So this is 2020. I think most of us may be in need of a little light relief by now. This being the case, I should like to draw your attention towards the latest (highly entertaining) book from cartoonist and habitually overwhelmed mum of three boys, Katie Kirby. What’s it about? I am definitely going […]
It normally makes a brilliant party, the murder game. But that’s only true when no one actually dies… What’s it about? Secrets. Shame. The ancient history that binds friends together long past the expiration of their shared joy. The set up: Polskirrin, a beautiful house on a remote Cornish coastline. Eight guests, two hosts and […]
Once upon a time I thought I was tired. I worked hard. I worked long hours, during term time at least. I loved my job and, as a teacher, I worked daily with groups of up to 31 children, who mostly did what I asked them to do. Then I had children of my own […]
I am always intrigued by books about books. What could possibly be better than, when closing the final pages of a book, discovering it has led you to create a list of twenty or so other books you really want to read? I also really liked the premise of this particular book, a memoir by […]
“This isn’t a movie. It’s a short story.” In fact, it’s twenty of them, all written by popular Japanese author, Yasutaka Tsutsui, and selected from a career spanning over fifty years, which he admits is now coming to a close. “The ideas aren’t coming anymore,” he told Andrew Driver, translator of this rather miscellaneous, but […]
‘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 […]