Conrad, Patrick: No Sale

Set in Antwerp which is a first for me, the book is about an elderly professor of film history who is the naib suspect when his alcoholic wife is found drowned.   He is released as there is no firm evidence and he falls in love with a mysterious student who has a strong resemblance to Louise Brooks and Clara Bow.   They have a year long affair during which time other murders occur, all with a firm association with thrillers of the 40s with the method of death and the name of the victim
aping a particular film.   Then the girlfriend disappears but the professor keeps this to himself until a further killing puts him back in the police limelight as all the victims turn out to have been either his
student or have some other connection to him.   The lead investigator believes he is innocent though the professor is beginning to doubt his sanity because of the links.   With the return of the girlfriend
whose disappeance was completely innocent in fact if not in his mind, the killer is unmasked.   What
is so enjoyable about the book is the repeated references to classic films noirs in short chapters with
the references adding to the action and atmosphere even when they stray past film noir into the Dirty
Harry era.   Excellent.

Crumey, Andrew: Mobius Dick

A multi-layered novel which uses quantum physics as its basis with the 'now' story interspersed with
a chronicle from the mid 19th century and another from the early 1920s, both referring to real life people though the history of the latter seems distorted.   The current activity is set in a parallel world where Scotland is a separate country under totalitarian rule.   The main character is a physicist who has been invited to aresearch facility in the Highlands to continue his work while helping to build a
new device.   He is convinced this could spell the literal end of the world by multiplying the number
of possible worlds that might appear, all this based on quantum theory.   Despite the esoteric nature of the plot's basis, the work moved along briskly and held my interest.

Barclay, Linwood: No Time For Goodbye

This is the first book I have read by this author though I have two others (such is the pull of 3 for 2
and other offers).   A teacher with a young family has been orphaned for some 25 years; she woke up after getting drunk and rowing with her parents to find the house empty with no trace of either parent or her brother and has been raised by her aunt.   Receiving a mysterious message takes her back in time with a resolve to find out just what did happen.   Although far from straightforward, the plot does hang together with a slow unravelling and a number of red herrings along the way during which she discovers that trusted friends are not trustworthy and that this leads to murder.   Set in Connecticut and New York State, the book is reasonably well written and comes to asatisfactory
conclusion, part of which I for one worked out ahead of time.

Killen,Chris: The Bird Room

Rather an odd first novel which tells of a typically uncharismatic young man with a lovely girl friend who is surprisingly in love with him.   He has a friend who is on the way to becoming the new artistic sensation.   Not surprisingly, the girl friend takes up with the artist leaving the everyday chappie in a mess of mixed emotions.   Crossing the men's paths is an aspiring actress who makes her way in life by appearing in porn films.   Lightly written with some wit, it left me cold.

The Big Gundown: Sergio Sollima

The final viewing of the Festival for us was, for once, enhanced by the introduction by the aficionada of Spaghetti Westerns, Sir Christopher Frayling.   Considered the director's best film, it started the
Italian career of Tomas Milian as a Mexican wanted for rape and murder.   Chased by Lee Van Cleef at his steely-eyed laconic best, he avoids capture until late in the film by which time Van Cleef has been convinced of his innocence.   The final shoot out sees them kill the real perpetrator while managing to survive.   The scenery providing the stage for the film is spectacular and deserves a
credit of its own while the plot with evil land barons, a Prussian killer and the good guys is s little
hackneyed now but the overall result is one which provides a lot of pleasure.

The Boys From Syracuse: A Edward Sutherland

The film version of the Rogers and Hart musical based on 'A Comedy of Errors' with Allan Jones of
'Donkey Serenade' fame playing the identical twins.   One has come to expect more of musicals after
the major leap forward of 'Oklahoma' and 'Carousel' both on stage and on film so this black and white
effort, though highly thought of at the time and considered important enough for the Library of Congress to restore it, is a bit of a let-down.   The music is pleasant but not the duos best and not enough to overcome the wooden performances, somewhat unfunny comedic episodes and cardboard scenery but it is over 70 years old.

