Also doing my work for me today is PooterGeeker David Duff. He's back from his hols and emails with book reviews. He recommends The Ice Harvest by Scott Phillips. David writes:

“Like all good pulp fiction, it is very cynical and morally dubious but an absolutely cracking read.”

He points those looking for something rather more substantial at 1815: The Road to Waterloo by Gregor Dallas and Margaret MacMillan's Peacemakers—the latter he jokingly describes as:

” the story of the 1919 effort to settle Europe's affairs once and for all”