Carol Naylor's REVIEW it...

                Farrel's Last Case by Gerald R Wright. " Four years of celibacy had weighed heavily upon him. It was like being a starving man, close to death having a sumptuous meal set before him. Would the man choose to starve?" Ian Farrel is considered as being a good, small-town cop. He started out as a beat officer, giving out parking tickets which was rather tedious for an ambitious guy like him. Promotion to the Criminal Investigation Department allowed him to gain respect as well as a fearful reputation. As his career soared his marriage floundered. His excessive work schedule seemed to be the main reason why his wife left him four years before the action begins. When she realised that his job came first she wanted out. He was twenty when he joined the force and had almost completed twenty-two years of service. Described as grumpy and on the tetchy side, Farrel didn't suffer fools gladly. He had a tendency to become cynical ...

                                Brooklyn  Film Review.                  "Two countries, two loves, one heart." Brooklyn was based on the 2009 novel by Colm Toibin set around the early 1950s. The plot revolves around the idea of a young Irish girl, Eilis Lacey who leaves Enniscorthy in south-east Ireland for New York searching for a better life. She worked in a shop at weekends for a Miss Kelly, nicknamed Nettles Kelly, a woman who overcharged for stale bread and relished  humiliating her customers and staff. Her sister Rose wrote to Father Flood ( Jim Broadbent ) in Brooklyn who arranges for Eilis ( Saoirse Ronan ) to have a better future. "She doesn't want to be trapped in the humdrum cycle of existence that seems to be inevitable at home." ( Clark Douglas who awarded the film 4 out of 4 stars)  ...

                       Truth Hurts by Janet Waters. "Nellie would never again be a whole person, her grief and guilt would continue to plague her for her remaining days." The story spans almost 90 years taking us from 1919, post first world war era with all its hardships and through the second world war to 2006 where we witness Nellie's birth (real name Ellen) when tragically her mother Jessie died leaving a brood of children to the eldest girl, Rose to bring up in a 3 bedroom terrace house seen as part of the wages for working down the pit. We begin in a mining village in South Wales. The story has a historical backdrop to it and there are touches of autobiography emerging, otherwise it is a romantic story about unrequited love and guilt. We begin in the present, the year is 2006 and Nellie is 87. Her health has declined rapidly and her one and only dutiful daughter, Alison is making one of her regular visits to ...

                 The Missing by C.L.Taylor. "He looks so broken, so contrite, so deeply ashamed that my heart twists in my chest. One of my sons is missing and the other is falling apart in front of my eyes. I have never felt so powerless or so impotent in my life." Be prepared to be shaken out of your comfort zone. Fractured families, a spectrum of emotions; fear, anger, guilt and loss. This is serious stuff and this is what Cally Taylor excels at. The plot is chilling and the truth devastating and the characters are believable throughout. No matter how well we think we know our family and friends that can change with discoveries of mind-numbing secrets that could explode in our faces, leaving us scarred for life. Ask Claire Wilkinson. Claire Wilkinson is the main character, narrating most of the account. Taylor informs us: "I wanted to explore what would happen when Claire, a control freak by nature, realize...

               Murder at Channing Ponds Station by Darren Mark Wright. "They're all acting incredibly weird around each other. Do they know something that we don't know? How did we find ourselves in a place where every person that got off the train to come to this random small village is hiding something?" Think of Agatha Christie's Mousetrap or Cluedo and you're almost there! The scene is set in Channing Ponds, an underground station described as being dank and old. "The track doesn't even see the light of day between these hills." It's in the middle of nowhere. Some God-forsaken place. The drama begins with the arrival of a local Constable and a recently arrived London Detective, both perplexed. Why? Nine people have been killed. " This one is beyond our country experience and capabilities."   Unable to speculate on the perpetrator the Constable wished the Detective the best of luck adding: "You're going to ne...

             The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins. "But I know something happened on Saturday. I knew it when I looked into that dark tunnel under the railway line, my blood turning to ice water in my veins." This is Paula Hawkins' first thriller which may be hard to believe once you immerse yourself into this incredible psychological thriller. It is an accomplished piece of fiction, gripping, assured and confident with inescapable tension. Highly recommended. Zimbabwe-born author Paula Hawkins took six months to write this thriller. She had to borrow money from her father during this period. Inevitably, comparisons have been made with Gone Girl with the use of unreliable narrators and a disappearing wife. Hawkins' novel is less psychotic and the author seems to pay homage to Hitchcock especially Strangers on a Train and Rear Window . Rachel Watson is the girl on the train. She is described in negative terms throughout: pathetic...

                   Where Lies My Heart by K.J.Rollinson. "Her mind told her that things couldn't be the same. She was soiled by the men who had used her body, and…and….She pushed the image from her mind of the knife between her legs." Rollinson presents the reader with a mixture of romance and terror set in a number of politically volatile areas of Eastern Africa with corrupt governments, terrorists and sex trafficking. The author has researched her subject well presenting historical facts of events that occurred as well as accurate medical records. Other subjects to whet your appetite deal with female mutilation-circumcision, inhumane torture and the sale of illegal human organs. Intense. Ian Cornwell, the protagonist was fourteen at the start of the novel. The initial setting is Birmingham, U.K. relatively stable apart from the usual yobbos at football matches, tanked up with booze, out to cause trouble. It is May 1985. A ch...

                           Witches' Mountain by Gerald R. Wright. "The more he thought about it, the more he knew that Kate and the mountain would draw him back-especially Kate." Our main character, Rick Jackson was 27 years old, reasonably open-minded, stoic, pragmatic and gregarious., quite a nice chap, in fact. A small, engineering company he had worked for as a salesman had folded but he was fortunate in finding similar work with another small business covering a wide and diverse territory of farms, lumber companies and engineering works. He loved the open country and mountains in their majestic natural beauty and grandeur. Just as well as his work covered the infamous mountain-Witches' Mountain linked to the Salem trials. The novel begins with Rick driving his Mustang through the mountains, it's twilight. The colours around him were spectacular: yellows, oranges and reds-a sight worth seeing and rememb...