IT’S baffling: why marketing people spend so much on campaigns doomed to miss the target. So much time, brainpower, effort and materials wasted. To say nothing of the waste incurred in printing and distribution. Plus the waste of so much money. Wasted not only by the marketers themselves but also by the poor sods who pay for these useless campaigns. Mountains of junk mail, so much of which ends up as litter. Discarded as unwanted and unread. Maybe the mere act of designing and printing this multi-coloured mass of pleas to buy (or sell) is considered sufficient. It’s akin to… Continue reading
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The past few weeks have been something of a Nordic escape – a binge into a series of crime novels written by Jorn Lier Horst. By my reckoning he’s the new Henning Mankell. He makes a worthy successor to that supreme leader of the Nordic Noir brigade who started really… Continue reading
Like all the best villians they creep up without warning. Seconds later, their deadly effect has been suffered. As sudden and unexpected as we see in the movies, or in the endless succession of gory TV dramas. Or read in the plethora of crime fiction. It’s all over before the… Continue reading
Diction: a person’s way of pronouncing words Such a simplistic (and I do mean simplistic) definition of a word with so many shades of meaning. And one that is widely open to a plethora of subtle differences. Surely the emphasis should be less on the speaker’s way of pronunciation and… Continue reading
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SUDDENLY I am delving into my memory bank, reliving how it was to take that nerve-racking walk from West to East across Berlin’s no-man’s-land of Checkpoint Charlie. An instant recall sparked after inexplicably waiting two decades to open a book fully intended to be read when it made its spectacular… Continue reading
There has always been a leisurely air about Guido Brunetti’s approach to crime. In Give Unto Others his creator dips him even deeper into the realm of the soporfic. Better than a warming cup of camomile tea. More digestible than a tab or two of valerian. It’s dreamtime in Venice. Give Unto Others documents the thirty-first case solved by the likeable Venetian detective. It also marks the thirtieth year of author Donna Leon’s prestigious presence on the crime fiction scene. As a chronicler of Venetian society and a guide to the city, there are few better. She is well versed… Continue reading