Famous Players. Rick Geary ( Writer & Art). NBM Comics (2009)

A true crime story told with wonderful care and detail. On the 2nd of Feb 1922 the body of William Desmond Taylor was found at his home in Hollywood. William Desmond Taylor had been a successful director at the Famous Players studio, he had know all the first wave of film stars and his murder was a sensational affair. Rick Geary explores the story in a very clear and detailed fashion, including the unexpected and fascinating life of William Desmond Taylor.

Rick Geary places the murder very firmly in the context of the early establishment and development of Hollywood and the film industry. The process was being established, film stars were becoming a new breed of celebrity and the the enormous amount of money that films could create was beginning to have an impact. At the same time films were pushing at the boundaries of what was publicly acceptable in American society of the time. The murder along with the sensational trial of Fatty Arbuckle gave great impetus to moves to restrict the content of films and disguise the activities of those working in the industry.The case was never solved, Rick Geary follows the activities of the police and others as they tried to establish what happened and to identify any likely suspects. William Desmond Taylor proved to be as fictional as the films he directed, his real life and activities prior to arriving in Hollywood and reinventing himself are fascinating. No solutions are offered and speculation is held on a very tight leash. The art is very distinctive and full of detail without ever being crowded or busy. Rick Geary portrays the situations with clarity and depth and the cast are very well portrayed. An interesting topic dealt with sympathy, clarity and care, excellent work.

Millennium. Tom Holland. Abacus (2009)

In one of the greatest practical jokes in history modern Europe was born because the end of the world failed to arrive when it was expected. The Christian world expected that the world would end and the Day of Judgement arrive in the at the first Millennium, one thousand years after the birth or death of Jesus Christ. The enormous social, political and religious forces this expectation released collided, combined and confronted each other to create the foundations of Western Europe as we have it today. Tom Holland has written a hugely entertaining book that shows how and why the process took place. It is a fantastic story and it is told with outstanding skill, with an enormous cast of vivid characters and a geographical range from London to Kiev, Tom Holland's talent for clarity and comprehensiveness never falters.

The prospect of the end of the world crystallised a number of forces that combined and confronted each other. On one hand there was the growth in empire building and the emergence of new ruling elites. This activity was savagely brutal and bloody. The new ruling elites wanted to be granted legitimate status and the source of this was the Christian Church. The Church was concerned with the violence of the emerging rulers while at the same time realising that they were the vanguard of the spread of Christianity, a very necessary project in the light of the upcoming divine day of judgement. The Church, as much as the secular rulers, had new elites emerge in the drive to develop an Christian empire and the confrontations between these forces is at the heart of the book.

The huge energy dedicated to getting the world in order for an event that never arrived created significant forces that had the time and energy to continue shaping the world in whatever way they saw fit. The momentum of the millennium carried them on to creating the extraordinary developments that saw Europe emerge as the political, religious and technological global leader in defiance of any prospects prior to the millennium. This exhilarating book is sweeping narrative history that shows how the present is never far from our past. Unmissable.

Blind Eye. Stuart Macbride. HarperCollinsPublishers. (2009)

A bleakly funny, savagely brutal and very gripping crime story. In Aberdeen Polish men are being found with their eyes gouged out and the sockets burned, the victims are left alive after the mutilations. Detective Sargent Logan McRae under the supervision of the bitingly sarcastic Detective Chief Inspector Finnie, is involved in the case. With the presence of a paedophile who becomes a witness , a gang from Manchester who are bent on trouble and strong indications that a major gang war is brewing the situation continues to become more complicated and desperate. The reveals are wonderfully paced, the writing is razor sharp and the big and wonderfully energetic cast drive the story to a suitably grim conclusion.

This is crime writing of the highest order, the action is brutal and vividly described, the plot is tightly wound and carefully constructed. The glory of the book is the cast that swirls and swears their way through the story. Logan McRae is a superb central character, he is battered and bruised and frequently unlucky, he is also diligent, compassionate and genuinely and sometimes falteringly trying to do the right thing.

Detective Inspector Steel emerges in this book to take her rightful place as one of the greatest characters in contemporary crime fiction. Stuart Mcbride has done something wonderful, he has created a lesbian character whose sexuality is central to who she is and proudly worn and completely irrelevant to to her professional life. DI Steel is mater-of-factly lesbian, she is also heroically foul mouthed, temperamental and extremely competent. She is a wonderfully realised character, one of the significant pleasures of the book. A great read.

Mercy. J.M.DeMatteis (Writer), Paul Johnson (Art), Todd Klien (Letters). DC Comics (1993)

Glorious art catches the spirit of the passionately overwrought writing to create a striking and memorable comic. Joshua Rose is lying in a stroke induced coma in a hospital watching himself from a limbo and wondering why he has not died. He muses on his life and the utter dissatisfaction of it all, the breathtaking , bitter futility of it all. He has become aware of the presence of an entity he has named Mercy and is drawn to her and the lives she seems to be intersecting with, a unhappy family in London, a terrified Indian boy in a South American jungle and a lonely old woman in an Brooklyn. The set ups are done with great and forceful skill, the resolutions are equally strong and the conclusion is passionate and truthful.

