The Loxley Trust by John Rowland Hough

I have recently been looking for ways to diversify my hubs. One of the best ways I have found to do this is to seek out products to review. Being an avid reader I sought and found sites that offer me free review copies in exchange for honest reviews. This book was given to me digitally for free by Net-Gallery for only an honest review. I would like to say that I truly enjoyed reading this book and I hope you enjoy reading my review of it; I did my best to avoid spoilers.

The Loxley Trust by John Rowland Hough is a novel based on the idea of a modern day Robin Hood. In today's modern world Robin Hood would be mainly viewed as a a non-violent terrorist and a threat towards the government. The Robin in this novel is an international modern day Robin Hood who acts for global justice, fairness, and against all governments, companies and individuals who prosper from violent conflict and who violate international agreements on human rights.The Robin of this novel aims to change the world even if it won't happen easily or quickly.

John Rowland Hough wrote The Loxley Trust. John Rowland Hough graduated from the University of Manchester with a degree in Maths and Philosophy. He has been an IT Systems Analyst for over thirty years, nine of which he worked for the Australian government. John Rowland Hough moved back to the United Kingdom in 2010 and he presently lives in Devon with his partner, Freya. He is passionate about justice and uses his free time to research conflicts so as to better understand them.

The book starts slowly with Robin Loxley Hood speaking to The Reverend about how robin recently acquired half a billion dollars from The Australian government and deposited it into the Loxley trust. The Loxley trust is run by a board to disburse it to help fight global poverty. The Australian government was planning to use the money to purchase fifty tanks from the United States of America that may have been contaminated by depleted uranium munitions. Next the reader learns that the only people in the know about where the money came from are Robin, The Reverend, and Little John.

Next the book jumps backwards in time to give the reader insight into Robin's child hood. This part answer questions such as why Robin is named Robin Loxley Hood, who Robin's family are, how Robin gained his followers, and how he started on his path to protect others from injustice. Going back into Robin's past offers the reader key insight into when, how, and why Robin lost his innocent view of the world; how he went from protecting children from bullies to becoming an international thief.

Overall I enjoyed the book greatly, but I did feel that the beginning should have been a bit faster. If you can force yourself through the first chapter then you should. The second chapter is where the action really starts and from then on it is a rather fast paced book. I enjoyed reading about Robin's child hood because it gave me a real insight into how he became who he was by the end of the book. If I had to pick a favorite scene it would be Robin's speech in the UN; I found his speech to be truly moving and the author did an amazing job with his research on the subject. In fact the author did a great job with his writing for the entire book. Each character truly had his or her own personality that came alive as the book progressed. The Robin Hood of this book reminded me a lot of the Robin character from the BBC show Robin Hood. Both characters truly care for the people, believe in their causes, and they don't condone senseless violence. While this book was fictional I found myself agreeing with many of Robin's views on the world. I agreed with Robin the most on his opinion that no one should benefit from violet conflict.