WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne
Crime Fiction with Mat Coward: March 13, 2022
New titles from Alex Gray, Paul Finch, Christopher Fowler and Robert Gold
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
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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A heatwave, a crimewave, and weird bollocks in Aberdeen, Indiana horror, and the end of the American Dream
A corrupted chemist, a Hampstead homosexual and finely observed class-conflict at The Bohemia
Beet likes warmth, who doesn’t, so attention to detail is required if you’re to succeed, writes MAT COWARD