J.M.DeMatteis has recreated "A Christmas Carol" with outstanding skill and confidence, the central story about the resurrection of a defeated spirit remains, the other aspects of the story are creatively re-fashioned. Best of all the naked passion and belief in the reality of human compassion that burns so brightly in Dickens is blazing in the comic also.

Paul Johnson's art is simply extraordinary, it pulses with life an colour. The page layouts are superb, the capture the rhythms of the story and boost them. The use of colour is masterful, the bursts of light and use of muted colour provide the exact visual counterpart for the emotional framework for each scene.

This glorious comic is a direct and potent assault on the reader's casual cynicism that we slip on to protect ourselves, a reminder that all the unassuming acts of kindness and civility committed by countless number each day really count.

Bruno Chief of Police. Martin Walker. Quercus. (2009)

A wonderfully evocative and engaging crime story set in the Dordogne region of France.In a small village in rural France an elderly Algerian immigrant is murdered in a brutal fashion. Details of the crime strongly suggest a race crime and Bruno, the Chief of Police for the village of St Denis finds that the murder is arousing a lot of attention and tension. As the various elements of the criminal justice process come into play Bruno struggles to remain part of the investigation and to protect his peaceful way of life. The reveals are distributed at a leisurely pace and conclusion is wholly satisfying.

At first this story is very like a cosy Sunday night television feature featuring murder in some idyllic village populated by a more than usually interesting cast. Martin Walker invests a considerable amount of time carefully establishing the scene, the structure and life of a small village in France and the people who live there. He skillfully brings the cast to life and quietly shows the tensions that exist in the village and how the murder and the racial overtones bring these tensions to the surface. He also shows how national forces can seize an opportunity to use such a murder to push their own agendas regardless of the impact on the locality. What is remarkable is how the conclusion reveals just how high the stakes really are and it takes its force from the understanding that Martin Walker has carefully built up beforehand. The story logic does not have to be contorted to achieve a truly dramatic conclusion, it arises naturally and logically from the context.

In a very understated way Martin Walker has written a very serious book, clothed it in the warm sunshine of rural France and a truly memorable cast. This book is as great a pleasure as the mouthwatering food that is consumed with such relish by its cast.

John Stuart Mill. Victorian Firebrand. Richard Reeves. Atlantic Books (2007)

This is a superb biography of an extraordinary man. The title of the book is brilliantly chosen, John Stuart Mill was truly a firebrand and the importance of his work is still incendiary today. John Stuart Mill is a very unusual man, an English public intellectual whose writing was aimed directly at shaping and influencing public policy. As a rule intellectuals are not welcome in open public policy debates in England or Ireland, we have a preference for technocrats, professional administrators and professional politicians. Intellectuals are seen as essentially not engaged with the dirty work of public policy and their contributions are given less weight because of that. Mill escaped this tendency to be sidelined partly because of the times he was active in, partly because he was a professional administrator and later a professional politician, chiefly because he strove embody his ideas in his own life.

Mill was a fabulously prolific writer, he wrote on economics, politics, women's rights and a host of other topics. His writing is dense and lucid, he moves argument in a considered logical manner that remains easy to read and invigorating to encounter. Mill is not a strikingly original thinker, he is a profound one, he takes ideas and subjects them to rigorous scrutiny and develops insights from thus scrutiny. He also lived life to the greatest extent that he could and the details of his life are as interesting as his work.

John Stuart Mill's essay "On Liberty" is required reading anywhere and anytime elites confuse their interests for the public good, that is everywhere and all the time. This biography bring a great, passionate and movingly human man to life and reminds us that we are privileged to be standing on his shoulders.

Team of Rivals. Doris Kearns Goodwin. Penguin Books (2009)

This is a fascinating biography of Abraham Lincoln that places him firmly in his historical and political context. On May 18th 1860 Abraham Lincoln won the Republican Party nomination for President, the way in which he did so was an example of his political skill and thoroughness, how he managed his Presidency is a measure of his genius. Lincoln won the nomination over the heads of three other candidates who were all considered far more likely to win it, when he became President Lincoln invited these same three men to join his Cabinet. That Lincoln choose to staff his cabinet with political rivals at a time when the country was sliding into Civil War is, as Doris Kearns Goodwin shows, a measure of the man. The choices were made both to preserve unity in the Republican Party when it was sorely needed and critically because Lincoln though that they were the right people for the positions they were offered.

Doris Kearns Goodwin gets behind the iconic image of the assassinated President to present a view of a shrewd and amazingly skillful politician and administrative manager. Lincoln was always his own man, confident enough to surround himself with very strong and ambitious personalities who frequently did not work well with each other, yet they were ultimately the right people for the fearsome tasks they faced in a civil war. Lincoln was a very talented staff manager and he drew the best from those around him.

One of the most extraordinary achievements of this book is that it explains why politicians are necessary, the fact that the majority of any set at any time are not very competent at the role has reflected badly on the role itself. By demonstrating what a truly competent politician does, Abraham Lincoln was a politician to his fingertips, Doris Kearns Goodwin illustrates the necessity for politics and politicians. Lincoln was a leader and a follower of public opinion, his actions were shaped by the need for public support and the requirement to create it. Any war has a significant political dimension and there was no better political general than Lincoln. This large, inclusive, wonderfully written book is inspiring and engaging.