Böcker av Eamonn Vincent

Who Was Nightshade? by Eamonn Vincent Welcome to the quaint English village of Fordham Market during the Cold War era, where espionage, humour, and love intertwine in a tale equal parts John Le Carré, P. G. Wodehouse, and Judy Blume, yet uniquely crafted for a sophisticated adult readership. In the summer of 1963, amidst the cultural ripples of The Beatles and James Bond, Richard Warren, a cash-strapped young aristocrat, inherits the sprawling yet dilapidated estates of The Priory and Wyvern Hall in the seemingly tranquil village of Fordham Market. However, the shadows of WWII and Cold War paranoia cast a dark veil over the village, unveiling a nest of Soviet espionage anchored by the elusive double agent codenamed Nightshade. Richard's aim to salvage his financial woes by selling Wyvern Hall hits a snag due to an amended will that favours his uncle's loyal assistant, Neville 'Nippy' Smith. Enter Tony Smallwood, an old university chum with hidden Soviet allegiances, offering a shady solution to Richard's predicament, all while chasing the ghost of Nightshade through the secretive corridors of British intelligence. As the quirky yet daring teenage duo, Peter and Terri, stumble upon the espionage antics, they join forces with Nippy in a perilous journey to unravel the Soviet plot, throwing the village into a whirlwind of duplicity, betrayal, love, and the relentless quest to unmask Nightshade. "Filled with interesting characters...an enjoyable mix of comedy, espionage, and derring-do." - SusannahB (Vine Voice Reviewer) "A cracking yarn!" - DennisEW "Ingenious Cold War spy romp...beautifully conjures the mood of the early Sixties..." - Ms A. C. Koning

Me Neither is a memoir of the years 1974-88. It celebrates a haphazard approach to building a career in the wake of the turbulent economic circumstances generated by the oil crisis of 1973. It also documents what were in effect the first stirrings of the gig economy.Despite the advantage of a privileged education the author's first job on graduating from Cambridge University is as a milkman. This is followed by stints as a bus conductor, stage hand and theatre box office assistant. After a sojourn in the Western Highlands writing a play, the author returns to London and talks his way into a number of jobs in marketing and magazine publishing. This phase is in turn superseded by a move into politics first as a local government officer at the GLC in the Ken Livingstone era and then as a magazine publisher for the Labour Party. Along the way there are glimpses of Cambridge, London and Scotland in the 1970s and Germany and the USA at the start of the 1980s. There is an account of the difficulties of magazine publishing in the pre-digital age and about parliamentary procedure in the House of Lords before it was reformed by Tony Blair's administration. There is inevitably some discussion of Labour politics. There are also plentiful references to the popular music of the era, both live and recorded.Memoir cannot help looking back and in the case of Me Neither with a certain amount of affection at a period whose stock is currently low. As the sorrows emanating from the Pandora's box of digital technology and a multi-polar world order become ever more apparent, the analog, bilateral world of the Cold War era is inevitably bathed in a nostalgic glow. If there is a nascent revisionism towards the 1970s, then this book is a part of that tendency.