Genre: World Literature

Private Viewing was published in 2015 by Podsnap Publishing Ltd.

I am always pleasantly surprised when I come upon a writer who knows what they are doing and cares about how they are doing it. Geoff Palmer is one of those pleasant surprises. He has won some awards and spent twenty plus years doing freelance technical writing. From his bio, “he has climbed mountains in Africa, picked grapes in Switzerland, sold cameras in London, programmed computers in Fiji, and spent eight years working as a professional photographer. He’s also quite tall.” He lives and writes in Wellington, New Zealand.

Jane Child , the protagonist of this story, is a banker. At the beginning of the novel she thought she had a straight line path to an Divisional Manager role at Bartley’s Bank. It is not to be, however, because the position has been filled by a rising star in the British Banking world who just happens to be the son of Sir Jamieson Trotter, who has deep societal connections.

But Damien Trotter is good looking and Jane is good looking, and despite her best efforts she is not able to resist his charms. It’s not at all surprising that Damien turns out to be an ultimate, salacious sleaze. What is surprising is the role that the seemingly homeless man who sits on the sidewalk across the street from the bank plays in the story. Jane is not the most sensible young woman, but she is a romantic and that gets her into trouble.

Palmer develops his characters well, providing a personality to good-old Aunt Daisy and the neighborhood cat, Bluebell. There is a plethora of spy gadgets and technology which is always fun, and with Palmer’s experience with computers in Fiji, I am assuming that he got that stuff right. There is the occasional word that is missing, but that seems to be common unfortunately these days. No matter how many times you read through your own book, it is easy to see the words on the page the way you are seeing them in your head.

Private Viewing is a fun, entertaining read, with enough suspense to keep the pages turning and the midnight lamp burning.

Bookfunnel gathers writers together to give books away. My novel - Death at the Edge of the Diamond - and Geoff Palmer’s as well as D.F. Bailey’s Five Knives along with a bunch of others are in this group. This is a very helpful program. The downloads can be to virtually any platform. And they’re free!