Blancanieves: Pablo Berger

Returning to the London Film Festival's offerings after an unnecessarily long pause, this film was a
definite high point.   Silent, virtually, and in black and white, the story is a retelling of the Snow White fairy tale set in a recent Spain where a celebrated bullfighter is gored when distracted by a camera flash, the incident triggering his wife's giving birth to the heroine but dying as she does so.   The now crippled father wants nothing to do with the child while allowing the nurse who looks after him to marry him (a scarily icy performance by Maribel Verdu).   When the child is in her late teens
she is attacked by her stepmother's lover but escapes though she loses her memory.   Saved by a troupe of dwarfs who have supporting roles at bullfights, she one day saves the life of one of them by
jumping into the ring and distracting a rampaging bull with some classic moves.   This leads to her
becoming the star of the troupe and finally she appears to great acclaim in the ring where her father
ended his career.   A successful performance ends with her sparing the bull (a tradition after a truly
great showing) but her stepmother, in disguise, gives her a poisioned apple which kills her (or perhaps leaves her catatonic) to become a freak sideshow attraction.   Excellent camera work which
enhances the Gothic nature of the story; a very good musical score and well considered performance
make this a film worth seeing again.

Museum Hours: Jem Cohen

Something of an oddity, the film tells of an attendant at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna who befriends a Canadian woman who has come to Vienna  because she is the only relative of a cousin who is in a coma.   A leisurely piece which shows a number of the paintings in the Museum without comment as well as a series of disconnected shots of various parts of Vienna (very few of these of tourist sights) coupled with a measured commentary by the attendant about the visitors to the Museum, the film is, to quote the director, a sort of conversation with reference to the philosophy of Chris Marker and John Berger in particular.   The attendant is especially fond of the works of Brueghel and there is a quite extended sequence with a youngish art historian talking about some of the paintings in the room dedicated to his work.   A quiet, unassuming work with well rounded performances from the two leads though some sequences left me puzzled - after a boat trip though some underground caves, they learn that the cousin has died but the scene then moves to a party for immigrants in the attendant's local cafe which is followed by a brief discourse on a short of an old woman walking up a slope with a tall office or apartment building off to the left.   I went to this as I had hoped there would be more on the paintings than there was but, overall, an acceptable film.

Gipsy Anne: Rasmus Breistien

A complete change of pace a few days later in this silent restoration of what is considered the first
authentic Norwegian feature.   Starring Aasta Nielsen in the title role of a foundling tomboy who has
always thought she would marry her childhood friend, the early scenes show her getting into mischief with a local farmeralways being there to protect her.   As an adult, she sets fire to the house her erstwhile boyfriend has built but  her farmer friend takes responsibility for it even though Anne has turneddown his proposal of marriage.   When he leaves prison, Annewho has moved to the town to start afresh, is there to greet him and the film ends with them both leaving for the USA with his mother.   A relatively static camera setting with but a few moving shots though one of the farmer being taken to jail ( a shot of passing scenery with the camera behind the driver) is effective; the film stock switched from sepia to black and white without reason though this may be a function of the material available for restoration.   The main drawback for me was the apparent age of the main characters, all of whom looked to be in their thirties or more though Nielsen was only 23 when the film was made.   A curiosity but no more.

Helter Skelter: Mika Nagakawa

The fourth film from the Far East we have seen, this Japanese feature stars Erika Sawajira, apparently
the Japanese Kate Moss, in an excellently played role as the current darling of the teens of Japan.   She is almost completely artificially beautiful and requires regular treatment from a clinic whose procedures are being investigated by the police.   Sawajira's beauty hides a spoilt and vicious person who corrupts her assistant sexually as well as persuading the latter's boyfriend to disfigure a girl who has become engaged to her current lover.   She is gradually supplanted in the public affection by a younger, fresher beauty and, finally, breaks down completely in front of TV cameras.  A short end sequence shows the new beauty going to a risque nightclub where she sees and follows the assistant to see the earlier teen queen still beautiful but no longer famous.   A very energetic and flashy film with comparatively explicit (for Japan) sex scenes and fine support from the other main actors though the lasting memory will be of Sawajira's central performance in this attack on celebrity and the corruption behind it.

