Friday 19 February 2016


MARK BILLINGHAM - GOOD AS DEAD


If you like your crime gritty then Billingham is your man. London is the setting for his stories and he's a great plotter. I didn't pick the bad guy in this story and I'll bet you can't either.

 
Tom Thorne is one of those damaged cops we read so much about but he gets his man, or woman, as he should.  I've read three of his novels and enjoyed them all. But gritty, real gritty. The upper classes don't stand a chance. 
 
 
 
 STEPHEN KING - FINDERS KEEPERS



Sometimes I find Stephen King  a little off-centre. Familiar themes and all and sometimes a plot premise that seems laboured. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is a good example.
Finders Keepers seems like  return to the god old days. An interesting plot which you feel you can anticipate but you'd be wrong. A good lead character and a suitably bad crook make for a book you'll keep reading late at night.

While on the subject of Stephen King, I note that 11.22.63 the TV series starts here shortly. The detail in this book is quite incredible and the research must have been long and exacting to get such a detailed background on Lee Harvey Oswald. I suppose much of his life is in the public domain but here I'm pretty sure there's stuff you haven't heard before. You could just about take the novel into a History class and use it as a textbook.

Saturday 13 February 2016


THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE.


 
This picture resonated with me because I see the mobile telephone as the worst thing ever invented. Dead-brained slaves to a system that tells them they have no messages and no friends. Sorry. no friends that aren't related to the weather, sports or commercial products like acne cream and the latest handbag. The main problem is that it gives instant gratification and completely removes the need to practice patience.
Like. The most overused expression ever. I note the web page for the pub quiz I attend each week has a string of people saying like, like, like, against the picture that provides a clue or two to questions we will be asked this week. You 'like' a picture of God knows what? What kind of lack of intelligent thought makes it a 'like' situation? For fuck's sake just look at the picture and either understand it or don't but don't 'like' it. This of course is a petty example but a valid one because millions of people will today 'like' a picture of a kitten or a stream of abuse aimed at someone who somehow made the grade and the Facebook idiots agree that they deserved the abuse because they just didn't succeed themselves. Reality is a nasty thing for many and hiding behind other people who are infinitely cleverer than they are and 'liking' is a pastime that doesn't involve reality.
Mobile phones have serious uses in activities like rescue patrols and policing, but they should never have allowed them into private hands. No, I don't have a fucking mobile.     
LIZA PALMER



 
 
I wasn't familiar with Liza Palmer and I picked up the Field Guide because I'd run out of things to read. I'll be picking up more of her books because I simply enjoyed them.
It may be a sign of age that these two affected me as much as they did. Palmer describes emotion brilliantly and as a consequence I got drawn into the stories, which are about thirty-something girls facing choices to do with love and relationships, and, in one case, death of a parent.. The two girls she writes about here are insecure as the result of unsatisfactory or previously terminated relationships where commitment (hers or theirs) was an issue.
I note a reviewer who described her work, if I remember rightly, as haute romance, and that's not a bad description. Definitely romantic but definitely moving. The other thing I like is the way she brings in the unexpected, especially in More Like Her. Nice twists and very well written. Recommended, especially if you like a good cry.