AS a person of interest, Meaghan Markle usually rates way down the list of those spotlighted celebrities who engage my attention. Almost off the scale; at the lowest end. As I feel she is considered by most people apart from those sad sacks to whom all gossip is more precious than oxygen; the mainstay of their existence. The Duchess of Excess Sussex is my Marmite. Take it or leave it. In my case, one finger dipped into a dab of the ghastly stuff was enough for a lifetime’s abstinence. Flashed into my awareness, registered high on the avoidance scale and… Continue reading

ONE of the many pleasures gained from reading crime fiction is being plunged deep into places never previously visited. Or, if having been there only superficially as a mere transient, now getting down and dirty with the locals. No longer passing through but going well and truly off piste. The crime novel as a Baedecker. So much so that often the main character is not the sleuth but the location, or locus as many of them pompously refer to it. We thread our way along the calles and canals of Venice with Donna Leon or Michael Dibdin as our guides. Continue reading