Author:Richard Osman

Richard Osman returns with the first in a new series of novels. The overarching themes of the story are money laundering and the world of social media influencers, with plenty of murder and mayhem thrown in for good measure. The two main characters are Steve, a retired widowed ex copper living a solitary existence in a small village, and his go-getting daughter in law Amy, who is a bodyguard for the rich and famous. This is a fast paced but somehow quite cosy thriller, where the action in the short punchy chapters is recounted from the viewpoints of the numerous different characters as the action moves across the globe at almost breakneck speed. The plot gets a little complicated at times so you need to keep your wits about you as you try to identify the villain in chief, but Osman writes with a light and humorous touch and keeps the pace and excitement up pretty much non stop all the way to the final page. Although it gets quite bloodthirsty at times, you somehow know it’s all going to turn out alright in the end and, as with The Thursday Murder Club novels, the underlying message is » Continue Reading.

Author:Michael Kulikowski, Opher Goodwin

In 1972, Roxy Music hit the music scene like a breath of fresh air. Their debut album sounded quite different from anything else that was around at the time. This trend continued with 1973’s excellent For Your Pleasure, and just a few months later by its follow up Stranded – three fantastic albums in less than two years. For me, the subsequent two records, Country Life and Siren aren’t as consistently strong although they still contain plenty of good songs – in addition to the hit singles there are fine songs such as Out of the Blue and Just Another High. After a four year hiatus they returned but as a quite different band, with a sophisticated and more mainstream sound that Ferry used as a template for his solo efforts in the following years. Although there were still some great songs, Dance Away, Avalon, Oh Yeah, the creativity and inventiveness had mostly gone, replaced by the dreamy almost world weary feel that became a new trademark. I really enjoyed reading this potted history of their career, which has been thoroughly researched and gives plenty of background detail as well as looking at each song individually, » Continue Reading.

Author:Wishbone Ash

Here’s a great idea for a book about a band:

1.Take the golden days of a 50+ year live career. 2.Interview the musicians involved, (and their sound guy.) 3.Pepper the pages with photos and clippings from the time. 4.Wrap it all up as a 216-page coffee-table tome, limited to a thousand copies, and chuck in a CD of 10 live tracks from those golden days, plus a photo signed by the classic MkII line-up.

If you were in your early-to-mid teens as the 1960’s turned into the ‘70’s; if Ian Hunter’s Diary of a Rock ‘n Roll Star was your favourite book of ‘74; if you were an original member of the Wishbone Ash fan club and if you had the double-page spread from Disc of Andy Powell and Ted Turner on your bedroom wall, for years, then you are, (a) me, or (b) the target audience for this book.

Wishbone were ‘my band,’ the 2nd band I ever saw. Andy Powell, with his long, blonde locks and that Flying V, was like catnip to this spotty fifteen year-old when I first saw Wishbone Ash at Guildford Civic Hall, 9th February 1972. I loved his aggressive guitar » Continue Reading.

Author:Chris Charlesworth

The author joined Melody Maker in 1970 at a time when it was the biggest selling of the UK weekly music papers. He spent a couple of years cutting his teeth and seeing and interviewing most of the big name acts of the time when they visited these shores. However, it was in the summer of 1973 that he got his big break when he was chosen as the paper’s new US correspondent, based first in LA and subsequently in New York. It seemed all his Christmases had come at once, a chance to fraternise with the cream of the US and UK rock scenes while living in an apartment for which all the costs were met by the magazine’s publishers, who also provided a weekly living allowance, allowing his normal salary to accumulate untouched back in his bank account in London. Over the course of the following years he interviewed pretty much everyone who was anyone, while catching all the big gigs from the best seats in the house – it was a tough job but someone had to do it! As well as recalling these events, he quotes extensively from the articles he wrote for Melody » Continue Reading.

