A J Lattimer & Co. - Michael Reidy

Ian Thomson ’ s Northern Trilogy (beginning with The Northern Elements and Northern Flames ) weaves history, nostalgia, and autobiography into highly engaging and thought-provoking tales. Spirit of the North is no different in that, but it is different. The plot looks at three episodes of spiritualism, two relatively harmless, and one with serious consequences. While the first two are reminiscent of Agatha Christiesque table-turning, the third involves murder. This is the one that leads to a serious investigation by Tom Catlow with his childhood friend, Will Melling, playing Watson. Readers met these two mischievous friends in The Northern Elements . Tom is a retired police Senior Scientific Officer (Forensics) and Will a former sports journalist. Now to fill their time, Tom and Will investigate another very old case while continuing their friendship with teasing and banter. The third main character is long-dead. Cornelius Pickup, was a successful businessman, kind employer, a...

  Having watched the last episode of The Capture,  I was looking for something equally intriguing but not as frightening. I decided to re-watch the old episodes of Jonathan Creek . Like everyone else, I have my favourite episodes and they are enhanced by the actors and settings. The series had the ability to draw one in and make everything seem possible, if unlikely. However, the re-watching exercise only reinforced my view that Maddy Magellan was possibly the most irritating character who has been on television in more than a generation. I can throw the usual abuse at her, but her most egregious sins are that she is irredeemably selfish and, throughout the series, she never learns anything . She appears in 18 episodes and is as stupid in the last as she was in the first. Her selfishness not infrequently crosses the line from being mildly amusing to downright mean. For all of her emancipated liberalism, she is an objectionable human being (I leave it others to decide whether t...

For the past few days, I have had a small window open on my computer showing the stream of those filing by the coffin of Her Late Majesty. I find it strangely moving. Some bow, some curtsey, come bless themselves (in both the Roman and Eastern manners), a North American Indian in a magnificent headdress raised his arm solemnly, while others simply file by in silence. Why did they all come? And wait so long? It's not as though they knew the Queen. (Those that did appear to need bodyguards and a convoy of tanks disguised as motorcars). Of course, many wanted to say goodbye to someone who had been part of their lives for as long as they can remember. Others simply wanted to be "part of the moment."  I think almost everyone recognises this as a major landmark in their lives and in the country's history.  A new monarch will mean great change. Change of style, emphasis, and even values. The King has already stated that he will work to continue his mother's way of reigni...

  "This book, Fiskerton, how’s one supposed to take it? It’s not really a diary, as it’s not about your life, is it, Fiskerton, which is hardly worth writing about? It’s not really satire, either, although there are some good barbs at the deserving, Matt Hancock, Prince Harry and   Princess Oprah, environmental protesters, the paucity of decent television, English football, and Doctrix Who. "Still, it’s entertaining stuff and several hours in gloomy November were relieved by reading it. Good wit, wordplay and invective are all too rare in these days of trying not to offend anyone – which, to my mind is the biggest reason for rocketing mental health issues. I mean, how can one put up with this nonsense without being drunk and/or schizophrenic? I suspect that’s why all the leaders are both.  "The good thing about humans and climate change is that the mouth will be one of the last things to go under, so there will be No Claret Left Behind!" This second romp for Lord ...

There are a number of good reasons to want to write about one’s past, albeit, a past veiled in fiction. One is to record thoughts and memories about a specific place and a way of life that no longer exists. Another is to help the process of making sense of one’s life and those of one’s friends. Keeping these memories clear and free from sentimentality and the golden glow that settles like dust on temps perdu is no mean feat, especially when there is a great deal of affection associated with them. Northern Flames escapes these pitfalls. Indeed, it never gets near them. The book follows the lives of two boys, Stuart (Stewpot) and Ben, from their school days in Blackburn in the 1960s and charts the events that caused their paths to diverge. The detail is rich, but never tedious, and the descriptions of the boys on an outing to Blackpool, at Scout camp and other youthful escapades, are not only very amusing, but ring true – even the ones involving fireworks. The structure is dec...

In these days of social media blogs and vlogs, it is highly unusual that an ordinary businessman writes a book about his experiences – even if it is of a time and place of extraordinary events. Such books are usually the domain of politicians and historians whose first-hand experiences are limited and much influenced by others. What Derrick Swain’s Gold Cufflinks does is to present a picture of transitional Africa – Zambia in particular – as it moves from colonial to national rule. While the news media’s view of the   struggle – or “bloody birth” as the media had it – was focused on political, faction and tribal leaders, Swain’s account is from the perspective of a young executive in a division of a British trading conglomerate, managing wholesale and retail distribution in Zambia for eight years from 1969. This was a period of the transfer of assets and management from erstwhile colonial organisations to newly established local authorities and the integration of local nationa...

