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Westwind by Ian Rankin – Book Review

10/11/2020 By ACOMSDave

Westwind by Ian Rankin

Amazon Link To Buy – Westwind by Ian Rankin

 

For me the concept that the military from the USA, UK and other countries, as described in Westwind by Ian Rankin,  would conspire to bring down the elected governments of the day is an anathema, however, we only have to look into history and what happened in German pre WW2 and the African sub-continent and its various countries and we can see parallels.

As an ex-soldier who has served in the UK and Germany, Canada and South America I could never conceive of a time in which the British Armed Services would allow this to happen and where they would give up their allegiance to the Crown (not the government).

The characters are reasonably well-drawn, but the main character Martin Hepton has questions to be asked.  How come a computer nerd, who does not seem to have any background in intelligence apart from watching a computer screen and interpreting pictures, suddenly develop a 6th sense in being able to handle a prime assassin?

Various other characters are brought into the story to add pace and distance, but the ‘badies’ are somewhat predictable as are the various stage sets and locations.

 

It is also interesting to look at age-old secret service writer’s ploy – namely that of levels within levels of the British Secret Service all looking over their shoulders to check who is watching whom!

And not to be forgotten is the age-old commentary on a person’s position in society – what university did one go to, which service did you belong to etc.

However, even with all these thoughts and reservations, I would still recommend this book.  It is a good thriller, well crafted and written, and it does pose questions – could it happen now?

To quote Wikipedia, Ian James Rankin OBE DL FRSE FRSL (born 28 April 1960) is a Scottish crime writer, best known for his Inspector Rebus novels… His range is prolific, from the series with Rebus, to stand-alone novels to collaboration on opera, to short stories.

 

Fun Extras and Links

  • Wikipedia – Ian Rankin
  • Ian Ranking Website
  • Amazon UK – Ian Rankin

I am a book blogger.  I am not paid to do this.  All opinions are my own.

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Filed Under: Book Reviews, Community Journalist, Reviews Tagged With: assassination, big brother, espionage, government, Ian Rankin, murder, secret service, spy satellites, Technology, UK, USA, Westwind

Amal Clooney Transcript of UN Speech on Trump and Journalism | Time

04/07/2020 By ACOMSDave

Source: Amal Clooney Transcript of UN Speech on Trump and Journalism | Time

I am writing as a community journalist, who in the past along with Sean McGoruan and others have tried to write and reflect about the LGBTQ community in Northern Ireland.  There were times when it felt an uphill struggle, as we fought censorship and bureaucracy, not to mention the establishment.

We wrote about murders, about police sting operations, about AIDS.

Even today we still have to write about homophobia, how the ‘lockdown’ has and is affecting people; but we are lucky now to not have people thrown into prison without trial.  Though I must say that the government’s current stance on ‘gay cure’ therapy beggars belief – is the Prime Minister trying to go back to the days of Margaret Thatcher?

Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney’s speech is thought-provoking, and also worrying, because only this morning I re-published on the NIGRA website about  the film ‘

Welcome to Chechnya: The Gay Purge, review: a heart-stopping account of those fleeing persecution

which was shown on BBC TV this week

Take time to read the articles and watch the film, if you haven’t already.  YOu won’t’ be disappointed.

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Filed Under: Community Journalist Tagged With: attacks, big brother, Chechnya, free speech, homophobia, imprisonment, journalism, murder, Russia

Third Man Out

16/10/2019 By ACOMSDave

   
Title Third Man Out
Place Albany area
Publication date 1992
Pages 173
Price £9.00 pb
Author Richard Stevenson
Publisher Harrington Park Press
Edition  
Special features (maps, etc.)  
ISBN 978-1-56023-656-6
Third Man Out

The ‘Third man Out’ reads like a bad headline in a tabloid about a cricket match at Lords: thankfully however Richard Stevenson’s, Donaly Strachey mystery, is anything but!

The story centres around the ethical question and decision of whether gay activists should “Out” closeted public figures, and in particular those who do damage to the LGBT community through actions or inaction.

I am not a philosophy major, and after the numerous newspaper articles showing high profile figures being caught literally with their fingers, if not something else, in the cookie jar, I will leave the rights or wrongs of “outing” to you as an individual.

But back to the story: it is a story set in the broadest terms of a gay community, with a loosely classified reporter being killed (murdered) for running an outing column.  Enter Don Strachey, whose similarity to the creations of writers such as Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Mickey Spillane is compelling.  Strachey cannot be ignored, as with so many noir detectives. The story noir has all the integral parts, murder, mystery, lies, cheating, big wigs, little wigs – apart from the central them of the story being set in ‘gay and’, it could be an offshoot of the Big Sleep.

