This was the week where the channel hit 40,000 subscribers. This is a number far far higher than I ever expected to reach. If you’re reading this you’re likely one of the 40,000, so that you for your support. Honestly, I still don’t really understand why people watch me. I’ve spent my life on the sidelines, so to be (in some small way at least) at the centre of things still feels strange.
Unrelated to that (although I suppose I could use it as an excuse). I took the plunge this week and bought a new camera, which I hope will give me a lot more flexibility in filming and speed up the end to end process. We’ll see if it actually does that, but it’s very nice anway (albeit VERY complicated).
I’ve watched a couple of videos this week talking about gendered reading and asking if there are a dearth of new male authors being published. I think that might be the case in one genre (fantasy) but it’s certainly not a phenomenon I’ve noticed more widely. Let me know what you think, though!
Cheerio!
Books I’ve Read This Week
Blood Standard by Laird Barron
My first Laird Barron, but it won’t be my last. This was a dark thriller with the kind of determined, unstoppable, but broken hero I love. Isaiah Coleridge is an enforcer for the mob in Alaska who falls out of favour and ends up semi-exiled to rural New York State. There he gets involved in the search for a missing local girl.
It’s a classic mystery set up and Coleridge is a great lead, as capable with his fists as he is with his brain. There’s a wildness to him that always feels only just contained and he takes just as much brutality as he dishes out.
The book’s depiction of America is similar. A wild place where violence (either natural or man made) is never far away.
It’s a great read, gripping, action packed, dark and at times very funny. There’s a richness and thoughtfulness to the prose which you don’t always get in books like this and it makes for a memorable read.
The plot is what keeps you reading but it’s that constant undertone of wildness and brutality that really leaves an impression. Think Jack Reacher by way of Cormac McCarthy.
Rumpole of the Bailey by John Mortimer
This was my first taste of Rumpole in written form, although I definitely watched at least a few episodes of the TV adaptation back in the 80s. He’s the narrator of these stories, a London barrister reflecting back in his career and some of the legal cases he was involved in. There’s a great deal of humour here and a wry dissection of British life and justice. Add to that some very memorable and well drawn characters and you have an enjoyable collection that was fun to spend time with.
Doctor Who: Wild Blue Yonder by Mark Morris
A very enjoyable novelisation of an above average Doctor Who episode. This one has the Doctor and Donna on an abandoned spaceship at the edge of the universe. There’s a solid central mystery, a race against time element and some very creepy monsters. Mark Morris does a good job of adapting the story – he captures the Who vibe and characters perfectly and the narrative has real tension. One scene in particular improved upon the episode in my opinion, taking something that was at least in part played for laughs on screen and making it much creepier.
The Witnesses Are Gone by Joel Lane
This is a hard book to review. It’s beautifully written, thoughtful and very creepy. Narratively, it’s deceptively sprawling for such a short work, covering the ground of a much larger book. It goes everywhere and nowhere, which might be a problem if the other elements of the books weren’t so well done.
The story is simple and very similar to Theodore Roszak’s much longer ‘Flicker’. The lead character watches an obscure, unsettling film and then spends the rest of the book trying to find out more about its director. ‘All the Witnesses Are Gone’ is much more unsettling. There’s something in Lane’s writing that really gets under your skin and I suspect it’s a book that will linger with me longer than I’d like it to.
CriminOlly 
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