Author:David Hepworth

When Paul McCartney took to the stage at the climax of Live Aid in 1985 he was portrayed as the elder statesman of rock. He was 43 years old. When he headlined at Glastonbury in 2022 he was 80. He was joined on stage by Bruce Springsteen, 72, and Dave Grohl, a mere whippersnapper at 53. The Rolling Stones have just concluded yet another money spinning tour, David Gilmour and Jon Anderson, both 78, are about to release new albums, the list goes on and on. This book consequently explores the question of why rock stars never retire. In his usual inimitable pithy style, the author examines a number of big names and the various motivations that keep them going, often financial of course, in an era when the income generated by live performances has far outstripped that from record sales, and an affluent audience is on hand to pay sky high ticket prices for perhaps one last chance to see and hear the music of their youth that rekindles so many magical memories – and of course as the years move on the anticipation and the spectacle gets ever bigger. This is in many ways an era » Continue Reading.

Author:Bob Mortimer

This is the sequel to Bob Mortimer’s award winning debut novel, The Satsuma Complex. Continuing the fruit based theme, it picks up the story of the three main characters where its predecessor left off. (Spoilers for the first book ahead)

Author:Moon Unit Zappa

Moon-Unit Zappa’s memoir of growing up in the Zappa family household is both fascinating and disturbing. It very much fits with Tolstoy’s observation, now almost a cliche, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” My 40+ years of being a psychologist prepared me for the abusive household, awful hippie parenting (by her mother, Gail, dad often being distant, away, or focussed on one of the many affairs and groupies who Gail tolerated, but used as a stick to control Frank and take out on the family), Laingian scenes, parental favouritism, and resultingly Moon-Unit’s disturbed attachment and the need for therapy. I’m used to it, other readers may find it shocking (not that troubled families and painful family dynamics are unusual.)

Moon-Unit mostly writes well – her recourse into therapy speak at points is hard work to a Brit (even one in mental health), but probably comes with the territory, and helps her to live with what she lived through. The book can be very funny, and for those of us immersed in all things Zapparian, it is interesting to see the “conceptual continuity” that influences Zappa’s subsequent work (Gail’s » Continue Reading.

Author:Stephen Lambe, Carl Ewens, Brian J Robb, Mark Marrington

90125 is still by far the biggest selling Yes album, but when it appeared in 1983 it came as something of a shock to fans of the band’s mighty prog back catalogue. With Trevor Rabin replacing Steve Howe and Trevor Horn producing, the sound was quite unlike anything they’d produced before, with the only recognisable constant being Jon Anderson’s familiar voice. It certainly gave them a new market in the US where Owner of a Lonely Heart was picked up by radio and introduced the band to a whole new audience. Some of the longer pieces such as Hearts and Changes were still recognisably Yes but others sounded like a totally different band, as indeed was the original intention. It’s an album that I still like a lot and it certainly gave the band a new lease of life after they entered the eighties in something of a state of turmoil This book does a fine job of charting the development and recording of the album, as well as looking at the aftermath and of course it examines each individual song in forensic detail too – I just wish it had » Continue Reading.

Author:Irvine Welsh

The third novel in the Crime series, following on from 2022’s The Long Knives, sees Ray Lennox out of the police force and relocated from Edinburgh to Brighton, hoping to restart his life with a new career and a fresh relationship. However, it seems it’s not so easy to escape the past, as a chance encounter with a local businessman inexorably draws him back to a childhood he’s desperate to forget. Digging into the disappearance of a number of foster children forces him to remember and re-evaluate events from his own youth, as the full truth of those traumatic events is gradually revealed. The captivating tale moves along at a good pace with plenty of the author’s trademark black humour to go alongside the horrifying events, past and present, that are dragged into the light of day as long forgotten memories are reawakened. An exciting and unexpected climax cleverly ties up all the loose ends, with the denouement not being revealed until the very final pages. A good addition to the Welsh canon, but I wonder if this is the last we’ll hear of Ray Lennox,

Length of Read:Long

Might appeal to people who enjoyed…

Other novels by » Continue Reading.

