Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Categories
Historical adventure fiction

HOLD FAST

J.H. Gelernter

A relentlessly paced and vividly imagined spy tale, Hold Fast will delight and entertain fans of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels, Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series, and Ian Fleming's James Bond.

The year is 1803, and the British Secret Service is contending with a belligerent France under Napoleon. The service suffers a blow in the loss of a prime agent, Thomas Grey, who--despondent at his wife's untimely death--resigns from British Intelligence and departs England for Boston, where he intends to become a lumber merchant. His plan to start a new life is thrown abruptly off course when a French intelligence network attempts to recruit him as an informer, and, in the process, exposes a grave new threat to Britain that Grey can't ignore. Confronting it seems likely to grant the grief-stricken widower a chance of extracting a personal revenge. A relentlessly paced and vividly imagined spy tale, Hold Fast will delight and entertain fans of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels, Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series, and Ian Fleming's James Bond. J. H. Gelernter is a writer living in Connecticut. Hold Fast is his first book.

Available products
Book Published 2021-05-01 by W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. - New York (USA)

Comments

Gelernter keeps the suspense high without sacrificing plausibility. Bernard Cornwell fans will welcome this promising new talent.

In Hold Fast, J. H. Gelernter has given us a stirring adventure tale with a headlong narrative that never flags. Set midway through the Napoleonic Wars, its immensely resourceful and appealing hero, Thomas Grey (humorous; cool-minded; lethal but not bloodthirsty), cuts a spectacular path through a richly imagined early nineteenth-century world. Readers will know at once that if Mr. Gelernter can bring simmering suspense to each hand dealt in an antique French card game they have most likely never even heard of, he won't disappoint them when it comes to warships hammering it out yardarm to yardarm, or in the more intimate violence of a rapier duel. Although most of the action takes place on land, the novel is imbued throughout with the spirit of the Royal Navy in the great age of fighting sail, and I hope to take many more voyages in the company of Captain Grey.

This is superb.smart, fast, twisty and dangerous. Highly recommended.

a pleasing romp through James Bond territory, set back a century and several decades and moved to Napoleonic France. Read more...

A ripping Napoleonic War adventure....[Hold Fast is] an immersive, entertaining debut, and Gelernter has more than done his duty with his thoughtful, learned depiction of this deeply engrossing period in history.