In spite of everything I say below, I have thoroughly enjoyed this series (six so far) of murder mysteries. There is nothing pretentious about them. They are well plotted, and the attention to detail is pretty accurate - except when it isn't. American terminology can be found, but that's the prime market, so Brits can turn up their noses but still enjoy the good bits. It's a win-win. While not egregious, such faux pas as the persistent misspelling of “whisky” really grate. “Whisky” = Scotch whisky; “Whiskey” = Irish whiskey or bourbon. We all know that Tony Hetheridge does not drink whiskey.  I also object to paper being referred to as "stationary." (There's a paper aeroplane joke there somewhere.) One wonders what editors do for their money. Briefly, Tony Hetheridge ( Anthony  Hetheridge , ninth Baron of Wellegrave)   is a chief inspector assigned to Scotland Yard's "toff squad," a unit that handles the crimes of the upper class and aristocracy....

  Academics and critics love to talk about novels in epoch-defining terms. “So-and-so destroyed the traditional novel”; This writer “breathes new life into an old form”; or, that “genius reinvented the novel.” It’s all hogwash, of course. The great 18 th century novelists set the theme and subsequent writers have been riffing on it ever since. Scott uses the versatility of digital print production to cast certain words and phrases in different typefaces and colours as well as to include photographs and digital artworks, not common today, but often a feature of early novels. At first glance, Kerry Scott’s Schism appears to be yet another variation on 1984 and Brave New World – and it does draw on those dystopias – but it’s more than that, and more disturbing for it. As with traditional dystopias, there is a dominant way of thought and a sophisticated way of developing and enforcing it. Humanity has been selected and categorized with “disposables” bred for service and targe...

Expandthetable.net is a great website for book-lovers who also love good food. (Or, I suppose, for food-lovers who love good books. Whatever.) I was contacted two weeks ago by Susan Weintraub who writes the blog (and also operates Editing Unlimited offering editorial services) who wanted to review Lost Lady . In the review that resulted from our email conversations, we found some fascinating coincidences and shared interests, some of which are related in the review. I am grateful for her review (on her blog and on Amazon  and Goodreads ) and I look forward to trying her tempting recipes!

  This book was offered as a Kindle special which is a great way to discover new writers, especially with the second-hand bookshops closed. Set in Detroit and Ann Arbor – which is a refreshing change from New York, San Francisco and Chicago – Who She Was captures the attention from the start and continues its pace through the book. While plot-driven, the characters develop well and are interesting and individual. While set in the contrasting worlds of comfortable affluence and grinding poverty, drug addiction and dysfunctional families, Parkinson does not fall into stereotypes or become preachy. The hero (Sylvia Wilcox) is a former cop now private investigator. She is haunted by events of her past, but doesn’t use them as an excuse or crutch. The plotting is tight and the ending has the requisite, “I should have seen that coming!” quality about it. It is a detective story that does not deceive – it’s all there, the real clues, the false trails, the dead-ends. At no time is t...

 I have to ask, "Why would someone think I'd be interested in a TV series with a title that 9th-graders would find childish?" Still waiting for the answer.

Started watching Rebecca on Netflix last night. New Year’s Eve treat. Didn’t make it through the credits. When she talks about how overgrown and jungle-like the drive and house had become, she’s walking through landscape without a vine out of place. Goodbye.

This was a question in "The Writer's Nook" section of Quora. As usual, my answer slides off the point, but it sets down a number of things about writing that I believe. * Writers’ courses and groups focus too much on creativity. That got your attention, but it wasn’t creative. Forced creativity is like a foreign accent: you can’t hide it. If you are a writer, you will find both a voice and something to say. Brilliant writers with nothing to say become historians - and there is always a need and market for readable history. The alternative is to be like E M Forster who dried up in 1927 but was hailed as the century’s greatest novelist when he died fifty years later. Reading widely is the cure for many faults in writing. Study the masters, just like aspiring artists and learn the craft of writing . Many can learn the craft; few can learn the art - arguably, it can’t be learned. Aim to be readable. Read the masters out loud. Read your own work out loud. Previous generations...