Author:William E Spevack, Steve Pilkington, Andrew Wild

I wasn’t really the right generation to fully appreciate Nirvana, but it’s music I got used to hearing blasting from he offspring’s bedrooms – the likes of Teen Spirit, Lithium, Come As You Are, Heart Shaped Box and the like. I always preferred the quieter stuff such as About A Girl and their cover of The Man Who Sold The World personally, but in general I always thought their sound owed a huge debt to Killing Joke. Anyway, this book goes through the studio albums plus the MTV Unplugged set track by track in the tried and trusted format as well as rounding up the live releases, rarities and compilations. It’s now thirty years since Kurt Cobain’s death, but the music still sounds as vibrant and relevant today as it did back then, and this well researched book gives a good overview of their career.

On to more familiar ground with an in depth appraisal of Supertramp’s 1974 release Crime of the Century. Although the band is all too often derided and dismissed, thus is an album which is really deserving of the ‘rock classic’ tag The creative axis of Rick Davies and » Continue Reading.

Author:Andrew Wild

Subtitled ‘the progressive rock revival 1981-1983’, this excellent exhaustively researched book gives an absorbing in depth account of the resurgence of prog in the UK in the early part of the 80’s. As well as providing a meticulously detailed overview of the scene as a whole, the author intertwines the histories of half a dozen influential key bands from the period, Marillion, IQ, Pallas, Pendragon, Solstice and Twelth Night, who would all have their roles to play at the forefront of the burgeoning movement. As well as speaking to the members of the aforementioned, there have been numerous interviews with other musicians, promoters and managers, whose reminiscences are supplemented by over 200 rare or previously unpublished photographs. The whole package is beautifully presented on top quality paper and has been edited by Big Big Train’s Gregory Spawton, with a foreword by Prog magazine’s editor Jerry Ewing. A superb, comprehensive and dare I say definitive look at this era, which saw the green shoots of the second coming of this much maligned and misunderstood genre – this is absolutely essential reading if you’re a prog fan!.

Length of Read:Medium

Might appeal to people who enjoyed…

The new wave of » Continue Reading.

Author:Robyn Hitchcock

“1967” is a memoir from the “surrealist rock ‘n’ roller, iconic troubadour, guitarist, poet, painter, and performer” Robyn Hitchcock (his description). As befits someone who has always had a rather sideways take on life, the memoir addresses just one year in his life, describing his arrival at Winchester College just before his 13th birthday, “high on dread”.

It’s a transitional time for any young chap, but all the more so given he has to learn to live in the Winchester ecosystem, and while Hitchcock’s memoir is anchored by (or to) the college, he intertwines this with his discovery of music, his relationship with his parents and more fleetingly his early metamorphosis into a musician.

Hitchcock is candid about the idiosyncrasies of college life. “Winchester College equips you for Winchester College” and he makes a number of references to people who found themselves unable to attain “escape velocity”, and remained forever entwined with the place. Hitchcock describes “Notions”, the college’s own language and muses that he got off lightly as he wasn’t “beaten, sodomised, stripped, mocked or had his head shoved down the toilet bowl” (called a wash and set at my school), pondering “maybe his parents weren’t getting » Continue Reading.

Author:Graeme Thomson

There’s been a good few books written about Kate Bush that have appeared over the years, but this biography is probably still the definitive go to volume. Fist published in 2010, the book has been newly updated to bring the story right up to date with the resurgence of interest in her music following its use in the Stranger Things Netflix series in 2022. Although there’s been no new music since 2011’s ‘50 Words For Snow’ album and almost a decade has now passed since the ‘Before The Dawn’ concerts, this is still a fascinating read which covers not just Kate’s music but her childhood upbringing and her gradual musical evolution into such an iconic figure. With numerous interviews with school friends, band mates and collaborators, this exhaustively researched and absorbing work is possibly as close as we’ll ever get to the whole story of this woman’s work. Essential readings for fans or even those who are just merely curious.

