Articles by Melanie Gay

One of the aspects I enjoy most in the Rust is the ongoing debate of attendance v watching on tv a sporting event. As an WBA supporter I don’t get to many games but that does mean I have no cred as for geographical, financial, and logistical reasons it’s not that easy. Over in the arts [...]

This is the 20th Bernie Gunther novel. It would perhaps be harsh to call it formulaic but they have become predictable. I never criticise a popular author who makes his living from a character, plenty have done so normally in the murder mystery genre. Kerr has branched out with Scott Manson, a [...]

One review which you will rarely read (but you will now) is the one where the reviewer gives up on the book. Some book clubs have a protocol whereby a member can give up on the set book provided he/she provides a reason. It’s actually a difficult but common problem of reading. Do you carry on [...]

One of the joys of fiction is when a novel embraces a well known topic or theme and enlightens the reader more than any article or report. Emma Healey’s first novel Elizabeth is Missing is such a case. It covers dementia, a subject every much in vogue but it made me aware of the condition in [...]

The espionage thriller has changed in genre over the years. We first had the public school adventurer of John Buchan and Bulldog Drummond, then the more complex novels of Graham Greene and Eric Ambler, more cosmopolitan and tinged by faith; by the fifties the glamorous sexy James Bond seemed part [...]

There is a genre of detective writing called Mediterranean noir. The darkness of the novel contrasts with the brightness and colour of Mediterranean life. The market leader is Jean Issu who sets his novels in Marseilles. I was recently recommended Death In Florence. I know, I know Florence is  not [...]

Maintaining the theme of fiction set in the less well known theatres of warfare in World War Two, I have just read I Can’t Begin to Tell You by Elizabeth Buchan. Given the fast moving pace of the novel and the adventures of the heroine Kay I wondered if the writer was in any way related to [...]

One of the pleasures of writing for the Rust is the collegiate way which information is shared e.g. John Pargiter forever wants betting tips from our sports writers. I cannot help here but readers may have noticed on our arts pages an interest in the pre and post World War Two years : Foyles War [...]