‘Hands Up’ opens with rookie Officer Ryan Quinn trying to look at himself in a mirror. Literally. He’s not a murderer. Not really. It was a justified shooting, even if the victim was a teenage boy with no weapon who committed no offence. Everyone says so: his superiors, his partner, his mother and his snooty […]
How do we ever reach the truth? In Riku Onda’s deliciously disturbing tale, multiple narrators seek to bear witness to a terrible event, but it is clear that each brings their own prejudices and preoccupations to their retelling. How then, does one achieve clarity and understand the heart of the matter? Perhaps the emotions and […]
The detective and the celebrity blogger. Together, can they catch a serial killer? ‘Death Deserved’, the first collaboration between two well established authors of Nordic Noir, Jorn Lier Horst and Thomas Enger, is a brilliantly engaging tale of a police man hunt that seeks to apprehend a flamboyant serial killer who’s determined to manipulate the […]
What makes a fundamentalist? We all know the answer to this one, right? Indoctrination. Individuals and groups taking ancient, religious texts literally. Basically, a combination of a vulnerable / gullible or angry person and another person or group of people promoting an aggressive ideology. So, all we have to do to prevent the spread of […]
What would you do to protect your sister? Would you be prepared to lie? If so, who to? The rest of your family? The police? How about the family of the boyfriend they killed? And is there anything that might make you reconsider those lies? Korede is about to find out… What’s it about? ‘Perhaps […]
If you could make yourself smarter, would you? What if your only option to achieve this was by allowing doctors to operate on your brain? And what if those same doctors openly admitted that this was an experimental technique and might not work? What might the consequences be, for your health, your sense of self […]
How did it come to this? We’ve all said things we later wish we hadn’t, but Kia Abdullah takes this concept all the way to trial in her sad and powerful court room drama, ‘Take It Back’. What’s it about? ‘Take it Back’ is a classic he said / she said narrative that presents the […]
‘Like a good detective story myself,’ remarked Miss Howard. ‘Lots of nonsense written, though. Criminal discovered in last chapter. Every one dumfounded. Real crime – you’d know at once.’ In renowned Belgian detective Hercule Poirot’s debut outing (in novel form, at least), everyone involved thinks they know at once who the killer is, but do […]
What’s more entertaining than a ghost story in which a child sees a ghost? A ghost story in which two children see two ghosts. Obviously. Such is the conclusion reached by the eager aristocratic circle of guests who sit sharing ghost stories at the opening of Henry James’ gothic novella, who are desperate to hear […]
I’m going to start with an unusual disclaimer here… If you already know you want to read this book, don’t read my review – don’t read any reviews – and definitely don’t read the praise inside the front cover! What’s it about? Sal and Charlie are married. They love each other – supposedly – but […]