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at the passages that deal with the sailing sequences and those at sea, in general. There are sea battles between warring drakkars (Viking ships), raids on coastline villages along with lengthy sequences of deprivation that reflected a sailor's life in those dangerous days.

Where the author isn't quite as strong is with the characterisation of the fictional creations in the book. Throughout, there's a dour feel to the proceedings with little to lighten the mood despite there being plenty of opportunity to build this in. This is clearly a serious tale but the story would have benefited from a little humour rather than the black clouds that surround the metaphorical heads of the book's cast. It's this aspect that leads to a lack of real depth to any of the characters in the story, despite the portentous plot strands and the author's clever blend of fiction and historical speculation that gets a brief explanation in an author's note at the end of the book. Even more frustrating is the occasional typo including a repeated word in the text. Generally unforgivable for any publisher, the errors can be counted on one hand and, fortunately, fail to sabotage the four-part work which ends so strongly.

All in all, I did enjoy "Thunder God" despite its relatively slow start and for those that enjoy historical fiction with an articulate attention to detail then this will be for you. There is violence including human sacrifice that takes the book out of the range of most children so, with that, I would suggest that older teenagers and adults will appreciate this particular tome. I am sure we will be hearing a lot more about Paul Watkins in the future.

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