Category Archives: Review

The CIA’s 2024 Annual Threat Assessment: Intelligence Community Assessment

Posted on March 20, 2024 by odeboyz

The CIA isn’t interested in the rights and wrongs of international conflicts. Their focus is their impact on the USA. The Gaza Conflict is interesting in this respect. It is facile to think it is tightly located there. “Conflicts, particularly … Continue reading →

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Book Review: Keith Richards (with James Fox) ~ Life (2010)

Posted on March 13, 2024 by odeboyz

Unless you’re a Rolling Stones fan and keen on an autobiography featuring drink, drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll you’re unlikely to enjoy this. It’s filled with endless ‘shock-horror’ moments. Here’s a sample, 1 Gangster Keith 2 Drug addict Keith 3 … Continue reading →

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Book Review: Jonas Jonasson ~ The Prophet and the Idiot (Translator Rachel Willson-Broyles) (2022)

Posted on February 21, 2024 by odeboyz

Jonasson was faced with a huge challenge when writing this book. His previous book ‘The hundred-year-old man who climbed out of the window and disappeared’  sold three million copies. The novel was a comic novel written in Swedish. Jonasson had … Continue reading →

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Ricky Gervais on Gay Marriage

Posted on January 17, 2024 by odeboyz

“Same sex marriage is not a gay privilege, it’s equal rights. Privilege would be something like gay people not paying taxes. Like churches don’t.”

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Book Review: Tim Dorsey ~ Florida Roadkill (1999)

Posted on January 17, 2024 by odeboyz

Carl Hiaasen created zany Florida novels about the environment, corruption, casual murder and destruction all laced with quickfire humour.  He created a genre. Tim Dorsey cashed in. This book is a mini-homage by including Hiaasen in the narrative. So how … Continue reading →

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Book Review: Ben MacIntyre ~ Agent Sonya (2020)

Posted on December 20, 2023 by odeboyz

Historians often write beautifully and are highly literate. But they don’t create new genres. MacIntyre has pulled off the feat of writing biography, history and thrillers: simultaneously. He chooses remarkable and well documented stories. This provides a structure to work … Continue reading →

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Book review: Antti Tuomainen ~ The Rabbit Factor (Translator David Hackston) (2020)

Posted on November 22, 2023 by odeboyz

Definition: An actuary is someone who is too boring to be an accountant. To have a comedic thriller written with an actuary at its centre is amazing. And when that actuary is so boring he gets sacked because he doesn’t … Continue reading →

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Book Review: M W Craven ~ Fearless (2023)

Posted on November 8, 2023 by odeboyz

Lee Child’s Reacher is iconic. This novel is a rip-off. Craven has judged the market can support two Reacher-style psychopathic loners living outside the law. Both, of course, are formerly law officers, and so know all the tricks. The usual … Continue reading →

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Film Review: The Great Escaper (2023) (Michael Caine and Glenda Jackson)

Posted on October 18, 2023 by odeboyz

Two great actors come together to make a wonderful film. It’s a biopic of Bernie Jordan who, aged 89, ‘broke’ out of his care home to attend – as an unofficial guest – the 70th anniversary of the D-Day Landings.1 … Continue reading →

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Book Review: Michael Dobbs ~ The Final Cut (1994)

Posted on October 18, 2023 by odeboyz

Dobbs is the greatest political novelist since Anthony Trollope in the Victorian era. His political ‘insider’ status and dialogue is outstanding. This re-read was an unmitigated joy from start to finish. What I’d forgotten was that this novel – the … Continue reading →

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