For Love's Sake: Takashi Miike

What a versatile director Miike is. Having made his name with Yakuza style films, he has tried other genres to greater or lesser success. This is a part musical reworking of what is called Romeo and Juliet but this is misleading. The central story is of a rich senior schoolgirl's love for a punk. She sees him in the middle of a street brawl which she unsuccessfully tries to stop but recognises him as the boy who saved her years earlier from a skiing accident which left him with a scarred forehead. This incident opens the film in anime style and also features at the end. She persuades her father to get him into her very exclusive school and to pay for his being there but this does not work and he ends up in a downbeat vocational school in which she enrols even though she was head girl of her former school. Out of her depth she is followed by one of the senior boys who ineffectually tries to protect her. The action is interspersed with songs, the one featuring her parents being delightfully funny and the other blending in with the action for the most part. The girls in the second school seem to be led by a rather large bully, this being the comedic relief role, though the real leader is another girl who takes up with the hero. She has a number of the boys under her thumb including one who is bigger and stronger than the rest. The finale sees this boy fight the hero for the second time with the female gang leader intervening by throwing knives. Although good prevails, the heroine is badly hurt and taken to hospital. In the closing scene, our hero is knifed in the back by a teacher he had humiliated but continues to the hospital to die in her arms. Miike has an excellent eye for scene composition and, although I thought the middle section would have benefitted from either being tighter or possible had more music in it, my overall reaction is that this is a very welcome return to top form.

The Samurai That Night: Masaki Akahori

Seen later the same day as the first film, the title and description led me to expect a somewhat bloody revenge film with the protagonist seeking retribution on the lout who had killed his wife in a car crash. The lout has served a five year jail sentence but has no regrets and has certainly not reformed in any way. The husband is a quiet man who has a small foundry with employees who treat him very off-handedly and friends who are trying to match him up with someone to help him forget his dead wife. This is a slowish psychological study with a few touching scenes and a denouement in really heavy rain which seems to give the husband closure even though the lout is still alive. I might have thought more of it had I not had the wrong initial impression of what I was going to see though without that impression I wouldnot have seen it!

Doomsday Book: Kim Jee-woon & Yim Pil-Sung

The first of this year's London Film Festival viewings, this is a three part Korean film, the first two parts having been completed some time ago while the third is a more recent collaboration. The first segment is a zombie episode which starts with frankly nauseating scenes of food being eaten and the waste then processed into animal feed which then returns to the table as raw beef. This causes an unstoppable epidemic of walking dead. A satirical comment on the food industry filmed in bright colour with some style. The second segment is set in a Buddhist temple with a robot discussing Nirvana with the monks when a mechanic fails to repair it or close it down. A little on the long side but interesting. The final segment has the two directors co-operating in a tale in which a young girl loses her father's eightball and orders another without knowing that she has ordered it from somewhere in the universe. The problem is that the delivery comes in a giant size which destroys muuch of the earth. The family survive in an underground shelter and emerge after many years to find the oversized ball on their doorstep with the alian messenger still waiting for a signature accepting delivery. Amusing but probably the weakest of the three.

Schlink, Bernhard & Popp, Walter: Self's Punishment

Self is a former Nazi prosecutor who became disillusioned with his work, resigned and, after the end of World War II, chose not to return to this profession but became a private investigator instead. He is asked by his brother-in-law, who is now the head of a major chemical firm, to find out who has been tampering with the company's computer system. So far this has been an annoyance rather than causing any real problems. He does this, finds the culprit who is romantically involved with one of the secretaries who has caught Self's eye as well, and makes his report. A few weeks later the culprit is killed in what seems a straight-forward road accident but his girlfriend is not convinced and the bulk of the novel deals with Self's efforts to find out what happened and why. Self is no longer young but seems to have a way with women and his character is well-drawn. The actual story is anything but contrived though there are the almost inevitable co-incidences, the main one being a link to one of his wartime cases at the same chemical plant; this does allow him to work out who was responsible and why by the end of the book. Set in and around Mannheim with excursions to San Francisco and the Italian Lakes, the book portrays a likeable and eccentric detective who enjoys the company of women. The book was published in Germany in 1987 with theEnglish translation dating from 2004. If there are more, it is worth seeking them out.

Carrisi, Donato: The Whisperer

A very interesting Italian thriller starts with the discovery of six severed arms which have been buried in a forest clearing. All belong to young girls but there is no sign of any bodies. The team investigating this is headed by a criminologist and it is joined by a young female officer who is an expert at finding missing girls. She is the focus of the book with the developments told mainly from her viewpoint. She is psychologically damaged being unable to relate to others and being prone to self- mutilation though the reason for this is not clear until the final chapters. The team discover not one but a number of killers who are somehow linked. What makes the book appealing is the gradual discovery of the different strands and the way they come together. Two additional strands are the reason why the killer seems to know what the investigators are doing, the most starling example of this being the discovery of one of the dead girls in the incident room they use and the gradual unveiling of the secret life of the criminologist. The members of the team are deftly characterised and made individual, something not always seen in policiers which this novel is in a way. It is, however, much more than this. It is a well-written psychological study both of the criminals involved but also of those seeking them. A fair amount of technical detail is included but this helps maintain the reader's interest rather than being tedious. Quite a change from the better known Italian policiers by writers like Andrea Camilleri and, overall, more satisfying.

