Book Review
The Heirs of Owain Glyndwr
A Ben Schroeder Novel
By Peter Murphy
No Exit Press
A quote to start the history going!
Glendower: Three times hath Henry Bolingbroke made head Against my power; thrice from the banks of Wye And sandy-bottom’d Severn have I sent him Bootless home and weather-beaten back. Henry IV, Part One Act 3, Scene 1"
This book is based on events of 1969 around the investiture of Prince Charles to his exalted status of ‘Prince of Wales’. A title enveloped in history and controversy. Wales being the first colony of England suffered for centuries by whoever sat on the English Throne. Welsh nationalist was fueled by more recent injustices with the flooding of the Tryweryn valley and the village of Capel Celyn. That's enough history because this novel deals with two Welsh nationalists, both potential bombers, and what they intended.
The books location is split between Caernarfon, the seat of the investiture, and the Central Criminal Court (The Old Bailey) in London. You can say that prejudice was working hard here in that a bombing crime that was perpetrated in Wales could be fairly heard in the English Capital! Legally, it was correct but what would the verdict have been with a Welsh jury? The English enforcers were not to take that chance.
The story is based on facts of both nationalist activities of explosions and the perpetrators although Peter Murphy has created his own characters with Caradog Prys-Jones, his sister Arianwen and Dafydd Prosser. These were the three that appeared in the dock at The Bailey. There was one person missing and that was Arianwen’s husband Trevor Hughes. He disappeared.
I loved the way Peter Murphy wrote this tale of Welshness, of a love affair, and the way the plotters went cautiously about their business. In the way it is written it speaks of the love that the plotters had for their town and how the plot involved around the bookshop ran by Trevor Hughes and how he became incolculated into the plot.
The drama of the court proceedings is told skillfully by Peter Murphy and with his legal and courtroom experience it should be the case. Gripping, totally encompassing as the evidence is given and the cross examinations occur. It is great to see the contest between the prosecution and defense councils and the behaviour of each. Some to like and some to dislike. This part makes a damn good read.
The single judge is a star too and being a jury trial he has to be careful.
The result and whatever happens is all there for you to read. and for you to feel that the result fitted the evidence.
I was recommended this book by a friend and I am grateful for it. Having investigated the writer, Peter Murphy, I have come across another new writer I would read more of. Also his recommendation to read the first three chapters of ‘a small town in Germany’ by John Le Carré. It being so well written and atmospheric without anything actually happening. That's another author to revisit.
These events took place prior to The Police & Criminal Evidence Act of 1984 and Judges Rules were the guide of how to conduct interviews of suspects. I was a student of both and a lecturer on the latter. This one was one reason that I enjoyed the court room scenes so much. I have not said anything about the outcome of the trial for that is for you to read about.
Tuesday, 28 April 2020
THE BOOK - WILL DEAN AND BLACK RIVER
A Book Review
Black River by Will Dean
Point Blank at one world-publications.com
Another Swedish forest mystery or is it Midsommar Madness?
There's nothing better than the feel of a hardback in your hands. And there is no better pleasure than to enjoy a great read.
Because of Theakestons Old Peculier Crime Writers Festival in Harrogate we have unearthed (for us anyway) many new authors. There is a certain satisfaction about finding new ones and talking about them. Will Dean was one.
I have read his previous ones, Dark Pines and Red Snow and they are both set in a wild Swedish forest. Black River is his third drama and he has pushed the boundaries out further to create a different kind of suspense. When two young women go missing and with one there are fragments of evidence to suggest that she has not gone freely. Tammy Yamnim is the first and we already know she is part of Gavrik life by being the owner of a Thai Takeaway. Then another women goes missing.
By this time,Tuva Moodyson, a journalist on The Gavrik Posten, has been our super investigative sleuth in past stories has fled ‘the toy town’ of Gavrik. She returns at a fair lick to try and locate her missing friend, Tammy, hopefully before it's too late. Dean weaves back in other characters from before and that gives a feeling of familiarity. Of course there are some with issues and others that appear anything but ‘ordinary’.
All his stories have had a different ‘bent’ and this one has broke further out and away from what can be considered as the norm. We don't like to read the same old rubbish anyway! He has included some very odd people with very strange lifestyles. You can enjoy reading about them as the story unfolds. The search for the missing ones include tramping through Elk forests and bogs and we soon get to understand the unpleasantries that exist among the trees.
No way will I ever give a plot away. So no more detail except to say if you want something different then give it a try. Michelle read it before I did and proclaimed it was his best so far.
Upon reflection I found that there was far too much time spent searching, re-visiting venues and checking on possible perpetrators to the extent where I failed to see what was being achieved. We had surprises that were not relevant to the main story that only added a little more suspense. I liked the odd scenario that was different and this writer seems to excel in throwing in the unusual. The ending was quirky and needs to be read to find out who survived or not! Enough for now and we even learn that another adventure could be on the way for Tuva.