There is for a change a non-stupid police chief, who uses Strachey to do his hunting, and of course, the insurance payout.

Set within the story are the second thread, that of a gay man dying from AIDs, and of his family and his lover.  This story is tangential and apart from Strachey and his partner/lover has little impact on the main crime.  But what it does show is AIDs at that time, people’s understanding of the disease and its impact and also a moral decision that may have to be taken.

Of course, just like those great noir detectives of old, Strachey solves the crime and the murder, for they are two different things.

I am not going to give away the ending.  You are invited to read a well-crafted story with believable characters, and I will be looking for the other books and also for the movies now available on DVD with Chad Allen as the lead.

Third Man Out

Links:

Wikipedia – Noir Fiction

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Filed Under: Community Journalist Tagged With: Detective Noir, murder, Third Man OUt

The Collini Case – Book Review

11/06/2019 By ACOMSDave

Title The Collini Case
Place West Germany
Publication date 4th July 2013
Pages PB 208
Price PB £7.18
Author Ferdinand von Sabruch
Publisher Penquin
Edition  
Special features (maps, etc.)  
ISBN  978-0718159207

Firstly I must note my self-interest in legal stories, and ‘The Collini Case’ delivers for me in every way. whether it be in book form, TV, radio or movie. 

I remember watching Perry Mason, The Defenders, and lately (ITV Series taken from USA).  But also The Client by ….. Grisham which I read as a book and then watched as a movie and TV series.

I am also an ardent fan of police/detective procedural, having read the Moonstone when I was 8 years old, all of Sherlock Holmes, and most of John Buchan’s books; never mind the various police TV series over the years.

Yes I love the law, but I am not a lawyer/solicitor/or policeman!

So when I picked up this book, ‘The Collini Case’ second hand in a charity shop for £0.50, it was firstly because it was about the law, more specifically the law in Germany; and that it was about the second World War, the Nazi and economic regime over that period, and the fall out after the war, and it was about people.

The people are easily defined:

  • the lawyer
  • the murderer
  • the murdered person
  • the love interest
  • The mentor (?)

The law in this case is that of the law in Germany following reunification of West and East Germany.  The German legal system is that of civil law which is founded on the principles laid out by the ‘Basic Law for the Federal Map of Germany, … but many of the most important laws were developed prior to the 1949 constitution.  It is comprised of ‘public law’ which regulates the relationship between a citizen/person and the state…  This area of law has also been subject to a wide array of influence from Roman Law to Napoleonic law.

I have already mentioned the main characters in general terms, the story is relatively simple; ‘a man walks into a hotel and kills another man.  The murderer is a well-respected Mercedes-Benz worker, Fabrizio Collini – a man of unblemished record, and with no apparent reason for committing the murder. He doesn’t run away but refuses to defend himself to the police.  His lawyer, assigned by the court, gets nowhere with him, and even though he is almost concerned with ‘just’ doing his job, he follows his legal nose, discovers his client’s past and therefore his reason for the murder and then he has to put together a mechanism for the prosecution to introduce the evidence so that he has the right of rebuttal.

Apart from the initial murder, there is no further ‘American’ style action.  It is a story about thinking, about research and also about the good, old-fashioned dogged investigation.

The sting in the tale is the impact that this story had on the German legal system and the German government after its publication.  The outcry over ‘war criminals’ escaping justice led to the German government reviewing its legal system.

Links:

  1. Amazon: The Collini Case
  2. Cineuropa trailer:

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Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: book review, Collini Case, Germany, law, Lawyer, legal whodunit, murder, Nazi, police, whodunnit

The Waiting Time – Book Review

09/06/2019 By ACOMSDave

The Waiting Time - Gerald Seymour
The past brings a Cold Front –
The Waiting Time
Title The Waiting Time
Place Europe including the United Kingdom
Publication date 1998
Pages Large format 389
Price £9.99
Author Gerald Seymour
Publisher Bantam Press
Edition
Special features (maps, etc.)
ISBN 0593042492

The Waiting Time, by Gerald Seymour, is about the past, yet it is set in today. It is about a murder during the time of the ‘cold war’, when East and West were jockeying for position and power. It happens before the ‘wall’ comes down and reunification of West and West Germany, but we follow the four main characters of Dieter Krause, Tracy Burns, Albert Perkins, and Josh Mantle through their trials and tribulations as one is chasing to prevent the truth coming out, and one is searching for evidence of the truth, and one is looking for redemption, and one is being puppet master.