Frightfest 2012 Day 5: 27.8.2012

The Soska sisters earlier film, 'Dead Hooker in a Trunk', was such that we had not intended to see their new one, 'American Mary'but decided to do so as we had seen one of the other two and the third did not appeal. A medical student is broke and not too happy with her studies. Played deadpan almost by Katharine Isabelle, she becomes involved in the world of illegal body modification which pays well. After a party at which her medical tutor rapes her (as seemingly do others there, she takes revenge on him by removing limbs while keeping him alive while making money illegally. All, of course, eventually goes wrong. Could have been better but not bad. After directed by Ryan Smith is creepy. A man and a woman survive a bus crash to find themselves trapped in their home town and completely alone while a dark fog moves closer and closer. In their efforts to escape they fall in love and finally succeed though it may not have been the terrifying reality it seemed to be at the end. Well done tosh. Chained directed by Jennifer Chambers Lynch has Vincent D'Onofrio as a mad taxi driver who kidnaps a mother and her son then kills the mother and enslaves the boy who is made to clean up after further killings. He is taught from books about anatomy and other things and, in his late teens, offered freedom if he, too, becomes a killer. He is unable to complete this but does killy his captor and returns to the family home after finding lettersand cancelled cheques from his father who has remarried. The end is a bloody one. Probably well done but distasteful. The Possession directed by Ole Bornedal tells of the possession of a young girl by a dybbuk which is in an antique box purchased at a yard sale. Eventually a young rabbi does perform the relevant ceremony and the film ends with the cliche of a cliffhanger. Solid and unmemorable. Tower Block directed by James Nunn and Ronnie Thompson was the closing film having its world premiere here. Now on general release it tells of the remaining occupants of a tower block due for demolition who find the lifts booby-trapped and exits and entrances blocked while they are sitting ducks for some shooting at them from a nearby block. Their numbers are gradually whittled down to the redoubtable heroine and two others who are able to overpower the shooter who has entered the building to complete the slaughter. Quite good.

Frightfest 2012 Day 4: 26.8.2012

We Are The Night directed by Dennis Gansel is a stylish vampire film set in Berlin. There are three of them, Louise who is searching for her last love, Charlotte who misses the daughter she last saw in 1923 while the third just wants to have sex and fun. Lena, a pickpocket on the run is seen by Louise who is convinced she is the one she is seeking. Although joining the undead, Lena falls in love with a policeman who is chasing them and from this point on, the vampires are in trouble. True love does finally prevail, however. A delightful romp of a film. The Inside directed by Eoin Macken had its world premiere and possibly its only ever showing. A group of girls go to celebrate the birthday of one of them in a disused warehouse (WHY?) where they are terrorised and abused by a group of vagrants before falling prey to something apparently supernatural. This is all seen on a camcorder picked up by a young man who goes to investigate only to be killed by the one survivor before sheescapes into the Dublin streets to be hit and killed by a car. This film made 'Nightbreed' (see Day 2) look a masterpiece. Alas we were stuck in the middle of the back row with one of the cast next to me so politeness meant we suffered! Sleep Tight directed by Jaume Balaguero unfortunately lived up to its title as I slept through a fair amount though through no fault of the film. What I did see was well done in this tale of a janitor who obsesses on a new occupant to the extent of raping her in her sleep though he is eventually found out and dimissed. Berberian Sound Studio directed by Peter Strickland has Toby Jones working as a sound engineer on an Italian horror film though his background is nature documentaries. No gory or scary scenes are viewed and the whole film develops from his reaction to what he sees as he produces the sound effects. Something of a disappointment

