MEANER THAN FICTION is a series of true stories written by an assortment of crime writers, academics and a forensic scientist who are all involved in the legal/justice system either directly or through research and together they demonstrate that the legal system doesn't always dispense justice sometimes it is powerfully and immovably unjust. Lindy Cameron kicks off by telling us about the shooting of Dr Andrew Taylor, Shelley Robertson then takes us into the courtroom for us to find out the the 'whole' truth may not be what the jury is told. PD Martin tells us that so many people are falling foul of the system that is suppose to protect the innocent that groups have sprung up across the world called Innocence Projects whose sole goal is to get imprisoned innocents freed. It is estimated that some 200 people serving time in Australia are genuinely innocent of the crime they have been convicted of. These are just a few of the 13 tales of injustice told - finishing with 'Did Ken kill Barbie' did a husband get away with murder?
From the point of view of someone who sees the justice system in action I would say that most of the time Judges and Juries get it right. There are times though that I wonder what they were thinking. The information that doesn't get put before a jury is, at times, astounding as are some of the deals that get done.
It was a bit depressing to read of all the times justice has failed.
Tuesday, August 16, 2016
Friday, August 5, 2016
Hungry Like The Wolf by Paige Taylor
he Dallas SWAT team is hiding one helluva secret...they're a pack of wolf shifters.
The team of elite sharpshooters is ultra-secretive-and also the darlings of Dallas. This doesn't sit well with investigative journalist Mackenzie Stone. They must be hiding something...and she's determined to find out what.
Keeping Mac at a distance proves impossible for SWAT team commander Gage Dixon. She's smart, sexy, and makes him feel alive for the first time in years. But she's getting dangerously close to the truth-and perilously close to his heart...
Romantic suspense with hot werewolves. The writing was good. The heroine was ok. The hero and his friends were HOT. I enjoyed the bits where the SWAT team were training and were sent out on calls the most. Not what I expected to be the best bits in what is a paranormal romance.
The team of elite sharpshooters is ultra-secretive-and also the darlings of Dallas. This doesn't sit well with investigative journalist Mackenzie Stone. They must be hiding something...and she's determined to find out what.
Keeping Mac at a distance proves impossible for SWAT team commander Gage Dixon. She's smart, sexy, and makes him feel alive for the first time in years. But she's getting dangerously close to the truth-and perilously close to his heart...
Romantic suspense with hot werewolves. The writing was good. The heroine was ok. The hero and his friends were HOT. I enjoyed the bits where the SWAT team were training and were sent out on calls the most. Not what I expected to be the best bits in what is a paranormal romance.
Wednesday, July 27, 2016
Quid Pro Quo by Manna Francis
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
When he agrees to do a favor for his old friend Liz Carey in Corporate Fraud, Para-investigator Val Toreth is hoping for a simple case. After all, kidnapping and dismemberment are all in a day's work for the Investigation and Interrogation Division. But in the European Administration, simplicity is often a dangerous illusion, and anyone who goes looking for trouble in the corporate world is certain to find more than they bargained for. Fraud, sabotage, espionage, blackmail, decades-long vendettas, and murder--the more powerful the corporations, the darker their secrets. Corporate insiders and innocent bystanders alike are all too easily caught up in the conflicts, but when suspects can hide behind money and power, what chance is there of any justice?
And on top of everything else, Toreth also has to deal with Keir Warrick. But that's easy. That's just sex.
Loved this book. It started with a bondage scene gone wrong.The writing was good, the story interesting and the D/s scenes imaginative. Male/male sex isn't something I usually read, but this had me interested. Not so much the sex as the Domination and mind fucks.
I'm going to be looking for the rest of this series.
When he agrees to do a favor for his old friend Liz Carey in Corporate Fraud, Para-investigator Val Toreth is hoping for a simple case. After all, kidnapping and dismemberment are all in a day's work for the Investigation and Interrogation Division. But in the European Administration, simplicity is often a dangerous illusion, and anyone who goes looking for trouble in the corporate world is certain to find more than they bargained for. Fraud, sabotage, espionage, blackmail, decades-long vendettas, and murder--the more powerful the corporations, the darker their secrets. Corporate insiders and innocent bystanders alike are all too easily caught up in the conflicts, but when suspects can hide behind money and power, what chance is there of any justice?
