A Man Against A Background Of Flames

by Paul Hoggart

(Pighog Press, £9.99)

Paul Hoggart's first novel is a potential relationship-breaker.

Do not read it if your nearest and dearest are likely to seriously resent you being late for meals, forgetting to pick up the kids or generally being distracted.

A Man Against A Background Of Flames follows the triumphs and travails of middle-ranking historian Dr James Appleby as he pieces together fragments of information about an Elizabethan humanist sect brutally suppressed four centuries ago by the religious establishment of the day.

Evidence about the beliefs and practices of Sir Nicholas Harker and his followers ignites both widespread interest and extreme reactions from contemporary religious leaders and their shadowy criminal puppet masters.

A coalition of the former - gathered together as the "Tribes of Abraham" - are alarmed at the loss of adherents to this new branch of humanism.

The latter witness their scams and extortions being revealed for all to see by employees confessing their misdemeanours at "Harkerist" meetings.

They decide to act both to discredit and then destroy the evidence of Harker's beliefs and also to remove Appleby himself.

The result is a perfectly paced and savvy thriller which packs an emotional punch.

Hoggart can easily fend off potential criticism that this is an Englishman's version of the Da Vinci Code.

He creates a series of believable and increasingly overlapping universes where the characters are only slightly exaggerated and the conspiracies all too possible.

He demonstrates the brittle viciousness of Appleby's college superiors, the nauseating artifice that is the US chat show and the poignant lives of his troubled wife and mistresses.

Yet he provideds an engaging portrait of the doctor himself, a mixture of the wisecracking world-weary misfit and the driven, earnest truth seeker.

Hoggart's novel demonstrates how much the rich and powerful are willing to spend on suppressing inconvenient truths and controlling what we think.

That he accomplishes this in such a remarkably entertaining and powerful novel shows what a fine author Hoggart is.

Paul Simon