Ron's rages are sincere and — according to his wife — healthily cathartic. But can these splenetic outbursts loosen the grip of capitalism at its most monstrous?
Crime fiction
Reviews of Pretty Things by Janelle Brown, How to Kidnap the Rich by Rahul Raina, Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder by TA Willberg and Guilty by Siobhan MacDonald
ANGUS REID considers the power of the podcast as a vehicle for consensus building in opposition to mainstream media narratives
GLENN FOSBRAEY recommends a biography worth reading for both existing George Michael fans and those yet to be converted
FRANCIS DEVINE introduces a new collection of essays that draws on Pease McKenna’s example to indicate future paths for the movement
KEVIN DONNELLY and MARIA DUARTE review Shoot the People, The Last One For The Road, Rosebush Pruning, and Moana
JAMES WALSH recommends an exceptional documentary about the experience of Western doctors in Gaza
IN PRETTY THINGS by Janelle Brown (Weidenfeld, £8.99) Nina is forced by her con artist mother’s medical bills to abandon her attempt to escape the family trade.
She makes a living stealing from ultra-rich hedonists in Los Angeles but rising hospital bills mean she now needs to devise a more ambitious scam, so she returns to the scene of a teenage humiliation, the Lake Tahoe mansion of billionaire heiress Vanessa.
Nina sees her as a perfect target — rich, vapid and untouched by the vicious unfairness of the class system. But this book warns that when you meet your enemies, you are in danger of discovering that they are human after all and that can cause all manner of complications.
Similar stories
LEO BOIX, ANGUS REID and MARIA DUARTE review Night Stage, Two Women, Kim Novak’s Vertigo, and Fuze
DENNIS BROE points out that two popular TV series promote police violence and disguise it as ‘fun’
A WWI hero, renowned ornithologist, medical doctor, trade union organiser and founder member of the Communist Party of Great Britain all rolled in one. MAT COWARD tells the story of a life so improbable it was once dismissed as fiction
Timeloop murder, trad family MomBomb, Sicilian crime pages and Craven praise