And on top of everything else, Toreth also has to deal with Keir Warrick. But that's easy. That's just sex.
Loved this book. It started with a bondage scene gone wrong.The writing was good, the story interesting and the D/s scenes imaginative. Male/male sex isn't something I usually read, but this had me interested. Not so much the sex as the Domination and mind fucks.
I'm going to be looking for the rest of this series.
Tuesday, July 26, 2016
A New Leash On Death by Susan Conant
"Holly Winter's life is going to the dogs, but that's just fine with her. She's a feisty, 30-something dog-lover, and her expertise in the breeding, training, and caring for canines is just one of her inbred talents. She's also a grand champion at tracking down criminals of the two-legged kind. When a dog owner is murdered at a training session, Holly enlists the victim's big Malamute to find the killer".
A cozy mystery. Death and attempted murder but no gory bits. A bit over the top on information about dog shows and agility trials. Rowdy, the malamute was the star of the book.
A cozy mystery. Death and attempted murder but no gory bits. A bit over the top on information about dog shows and agility trials. Rowdy, the malamute was the star of the book.
If I Am Missing or Dead by Janine Latus
In April 2002, Janine Latus's youngest sister, Amy, wrote a note and taped it to the inside of her desk drawer. 'Today Ron Ball and I are romantically involved,' it read, 'but I fear I have placed myself at risk in a variety of ways. Based on his criminal past, writing this out just seems like the smart thing to do. If I am missing or dead this obviously has not protected me...'
That same spring Janine Latus was struggling to leave her marriage--a marriage to a handsome and successful man. A marriage others emulated. A marriage in which she felt she could do nothing right and everything wrong. A marriage in which she felt afraid, controlled, inadequate, and trapped.
Ten weeks later, Janine Latus had left her marriage. She was on a business trip to the East Coast, savoring her freedom, attending a work conference, when she received a call from her sister Jane asking if she'd heard from Amy. Immediately, Janine's blood ran cold. Amy was missing.
Helicopters went up and search dogs went out. Coworkers and neighbors and family members plastered missing posters with Amy's picture across the country. It took more than two weeks to find Amy's body, wrapped in a tarpaulin and buried at a building site. It took nearly two years before her killer, her former boyfriend Ron Ball, was sentenced for her murder.
Amy died in silent fear and pain. Haunted by this, Janine Latus turned her journalistic eye inward. How, she wondered, did two seemingly well-adjusted, successful women end up in a string of abusive relationships with men? If I Am Missing or Dead is a heart-wrenching journey of discovery as Janine Latus traces the roots of her own--and her sister's--victimization with unflinching candor. This beautifully written memoir will move readers from the first to the last page. At once a a confession, a call to break the cycle of abuse, and a deeply felt love letter to her baby sister Amy Lynne Latus, If I Am Missing or Dead is an unforgettable read."
A very difficult read at times. It's easy to see domestic violence from the outside and to say just leave if it happens . It's not always so easy to leave.
That same spring Janine Latus was struggling to leave her marriage--a marriage to a handsome and successful man. A marriage others emulated. A marriage in which she felt she could do nothing right and everything wrong. A marriage in which she felt afraid, controlled, inadequate, and trapped.
Ten weeks later, Janine Latus had left her marriage. She was on a business trip to the East Coast, savoring her freedom, attending a work conference, when she received a call from her sister Jane asking if she'd heard from Amy. Immediately, Janine's blood ran cold. Amy was missing.
Helicopters went up and search dogs went out. Coworkers and neighbors and family members plastered missing posters with Amy's picture across the country. It took more than two weeks to find Amy's body, wrapped in a tarpaulin and buried at a building site. It took nearly two years before her killer, her former boyfriend Ron Ball, was sentenced for her murder.
Amy died in silent fear and pain. Haunted by this, Janine Latus turned her journalistic eye inward. How, she wondered, did two seemingly well-adjusted, successful women end up in a string of abusive relationships with men? If I Am Missing or Dead is a heart-wrenching journey of discovery as Janine Latus traces the roots of her own--and her sister's--victimization with unflinching candor. This beautifully written memoir will move readers from the first to the last page. At once a a confession, a call to break the cycle of abuse, and a deeply felt love letter to her baby sister Amy Lynne Latus, If I Am Missing or Dead is an unforgettable read."