This is not a whodunit as we already know who got killed, and where, and when, and by whom! It is an exploration of stamina and willpower to continue with all the odds appearing to be against you, and that includes governmental agencies.

As with most stories, yu develop a sympathy for some of the characters, what is unusual in this story, is that you have sympathy for both the hunter and the prey. The hunter is trying to protect his past and his future, whilst the prey is trying to let go of the past and to pay homage. The two ancillary characters have their own motives and it is interesting to see how they play out against each other.

I would recommend reading ‘The Waiting Time, by Gerald Seymour. It is not an easy read, but it is one which engages and which is definitely worth persevering with.

Links:

  1. Amazon – The Waiting Time
  2. Gerald Seymour at Amazon

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Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: book review, Cold War, East Germany, government, murder, The Waiting Time, West Germany

The Swinging Detective

27/08/2017 By ACOMSDave Leave a Comment

The Swinging Detective

by

Henry McDonald

Gibson Square

ISBN 97817833441177

This is a ’prentice effort for Henry McDonald ( The Swinging Detective), at least in writing a sustained, 330-odd pages, of a fairly complex novel.The Swinging Detective - Henry McDonald It is in the form of, essentially, a ‘thriller’ (fair enough ‘thriller’ is not up there with bildungsroman or novella as a literary form, but it has some formal attributes – bear with me). The biographical ‘blurb’ on the book’s back-cover claims McDonald “has a deep knowledge of Marxism” and “the German punk scene”. Which means Henry was once the rising star of the Workers’ Party of Ireland (formerly ‘Official’ Sinn Féin / the Republican Clubs) in its glazed-eyed Muscovite days. But the element of ‘inside knowledge’ is quite lightly handled, and while Martin Peters, the central figure of the tale is a useful ‘outsider’ he knows Berlin intimately.

That is because he was a British ‘spook’ in the days before the Wall came down – Belfast also comes into the matter. Peters (the similarity of the moniker to the England ‘World cup’ team member is acknowledged – so far as England soccer fans are concerned there is only one World Cup worth consideration – that of 1966). Peters is haunted by the killing of (an exotically-named, female Loyalist assassin) the description of the actual killing of this unlikely person fits that of an actual UVF operative, Brian Robinson. He was a pillion passenger on a motorbike, and was shot dead by Brit (or possibly RUC) spooks. He and his driver were on an Ardoyne (north Belfast) ‘Fenian’-killing expedition.

The Swinging Detective - Thailand and Sri LankaThe book itself is largely about the killing of ‘paedophiles’ – men convicted of sexually molesting children in Thailand and Sri Lanka. There are very good descriptions of the social reaction to this series of events. The police have the problem of having to offer some sort of protection to men who are at the bottom of just about anybody’s list of worthy citizens; complicated by the fact that these men are simultaneously in dire need of protection on a 24 / 7 basis – and don’t want to draw attention to themselves. The attention comes in the form of an ad-hoc Mothers Against Paedophiles group, led by a loud, publicity-grabbing ‘targe’ of a woman. And an assassin who specialises in killing these men in increasingly imaginative ways. The tabloid press joins in the whipping up of social hysteria about ‘paedophiles’ (the numbers of whom, in society are, as ever, hugely over-inflated).

The killing of these people – generally deemed to be socially worthless (human, if that, garbage), leads to all sorts of complications – the chief one being the bullying of entirely innocent elderly men, and the stretching of police resource, human and otherwise to breaking point. Peters eventually tracks down ‘St Christopher’, the executioner of the men who had gone abroad to molest, mostly elementary school age boys. We are spared descriptions of the ‘interaction’ with the children in the Third World, but the results of such things are obvious – destroyed socialisation and driving into drugs (including alcohol).

The killer of these men turns out not to be a ‘moralistic’ avenger. His motivation is anti-imperialist, this is just the dirtiest element in the over-all exploitation of these boys (it is implied very strongly, that girls and young women are victims too). This is a well-written and – arresting – is the only word, novel.

It is well worth some hours of your time.

