WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne
Crime fiction round-up with MAT COWARD: March 22, 2023
Underfunded cops, sleight of hand, murder qualifications and fascist infidelity
JAMES CROSSLEY applauds a lucid biography of the German radical preacher who reemerged as a hero in the GDR
Prizes all round: the Bard hands plaudits to the Miners Gala, OT&JC, Joe Solo, Black Sabbath’s frontman and the Lionesses
Star cartoonist JAMIE BRITTON is in awe of a graphic novel of epic proportions that explores class, religion and globalisation via the strange cultivation of Ginseng in the US Midwest
GUILLERMO THOMAS is intrigued by a history of the Middle East that demonstrates how promising post colonial beginnings were snuffed out by Western imperialist interests
MARIA DUARTE recommends the intricate study of a high-performance and highly dysfuntional German family
LOTS of people talk about defunding the police, but it’s taken a decade of Tory austerity to actually achieve it.
BAD FOR GOOD (Allison & Busby, £8.99), the first novel by Graham Bartlett, former divisional commander of Brighton and Hove police, is as angry a debut as you could hope for.
It’s set in a fictional version of the author’s old bailiwick, where ever fewer cops, deploying ever dwindling resources, are scarcely capable any more of responding even to emergency calls. Meanwhile, politicians demand better results at the same monthly meetings where they order more cuts.
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Beet likes warmth, who doesn’t, so attention to detail is required if you’re to succeed, writes MAT COWARD