Length of Read:Long

Might appeal to people who enjoyed…

No one would be happier than me if Kate Bush surprised us with some new music, but it seems increasingly unlikely as the years drift by.

One thing you’ve » Continue Reading.

Author:Stuart MacBride

Another standalone thriller by Stuart MacBride, although once again set in the now familiar Scottish town of Oldcastle. A newly appointed detective constable is assigned to an operation to catch a serial killer who strikes every two weeks, but it’s far from the exciting role he imagined. He’s given the thankless task of babysitting an FBI psychologist drafted in to assist the investigation, a man who has the habit of getting right under people’s skin, friend and foe alike. As they race to trace the killer before he strikes again, the pair are dragged into a murky world of conspiracy theories, lies and horrifying violence. Why does the murderer kill a couple each time, leaving one corpse at the scene bearing a cryptic message, while their partner’s body is never seen again? All is gradually revealed in this fast paced police procedural, which is laced with the author’s trademark black humour alongside the ghoulish violence. An excellent thriller that keeps you guessing until the very end when the author cleverly brings all the strands of the plot together for a page turning gripping climax. Great to see MacBride back at the top of his game!

Length of Read:Long

» Continue Reading.

Author:Alan Edwards

Subtitled Dispatches From A Life In Rock and Roll, this memoir is the work of the founder of one of the UK’s biggest PR agencies, the Outside Organisation. This very readable book follows the author’s life from his early days writing for Sounds and getting involved in the burgeoning London punk scene, through to setting up his own business, and managing to secure PR duties for the likes of Blondie. From then on it’s a bit of a whirlwind, including taking care of the acts as diverse as The Rolling Stones and The Spice Girls, among many others. The cornerstone of the book though is his thirty odd year relationship with David Bowie, which manages to survive a number of ups and downs along the way but ultimately lasts until Bowie’s untimely death. While he doesn’t reveal any great secrets or break any confidences, the book does give an insight into the behind the scenes work that goes on and the personal relationships that sometimes form as he flits from one continent and one client to another, a journey that perhaps inevitably eventually takes its toll on his personal life. This insider’s view of working in the world » Continue Reading.

Author:Andrew Darlington, Martin Hutchinson, Matt Karpe

I’m not hugely well up on The Small Faces – like most people I immediately think of All or Nothing. Itchycoo Park, Lazy Sunday and Tin Soldier but that’s about it. They successfully transitioned from sharp suited mods to the flower power era before Steve Marriott left to form Humble Pie and the remaining members became, with the addition of Rod Stewart, that archetypal good time band The Faces. Thus is a really well written enjoyable read, which covers the recorded output of both incarnations and also has sections on Humble Pie, and the solo work of Marriott, Lane and Stewart. A Nod’s As Good As A Wink is an album I clearly recall buying as a teenager and playing to death, although I was rather less enamoured of its follow up Ooh La La, complete with its novelty sleeve. There always seems to be talk of a reunion and new music but it never seems to get any closer, and as the years pass it seems less and less likely. In the meantime, enjoy this potted history, listen to the records again and remember the glory days.

I know a version of The » Continue Reading.

Author:Christopher McCittrick

Now in their 55th year, ZZ Top have managed a rare feat not just of such longevity but remaining widely recognizable despite a backstory has always been a touch vague. Christopher McKittrick (whose previous work includes books on Tom Petty and The Rolling Stones) takes on the task of trying untangle fact from fiction, in a book that has Billy Gibbons as it’s center piece, but is also de facto the story of ZZ Top.

No-one could accuse McKittrick of skimping on the research. It’s a book packed with details of tour dates, concert yields, videos shot and albums recorded. Unfortunately, without the active involvement of any of the band, family those directly connected to the band, the actual insight achieved is slight. Which is not to say it wasn’t an entertaining read, as McKittrick does his best to throw as much light as he can on Gibbons and Top, but by the end I wasn’t a great deal wiser about what Gibbons was really like, leaving the more unsavory aspects of the bands career to take center stage.