Frightfest 2012 Day 3: 25.8.2012

Eurocrime! directed by Mile Malloy is an interesting documentary exposition of the crime movies that provided a violent follow-up to the Spaghetti Western genre in Italy. With a number of interviews from the leading actors such as Franca Nero and Henry Silva with extracts from many of the films and intelligent use of posters, this was a fascinating slice of relatively unknown film history. Annoyingly put together at times, this did not detract from the light shed on the processes used which were much different from those used elsewhere. Kill Zombie directed by Martin Smits and Erwin van den Eshof was a delight. Four friends and a female cop emerge from the police station to discover the city has been ravaged by a zombie outbreak caused by a Russian space station crashing into the top of atall building where one of the works. Receiving a cry for help from the sexy secretary he was expecting to bed, they set off the rescue her, their journey across the city being fill with fights with the undead. Reaching the building they climb up to rescue the girl to find she had called everyone she knew and is now rewarding the first to reach her as only she knows how. Further mayhem follows with the female cop forming an attachment for the now disillusioned friend. Great fun, well done. Paura directed by the Manetti Brothers is a 3D shocker. A garage mechanic overheards a very wealthy customer telling the garage owner that he will be away for the weekend so he decides to break in with his mates to have a party there. They do and make merry with the place while waiting for the evening but... the house owner's car breaks down and he returns! The three hide and one discovers a naked girl chained up in the cellar while doing so but gets away with one of his friends but they decide they must go back for the other one. Eventually, the elderly owner kills two of them while the third releases the girl but is himself captured. She then kills her captor and finally her would be rescuer before running off naked down the road as the friends of the dead men arrive to party. Gory and reasonably done. Another Manetti brothers film followed, The Arrival of Wang. A girl interpreting Chinese films is hired for a one day assignment and is taken blindfolded to a hidden location where she starts to interpret the interrogation of Mr Wang though she cannot see him. She finds the methods used objectionable and refuses to continue without seeing Mr Wang who turns out to be an alien who eventually manipulates her into setting him free for her to discover that she has unwittingly aided the invasion of earth. Quite jolly in a weird sort of way. The final film we saw was also Italian, Tulpa directd by Federico Zampaglione. A driven female professional relaxes at Club Tulpa where the philosophy of freedom through promiscuity is practised. Those with whom she couples start getting murdered and, fearful that she would jeopardise her day job, she tries to find the killer herself. The film suffered from what was either inane dubbing or a poor script which tickled the audience's fancy; this spoilt an interesting film with an unexpected but credible denouement. I would like to see this undubbed.

Frightfest 2012 Day 2: 24.8.2012

Nightbreed: The Cabal Cut opened the day with a work in progress directed by Russell Cherrington. Claiming to present Clive Barker's true vision rather than the limited cinematic release, this effort combines two European work prints with the DVD and the theatrical release. Unfortunately, what was shown was a mix of almost unwatchable footage which would have disgraced a fourth generation video copy mixed with some much clearer footage, the whole providing a near unintelligible mess. What struck me was that Barker's imagination was as much submerged by the flat acting as by the unwatchable interpolations. I thought there were computer programmes to clean up tape footage. The Dario Argento interview which followed was hampered by Argento's limited English and would have been better served by using a translator - surely not too difficult a procedure to arrange. He did come across as a man of some wit. Hidden in the Woods directed by Patricio Valladares tells of two sisters raised in an isolated cottage in the woods who are abused by their drug dealing father. When he is reported, he chainsaws to death the two police sent to arrest him but is caught and jailed before he can tell his drug lord boss where he has hidden a recent shipment. The drug lord sends his men to find this but the two girls and their mentally handicapped brother kill them and then the drug lord before the final scene of the three of them gambolling in the sea. Unredeeming splatter. V/H/S followed which is a six director found footage compilation. This demonstrates beyond doubt that found footage has had its day (possibly except in thrillers using CCTV footage sparingly to advance the plot) and is, by and large, an excuse for a lack of both talent and imagination. The outcome was that we then left without seeing the UK premiere of [Rec}3 Genesis which was probably a better film.

Frightfest 2012 Day 1: 23.8.2012

The Seasoning House directed by Paul Hyatt was the opening film. Set mainly in a house used as a brothel to which girls captured by soldiers in an unnamed Balkan conflict (presumably Serbia/Bosnia) are brutalised and used sexually, often after their parents have been killed in front of them. The young female lead is a deaf-mute who has been orphaned and is made to care for the prostituted girls, cleaning them and keeping them drugged. Unknown to her captors, she moves around the spaces between wals and floors to comfort some of the girls when she can. While the man in charge is as brutal as anyone, he seems to have a soft spot for her but when the man who killed her family arrive, she uses her knowledge of the secret passages to exact revenge before escaping - but she ends up at the home of the doctor who has been used to treat the girls in the brothel. A reasonable first effort. Cockneys vs Zombies directed by Matthias Hoene was the second film and a complete change from the first. Two brothers decide to rob a bank to save the care home where their grandfather lives at the same time that an underground vault is opened on a nearby building site releasing the undead entombed there for centuries. The delight of the film is seeing elderly actors like Honor Blackman, Dudley Sutton and richard Briers deal with the zombies when the care home is attacked. Alan Ford plays the grandfather somewhat reprising his role in recent British gangster films not that I recognised or had heard of him. While there is ample gore, the tone is light with the highlight surely being Richard Briers using a zimmer frame trying successfully to outpace slowly an attacking zombie. All ends happily with them riding upstream to safetly.