A very difficult read at times. It's easy to see domestic violence from the outside and to say just leave if it happens . It's not always so easy to leave.
Thursday, July 7, 2016
The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope by Rhonda Riley
The narrator is Evelyn Roe. It is the end of WWII, and a family death has necessitated her taking over her aunt's farm on her own. She is 17, but suited to the work and the solitude. She finds a stranger half dead on the land, and he appears to be recovering from a burn with blurred features and pitted skin.
The stranger evolves over the next week into almost the twin of Evelyn. and Addie is "born". Eventually Addie became her husband Adam .He had no past of which he was aware and while Evelyn certainly knew he was no ordinary human, neither of them knew exactly what he was.
This story the ordinary made extraordinary, all wrapped up in a wonderful, completely absorbing, and unexpected plot. Magical.The mystery of who what Addie/Adam is or where he came from is nec=ver answered.
I loved it. It was an 8/10 until the last 50 pages when it became a 10/10.
The stranger evolves over the next week into almost the twin of Evelyn. and Addie is "born". Eventually Addie became her husband Adam .He had no past of which he was aware and while Evelyn certainly knew he was no ordinary human, neither of them knew exactly what he was.
This story the ordinary made extraordinary, all wrapped up in a wonderful, completely absorbing, and unexpected plot. Magical.The mystery of who what Addie/Adam is or where he came from is nec=ver answered.
I loved it. It was an 8/10 until the last 50 pages when it became a 10/10.
Friday, July 1, 2016
And The Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
This novel begins in 1952 as a father recites a bed time story to his young son and daughter during an overnight trek across the Afghanistan desert on their way to Kabul. The tale, we soon learn, tells the truth of the father's journey for desperate to provide for his new wife and growing family, the father has agreed to sell his daughter to a wealthy couple unable to bear their own in a deal brokered by their valet, his brother.
Abdullah returns to their village with his father but feels the loss of his sister keenly;
"She was like the dust that clung to his shirt. She was in the silences that had become so frequent in the house, silence that welled up between their words, sometimes cold and hollow, sometimes pregnant with things that went unsaid, like a cloud filled with rain that never fell."
but never relinquishes the dream of being reunited with Pari.
At just four, Pari quickly settles into her new life but it is the story of her adoptive parents - the wild, provocative Nila and her introverted and much older husband Mr. Suleiman Wahdati, that unravels next as witnessed by Pari's uncle, Nabi. A marriage of convenience it soon disintegrates when Wahditi suffers a stroke and Nila flees to France, her mother's birthplace, with Pari. Nabi is left to nurse his invalid employer, remaining with him even as the war begins to rage around them.
Moving then to Paris, America while never straying far from war torn Afghanistan, the fates of Abdullah, Pari, and those connected to them are slowly revealed. It is an emotional, poignant journey that weaves its way in and out of character, time and place.
A beautifully written, heartbreaking story of loss and loss and hope.
It was hard to follow at times as it jumped between different times and the point of view of each of the characters.
Abdullah returns to their village with his father but feels the loss of his sister keenly;
"She was like the dust that clung to his shirt. She was in the silences that had become so frequent in the house, silence that welled up between their words, sometimes cold and hollow, sometimes pregnant with things that went unsaid, like a cloud filled with rain that never fell."
but never relinquishes the dream of being reunited with Pari.
At just four, Pari quickly settles into her new life but it is the story of her adoptive parents - the wild, provocative Nila and her introverted and much older husband Mr. Suleiman Wahdati, that unravels next as witnessed by Pari's uncle, Nabi. A marriage of convenience it soon disintegrates when Wahditi suffers a stroke and Nila flees to France, her mother's birthplace, with Pari. Nabi is left to nurse his invalid employer, remaining with him even as the war begins to rage around them.
Moving then to Paris, America while never straying far from war torn Afghanistan, the fates of Abdullah, Pari, and those connected to them are slowly revealed. It is an emotional, poignant journey that weaves its way in and out of character, time and place.
A beautifully written, heartbreaking story of loss and loss and hope.
It was hard to follow at times as it jumped between different times and the point of view of each of the characters.
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