A great deal of Top and it’s history / mythology was shaped by Bill Ham, Top’s manager until » Continue Reading.

Author:Stephen King

It’s been a while since there was a collection of Stephen King’s short stories so what better way to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the publication of the author’s first novel, Carrie than this new anthology. Of the dozen tales collected here, most are previously unpublished although there were a couple I’d read before. Over the almost 500 pages, a lot of different genres are explored – sci-fi, horror, the supernatural and the police procedural. It’s the latter that provides the setting for the strongest and longest story here, Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream, which at over 200 pages could almost have been a novel in its own right, and which contains a nod to the obsessed police officer in Les Miserables. Another one I really enjoyed was Rattlesnakes, a sequel of sorts to Cujo, in which a grieving widower receives an unexpected inheritance with a major catch to it! Some of the stories are a bit more throwaway than others, but I can honestly say I enjoyed them all, with each one having something different to offer the constant reader as the author ingeniously lifts the curtain and allows us a peek at the horrors that seemingly lurk » Continue Reading.

Author:John Connolly

It’s 25 years since John Connolly introduced us to private investigator Charlie Parker in this series of novels that combine elements of police procedurals with a twist of the supernatural and a healthy dose of dry laconic humour. All the old gang are present and correct – Parker, his accomplices Angel and Louis, the Fulci brothers and the lawyer Moxie Castin. The story revolves around a client the latter is defending, accused of the murder of her young son who has disappeared without trace. Parker s called in to aid the investigation and it soon becomes apparent that there’s far more to it than initially meets the eye. Throw into the mix a husband who seems all too keen to blame his wife, a disgraced psychic and an oddball family living in remote woodland and you have all the ingredients for another great yarn – and did I mention a strange rundown house which appears to exert a malign influence over those who have maintained it down the generations. Another fine instalment in this long running series, which rarely disappoints – here’s to the next one!

Length of Read:Long

Might appeal to people who enjoyed…

Previous Parker novels, » Continue Reading.

Author:Matthew Taylor, Scott Meze, Geoffrey Feakes

Following the recent passing of leading light Tony Clarkin, Magnum are sadly no more although they did manage one final album. However, for me their best work came early in their career with the excellent On A Storyteller’s Night album, which is the set most people immediately bring to mind, An ill advised and unsuccessful attempt to break through into the lucrative US market with the poor Goodnight LA record failed miserably though, and the switch of focus also meant they lost ground in Europe which they never quite recovered – they were one of those bands who weren’t able to graduate from the city hall circuit to bigger venues. I always found their output a bit inconsistent but there were usually some good songs out there – Just Like An Arrow, Vigilante, How Far Jerusalem and Don’t Wake The Lion come to mind. The author does a good job of going through the 17 studio albums song by song in this well researched book and offers some interesting insights into their composition and recording, as well as discussing the band’s ups and downs career wise. Well worth a look if you’re a fan » Continue Reading.

Author:Russ Thomas

This is now the fourth novel in this ongoing police procedural series set in and around Sheffield and featuring DS Adam Tyler. As such, it does help if you’ve read the previous books so you’re aware of the characters’ back stories, although it’s not absolutely essential. The disappearance of a young mother 24 years ago was a case that remained unsolved, but when a new lead suddenly appears, Tyler’s investigation as head of the Cold Case Review Team suddenly leaves him fighting for his life. It falls on his number two to take over the case, but retracing her boss’s steps leaves her with some hard choices to make as the evidence she uncovers begins to unexpectedly point frighteningly close to home. I felt the previous novel, Cold Reckoning, wasn’t quite up to the high standard of the first two books in the series, but this one, which takes a slightly different focus, certainly redresses the balance and then some. It’s a taut, fast moving and intelligent thriller, which I really enjoyed – next instalment as soon as possible please!

