https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Betrayal_(Dunmore_novel) Leningrad 1952/53. Stalin has god-like powers. His paranoia has shaped a super-power in which the greater good is defined by the fear of that knock at the door. No one is safe. Volkov is a fictional character. He has the appellation THE attached to his name in whispers. THE Volkov. To show there’s no misunderstanding. It’s really him. With the fear and state-sponsored terror he brings...

Filed by Fletcher Moody — Literary Correspondent I should tell you before I begin that I cannot prove any of this happened. The only other witness was a woman named Dora Diamant, who told the story to others after the man in question was dead, and whose account has never been independently confirmed. The letters — if they existed — have never been found. The girl has never been identified. I am aware of how this sounds coming from a...

Maya Angelou’s front-cover endorsement of Women Who Run With the Wolves is one of the most famous blurbs in publishing history. ‘Everyone who can read should read this book.’ I can read and I read the book. Around 2.7 million copies sold. But one of those best-selling books I’d never heard of. I’m not sure why. Probably because I’m a guy. ‘Stories are medicine.’ Strong medicine. Healing medicine. Clarissa Pinkola Estés is a cantadora (a keeper...

The Wedding Sussex 410 ~ Union Buildings Pretoria ¬ Mr. & Mrs. Brown ~ Cake & Icing ~ Newlyweds ~ ~ ~ Our Parents

Andrew G.Ralston is hooking a ride on one of Scottish television’s most successful cop shows: Taggart . There’s a big kick and lick of the McIlvanney and Laidlaw on which Taggart is based, the idea of the outsider and insider that contacts investigations in his own way—and comes up trumps every time. Everyone in Glasgow was an extra in Taggart. I got paid for it, so I saw lead actor Mick McManus in action, but I was more interested in the free...

Its not often a literay heavy weight arrives in our town. But last night at The Millbank Theatre in Rush, County Dublin, John Banville held a captive audience in the palm his hands. Now at the age of 80, Banville spans the last of Irish literature from the 70's, McGahern, Edna O'Brien and Kavanagh, to the present day contemporary fiction. Scholarly in appearance, Banville was dressed smartly, his terracotta coloured scarf matched his highly...

‘Only a fool thinks that women love differently.’ So says a character in one of her short-stories. ‘Fools and pedagogues.’ Saints and Sinners, take your pick. Edna O’Brien offers all of these things and none, because women’s treachery is different to men’s? ‘Rafferty’, the opening story in the collection. An Irish man in London. He’s been in the English capital all of his working life and now retired longs to return the auld country. He’s loved...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002v48h/to-think-like-a-killer-series-1-episode-1 https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002vd9y/to-think-like-a-killer-series-1-episode-2 https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002vdb0/to-think-like-a-killer-series-1-episode-3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastermind:_To_Think_Like_a_Killer When Ann Burgess left school in 1957, former General and war hero, Dwight D. Eisenhower was President of the richest...

Filed by Fletcher Moody — Literary Correspondent I was sent to Palm Beach County in September 1928 to cover a hurricane. Not the hurricane itself — by the time I arrived, three days after landfall, the storm was gone and what it had left behind was not weather but consequence. The dike on the south side of Lake Okeechobee had given way on the night of the 17th. The water rose twelve feet in an hour. Over two thousand people drowned, most of them...

You may have noticed a complete absence of Aefelthrith and Gwladys since mid-February? On the other hand, this hiatus may have passed you by, completely, and I can't say that I blame you! What's happened to the story, you may ask yourself? Surely, we were within a gnat's doo-dah of the denouement? To which the answer is, yes, we were and I'm sorry it's come to a grinding halt in the way that it has. The explanation is that we had an unfortunate...