As this book received the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger award in 2023, I thought I’d give it a go. It is a very silly book. Agent Seventeen — whose real name we never learn —…

If you’re like me, most of what you know about ancient Rome comes from repeated viewings of Ridley Scott’s Gladiator. Maybe even seeing Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus. I never received a “classical” education when I grew…

This a wonderful book. No, really. I was a bit concerned as I don’t always enjoy anthologies, and the only author names I recognised were F. Scott Fitzgerald, Zelda Fitzerald, and Dorothy Parker. But that…

I recently saw (again) the film, starring Michael Caine and the late Donald Sutherland, and this awakened in me an interest in reading the original book. There were a couple of pleasant surprises. For one…

This thoroughly-researched, engaging book is full of stories that I didn’t know, showing the vast extent of disinformation campaigns over the last century or so — and not only done by the Russians. Rid has…

Rachel Collinson knows a lot about how non-profit organisations and charities can improve their fundraising and campaigning — but she only shares some of it in this short book. This is understandable because she earns…

This is an early book by Stephen King and when I read that it was his take on Bram Stoker’s Dracula, I thought — why not? But it’s not King’s best effort (he improved as…

This very short book has some real gems in it. Some quite famous authors and historians explain not only why they read but also why they buy books, and why they write. And while so…

Anne Applebaum is a first-rate historian, a very good writer and a campaigner for human rights and democracy. And this is a very good and important book. But — while its description of the evils…

This book, the 4th in the Cassie Raven series, is as good as the others, which is saying a lot. Cassie is a twenty-something mortuary technician in Camden, a neighbourhood in north London. Her “special…