An Evening with Charles Cordell

'Charles Cordell, a former soldier, writes with a bravura confidence.' The Times

Charles Cordell has been a career soldier and diplomat on the ground in the Middle East, South Asia and North Africa. He has seen humanity at its best, its worst and its most desperate. His novels draw both on time spent on the fraying margins of civilisation and studies of the great political and religious crises of 17th century Europe.

This evening we celebrate this second novel of the visceral Divided Kingdom series which chronicles Britain's civil wars between 1642 and 1653. The Keys of Hell and Death follows Charles' first novel, God's Vindictive Wrath and sees the action turn westwards to Bristol, where a Royalist army is determined to wrest the city from the forces of Parliament.

Once again, the story revolves around the vicious enmity of the Reeve brothers: carefree and dissolute Ralph and embittered and fanatical Francis. Also caught up in the conflict are Moussa Dansocko, an African slave accused of sorcery, Kendall Tremain, Cornish fisherman and tinner, Abel Cowans, a former naval gunner from Newcastle and others, all with their own diverse reasons for siding with one cause or the other in England's bloody civil war.

'As only a soldier could, Charles Cordell does not flinch from drawing attention to the sheer terror of battle ... a gripping first book. I am certain there will be many more

Jeremy Ravenshaw Fowler, Adjutant General of the Sealed Knot Society

'Fast-paced and authentic ... with characters that are colourful and believable. There are not enough tales like this' Michael Arnold