Lukyanenko, Sergei: The Night Watch

A few years ago, the film of this book was shown at Frightfest and it proved to be a well-made and entertaining addition to the world of fantasy films. I have had the book for some time but only now have I read it. My memory of the film has dimmed but the book is far superior. It tells the story of Anton, a young Other and Night Watch agent, in three connected but separate episodes. Set in Moscow, there is no great effort made to create a cityscape though the city's geography is presumably correctly depicted. The three episodes provide examples of the way the Day Watch and Night Watch clash and the difference between them. The unreal aspects of what is effectively a parallel world entwined with the 'normal' one are shown with skill and are not overblown, there being a high degree of naturalness about most of them. The book reads like an adult Harry Potter story a lot of the time, this being an indication of the high standard of the writing and plotting. There are three sequels which I shall read over the coming months rather than immediately as it will be better to savour them slowly rather than rushing through them.

Pryce, Malcolm: The Day Aberystwyth Stood Still

In the splendid alternative Wales which has been at war with Patagonia, where Louie Knight leads a Marlowe-like existence as Aberystwyth's only private eye, strange events have occured. As if the author's earlier imaginings were not enough, we now have extra-terrestrial beings and others looking for a dead man. Well up to the witty and believable standard of the previous books, this one is solidly based even though the overall premise may not be. The exposition of the plot resonates with reminders of the novels of Chandler and MacDonald without being overly strained and there is a definite hint of world-weariness appearing as the book progresses. It will be better to read the earlier books first though this one does stand on its own. Well up to the very high standard Malcolm Pryce has set himself

Fowler, Christopher: Hell Train

Possibly best known now for the excellent Bryant and May series of offbeat mysteries, Christopher Fowler's earlier novels were horror stories though again often somewhat offbeat. The novel under review returns to the horror genre with a tale of a devilish train in central Europe at the time of the First World War - with something of a change to the actual fighting. Of interest is the framing story which provides a sketch of the British horror film industry of the 60s at a time when the genre had all but run its course here - the bloody US revival was just starting and one of the contributory factors to the decline here (the stylish Italian horror productions are not mentioned). The chapters providing the suspense and horror are supposedly the screenplay being written against the clock by a visiting American who has used a board game for inspiration. The central story contains the standard types - a dashing young hero, a beautiful maiden, an offbeat expendable couple, a laconic and sinister chorus cum director of events and various horror elements, some usual, some not so much so. There are a number of very strking scenes though I did find the overall effect a little stretched. This is not meant to criticise too much as below par Fowler is superior to most other writers in the field of imaginative writing.

Hadddon, Mark: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

I don't know why it has taken me as long as it has to read this Whitbread Book of the Year for 2003. While I have to accept on trust that the description of the lead character is correct in the way Asperger's Syndrome is shown, it certainly reflect what I have read elsewhere. The behaviour patterns are brilliantly maintained throughout what is actually a very straightforward story. There are moments of humour and of sadness but the overall impression is one of the indominatable nature of the hero who is aware he is different but seems to ride over the problems the difference creates. Simply written, this is an outstanding work of fiction which well deserves the praise it has been given.

Berry, Steve: The Templar Legacy

A lengthy tale based on the stories surrounding Rennes-le-Chateau in the area of France near Carcassonne. Starting in Copenhagen where a retired spy has an antiquarian bookshop, the action soon moves to the south of France with some scenes in Avignon but most in the French Pyrennees. A lot of factual inserts dealing with the Templars and the various tales that have evolved about Rennes-le-Chateau do not really hold up the action though this is rather far-fetched at times. There is a fair amount of co-incidence though not more than seems common in this sort of thriller and, by and large, the novel is one of the better attempts in this particular genre.