I am a fan and I will read that one when it's published.
Black River by Will Dean
Point Blank at one world-publications.com
Another Swedish forest mystery or is it Midsommar Madness?
There's nothing better than the feel of a hardback in your hands. And there is no better pleasure than to enjoy a great read.
Because of Theakestons Old Peculier Crime Writers Festival in Harrogate we have unearthed (for us anyway) many new authors. There is a certain satisfaction about finding new ones and talking about them. Will Dean was one.
I have read his previous ones, Dark Pines and Red Snow and they are both set in a wild Swedish forest. Black River is his third drama and he has pushed the boundaries out further to create a different kind of suspense. When two young women go missing and with one there are fragments of evidence to suggest that she has not gone freely. Tammy Yamnim is the first and we already know she is part of Gavrik life by being the owner of a Thai Takeaway. Then another women goes missing.
By this time,Tuva Moodyson, a journalist on The Gavrik Posten, has been our super investigative sleuth in past stories has fled ‘the toy town’ of Gavrik. She returns at a fair lick to try and locate her missing friend, Tammy, hopefully before it's too late. Dean weaves back in other characters from before and that gives a feeling of familiarity. Of course there are some with issues and others that appear anything but ‘ordinary’.
All his stories have had a different ‘bent’ and this one has broke further out and away from what can be considered as the norm. We don't like to read the same old rubbish anyway! He has included some very odd people with very strange lifestyles. You can enjoy reading about them as the story unfolds. The search for the missing ones include tramping through Elk forests and bogs and we soon get to understand the unpleasantries that exist among the trees.
No way will I ever give a plot away. So no more detail except to say if you want something different then give it a try. Michelle read it before I did and proclaimed it was his best so far.
Upon reflection I found that there was far too much time spent searching, re-visiting venues and checking on possible perpetrators to the extent where I failed to see what was being achieved. We had surprises that were not relevant to the main story that only added a little more suspense. I liked the odd scenario that was different and this writer seems to excel in throwing in the unusual. The ending was quirky and needs to be read to find out who survived or not! Enough for now and we even learn that another adventure could be on the way for Tuva.
I am a fan and I will read that one when it's published.
Tuesday, 31 March 2020
NATIONAL POETRY DAY WINNERS ANNOUNCED
INCLUDES MY COMMENTS ON THE RESULT OF THE CHOSEN POEMS FOR THE
NATIONAL POETRY DAY
I am on my theme of fairness, without prejudice and still respecting the privilege and our personal right to think what we choose. How we represent that in any art form is an individual choice. Cartoons can hit home like a cloud burst drenching the washing on the garden line. The artists use very unflattering caricatures that must hurt to convey a message. I love them and retain the feeling of respect and sympathy for the victim.
The written word I choose to use. The way it is presented has moved over the centuries and recent decades into various forms. Some have been short lived ideas and writers have experimented, rebelled against form and wrote how they wanted to present their ideas. It hasn't always been poetic although ee cummings style does have some merit for me.
We are blessed with ‘loads’ of writers and styles that can suit us or not. For me words need to fit together in a rhythm that moves along the line and into the next one. Poetry is a moving item and should be poetic. Prose poems can do this, but not all.
I have read the winning poem of the National Poetry Day by Susannah Hart called ‘Rereading the Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy’. Well, that’s some title. The judges, all three acclaimed poets, who said, amongst other things “mimics the language of the bureaucratic document while cunningly manipulating the impersonal and timeless phrasing”. Sounds good, that, doesn't it?
They also commented that when reading it that it was one sentence. It needed commas which were liberally scattered around through the numerous lines arranged as though it actually was a poem.
If I wanted to know about safeguarding children I would actually read the policy and not this attempt. I have read some of the others and not been impressed so maybe in that pile of 16,000 entries I might find something poetic.
I despair. Even to the point of writing about it and writing poems. I feel like giving up.
National Poetry Day Winners - Go on google it.
Then I remembered a group of poets in Ledbury who wrote ‘In Plain Sight’, a collection of poems inspired by the historic Alleys and Yards of Ledbury. Real people writing about places they loved. It showed through those emotions. Now refreshed. Fit to fight on for another day.
