Carol Naylor's REVIEW it...

       Precinct Murder. An Anthology of Short Stories by local writers. "We both saw it happen. It was like time stood still out in the street. For a brief second, which seemed like an hour, everything fell silent. Nothing moved. everything was dead." The Fall Guy by Warren Kent opens dramatically with a naked man falling from the 5th floor of a hotel in New York to his death, watched by two off-duty officers enjoying an appetising Mexican meal and looking forward to a relaxing weekend. Change of plan. Mayhem. Cars piled up. Children screaming: "Within moments, blood had mixed with water to form a red river traversing the tarmac." Atmospheric. Meet the two detectives: Steve Byrne and his partner, Jesse Andrews. Homicide? The victim had checked into this particular hotel every Friday afternoon under the name of Jones and was joined by a woman which lead the detectives into assuming that he was conducting a clandestine affair without his wife's ...

                Oh Dear Sylvia by Dawn French. "Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, I was once lost but now am found, was blind but now I see." This is French's second novel, ambitious but dark. The writer presents us with multi-narrators who are linked to Silvia, a 60 year old who is in a coma after falling from her balcony. She has sustained a serious head injury and is in a critical condition. The million dollar question is did she fall or was she pushed? Had she been drinking? What was her secret? Why did she reject those she loved? Her family Ed, Cassie, and Jamie have been rejected by Silvia and monologues delivered at the side of her hospital bed reveal the true extent of why she wanted to protect them and in doing so, reject them. Of course, her family remain in total ignorance of this and grow to hate her. They harbour grudges and it creates insecurities. Her son Jamie signs up out of rage and is sent to Afghanistan wh...

                              Diana.  Film Review. "Love is a garden. If you can't smell the fragrance, don't come into the garden of love. Somewhere beyond right and wrong there is a garden. I'll meet you there." Rumi. Yet another film panned by the critics both sides of the Atlantic. Remember Grace starring Nicole Kidman? That was hammered too. Diana is biopic only in the sense that it covers some aspects of her final years from 1995-1997 particularly her relationship with the heart surgeon, Hasnat Khan and her humanitarian work. Oliver Hirschbiegel of "Downfall" fame, an incredible film based on Hitler's last days, directed   Diana. Based on Kate Snell's 2001 book: Diana: Her Last Love. The script was written by Stephen Jeffreys. Naomi Watts played the title role alongside the attractive Naveen William Sydney Andrews, a British Indian actor (Sayid Jarr...

                                 Losing Hope by Nikki Dee. "You always want to make out everything is clean and nice, and everybody is good inside and the world's a happy place. It's a crock." What a tangled web of deceit, distrust and malice as we weave and wend our way aimlessly through life living on the brink of disaster, losing hope. Nikki Dee presents us with a readable  but hardly plausible portrayal of extremes: self-righteousness contrasted with nihilism? A child abduction is tragic but can make excellent reading or viewing. Take for instance, the recent tv drama The Missing on BBC1 starring James Nesbitt as Tony Hughes and Frances O'Connor as Emily Hughes. The plot is intricate and sustained, the characters are thoroughly intriguing and realistic with the suspense building up momentum. Brilliant. My kind of excellent drama. With Losing Hope we have a clever pun on hope/H...

                      A Tale of Two Villages by Christine Smith. "Trees and foliage were being swept along, down in the raging torrent, and then suddenly, we saw a car being swept down the road, over where a wall had been demolished, and come to rest on its side, in the mud." For all you expats and lovers of Spain I pose an interesting question: Is Spain a haven of "sun, sea and sangria" or is it overrun by "concrete, fish and chips and all day breakfasts?" To continue this line of thought, do you find the esplanades full of cheap shops selling tourist junk and blaring music "disgorging lager louts" from your local bars?  I'm not just referring to Benidorm. And finally, are Spanish destinations a "carbon copy of UK seafronts, but with more guaranteed sunshine?" Christine Smith chose to live in the real Spain, uninhabited by tourists and like many of us, spent some time exploring possibilities and travelling ar...