External links for further information:

  • Wikipedia – Henry McDonald

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Filed Under: Book Reviews Tagged With: Detective, McDonald, murder, Sri Lanka, Swinging, Thailand, Thriller

‘The Pulse’ gay night club in Orlando

12/06/2016 By ACOMSDave Leave a Comment

Onlookers

Onlookers


The Pulse

The Pulse


I was deeply shocked to hear of the sheer scale of the casualties at ‘The Pulse’ gay night club in Orlando.
It is hard to comprehend the enormity of the act and the awful nature of the suffering of the members of the LGBT community.
Those who survived will never be the same again, while the lives of so many, mostly young victims out enjoying themselves on a Saturday night have been cruelly and abruptly ended.
Such attacks on gay venues, with high casualty rates, have occurred before – in London, the US and Israel, while there have been single murders in Belfast like that of Darren Bradshaw at the Parliament Bar (and the Rev David Templeton), and more recently three gay men who were killed in London by a bomb at the Admiral Duncan pub.

 
Northern Ireland is no stranger to mass murder.  Our community knows there is a reservoir of hatred out there that can be motivated to action by political organisations and by religious hate speech. In this case it was Islamist.
The people of Belfast will I know express their solidarity with the people of Orlando, a city in Florida many of us know well and have visited.  Your pain having to bury so many fine people will be hard to bear.
I have asked that our City Hall officials put arrangements in place to allow citizens to show their sympathy to our American friends and that the City Hall gates be opened for people to gather in the grounds on Tuesday at the planned demonstration of support.
Jeff Dudgeon (Belfast City Councillor and NIGRA Treasurer)
 
Further reading:

  • Orlando shooting: Isil claims responsibility for Pulse nightclub attack in which Omar Mateen gunned down 50 in America’s worst ever mass shooting
  • BBC News – Orlando gay nightclub shooting: 50 killed, suspect is Omar Mateen

 
 
 

Onlookers

Onlookers


Swat Team

Swat Team

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Filed Under: Anti-Bullying & Homophobia Tagged With: homophobia, murder, terrorist, the pulse, USA

ISIS Stone Two “Gay” Men To Death On Tarpaulin

28/10/2015 By ACOMSDave Leave a Comment

the-gay-uk-logoBy The Gay UK, Oct 27 2015 01:59PM
 
 

Pictures have emerged of two men, their hands bound behind their backs, rocks surrounding their bloody, lifeless bodies. Their crime? Accused of being gay by the so-called Islamic State.
Warning report contain distressing images.
Pictures of the lifeless, bloodied bodies of two men, accused by ISIS fighters of being gay have emerged on social media. The two men were executed by stoning, with their hands bound behind their backs and blindfolded, on top of a tarpaulin in Aleppo, the largest city in Syria.
Violence against gay men, or those accused of being gay, by the Islamic state has increased in 2015, with well attended public executions usually concluding with the victims being thrown off the tallest buildings in the area. If the victims survive the surrounding crowds often stone them to death.
Last month 10 males included a 15-year-old boy were murdered, in the most violent day against gay men in territories controlled by the so-called Islamic State, which adopts Sharia Law. Homosexuality is illegal in states and countries that adopt Sharia law.
WHAT IS SHARIA LAW?
Islam’s legal system, derived from the Koran
Informs every aspect of Muslims’ lives
Islamic jurists issue formal guidance through fatwas, or religious edicts
Sharia law includes provisions for capital and corporal punishment but modern scholars say getting to that stage can be difficult
Marriage is treated as a contract in Islam
From The BBC
It was announced last week that sex between consenting Muslim same-sex adults in the Indonesian province of Aceh, could attract 100 lashes as the province adopted Sharia law.

 

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Filed Under: Anti-Bullying & Homophobia Tagged With: homophobia, ISIS, murder, Sharia Law

PSNI are requested to help in the search for a suspect from Wales

22/08/2015 By ACOMSDave Leave a Comment

Alex Warburton's homeAlec Warburton, 59, has been missing from his home in Swansea since last month and police believe he may have been murdered..

Welsh Police have discovered Mr Warburton’s lodger David Craig Ellis, 40, who they wish to speak to, has travelled to Ireland via ferry.

 
At a police conference, Det Superintendent Paul Hurley  confirmed David Craig Ellis, who is wanted for questioning in connection with Mr Warburton’s murder, was seen getting on a ferry at Birkenhead Merseyside on August 5 and disembarking the following day in Belfast.
He also statedthat they had found Mr Warburton’s car at the Birkenhead ferry port.
If you have any information please contact the PSNI, and do not approach or confront Mr David Ellis.
 

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Filed Under: Anti-Bullying & Homophobia Tagged With: murder, PSNI, Welsh Police

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