Length of Read:Medium

Might appeal to people who enjoyed…

The earlier novels in the series, police procedurals, thrillers.

» Continue Reading.

Author:Jessica Barker

Once upon a time there were emails from officials in far off places, telling us that all sorts of riches were ours for the taking, if we’d just email back. Boutros Boutros-Ghali contacted me several times, pleading for help moving a shipment of gold, with my name on it. These days, there are text messages for parcels I didn’t order, funds at risk in bank accounts I don’t have, and even Taylor Swift tickets in local Facebook groups that will go at face value. I get regularly phished at work, my IT buddies sending out spoof after spoof to keep me on my toes.

And I never fell for one of them, until I did. A mail from a name I recognised, that I’d talked to a day or so before, asking me to check a list. They got me. An endless merry-go-round of IT “refresher” courses followed. None as insightful as reading “Hacked”.

“Hacked” walks readers through a cornucopia of online evils, from phishing to malware, spyware to deepfakes. There’s plenty of statistics, some sobering stories and lots of sensible advice. Barker details how giants like Facebook and Google have been phished, and how even the » Continue Reading.

Author:Debbie Harry

I was never a huge fan of Blondie, although I liked them. Along with Talking Heads, Elvis Costello and XTC they were for me the best of the late 70s “new wave” bands. I listen to the audio book version of this, which Debbie reads in a very appealing way, kind of detached, a bit like her singing, but also very honest, straightforward and informative. She’s upfront about the fact that her God-given looks have played a part in her success (hence the title) and she paints a vivid picture of 70s NYC – the grunge, drugs, crime but also the punk spirit and the weird and wonderful charcaters she encountered along the way. She also talks a lot about her love/friendship with Chris Stein, looking after him and their separation.

Length of Read:Long

Might appeal to people who enjoyed…

Blondie, 70s NY punk and new wave

One thing you’ve learned

It’s OK to like dressing up

Author:Anthony Horowitz

This is now the fifth novel featuring enigmatic private investigator Daniel Hawthorne, who is assisted by the author himself who appears as a character in his own story. On this occasion, the plot revolves around a case from Hawthorne’s somewhat mysterious past, a dispute among neighbours that gets out of control. A neighbour from hell disrupts life in a quiet gated community, where all the residents seemingly hold a grudge against him. One of them – or perhaps more – eventually takes matters into their own hands with a tragic outcome. There’s an interconnected series of issues and relationships going on beneath the surface, which gradually emerge as the investigation progresses, with all the residents apparently having both motives and alibis. As Horowitz reexamines Hawthorne’s original investigation, it places unexpected strains on their own friendship as hidden secrets are revealed, leading to a dramatic and unexpected climax. Along the way, there’s plenty of deception and red herrings before the seemingly impossible puzzle is finally solved. An excellent entertaining thriller that certainly lives up to the high standards of the previous novels in this series.

Length of Read:Medium

Might appeal to people who enjoyed…

Whodunnit thrillers in the old » Continue Reading.

Author:Opher Goodwin, Chris Sutton, Peter Braidis, Manny Grillo

There’s no shortage of books on Bob Dylan and his music, but this short volume, the second title in the Rock Classics series, takes an in depth look at the seminal 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home. I’m certainly no expert on Dylan’s sixties output, so I found this book useful background to this album, which contains enduring songs such as Mr Tambourine Man, Maggie’s Farm, It’s Alright Ma, It’s All Over Now Baby Blue and of course Subterranean Homesick Blues. Even relatively lesser-known pieces like Gates of Eden still stand up today. The book provides a look at the background to the album’s making, the recording process and of course delves into the songs themselves. Short as the book is, it does provide some interesting insights for the casual reader like myself, although I would assume the more hardcore follower will already be up to speed on all this. All in all, a well put together potted history on this true classic of an album that is rapidly approaching its sixtieth anniversary.

I’m certainly not averse to a bit of AC/DC, great rock music, but I’m not sure their songs » Continue Reading.