Lion in the Grass

A Lion In The Grass is the first novel in Mark Zvonkovic's 'Raymond Hatcher' historical spy trilogy. Unlike the usual spy thriller genre, the story is quite subtly paced throughout as it follows Raymond Hatcher, his friends, family and enemies over the course of his long life and travels around the globe. I felt that there was a certain weary nostalgia to the tale, especially as the spies themselves get older with the world changing irrevocably around them, and I thought A Lion In The Grass would appeal to readers who enjoyed novels such as Wasp Days by Erhard von Buren.

I did feel that Zvonkovic's prose was somewhat uneven which did make sections of the novel a slog to get through while other scenes were beautifully descriptive or excitingly tense. There was often too much extraneous detail and unnecessary back stories which, while they gave me a lot of information about the many characters Raymond encounters, didn't actually enable me to get to know them in a way that brought them alive on the page. I felt that a stronger focus on really showing readers fewer significant events, rather than telling us about many aspects of time passing by, would have made A Lion In The Grass a tighter, more gripping read.

That said, I did appreciate the moments when we fully got inside the central characters heads, witnessing their thoughts and motivations. True hatred is a difficult emotion to portray convincingly, but I thought Zvonkovic did this very well. While, in hindsight, the lifetime feud did have rather too many coincidences to be plausible, there was a genuine satisfaction to its conclusion. I liked how the books title turned out to be so descriptive of at least two of the characters too - a nice touch! Overall I am glad to have had this opportunity to read and review A Lion In The Grass and am looking forward to starting its sequel, The Narrows, soon.