STEVE ANDREW enjoys an account of the many communities that flourished independently of and in resistance to the empires of old
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Crime Fiction with Mat Coward: March 13, 2022
New titles from Alex Gray, Paul Finch, Christopher Fowler and Robert Gold
TOM STONE urges you to catch the last dates of a New York singer/songwriter, never afraid to challenge her audiences musically or politically
JAN WOOLF examines work that aims to give viewers a material experience of the environments in the polar north and Britain equally affected by the climate crisis
The bard recalls advice received 50 years ago from his TRB muse, and sorts out appropriate legislation for football club ownership
MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE review Facing War, Kontinental ’25, Bugonia, and Relay
MAYER WAKEFIELD is frustrated by a production of Ibsen’s classic study of an anti-heroine that fails to elucidate her motivations
PETER MASON tunes his ear into the domestic affairs of a Carribbean couple with a troublesome son
YOU’D think detectives in long-running whodunnit series would have more sense than to go on holiday, but Echo Of The Dead by Alex Gray (Sphere, £14.99) begins with DSI William Lorimer of Glasgow walking up a minor Munro mountain near Glencoe.
Naturally, he happens upon a dead body. It appears to be that of another climbing enthusiast who has presumably met with an accident – but there are one or two things about the death that are slightly worrying. This quiet, rural area seems to have a surprising number of missing persons cases, and it’s not long before Lorimer is back, and this time in his official capacity.
Gray’s Lorimer sequence has thrived through 20 years and 19 books because it unfailingly delivers what its readers both want and expect; well-made mysteries in alluring settings that are populated with credible characters.
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