Monday, 30 March 2020
Prejudice: I hate it
I wrote this a few years ago
and in response to ‘no touching’
which clearly echoes, to me,
a polarised view I though I would
follow on with this one
Prejudice
Prejudice I hate you
subliminally or overtly
you subvert the reality
inventing the non-truth
cosseting it in your mind
nurturing it until it grows
into a monster
until it blows
all reason aside
you’re a head case
a slathering beast
emitting combinations
so debase
of opaque hatred
without cease
traipsing out of that
blinkered hole
of deceit
there is nothing recent
in your venom or decent
a descent into that blackness
where two worlds collide
you could hide
but there is
the hideousness
of anger exploding
telling a story
of misrepresentations of hate
a view of inner fury
where there can be no debate
Prejudice: fuels hate
and in response to ‘no touching’
which clearly echoes, to me,
a polarised view I though I would
follow on with this one
Prejudice
Prejudice I hate you
subliminally or overtly
you subvert the reality
inventing the non-truth
cosseting it in your mind
nurturing it until it grows
into a monster
until it blows
all reason aside
you’re a head case
a slathering beast
emitting combinations
so debase
of opaque hatred
without cease
traipsing out of that
blinkered hole
of deceit
there is nothing recent
in your venom or decent
a descent into that blackness
where two worlds collide
you could hide
but there is
the hideousness
of anger exploding
telling a story
of misrepresentations of hate
a view of inner fury
where there can be no debate
Prejudice: fuels hate
Sunday, 29 March 2020
THE RIGHT TO SPEAK OUT FREELY
CORPSEWORDS
don't even think it
you shouldn't say that
you shouldn't write that
you cannot publish that
we've heard all that
Joyce & Ulysses
packaged in plain brown
paper in plain sight
defied America & Comstock
and words found a way
to remain to this day
killers are still out there
words can fall like confetti
without any pity
at a ‘shotgun wedding’
banishing hope & freedom
to the ‘petit-coat’ fringes
my words our words
killed by closed minds
we mean no harm
offer no violence
label no-one
a view-point expressed
not to be suppressed
a right to be free
with words to speak
out as others cannot
as freedom is only on
this side of the wall
freedom
not a fiefdom
for a few words
don't even think it
you shouldn't say that
you shouldn't write that
you cannot publish that
we've heard all that
Joyce & Ulysses
packaged in plain brown
paper in plain sight
defied America & Comstock
and words found a way
to remain to this day
killers are still out there
words can fall like confetti
without any pity
at a ‘shotgun wedding’
banishing hope & freedom
to the ‘petit-coat’ fringes
my words our words
killed by closed minds
we mean no harm
offer no violence
label no-one
a view-point expressed
not to be suppressed
a right to be free
with words to speak
out as others cannot
as freedom is only on
this side of the wall
freedom
not a fiefdom
for a few words
Saturday, 28 March 2020
POETS, WRITERS, OPINION AND PROTEST
A PLATFORM FOR FEMALE WRITERS TO BE HEARD - COMMISSIONED BY LEDBURY POETRY FESTIVAL
Following on from my previous post of 27th March I am still contemplating what to think about and what to do with LPF and their intention to offer a series of commissions with the aim to give female voices space to speak. My God! I could be deafened!
Well that rules me out then? Or does it? It only rules me out of their commissions because I still have the right to speak my piece and I hold that as a precious right. Gender for me does not come into it except to try a re-create the balance.
At the same I, and all of us, should protect the complete right to think what we like and write what we choose but without any intention to cause harm to others, harm to the environment and not-to-be-finger-pointing- abusive to anyone. I know that this last sentence might need clarification as the propensity for some individuals to feel offended seems to be common. I defend the right to write what I, and we like, within the confines of the above.
Research on poetryschool.com gives information on Phoebe Stuckes. You can google that too and apparently she is ‘acclaimed’. It tells a lot about her and you can read some of her poems. Enjoy what you will.
Again I defend the right to write what we do. Readers do not have to agree with anything; they don't have to like it either and they can be troubled by it because it does not fit in with their own personal views. So, what do I think about her writing? Quite simple really. I am troubled. Is it protest in any form and we should accept it? Well why not?
If all writing is within the same parameters then what could happen? I suggest, boredom and of course that could lead to some exceptional writing and off we go again.
Back to Stuckes (and please no shout-outs about her name) I am troubled by some of her words in ‘No Touching’ and apart from not understanding much of it, (I'll try again later) I quote these lines.
“I sewed dolls of the police who kept us apart and burnt them in a bonfire on top of the hill”
Anarchy is only kept at bay by our consent of the way that we are policed and in ‘no touching’ we have to remain just outside touching distance. And to burn that symbol of authority is a big scream out about authority. Some persons will need it more than others, I suggest. And as my son points out there is only one red flag or is she going really left wing and hoisting their red flag to fly in our faces. Not really polite that, but I can remain polite. I will let my poetry speak for me.
I have relevant poems that I will add later
Following on from my previous post of 27th March I am still contemplating what to think about and what to do with LPF and their intention to offer a series of commissions with the aim to give female voices space to speak. My God! I could be deafened!
