MARY CONWAY revels in a powerful reminder that human lives are not defined by physical perfection
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Crime fiction with Mat Coward
Reviews of new offerings from James Kestrel, Maxim Jakubowski (edited compilation of Crime Writers’ Association’s Short Story Dagger-winning stories), Nicholas Bowling and Frances Brody
PAUL DONOVAN recommends the fine performances in this account of the pre-war meeting between the US president and the British king
TECLYN AROD relishes an intimate celebration of jazz improvisation that mixes local and national musicians
The missing sister, the vengeful WAG, cruise ship claustrophobia, and reanimated Avengers
Three great releases of lost concerts by Duke Ellington Orchestra, John Taylor & Stan Sulzman, and Joe Henderson
To rescue Kahlo from the clutches of the corporate art market, we need to acknowledge the overt and covert political dimensions of the work, demands GAVIN O’TOOLE
FIVE DECEMBERS by James Kestrel (Hard Case Crime, £16.99) starts in Honolulu, in December 1941, with police detective Joe McGrady investigating a murder.
Following a lead takes him abroad, as a result of which he’s not at home when the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour takes place. Instead, he’s somewhere even worse.
Through three countries, and through a world war as well as its preamble and its epilogue, Joe keeps his murder investigation alive — and in the darkest of days, it keeps him alive too.
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