Sarrantonio, Al (Ed): Red Shift

To quote the subtitle of this 2001 book 'Extreme visions of speculative fiction' are the collective aim of the short stories this anthology contains. Their length varies considerably from a page or two to around 50 pages and all are considered by the editor to be excellent offerings - otherwise he would not have included them, I suppose. I found them very variable both in style and content with the better ones very good but a number all but unreadable. That is, of course, a feature and danger of collections, especially with what is a rather disparate theme. The book of over 600 pages in paperback including the introductions did take me quite a whil to work through.

Gibson, William: Spook Country

Gibson has been a consistently entertaining and perceptive commentator on the rise of the present day world governed by computers and electronic devices of various sorts. In a series of short chapters, he introduces various characters whose worlds are intertwined though some of the connections are only apparent in the closing scenes. There is a rather disturbing background atmosphere about the events which is mainly a reflection of how pervasive the surveillance of everyday life by unaccountable governmental bodies seems to be. Quis custodiet ipsos custodies is certainly an underlying theme in this well-written book which kept me more than interested over the period it took me to read it.

Preston, Douglas & Child, Lincoln: Reliquary

A sequel to 'Relic' featuring the same major characters dealing with an apparent recurrence of the same type of killings that featured in the earlier novel. As well as the scientific details which one takes on trust, the actual location is as much below the surface of New York as on it; this is a reflection of the actual reality with references to non-fictional source material. Although it is still a cerebral puzzle, much of the book deals with the physical both in respect to the chapters dealing with below ground and to the scenes above ground, especially the depiction of the protest march and its aftermath. Lengthy but enjoyable.

Anderson, Pamela: Star Struck

The sequel to 'Star' descends into melodrama as it continues the fictionalisation of Pammy's life. The two early TV series are mentioned though some of the films are not except for a disguised version of 'Barb Wire' with her marriage to Tommy Lee and the famous sex tape also featuring before the book takes a sharp turn into fantasy with a decidedly laughable ending.

Anderson,Pamela: Star

Yes, it is the celebrated pin-up, actress, icon in a fictitious ghosted biography. Here she is not a Canadian but a Floridian and the years from her first exposure at a football match, thrrough local celebrity to being the centerfold of 'Mann' magazine are depicted with relatively little depth and quite a lot of underplayed sexual scenes.

Preston, Douglas & Child, Lincoln: Relic

Starting in the Amazon Basin where an expedition comes to a disastrous end although there is a shipment of collected items, the book tells of the planned opening of an exhibition at the New York Museum of Natural History where the shipment has been received and stored. A series of gruesome murders threatens the opening of the exhibition which would lose the Museum a lot of money. While the corpses are being examined by a scientist in a wheelchair and a woman finalising her Phd work with their efforts under the eye of a New York detective, Pendergast, an FBI agent turns up because of the similarity of the murders with some in New Orleans some time earlier. He wants to close down the exhibition but is overruled politically. The exhibition is opened but the monster performing the killings runs wild in a scene of grand guignol proportions before being itself killed. Full of scientific explanations which I am sure have been well researched and deft character studies of the main characters this is a lenghty but enjoyable read though Pendergast does come across as something of a superman intellectually. This is the first but by no means the last of these author's books in which he appears.

Solana, Teresa: A Shortcut to Paradise

Set in Barcelona,this is the second novel featuring private detective twins who have different names as one of them has pretensions to be taken for someone of aristocratic background. While there is some mild humour at their somewhat clumsy attempts to solve the murder of a hasionable prize-winning novelist, the cover comment of 'scathingly funny' and'made me laugh so much the tears rolled'(El Pais)had
me wondering if I had read the same book. Pleasant enough reading but nothing too
startling with a fair amount of satirical comment on local society pretensions but no
more.

Joncour, Serge: UV

A rich family, father, mother, two daughters, a son-in-law and two children are on holiday at the family house on a small island when a handsome stranger arrives. He is the friend from schooldays of the son of the family whose arrival is expected at any time to set off fireworks on July 14th. The stranger, Boris, rapidly insinuates hiself into the family circle with both daughters flirting with him, the uunmarried one possibly going further, thre mother all but treating him as the absent son as does the father. The only person not taken with him is the son-in-law who sees him as an usurper. Joncour builds up the hold the stranger has and the
underlying tension in spare laconic language until the climax when the two men go to the mainland to collect the fireworks with Boris deliberately tormenting and belittling the son-in-law. In the mainland town, however, the son appears and he and the son-in-law return to the island alone saying that Boris had other plans. Later that evening, he turns up. The scene shifts to the mainland where the local ironmonger who had been storing the fireworks hears an explosion from the island which he thinks is the fireworks going off early though there is no sign of them - and that was the only explosion of the evenng....This leavesthe reader to decide what the explosion was using the earlier exposition of the internal family relationships, both good and bad, to provide clues. At the beginning I could see a certain similarity to the Ripley novels of Patricia Highsmith but the book turned out to be more about the effect an intruder can have on a family even though the book is a prize-winning noir. Not certain if I would read more of this author.