Well that rules me out then? Or does it? It only rules me out of their commissions because I still have the right to speak my piece and I hold that as a precious right. Gender for me does not come into it except to try a re-create the balance.
At the same I, and all of us, should protect the complete right to think what we like and write what we choose but without any intention to cause harm to others, harm to the environment and not-to-be-finger-pointing- abusive to anyone. I know that this last sentence might need clarification as the propensity for some individuals to feel offended seems to be common. I defend the right to write what I, and we like, within the confines of the above.
Research on poetryschool.com gives information on Phoebe Stuckes. You can google that too and apparently she is ‘acclaimed’. It tells a lot about her and you can read some of her poems. Enjoy what you will.
Again I defend the right to write what we do. Readers do not have to agree with anything; they don't have to like it either and they can be troubled by it because it does not fit in with their own personal views. So, what do I think about her writing? Quite simple really. I am troubled. Is it protest in any form and we should accept it? Well why not?
If all writing is within the same parameters then what could happen? I suggest, boredom and of course that could lead to some exceptional writing and off we go again.
Back to Stuckes (and please no shout-outs about her name) I am troubled by some of her words in ‘No Touching’ and apart from not understanding much of it, (I'll try again later) I quote these lines.
“I sewed dolls of the police who kept us apart and burnt them in a bonfire on top of the hill”
Anarchy is only kept at bay by our consent of the way that we are policed and in ‘no touching’ we have to remain just outside touching distance. And to burn that symbol of authority is a big scream out about authority. Some persons will need it more than others, I suggest. And as my son points out there is only one red flag or is she going really left wing and hoisting their red flag to fly in our faces. Not really polite that, but I can remain polite. I will let my poetry speak for me.
I have relevant poems that I will add later
Friday, 27 March 2020
Ledbury Poetry Festival Face Book Post
MISOGYNISTS NO, ONLY MISANDRISTS NEED APPLY?
I had not intended to write anything like this during the morning as I had other things to do. Then via the wonderful medium of Face Book I read Ledbury Poetry Society’s post and I felt the ‘ire’ rising. Am I to be grateful that they are ‘gifting’ me a poem or is that gift only intended to one half of the population?
Quoting Ledbury Poetry “….Female poets writing in direct and immediate response to the here and now. Sometimes it feels as if strong female voices are still not heard enough……….So this series of commissions aims to give female voices space to speak……
According to them there is not enough female voices out there and that they need to be heard more and be much stronger. I would urge them, (not to get out more and I do know that's a cliche), but to watch any politics show which is being hosted by Jo Coburn with Laura Kuenssberg, Helen Lewis and even female Labour Members of Parliament present. There are many other programmes too. And if you look at the credits you will find there are people of both sexes involved. The list could be endless!
I am aware that in centuries and decades past female representation was severely restricted to the point of nil and even hidden. J.K. Rowling I can use as a modern day example as initials do not indicate gender and who the hell is Robert Galbraith anyway? Before you go on and leap to any conclusion I will tell you I have seen the films, been to Hogsmeade and read her detective series. I loved it all, and I have seen her speak, spoken to her when she signed my book and I consider her to be a star.
And now the final point as I will be presumptuous and say that the debut for Phoebe Stuckes Book and especially with the title ‘Platinum Blonde’ is a big fat tongue in the cheek moment!
Equality lost again today.
I had not intended to write anything like this during the morning as I had other things to do. Then via the wonderful medium of Face Book I read Ledbury Poetry Society’s post and I felt the ‘ire’ rising. Am I to be grateful that they are ‘gifting’ me a poem or is that gift only intended to one half of the population?
Quoting Ledbury Poetry “….Female poets writing in direct and immediate response to the here and now. Sometimes it feels as if strong female voices are still not heard enough……….So this series of commissions aims to give female voices space to speak……
According to them there is not enough female voices out there and that they need to be heard more and be much stronger. I would urge them, (not to get out more and I do know that's a cliche), but to watch any politics show which is being hosted by Jo Coburn with Laura Kuenssberg, Helen Lewis and even female Labour Members of Parliament present. There are many other programmes too. And if you look at the credits you will find there are people of both sexes involved. The list could be endless!
I am aware that in centuries and decades past female representation was severely restricted to the point of nil and even hidden. J.K. Rowling I can use as a modern day example as initials do not indicate gender and who the hell is Robert Galbraith anyway? Before you go on and leap to any conclusion I will tell you I have seen the films, been to Hogsmeade and read her detective series. I loved it all, and I have seen her speak, spoken to her when she signed my book and I consider her to be a star.
And now the final point as I will be presumptuous and say that the debut for Phoebe Stuckes Book and especially with the title ‘Platinum Blonde’ is a big fat tongue in the cheek moment!
Equality lost again today.
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