Guilt and regret

Fila, a protagonist of Michelle Steinbeck’s Favorita, receives an anonymous phone call from Italy telling her that her mother Magdalena is dead, her instinctive feeling is one of relief. Fila hasn’t seen her in years, not since she disgraced their family by advertising her brothel in the newspaper. Fila is already unmoored by the recent death of her grandmother Lavinia, who raised her. In Lavinia’s kitchen in Switzerland Fila now sits, listening to the voice on the “mortadella-coloured rotary telephone” that says “they say it’s because of her liver, but I can assure you that it was not her liver… … Continue reading Guilt and regret

What tech nerds got up to…

Seven worried people have gathered for dinner in Notting Hill, London, but it’s the first time six of them have seen one another since 1999, when they spent a heady, intense summer building a website that was meant to revolutionize online dating by making matches based on psychological testing. They presence in Notting Hill to celenrate the life of their recently deceased ex-employer, a professor that brought them together in 1999. For them it was an unsettling experience, as they lived and worked on a remote countryside estate. Their boss was obsessive and opaque. Following a raucous night in which … Continue reading What tech nerds got up to…

Trapped inside an impermeable windowless concrete room

In the 33rd Raindance Film Festival, The Lonely Musketeer won the Best U.K. cinematography, Bruce Jackson, shot in monochrome in one claustrophobic main location, a low-budget film, is a taut, stripped-back mystery thriller. The film also won the Best Performance in a UK Feature, Edward Hogg, for his role in unique closed room Thriller, The Lonely Musketeer. There is only one actor on screen for the most part of Nicolai Schumann’smesmerising debut feature, The Lonely Musketeer. It is an entirelyfictitious story which I would term essentially as “Film Noir”. Themusical score accompanying the drama is original. It is a dark, unpleasant,though gripping … Continue reading Trapped inside an impermeable windowless concrete room

Game of Cat and Mouse, addictively suspenseful

David McCloskey, a former CIA officer, whose thriller Damascus Station, one of the best spy thrillers in years, this time “ The Seventh Floor” has become addictively suspenseful and espionage thriller. A Russian arrives in Singapore with a secret to sell. But when the Russian is killed and Sam Joseph, the CIA officer dispatched for the meet, goes missing, Artemis Procter is made a scapegoat and run out of the service. Traded back in a spy swap, Sam appears at Procter’s central Florida doorstep months later with an explosive secret, there is a Russian mole hidden deep within the upper … Continue reading Game of Cat and Mouse, addictively suspenseful

Thriller

Spring in 1963 and George Smiley has left the Circus. With the wreckage of West’s spy war with the Soviets Strewn across Europe, he has eyes on a more peaceful life. With his marriage more secure than ever, there is a rumour in Whitehall – unconfirmed and a little scandalous – that George Smiley might almost be happy, with some quality time with is wandering wife Anne. But when Hungarian assassin, sent to London to dispatch Laszlo Banati an émigré Magyar agent, has a sudden change of heart and switches sides, Simley is back called back to investigate to find … Continue reading Thriller

Shifting tides of society

A novella composed as a triptych, about two sisters and a night that changes everything, from the master chronicler of our heart’s hidden desires. Evelyn had the surprising thought that bodies were sometimes wiser than people inside them. She’d have like to impress somebody with this idea, but couldn’t explain it. On a Winter Saturday night in post-war Bristol, bringing to life with its docks, bombed out streets and crumbling grand houses, with ever moving sea and endless rain act as brooding backdrops and metaphors for the characters’ emotional turbulence. Sisters Moira and Evelyn, newly middle class,  their mother a … Continue reading Shifting tides of society

Overwhelming incandescent rage

Zoe Stamper, Junior researcher in Ancient Greek Tragedy, the younger partner in a same-sex marriage which has produced two children, Zoe is, after almost 20 years, now messily attempting to separate from her spouse, Dr Penny Cartwright. Complications are added by the fact that Robin, the children’s biological father, who donated sperm to both women and is fully present in their lives, occupies the flat below theirs. Robin’s uncompromising parental role, rigidly set out before either child was even conceived, is amplified by a fourth party, his sister Justine – who also happens to be Penny’s-ex. Zoe, down the academic … Continue reading Overwhelming incandescent rage

Not Guilty after being railroaded by HP

Fifty-nine Year-old, Mike Lynch, British tech tycoon and Autonomy co-founder cleared of fraud after spending more than a decade fighting fraud accusations about making $516 million from selling his company, says he feared that he would die in prison. He could see his wife Angela,  daughters  who are now 21 and 18 return to his beloved  farm near Aldeburgh in Suffolk and greet his dogs Switch, Tappet, Pinion, Valve, Cam. Faucet was acquired to keep him company in San Francisco. Autonomy was the most valuable tech firm in Britain, employing 2, 000 people across 20 countries, including  AT&T, BNP Paribas and BlackRock.  Lynch pulled off … Continue reading Not Guilty after being railroaded by HP

On the Brink of fear & disaster

Philip Notman, an acclaimed medieval history professor whose fondness for Emerson’s scariest quote “ I  am glad to be on the brink of fear”, attends a conference in Bergen, Norway. On his return to London, and to his wife and son, something unexpected and inexplicable happens to him, and he is unable to settle back into his normal life. Seeking answers, he flies to Cadiz to see Inés, a Spanish academic, with whom he shared a connection at the conference, but his journey doesn’t end there. A chance encounter with a wealthy, elderly couple sends him to a house on … Continue reading On the Brink of fear & disaster

Eluded emotions

In Sociopath,  confessions of a wife, mother and cat-choker having dark urges of stealing for thrills, joyrides, and gate-crashing at strangers’ funerals  – all a fascinating first-hand account of antisocial personality disorder. After the pencil attack she decided to steer clear of violence- not because she felt bad but because it attracted too much attention. She resolved  to finding ways of dealing with her anxiety that would allow her to fly beneath the radar. Named as the most anticipated book of 2024 by Vulture, LitHub, The Guardian, and Cosmopolitan. A fascinating and revelatory memoir revealing the author’s struggle to come to terms with … Continue reading Eluded emotions