Articles by Melanie Gay

Novelist Lynne Truss is an interesting writer. She worked as a sportswriter, wrote an international best seller Eats Shoots and Leaves and has now written this comic detective novel based on her radio plays and set in Brighton in the fifties. It’s not really a homage to Graham Greene’s [...]

I had occasion to seek the advice of a friend who is a loss adjuster to be informed that he was on a remote Greek island investigating a claim. Coincidentally Bernie Gunther, in the latest Philip Kerr novel, is doing exactly the same. I drew this coincidence to my friend’s attention to be [...]

It is significant that this crime novel by the popular Brighton writer was recommended to me by the former Chief Constable of Sussex. It is clear that James has a close relationship with the police force which benefits both. The police explain procedure and criminal background and he represents the [...]

Famously during the premier of Exodus the American humourist Mort Sahl stood up and said: “Let my people go.” I felt much the same in reading Simon Schama’s two mighty tomes. There is no doubt that it is work of considerable and detailed scholarship but detailed is the key word. [...]