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The Loyal Servant (Degrees of Separation Book 1) [Kindle Edition]

Eva Hudson (Author)
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
Print List Price: £7.99
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Product Description

Product Description

Winner of the Lucy Cavendish Prize for fiction, The Loyal Servant is a whistleblower thriller that topped the Amazon political fiction chart.

"A brilliantly-paced thriller... Perfectly balanced between character and plot. Very gripping and suspenseful" - Sophie Hannah

"It immediately draws you in... there's suspense right from the beginning" - Penny Smith


Imagine for a moment: you're a mother of three and conscientious government employee, keeping your head down, trying to avoid the latest round of lay-offs, when you discover the schools minister slumped over his desk. Whiskey bottle and scattered pills lying next to his lifeless body tell their own story. 

But you know for a fact the minister wouldn't take his own life. What do you do? Kick up a stink and risk losing your job? Or pretend nothing is wrong?

For loyal servant Caroline Barber, there is only one option. When her awkward questions result in the disappearance of crucial evidence from the minister's office, she is compelled to dig deeper.

The corruption she uncovers is scandalous enough to topple the government. But now she's raised her head above the parapet she has attracted the attention of powerful adversaries.

Way out of her depth and risking the safety of her family, will Caroline get the chance to blow the whistle? Or will her enemies silence her for good?


The Loyal Servant is a page-turning political thriller with a twist - everything that happens to Caroline Barber could happen to any of us.

About the Author

Eva Hudson was born and raised in south London and now splits her time between rural Sussex and central London. She's been a local government officer, singer, dot com entrepreneur, portrait artist, project manager, web designer and content editor. In 2011 she won the inaugural Lucy Cavendish fiction prize for her first novel, The Loyal Servant. The novel was also shortlisted for ITV's People's Novelist Award. Find out more about Eva at evahudson.com

Product details

  • Format: Kindle Edition
  • File Size: 659 KB
  • Print Length: 354 pages
  • Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
  • Publisher: Two Pies Press (1 Dec 2011)
  • Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
  • Language: English
  • ASIN: B005ZTMJ2S
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled
  • X-Ray: Enabled
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #54,876 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

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More About the Author

› Visit Amazon's Eva Hudson Page
Eva Hudson
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Customer Reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
22 reviews
4.3 out of 5 stars
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars As convincing as it is compelling 26 Nov 2011
By Rose Maroc
Format:Kindle Edition
Finally ! An indie-published book that can absolutely hold its own alongside traditionally published thrillers by established authors. The Loyal Servant is deftly plotted, tightly paced and above all, very well written which is often not true of novels with an exciting story. For a political thriller, this book had a surprisingly warm and often very amusing side which made it very readable. Eva Hudson knows the murky corridors of Westminster and it shows in her ability to twist and turn the story like a chicane. Her ability to weave items of office furniture and equipment into the plot in an interesting way is quite possibly a first. At times my heart was beating double time at the risks Caroline Barber has to take to uncover the truth about Martin Fox's death.

Caroline and her backdrop of family disasters are very relatable; boozy cynical hack Angela Tate is a fabulous creation. As a team, their combination of zeal and recklessness, co-operation and antagonism is a treat to read. The dialogue in this thriller is extremely entertaining. It sounds the way real people speak.

Perhaps best of all, in a time seemingly dominated by 'high-concept' psychological thrillers, there is nothing in this book that couldn't happen in real life. Watch the news. You know it's true.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Corruption and deception in the corridors of power 20 Jun 2012
By Bookie TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
Ms Hudson paints a very convincing picture of the workings of a major Government Department. The settings are real and the civil servants depicted here are taken from life. To that realism , add a plot that hooks the reader from the outset and you have a first class story. It's bang up to date with references to loss of personal data, a procurement scandal, political wranglings and collusion with police and secret government agencies. The premise is straightforward; was the Minister murdered or did he take his own life?The journey to resolve that question takes the reader through numerous colourful scenes involving the corridors of Whitehall, rough social housing areas and company director mansions. There are car chases, corruption, drug addiction and deep dark secrets, some much closer to home than expected. Ms Hudson writes with assurance. Her narrative flows along and the conversations are lifelike. She builds tension and skilfully turns the plot in a number of directions. I was mildly distracted by a couple of the sub plots, but overall, this story held my interest throughout. An inventive tale with well rounded and colourful characters.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Cracking Crime Thriller 6 Jan 2012
By Quin
Format:Kindle Edition
The Loyal Servant is a cracking fast paced crime thriller, with many twists and turns, some red herrings (or are they) to keep you guessing how the plot will evolve and resolve. All the characters are believably flawed making the reader interested and care for them. Seemingly unrelated sub-plots are neatly tied into the main plot and at times I found myself unable to stop reading. I can't believe that this is Eva Hudson's first novel. I want more.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars The Loyal Servant 29 April 2013
By Joo (in UK) TOP 1000 REVIEWER
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a political thriller where a minister dies and his close friend decides she doesn't believe it was a suicide and gets involved with a journalist to start investigating the minister's life. Of course the plot leads to high up places.

