REFLECTIONS ON THE TRANZALPINE

Kiwis, art, death, coffee, burning books and sex.

Nick Spill has just republished a witty illustrated travel essay on Amazon Kindle.Returning to deliver an artist’s talk at the Auckland Art Gallery, he meditates on his train journey through the South Island on the TranzAlpine and covers everything from the Cambridge Five, Nicolas Poussin, Peter Wells, James Bond, Yukio Mishima, Geoff Dyer, Terry Reid, Patti Smith and Dashiell Hammett, not to mention the murder of Simon Buis, Chekhov’s and Nick Spill’s gun and many famous Kiwi artists, including Rita Angus, Andrew Drummond, Claire Fergusson, Ralph Hotere, Colin McCahon, Raymond McIntyre, and Cliff Whiting. He includes new photographs from his original artwork and his journey through New Zealand.

 Only available from Amazon - read it anywhere on Kindle, your laptop or smart phone.

   

NZ Book Review of the Jaded Spy

The Jaded Spy just reviewed in New Zealand's premier (and now defunct) magazine North & South. The last book review there. Hope someone buys the magazine and all the other former properties and works out how to monetize digital information. So many other entrepreneurs have worked it out (excluding most of the largest newspapers and media companies.)

Meanwhile read my entertaining spy novel set in 1970's New Zealand The Jaded Spy as well as my other books. 

The Jaded Spy nominated for Kiwi Crime Award.

Been selected for the long (read very long) list of entrants to the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel 2020. There is a long list of very talented writers. Somewhere in this image is my insane kiwi spy novel.

Not sure how this works with the whole of NZ on lockdown, but I know kiwis read a lot and have access to the internet. So someone is reading the Jaded Spy.

You can read it on Amazon or order it as a paperback (print on demand - its got an ISBN # so any bookstore can order it.

You can even order it from our own Miami based Books & Books through this link here.

Available at good bookstores or online.

PLEASE SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE. WE WANT THEM TO SURVIVE THIS LOCKDOWN. WE NEED BOOKSTORES FOR OUR LIVES, OUR CULTURE, OUR SANITY.

A good week for a writer
Finished the first draft of The Jaded Widow

Submitted The Jaded Spy for the 2020 Miami Book Fair.
Here I am reading at Books & Books before I presented at the Book fair back in 2016, signing as many books as I could ...

And I have been invited to submit The Jaded Spy for the 2020 Ngaio Award coming up in Christchurch New Zealand later this year. 

Feel like the Duke in a bespoke camelhair coat walking away from a huge explosion.

Nick Spill books to read

Never too late for Holiday Reading and New Year's enjoyment. Select your book here:

Nick Spill's books.

Excerpt from The Jaded Spy in which Rawiri is released from Parry

Excerpt from The Jaded Spy now available on Amazon and cool bookstores.

If Rawiri turned around he could catch glimpses of the sunken fortress of concrete and barbed wire they called Parry amid fields of green grass and mature trees. 

Rawiri, Wiremu Wilson’s brother is released from Paremoremo Maximum Security Prison. (as pictured in a recent photo.)

Rawiri later says to Wiremu:

“Parry was designed to break the spirit of the Maori. It failed.” 

 from The Jaded Spy 

Thoughts on Veterans Day in the US and Remembrance Day in the UK

My grandfather and father survived two of the most brutal battles respectively, from WWI and WWII. Today I am honoring them. My grandfather Harry Spill was in the Battle of the Somme in 1916. He is pictured on the right of his son George Henry Spill on George's wedding day Dec 26, 1938. Olive and her parents are on her left. It was a white Boxing Day.

George is with his son Peter shortly before being deployed to the East in 1940. He would not see his family for nearly 5 years. At the age of 30 he thought he would not be called up, but he was and he managed to see his son Peter before he was shipped out East.

Over 50 years later he executes his best Benny Hill imitation salute at the Auckland War Memorial. George Spill published his war memoirs that included the Battle of Imphal (1944) one of the most ferocious battles of WWII. You can read his story Reluctant Q here.

Reluctant Q by George Spill  how he survived some of the most brutal battles of WWII in Burma. 

A unique story of a conscript who became the Brigade's Quartermaster.