I don't read a crime novel in a while and suddenly three come along at once. The Night She Disappeared is the second book I've picked up from the "Richard & Judy Book Club" in WHSmiths and once again is an author I am already familiar with having read her major seller The Family Upstairs which according to the blurb is to get a sequel in July next year. That'll be on my list.
This is a story about a young couple who go missing after a party in the "Dark Place and leave their baby behind in a mystery that gradually builds as the tale is woven through time by the author. Tualulah's mother Kim is distraught and despite a police search nothing is ever found.
Then a year or so later Sophie, a young author joins her boyfriend at the local private college. It is here that the story really beins as an arrow that points to the ground reveals a clue which leads to the meeting of writer and grandmother who gradually co-operate to work out the mystery.
There's plenty to to keep the reader occupied with a jealous boyfriend, a strange set of snotty students and then a sign appears. Dig Here a note says. What does it reveal? Why now and why does the finder lie about how she saw the sign.
There's also a missing husband. They all seem to have disappeared in the woods. Why? And are they actually connected. Love, sex, betrayal and disappearances that need resolving as this mystery picks up pace to a crescendo of an ending. And more......
Rating: 5 Stars (Recommended)
Just in time for Christmas comes a worthy compilation album from the ever productive Hawkwind, This two CD set covers their work over their entire history from when they formed in 1969 to today. Hawkwind have released 34 studio and seventeen compilation albums plus a dozen live performances over the years.
Like many people of my generation I first came across the band with their second album released in 1971 In Search Of Space. I still have a copy of this though the cover has seen better days! It went Gold. For the general public it was probably their single Silver Machine (included in this compilation) that brought them attention. The follow up Urban Guerilla was withdrawn after an assassination of an Italian politician but remains a classic.
I first saw this band in Guildford back in the seventies and then again in the noughties where they seem to have two distinct groups of followers. Ageing rockers like me and a much younger crowd. Either way they continue to make good music.
Here's a selection of tracks to wet your appetite. I've avoided the obvious ones!
Paradox - Hall Of The Mountain Grill (1974)
Psi Power (Live Version 1984)
Angels Of Death - Sonic Attack (1981)
Available from: www.cherryred.co.uk
(Also available is a luxury six CD set with 81 tracks)
Website: www.hawkwind.com
It's been a while since I read let alone reviewed a paperback thriller and this despite wanting to pick this particular book up for a while. I've become a fan of C.J.Tudor since she started writing novels. Having read her previous three masterpieces The Chalk Man (currently being made into a BBC TV series apparently), The Taking Of Annie Thorne and The Other People I expected an equally good story in this tome and I was not to be disappointed.
Oddly this book caught my attention in WHSmith's as I waled past their "Richard & Judy Book Club section and just picked it up like a shot. And at half price I might add! This is a special edition with extras from the former TV hosts who both write short introductions and provide questions for Book Club members to discuss at the end plus a short interview with the author.
For once I was grateful for an introduction as Judy made it clear that "Jack" our main character was in fact a woman. Having just watched an old episode of Emmerdale where their Jack is in prison I'm sure I would have assumed Jack was a bloke at least for the first few pages.
Of course our maverick vicar isn't a bloke and is in fact a woman and single parent as well. Her daughter Flo will turn out to be very central to the mystery as it develops. Like all her novels there's a supernatural element element, the burning girls, little dolls made by some villagers to commemorate religious persecution some five hundred years past.
There's a mysterious death of her predecessor, apparitions for both our Jack and her daughter, some bullies, a weirdo, a fugitive and more in this continually twisting tale of lies, deceit, murder and lots of disappearances in the recent past. All this keeps the reader thinking right to the end as the tale weaved by it's author reaches a climax no one will have seen coming.
This novel is also due to made into a TV series.
Rating: 5 Stars (Highly Recommended)
Hot on the heels of the latest splits, resignations and squabbles inside the around the various groupies of LAW, LIE and the LPM (see articles below) it seems that Chris Williamson is entering yet another electoral arrangement with his tiny band of followers with that George Galloway character.
In his latest tweet Chris "Nosferatu" Williamson announces he will be sharing a platform with the gorgeous one at the Workers Party HQ building which is the rather unfortunately named Moseley Street. A wee bit too close to the truth methinks...
It seems the mash-up between Gerorge Galloway and the pro-North Korean Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) known as the Workers Party is planning to run candidates in the 2022 local elections. Williamson is going to send his familiars to lend a hand or two with their campaign.
How his other alliance with the Trade Union & Socialist Coalition will react is not yet known, The remnants of the Socialist Party (Militant) backed Williamson's Resist candidates during the last election. No doubt the TUSC will be running what candidates it can and maybe Williamson hopes that getting the backing of both Trotskyists and Stalinists will double his chances of losing any contest.
Meanwhile the Greenstein faction reels from yet another court ruling that poor old Tony has lost. Greenstein was found guilty of harassing Labour Party employees and has been banned from contacting them or the Labour Party for two years (1). That comes on top the other court decision that he can be described as an antisemite because of his writings rantings on line and elsewhere (2).
Greenstein seemingly aims to link up with Williamson and form a new party, possibly with Galloway who gave Greenstein a platform on his RT TV propaganda chat show.(3). No doubt the major political parties will not be taking much notice of this ramshackle outfit of failed politico's though these extremists will target seats with high Muslim populations to push their grandiloquent anti-imperialist campaign riddled with so-called anti-Zionism.
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Notes:
(2) Notorious antisemite loses libel case
(3) www.youtube.com
Following yesterdays report on the antics of the overlapping memberships of Labour Against the Witch Hunt (LAW) and Labour in Exile (LIE) Jackie Walker and her Communist Party of Great Britain (Weekly Worker) supporters have issued a letter which I have reproduced in it's original entirety for your entertainment..
Further updates will no doubt be sent out for the benefit of their cheering masses (some 27 supporters judging by the vote) in the edition of Weekly Worker due out on Friday. This blog along with the working class awaits with baited breath....... well maybe not but this story of sectarian folly will no doubt continue showing how inherently useless these people really are.
