Review: ‘Vile’, by Keith Crawford

My Review

Thanks to Kelly at Love Books Tours and Keith Crawford for this book tour and sending me a copy of this book.

I’m honestly not sure how to describe this book. It’s fantasy with a lot of science fiction. That’s the best I can do. Sorry, I’m blurry because I’ve just spent the afternoon in Trist with Elianor and company. I thought I’d dedicate Wednesday to reading it, but I got distracted and couldn’t focus on books, so on Thursday (today) after having my support appointment, walking home the long way and then having a large lunch, I dived in. At half six the dogs jumped on me demanding cuddles and I hadn’t moved for five hours. I was 272 pages in. It had just flown past. The book was not finished but I needed to move around, and the dogs wanted to go out. So I did that and went back to the book. I surfaced some hours later, the book complete and my eyes heavy but I stayed up long enough to write this.

What an adventure! Elianor has two missions – the official mission to take Senator Vile back to the capital of Trist, Lutense, for an important vote in parliament, possibly dealing with a missing persons case while in the area, and unofficially, to help end the kingdom, bringing a return of the Republic. Things are complicated in Shadowgate, however, with the three children of Lord Vile each wanting different things, and the local population at each other’s throats over mines and changes to the town. There’s a deeper problem, with the Kindred on the other side of Demon’s Pass, a Black Dog scaring people, and Lord Vile living up to his name.

I was a bit confused when I first started reading because the opening chapter is set four hundred years after the main story and there’s confusing references and technologies, but once I got into it things started to make sense. Elianor is a complex character that future generations idolise in certain sections of Tristian society and the story is about how she became a hero to some.

The characters and society are complex, and the world has a variety of societies with different technologies and levels of scientific understanding. Trist is at the steam engine and flintlock rifle stage, jumping between republicanism and monarchical feudalism, and having civil wars in the process. Neighbouring countries are much more advanced, so much so that some of their technology looks like magic to those who don’t understand.

The push and pull between loyalties drives the characters, especially Elianor and Nathaniel, each struggling with opposing aims and beliefs, and struggling to understand that they are being lied to or manipulated by a variety of forces, pushes the plot forward and drives the character development. I had to know was going to happen next, even when things turned violent or graphic. (There is some sexual assault.)

The author has built a complex world and interesting characters who live in a plot that is utterly gripping. I enjoyed the pencil illustrations and notes of the future student that prefaces each chapter.

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Keith Crawford Bio

Keith Crawford is a retired Navy Officer, a disabled veteran, a Doctor of Law & Economics, a barrister, a stay-at-home Dad, and a writer. He has written for collections of scholarly works, academic journals, and newspapers including The Economist. He has had more than thirty plays recorded or produced for stage, been listed in a variety of short story competitions (in spite of his hatred of short stories), and runs a radio production company, www.littlewonder.website, which regularly runs competitions promoted by the BBC to help find, develop and encourage new writers.

In 2014 he was lecturing at Sciences Po in Paris and negotiating a contract to write a book on banking regulation, when he and his wife discovered to their delight that they were due to have their first child. Rather than writing more work that would only be read by his poor students, and then misquoted by politicians, he decided he would do his bit to stick his fingers up at the patriarchy and stay home to look after his own kids rather than the grown-up kids of rich people. Two more children swiftly followed. Keith has discovered that if you recite Stick Man backwards you get the lyrics to AD/DC’s Highway to Hell.

This (looking after the kids, not satanic rites with Stick Man) allowed him to support his wife’s career, which appears to be heading for the stratosphere, and also gave him the space to write about swordfights and explosions. And spaceships. All of which are more fun than banking regulation. As an extension to his work in radio production, he set up his own small press, and his first novel, Vile, is due to be published in December 2019. More novels will swiftly follow, like buses in countries that don’t privatise the bus companies.