There is a new game afoot among crime fiction afficionados. Especially those who believe there’s nothing to match the rapidly expanding sector known as tartan noir. It is called Spot the Join. Or Find the Seam. Even Detect the Author. Or any of the many possible similar phrases. My own variation on this theme is Where’s the Rankin? Any number can play and the rules are simple: obtain a copy of The Dark Remains (Canongate Books, paperback, 2022) and decide where today’s supreme master of Scottish crime fiction, Ian Rankin, takes over from William McIlvanney, the maestro who inspired Rankin… Continue reading
Arts and About
Author Adele Parks is a tease. Relentlessly so. At least, judging by One Last Secret (paperback, HQ/Harper Collins, 2022) it seems she simply can’t help herself. She never stops. Just when you think you know what is going on, she drops another bombshell and lures you into reading on . Continue reading
PERSONAL reasons had me well disposed in favour of this book well before turning a page. It was something I was silently rooting for, willing it to success. Thus the disappointment that descended well before reaching the thrilling finale was all the deeper and saddening. It was, in the words… Continue reading
NEARLY choked on my afternoon cuppa. Spluttered and dribbled before disaster was eventually averted. Yorkshire’s finest it was, too. You know, the brew that guy with the accent as broad as the Dales is forever chuntering on about. Seems that the much adored novelist and regular tea drinker Jane Austen… Continue reading
Living, coping and observing in the age of Covid #7
Jan 2021: I HAVE been on a bit of a downer. Today, however, I am showing a degree of positivity by using one of the slightly less pessimistic of the several D-words available to describe the recent state… Continue readingReceive my ‘Read. Write. Run. Repeat.’ newsletter
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I HAVE been renewing acquaintance with an old friend. As always, it was a rewarding and compelling page-turning experience. It was also thought provoking, making me wonder yet again why so few Australian crime writers make it on to the international stage. Rather than becoming household names they are too often relegated to being the hard-working lasses and lads in the backrooms. They are crime fiction’s equivalent of the supporting cast in Upstairs, Downstairs or Downton Abbey. Relegated to the back rooms; the maids, cooks, grooms, servants, pot-washers, bed-makers and skivvies toiling away, unseen and disregarded by their alleged betters. Continue reading