FOLLOW ME
-INTERNATIONAL AUTHOR-
RICHARD LE NORMAND
Book Reviews
Operation Black Swan
Nathalie Craig
FairFax Media Nota News
16th Of March 2013
Author Richard Normand always thought the Myall lakes had an air of mystery about them, and it was this that inspired his latest novel.
Operation Black Swan which will be launched at Tea Gardens Library later this month follows the discovery of a hidden cache at the Myall Lakes.
The book begins in 1942 when a Japanese invasion of Australian was thought to be imminent and panic decisions were made of conceal arms ready for the use of underground resistance force.
An army officer and his sergeant were ordered to conceal arms in the Myall Lakes but were both killed before they were able to report where they were hidden.
The story jumps forward to when arms are discovered by a criminal on holiday.
“A Lot of the action takes place in Tea Gardens and around the Lakes,” Mr Normand said.
For this reason Mr Normand has chose to launch the book in his former home town in Tea Gardens, although he now lives on the Central Coast.
The launch will start at 2pm at the Tea Gardens Library on Friday, May 31 and books will be available for $12
It is Mr. Normand’s fifth novel, his other books include a number of thrillers.....
A Killer At Large
Wendy O'Hanlon
Acres Australia
A bloody and brutal story of the revenges of war.
A British teenager is captured by German troops, brutalized and then escapes to work with the French Resistance and eventually the British Special Services. With no hope of going home and being the boy her used to be, the teenager becomes a brutal killer with one bloody operation after another, and the constant loss of close friends (Fellow fighters).
This is a gritty, action-packed, no-holds-barred story by a masterful writer
Mandurah Mail
January 2007
Richard wrote and self published A Killer at Large, The story of a 16-year-old boy, Marcel, In German occupied Jersey in 1943 who suddenly finds his life completely changed after he is first assaulted.
He is arrested and shipped to France where shipped to France where he managed to escape and join up with the underground resistance.
This precedes and sets the scene for escape to death, which follows the journey of Marcel as a teenager through to the young man coping with the vicissitudes and horrors of war. A Killer at Large and Escape to death by Richard Le Normand are now available at Dymocks and Angus & Robertson bookstores in Centro Mandurah shopping centre......
Escape To Death
Wendy O'Hanlon
APN Newspaper
The butchers of the Nazi death camps are fleeing for their lives, with the hope of taking their ill gotten riches and their terrible secrets to an anonymous life in South America. But through a series of clever and elaborate undercover set-ups and with the help of battled scarred survivors of the brutal Nazi regime, these unwitting escapees meet a fitting end.
Told with great force and drama, this novel continues the writing triumphs of Le Normand.
Escape To Death
Michael Jacobson
British-born Richard Le Normand was just 12 years old when the Germans occupied his home on Jersey in the Channel Islands and he only narrowly avoided being press-ganged into working for the invaders.
"They would take boys and use them to work on the completion of their fortifications” recalls Le Normand, who emigrated to Australia in 1987. “I was fortunate that my parents were able to take me to a farm.
“It was such a strange time. I remember being at school one day and this German officer burst in and informed the class that we were to learn German from then on.
“He had a stack of books that Hitler had specially printed for the Channel Islands.
“Hitler was obsessed with the islands and before long jersey was home to 67,000 mines, Guernsey had another 50,000 and there were 36,000 German troops and 800 tons of barbed wire. There was a lot of resentment among the locals because many felt abandoned by England.
“But I suppose that, had an all-out defense been mounted, then the islands would have been bombed off the face of the earth”
The Channel Islands play a minor role in Le Normand’s new novel, Escape to Death, the second in a trilogy of war-based novels that began with A Killer At Large. However it is not necessary to have read the first in order to enjoy the second, as each stands on its own merits.......
Escape To Death
John Morrows
Pick of The Week
Following on from Richard Le Normand’s first novel, “A Killer At Large”, we meet up again with Marcel Beaumont and it is now 1947.
Marcel, along with Peter his best friend, and Gerda, the sister of the German officer who began Marcel’s adventure into wartime activities, have been running a very lucrative venture for the British government.
They own a vinery and castle which use as their base. They run an organization which helps Germans involved in atrocities occurring at the Jewish prison camps, to escape from trial and execution.
Unbeknownst to the Germans, however, the three friends who smuggle them via a canvas-covered truck across a well mapped out route to freedom take them on one last escape route. Instead of being assisted to become free citizens in South America, the war-time criminals are taken out to sea, gassed and their gold is deposited into a Swiss bank account.
The operation, called Deserting Rats, began in 1944, but is now winding down due to the scarcity of Germans wishing to escapes the new lives in South America.
Marcel is on the last trip for the operation when he is attacked by one German consumed by claustrophobia after being locked in a wine cask in the back of a truck.
After the truck crashed over the side of the cliff, Marcel discovers that one of his charges has escaped, the woman who was nurse to the children engaged in inhuman Nazi experiments.
and castle which use as their base. They run an organization which helps Germans involved in atrocities occurring at the Jewish prison camps, to escape from trial and execution.
Unbeknownst to the Germans, however, the three friends who smuggle them via a canvas-covered truck across a well mapped out route to freedom take them on one last escape route. Instead of being assisted to become free citizens in South America, the war-time criminals are taken out to sea, gassed and their gold is deposited into a Swiss bank account.
The operation, called Deserting Rats, began in 1944, but is now winding down due to the scarcity of Germans wishing to escapes the new lives in South America......