I really quite enjoyed this book. Since the main characters were women, there wasn't any "gung-ho" excitement, just fighting bureaucracy whilst trying to be a good mother and protecting her family.

This was a nice meaty sized book but I didn't feel that the story went off pace.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing at first but it loses it's touch to keep me hooked throughout... 17 Aug 2012
By saf_786
Format:Kindle Edition
The book gripped me first, and the plot was good but for me it failed to maintain its standard throughout it. I thought it would be a very good read because of the good reviews but it didn't live up to it's standards for me.
Therefore, I am going to 3 stars because it was a good plot but it wasnt very gripping and I felt like the ending was predictable.
Ok read overall.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars OK, rather than sensational 17 Feb 2012
By johnverp TOP 1000 REVIEWER
Format:Kindle Edition
Caroline, a civil servant, is convinced her boss, a Minister in the Education Department, was murdered. She combines with a grumpy female journalist, Angela, who may be on her last career legs, to have her suspicions confirmed in the face of some apparent political scandals.

Hudson does well in setting the story up and creating intrigue. She casts Caroline as a hard working employee who also faces a number of problems at home. I think it was this element that took a little bit of the shine off for me. The last quarter of the book is dominated by these domestic issues at the expense of wrapping up the mystery element properly. In fact, the story's resolution is both brief and somewhat artificial, in my view.

There were quite a few "Oh, really?" moments - for example, unless your spouse is a spy, is it really possible for a husband or wife not to know where her/his long-standing spouse works? Also, a couple of typos in the Kindle version, but really just a few annoyances.

This is not your typical action or adventure story, but it is an enjoyable read which perhaps just misses a little bit of depth. I can see I go against the grain here, in not being more positive about the book, but it seems it didn't do as much for me as it did for others. 7/10
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3.0 out of 5 stars A very good plot 29 April 2013
By ronix
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
The Loyal Servant - Eva Hudson

Caroline Barber is working overtime and after receiving a strange message from her boss, Martin Fox, she goes up to his office and discovers him slumped over his desk. The police put the death down to suicide, but Caroline feels there is more to his death, especially when a suicide note seems to appear days after the event.

She meets Angela Tate, a reporter for the Standard newspaper and between them they stumble their way through his death and the events that follow it, including the prime minister standing down and a general election being called.

The story line was very well researched and well written, but, I just found the characters lacking. Maybe that's the wrong way to describe them; there wasn't one that I could empathise with.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Political intrigues
Eva Hudson certainly knows how to write a believably plotted political thriller. The two main characters Caroline (who discovers the dead body of the minister)and Angela the... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Blue Moon
5.0 out of 5 stars Everyday life life turned round
Brilliant read. Ordinary civil servant with family carrying out mundane every day tasks, suddenly discovers her boss dead. Read more
Published 2 months ago by highkicks
4.0 out of 5 stars Compulsive reading
Couldn't put it down. Really enjoyed the intrigue...bet it happens all the time! I shall be reading the rest in the series.
Published 4 months ago by Susie
3.0 out of 5 stars Grows on You
I must admit at first I found it hard work but once the plot gets moving it was worth the wait.
I like the way the main story intertwines with domestic and personal issues of... Read more
Published 7 months ago by IC
5.0 out of 5 stars Politics of Deceit!
Really enjoyable read. Great characters imagined in reality. The author unveils the layers of government that we never see and show us how politicians use the vacuum of knowledge... Read more
Published 10 months ago by Cynics are we
4.0 out of 5 stars Wild excitement in the office.
It's very enjoyable to read a book where the action plays out against the background of a modern working environment - and this book is genuinely action packed. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Mary Josefina Cade
4.0 out of 5 stars A good read
What impressed me most about this book wasn't the story exactly, although that was fine, it was the skill with which the author had drawn her characters and the way the dialogue... Read more
Published 12 months ago by Booknut
4.0 out of 5 stars Exciting read.
Well done Eva Hudson, I hope we hear a lot more from you. Here is an exciting and quite fast paced story set around an apparent suicide of a government minister and the attempts of... Read more
Published 12 months ago by padIpaws
4.0 out of 5 stars Crime among the civil servants
When Martin Fox, UK Minister for Schools, is found dead at his desk at the Department of Education one night, it is his colleague Caroline Barber who calls the police. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Maxine Clarke
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