Back from a mini tour of Yorkshire and Stockport and cheering for supporting act Indignation Meeting
Crime fiction round-up with MAT COWARD: March 22, 2023
Underfunded cops, sleight of hand, murder qualifications and fascist infidelity
4 covers
ALISTAR FINDLAY is mesmerised by this multiple ‘Visions of Scotland’ assault on the audience’s eyes and senses
The Star's critics ANGUS REID, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MICHAL BONCZA reviews I Am Love, The Penguin Lessons, Freaky Tales, The Thicket
MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about the direction of a play centered on a DVLA re-training session for three British-Pakistani motorists
New releases from Steve Knightley, Jupiter & Okwess, Jason Palmer, Lisa Knapp and Gerry Driver, Kin'Gongolo Kiniata, Ingrid Laubrock/Tom Rainey, Dan Sealey, Simin Tande, PAZ
Peter Mitchell's photography reveals a poetic relationship with Leeds
A uncomfortably misogynistic authorial voice that sometimes seems to lack insight troubles FIONA O’CONNOR
LOTS of people talk about defunding the police, but it’s taken a decade of Tory austerity to actually achieve it.
BAD FOR GOOD (Allison & Busby, £8.99), the first novel by Graham Bartlett, former divisional commander of Brighton and Hove police, is as angry a debut as you could hope for.
It’s set in a fictional version of the author’s old bailiwick, where ever fewer cops, deploying ever dwindling resources, are scarcely capable any more of responding even to emergency calls. Meanwhile, politicians demand better results at the same monthly meetings where they order more cuts.
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