient reason for the pains caused?
Did they really believe in the final outcome of the communist Struggle?
Or they were just a new oligarchy interested in self preservation?
*
The mention of Stalin's intellectual curiosity could also give room for further analysis.
Stalin's fascination for the French Terror and Robespierre confronts two different totalitarian experiences and their final different outcome: if the French terror ended cannibalizing itself, the Russian terror ended up in strengthening the Bolshevik grip to power.
Stalin's compulsive passion for biographies of Eastern rulers offers an insight into the idea of autocratic power he tried to found: Eastern despotism - hardly camouflaged in a new Marxist fashion - as opposed to Western liberalism, but also deeply ingrained in the millennial autocratic culture coming down from Byzantium.
*
Finally a wider historical perspective could made the readers understand that Stalin was not unique in the panorama of the 1930s: Mussolini in Italy, Franco in Spain, Hitler in Germany, but also smaller dictators all over Europe (Austria, Turkey, Romania,...).
History should try to explain if all these despotic regimes were an isolate and peculiar feature of the era - and if so, the causes and affinities between the many different totalitarian regimes - or if Stalin was different - and given the right humus, a Stalinist regime could be resuscitated today (the only reference I found is a rather dull remark of the resemblance between Stalin and Saddam Hussein at page 21).
*
My field of interest is more oriented to ancient and modern history. I'm not a great fan of contemporary history but for restricted specific periods: one of these is the 1930s in Europe and America.
If you kept reading to these last lines, there is a chance you may be interested in other works I had the chance to read about the same topic:
- "The Dark Valley. A Panorama of the 1930s" by Piers Brendon. Monumental history of the 1930s written with gusto and insight. It is a work of easy readability, with journalistic spirit but great accuracy.
- "Age of Extremes - The Short XXth Century" by E.J. Hobsbawn (1994). Hugely interesting, with a deliberate Marxist perspective. I loved this book, because it is a great fresco of the period from 1914 to 1991 and a passionate attempt not to justify, but to understand the inner mechanism of history.
- "Lenine" by Helene Carrere d'Encausse. No biography of Lenin cannot but deal with Stalin as well. The writer is supposed to be an expert of Russian history, but the disgust she shows, is inevitably disqualifying for her work.
- "The Banality of Evil. Heichmann in Jerusalem" by Hannah Harendt. Hannah Harendt has been one of the sharpest political and philosophical minds of the XX century: this is the report of Eichmann trial in Jerusalem, but her reflection on duty and responsibility are well fit to be used in judging Stalinism.
*
You are most welcome if you can suggest other books about the same theme or just share ideas and comments!
Thanks for reading.

Having read many of this author's books and enjoyed them, I purchased this one with high hopes and in a word was disappointed. This tale tracks three protagonists - an American spy, a Russian spy and the woman "caught" between them - from Paris to Afghanistan during the height of the Cold War and the Russian-Afghani War. Not the most complicated plot but this author has made due with much less. Unfortunately not here. The characters are wooden and the plot is a yawner. Pass on this one.

This came across as a somewhat new version of his popular "Eye Of The Needle." The complicated setting is Afghanistan. The undercover agent is trying to keep the Afghan tribes from fighting each other & to fight the invaders. The erotic plot that interferes with his mission is a love triangle. A sexy English nurse, her French husband {a KGB agent}, & her former CIA boyfriend. This book has Folletts usual depth of characters, a mildly outdated plot, & a higher dose of eroticism than his other works. Not his best, but always worth reading.

Thin plot, thinly developed characters, not the author's best. The Pillars of the Earth, Eye of the Needle, and Dangerous Fortune stand out as by far his best. Lie down with Lions is interesting, but not nearly the suspense, drama or richly developed characters of Follett's best... not worth a read in my opinion.

Lie Down With Lions, Ken Follett's final spy thriller before he began the cycle of historical books that occupied him for a decade, takes place mostly in the mountains of Afghanistan in about 1982, during the height of US-funded resistance to the Soviet invasion. Here a CIA agent and decorated Vietnam veteran, a British woman he loves, a French doctor who is a KGB operative posing as an international aid worker (and also the husband of the British woman), and the KGB itself all interact among Afghan resistance fighters (the fathers of today's Taliban) who seek to throw out the Soviets and establish an Islamic nation governed by the Koran. This time out Follett's novel is less about suspense than it is the straightforward telling of a sound story. The violence is held to a minimum and always the plot rests squarely in the gray hues that lie between the black and white morality so common among other authors. Unlike so many other Follett tales, particularly Triple, this book does seem a bit dated with its Cold War Realpolitiks and Islamists as good guys, but as a vehicle for a jaunt back in time to when the world stage was a different place, this is an interesting trip. There is also the matter of its unexpected ending, which was a stroke of genius. All I'll say is that in the last pages when all seemed at its darkest, Follett delivered a deus ex machine-style happening that settled scores magnificently in a satisfying way I didn't see coming. Lie Down With Lions is a perfect example of why a good book can be more fun to read than a great one.

About 20 years ago in Paris, a CIA agent from America called John Ellis is undercover and living with an Englishwoman named Jane Lambert. At first it was just so he could fit in more, but after a while they started to fall in love. He wanted to propose to her, but decided to wait until after his "assignment" was over. There's another man named Jean-Pierre who is also in love with Jane. Jean-Pierre is a doctor who has decided to leave and go to Afghanistan to help out all the sick people. Since he will be gone for two years, he asked Jane to come along. At first she refused, but after she learned that Ellis was a spy she went.
She loved all the village people and stayed in a small town in The Valley of Five Lions. She grew close to everyone, but more close to Jean-Pierre. They married and she had a baby, and she never once questioned her marriage until one day Ellis showed up. Then she learned of Jean-Pierre's secret...
I absolutely loved this book because of the love and the action. I never guessed what would happen and the ending was almost perfect.