McDermid, Val: The Torment of Others

Following her rape in a previous book (one I have yet to read) DCI Carol Jordan takes
a new post in Bradfield after a protracted leave. She is rejoined by Tony Hill who has given up his academic post to return to practising psychology at a nearby hospital. The story tells of the search for a killer of prostitutes which mirror those of a previously convicted killer of whose guilt there is no doubt. But this is no copycat killer! At the same time Jordan's team are also investigating a pair of child abductions which they have been told to re-examine. The two cases reveal the different personalities and desires of the members of the task force, not all of them positive. One of them agrees to act as a decoy to draw out the prostitute killer and she is caught but kept alive. Dr Hill's input provides, as one might expect valuable leads in both cases with the ultimate resolution of both but not before a number of twists. The book is well up to McDermid's high standards and provides an example of one of the more chilling psycopaths I have met in crime literature.

Vargas, Fred: The Chalk Circle Man

This is the first Adamsberg novel but not the first to be published here. Blue chalk circles have been appearing in various parts of central Paris, each with an apparently irrelevant object in them - a stone, a cigarette packet, a dead bird, etc. This intrigues Adamsberg who is convinced that there will soon be a body in the circle. The early chapters flesh out his rather odd way of looking at things and also introduces the Parisian police in his squad who quickly adapt to his unorthodox methods. As in the later books, there is a collection of eccentrics - a celebrated lady deep-sea diver who prefers fish to people but spends her time on land striking up conversations with strangers, one of whom is a blind man whose sense of small provides Adamsberg with a clue, and an elderly rather unattractive housekeeper who is continually replying to lonely heart ads. The oceanographer has seen the chalk circle drawer and provides a description which eventually leads to his exposure but he seems only to have drawn the circles and claims someone else is corruptly using them. Further complications arise both with the case and with Adamsberg's personal life before the final chapter closes. I might not have read more of Fred Vargas' novels had I read this one first. As it is, the first I read hardly involved Adamsberg until the final chapters and the other I have read indicate, I consider, that Vargas took a while to get into her stride so I am glad I have read this one now and not earlier

Grimwood, Jon Courtenay: End of the World Blues

Yet another excellent book from a master story teller. From a teenage romance which was blighted to a married life in Tokyo which is cut short the hero, Kit, is suspected of murder, is involved dangerously with Yakusa bosses - an affair with the wife of one is not exactly healthy - and agrees to look for his former love who may or may not be dead. He collects a young girl,
or does she collect him, who follows him to London where she acquires a boy friend. The present day element in the book is a thriller as his search involves undercover police and local crime lords. The girl is not of this world but from the distant future where a different tale unfolds. Very well done and not at all confusing.

Bataille, Georges: Story of the Eye

As with the previous posting, computer problems (probably mine rather than the equipment) mean this should have appeared
last year! Apparently, this is considered a major surrealist text which came out in four versions, this translation being based on the 1928 original. The short book is a loosely linked series of pornographic episodes with a strong element of sadism and scatological detail. No great development of character leaves the main characters anything but rounded with their personalities relating only to the sexual acts in which they are involved - many of them more than a little unlikely.
The Pengui edition I have includes essays by Sontag and Barthes.

Fowler, Christopher: The Victoria Vanishes

This appears to be the last novel featuring Bryant and May. At the wake following Oswald Finch's funeral, Bryant slips a letter of resignation into Land's pocket and, on his way home sees a woman by the pub named in the title. The next day the pub has vanished and the woman has been murdered. In the ensuing investigation, the expected esoteric facts about London are given as the Peculiar Crimes Unit uncovers a number of related murders, all in pubs. There is a distinct elegiac tone to the book but it is written with the usual verve and style, twists and wrong turnings, that have characterised the earlier books.
I did not, however, find it quite as good as the earlier ones though still better than most of the genre. There is a book of short stories featuring the two which I look forward to reading