  Watching The Billion Dollar Art Hunt (BBC iPlayer) is a hugely frustrating way to spend an hour. At the end of an IKEA assembly puzzle of equal length, you have a piece of furniture. At the end of this documentary, all you have are the same questions that were posed at the beginning: Where are the bloody paintings, and who took them? The show, led by veteran art journalist, John Wilson, examines the case of the most spectacular art heist in history: the theft of fourteen pictures from the Isabella Steward Gardner Museum, in Boston, in 1990. Estimates are that the paintings are now worth nearly a billion dollars. Of course, these are sensationalised prices. The major paintings were cut from their frames, and probably rolled, possibly even folded. The prints and watercolours may have fared better, but the major paintings are damaged goods and have probably not been looked after in the intervening thirty years. The circumstances of the robbery are well-documented, so I am not ...

  I hate not finishing a book. No matter how much I am not enjoying it, or how badly written it is, I feel personally defeated when I set it aside and take it to the Oxfam shop. At my advanced age, I feel this less keenly and am more ready to blame the book than my own ability to read (tolerate) it. The various travel restrictions with virtually enforced iPlayer, Netflix and Prime watching, have led me to apply this principle to films and television shows. Unfortunately, the list of these that I have never finished viewing grows daily - to the extent that I am cancelling Netflix as soon as I finish watching Midnight Diner . The latest casualty is David Hare's Roadkill (BBC iPlayer).  Great cast, high production values, dramatic filming and editing  - and dull, boring, grim and pointless script. I made it through one and a half episodes. If it's not good by then, it's never going to be. I was anticipating an elegant, witty script such as Hare had done in the Worricker tril...

  I haven't posted many (any?) film reviews because none has struck me as good enough or bad enough to be worth the effort. Unfortunately, Enola Holmes  (Netflix)comes in the latter category. Now, it's pretty hard to mess up a Sherlock Holmes mash-up. Indeed, there have been many highly successful and amusing such films over the years from The Seven Percent Solution , They Might Be Giants ,  Young Sherlock Holmes  to Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, and the Canadian TV series, The Adventures of Shirley Holmes . Of course, the Mark Gatiss/Stephen Moffat series Sherlock deftly combined humour, wit, adventure with a 21st century spin to give us stories that delighted and exasperated in nearly equal measure. There are others, as well as the straight adaptations of the stories. Masquerading as a ripping yarn for young adults, the bottom line is that Enola Holmes is a woke diatribe. Rich, white, establishment men are bad; young rebel...

My review of Ian Thomson's new novel, A Dish of Apricots may be found here on Amazon, and also on Goodreads where it appears under my nom de web .  Below are some additional comments I shared with Ian and are not in a carefully structured review. This is not a book that spoilers can really spoil. Indeed, Ian gives the reader ample notice of what is going to happen.The genius is that it doesn't spoil anything. What at first glance is an amusing yarn is really something else. It hit me about 50 pages from the end and will hit other readers at different times. I know these characters; for the most part, I like them; none of them does anything out of character, but they certainly aren’t puppets. I also like how smoothly the narrative moves from the close detail of the first part of the book to a broader brush in the last third. That this was done without letting it feel anything but under perfect control was masterful. It never felt rushed. I love the band names: Nagasaki Flange ...

  I have always admired Eleanor Tilney. Though a minor character in Northanger Abbey , I believe she is one of the most intelligent women in 19th century literature, right up there with Marian Halcombe. In this short novel, Sherwood Smith recognises Eleanor's intelligence and good sense. She also develops some depth in her, showing her to be caring and sensitive, and deserving of a good, loving marriage. While Eleanor demonstrates a strong, yet gentle, nature, she did strike me as being rather idle, unlike, say, Emma, who is always trying to do good, or the Bennetts who are always busy with needlework, helping each other or working in the family kitchen. Now, it would not be right for Eleanor to work in the kitchen, but she does not even pick up a pair of secateurs. She is not musical either, though she dances well enough. Smith's depiction of Catherine Moreland is almost indistinguishable from Austen's and she fits into this pastiche with admirable ease. There is a cle...

My thanks to the judges at Chill with a Book for selecting The Rock Pool as Book of the Month for July 2020. This is a great honour and surprise. The Chill with a Book community is a great resource for indie writers.

My thanks to Ian Thomson for his comprehensive and enthusiastic review of  Undivulged Crimes which appears on his website , on Goodreads , and on his LinkedIn page. If anyone hasn't discovered Ian's short stories and novels, you can find them here . His perception, wisdom and spleen are wittily set out on every page.  We eagerly await his forthcoming novel, A Dish of Apricots .