                           The Counsellor. Film Review. "To aspire to the stone's endless destiny. Isn't that the meaning of adornment? To enhance the beauty of the beloved is to acknowledge both her frailty and the nobility of that frailty." Star-studded actors: Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender, Cameron Diaz, Penelope Cruz and of course husband, Javier Bardem, wonderful scenery of Texas and California from the acclaimed writer Cormac McCarthy who made his screenwriting debut here with his wit, dark humour and a nightmarish scenario with graphic images more akin to horror. Well it is an 18 and not suitable for children. McCarthy is seen as one of the greatest American living authors. You may remember "No Country For Old Men" (2007) which left me cold, also starring Bardem as the baddie, Anton Chigurh who embodied pure evil. " The Road" (2009) was just as bleak. McCarthy's trademark is the frequent use of ...

                  The C uckoo's Calling by Robert Galraith. "Her head had bled a little into the snow. The face was crushed and swollen, one eye reduced to a pucker, the other showing as a sliver of dull white distended lids." A dramatic opening, the death of a beautiful supermodel in suspicious circumstances, having fallen from her Mayfair penthouse caused a big stir with the paparazzi. Detective Inspector Roy Carver and Detective Sergeant Eric Wardle were on the case. Lula Landy, like the late Princess Diana was one of the most photographed women in the world. It seems that both women were hounded to death by the pressure of celebrity and attention. Her death dominated the news showing her "flawless face, her lithe and sculpted body" but within three months "The frenzy wore itself into staleness." Lula was an interesting character, having been adopted by a wealthy white family. She had been investigating her biological r...

            The Shock of the Fall. Nathan Filer. " I looked in the rain clouds, fallen leaves, sideways glances. I searched for him in the places I had come to expect him. In running tap water. In spilled salt. I listened in the spaces between words." The book won the Costa Book Awards in 2014 and was the first debut win since 2006. The main character is Matthew Homes a 19 year old boy suffering from schizophrenia. He has been sectioned and is receiving psychiatric treatment. Matthew is a convincing character suffering a cruel disease, trapped in the ever changing world of mental illness. Comparisons have been made with "The Curious Incident." Mark Haddon. Both boys suffer pain and confusion which the authors convey powerfully. Ten years previously, Matthew and his older brother, Simon who was a Down Syndrome child, went on holiday with their parents to a caravan park in Dorset. Children were forbidden from going down to the beach themselv...

                     Grace of Monaco. Film Review. " You came here to play the greatest role of your life. You are the fairytale. The serenity to which we all aspire. And peace will come when you embrace the roles you have been destined to play." The long-awaited release of this film disappointed critics when it opened the Cannes Film Festival 2014. It was slated. Peter Bradshaw was kinder when he referred to it as being wooden. Bad news for screen writer, Arash Amed and director, Olivier Dahan ("La Vie en Rose.") In fact savaged is closer to the truth. For me and people like me, it makes it that more appealing. The real-life descendants branded the film a farce criticising it for being "overly dramatic" with "historical errors and little depth." The controversy surrounds the point of whether it is meant to be a biopic film and the obvious answer is no. Hollywood screen goddess, Grace Kelly was born in 1929 and emb...

                    Song For Marion. Film Review. "I'm not the life and soul of the party and full of joy and guts. I'm miserable old Arthur. I've ruined everything I had and it's too late." Arthur Harris played by British veteran actor Terence Stamp more akin to playing the arch villain is struggling to deal with his wife, Marion's cancer. Undoubtedly he loves her, this is never in question being her main carer but to a point of over -protectiveness stifling her natural energy. His relationship with his son James is frosty. It seems as if James has proved a disappointment and Marion's illness has caused a huge rift between them. Arthur is bad-tempered, the antithesis of his wife, Marion played by the renowned actress Vanessa Redgrave, held in such high-esteem by the American playwright Tennessee Williams as the greatest actress of our time. Within the partnership, she is the life force whereas Arthur represses his emoti...