Blackwater is a stand-alone short story written by Conn Iggulden and was released on World Book Day as a Quick Read. At our school we have a thirty minute or so reading time in our tutor group in the morning of Tuesday and Friday, our form tutor usually provides the books and because she's a tight arse bitch we got mostly Quick Reads which of course cost only a quid. I picked this out if the lot because it had an interesting cover, interesting name and I liked the sound of Conn's name. Before this I had no idea who Conn Iggulden was and I'm glad I read this because it was a fantastic, easy, quick read.

As far as I am aware Conn Iggulden does not write thrillers and Blackwater was out of his usual writing zone, but if I had not Googled Conn Iggulden the next day and found out he wrote mainly stuff about Ancient Greece, etc. I would never have suspected he was not a thriller writer because this book certainly caught my interest.

Although I have never read any novels by Conn Iggulden I will be sure to look out for them as I enjoyed Blackwater thoroughly. ; ) ( )

ONE of the Quick Reads series, Blackwater is only 80 pages long, but every one of them counts in this beautifully written and clever thriller, which combines the ingenuity of a short story with the substance of a novella.

It is the ideal length for readers who “simply don’t have the time” to finish a book; despite the fact that they have exactly the same number of hours in their day as Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill and Stephen Hawking, all busy people and voracious readers.

In the 1990s several respected publishers brought out a series of “pocket classics”, short enough to read in one sitting and small enough to fit into a pocket. While a small elite may have considered it a boon to be able to carry The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, or Portrait of Dorian Grey on their persons, the compact classics did not attract a host of new readers.

The Quick Reads series is designed for (literally) deep pockets, but priced for metaphorically shallow ones, and their purpose is to promote literacy and encourage reading for pleasure.

Blackwater, “a cold, dark thriller with a twist”, is narrated in the first person by Davey, an enigmatic character who has been pushed to the brink of madness and possibly beyond by the actions of Carol, his beautiful and successful wife.

DAVEY has come to accept that she is pathologically and openly unfaithful, but he knows she loves him and will never leave for another man.

Then Carol has an affair with Denis, who is obsessed with the idea of owning her, even if it means killing Davey.

In despair, Davey turns to his sinister and violent older brother for help: “I was always his blind spot, his little brother. I don’t think he cared about another living soul.”

A maze of twists and turns follows, some predictable, others entirely unexpected: after just a few pages, the most dedicated cartoon network couch potato will be eager to finish the book — which is the exact purpose of the Quick Reads series.

In partnership with BBC RaW (Reading and Writing, nothing to do with wrestling), the UK’s Trades Union Congress and the National Literacy Agency, the series features a host of wonderful new stories penned by excellent and popular writers.

Skilful command of English is a given, but the essential ingredient of the books is their readability: plot-driven page turners, their intention is to hook the most reluctant of readers right at the start, and keep them focused until the last page.

With all due respect to the JD Salingers and Margaret Atwoods, that sort of thing is not really their forté: if sport or the soaps are your standard fodder, you are not likely to form an immediate attachment to the works of writers such as JM Coetzee or Salman Rushdie.

But mysteries, action thrillers, humour, entrepreneurial tales, sentiment, romance and speculative fiction might very well succeed in capturing your attention where loftier and more esoteric themes fail. ( )