The Black Hole Annual 1981

The Black Hole was a great film from 1979 (although a bit of a flop, i've always enjoyed it). This is a tie-in annual from 1981 and is the usual fare of comic strips, games and features from the film. The comic strips take up most of the annual and are a continuation of the storyline after the end of the film, This is pretty cute though uses the cheat of a parallel universe so all the characters who died in the film can reappear!

Other that the comic strip there isn't that much else in the annual but there are a few decent photographs of the characters and some production artwork. I enjoyed the story though, i've always liked random tie-in comic strips to TV shows or movies, especially as the drawn characters seldom have much resemblance to the screen version!

Proofing book 3

Production of book 4 is well underway but had to take a back seat this week as i had book 3 to proof! Book 3 is the second in my series on railway stations, this time the railway stations of the West Midlands. Now, there are a lot of stations in this county so i had no problem getting enough photography for sure. My main problem was leaving stuff out.

I wasn't that happy with the book when i submitted it but having seen the draft i am a lot more content now. It looks like it will be a pretty good book when it is out later in the year. Now to return to book 4...

Dark Days

Day Days by Hugh Conway is set in the late 19th century (and was written then too) and is a piece of Victorian melodrama. Dr North falls in love with the beautiful Philippa. Or, should i say, he becomes a love sick puppy over her.

Unfortunately for him, she marries someone else. Dr North is therfore heartbroken and escapes away to the countryside to bury himself in his work. Then a few years later, Philippa comes back into his life, unhappy in her marriage. Dr North hopes that she will finally come away with him but then we discover she has murdered her abusive partner and now needs Dr North's help to covering up her crime...

Overall, this is a reasonable read and has some interesting ideas and a good plot, though the overt emotionalism of the love-sick narrator (North) can be a bit off putting at times, especially early on.

Inspector West kicks off

An enjoyable, if not very deep, crime novel by John Creasey. Inspector West investigates the death of a man and this leads him down a rabbit hole involving a mass conspiracy to steal food (when this book was released, 1949, food rationing was still going on in the UK so that probably resonated) and re-sell it on the black market.

The criminal gang use specially printed football programmes with codes embedded in them, to distribute at football grounds to the various members in the greater conspiracy. To be honest this seems a bit of a odd way to do this, though obviously this book was written a long time before WhatsApp!

West gets into plenty of action here, beaten up a few times and even shot, but he pulls through to brings down the whole criminal enterprise. The murder that took place at the start of the book is also solved, though it did seem to become a bit of an afterthought.

Not a bad story at all, not very challenging but very readable. A couple of the main characters who often are seen acting suspicious, end up being innocent so that is a nice little twist at the end.

The Hand of Death

This is a rather murky crime novel by Margaret Yorke. It details the antics of a depraved man who seeks to escape his dreary existence selling antiques seeking sex, however soon it is rape and murder he has committed and he wants to get into the pants of the schoolgirl who works at his shop...

The story is interesting in being told largely through the points of view of the criminal and the victims (including the poor innocent bloke who is the police's suspect). The female characters are very well written, the male characters - including the criminal - are a bit one dimensional.

It isn't a bad book, certainly reads well. However, the plot is a bit basic.

Payoff

"Payoff" by Hartley Howard is an unsubtle tale of a hard boiled private investigator who sweats a lot and takes a lot of taxis. 

The story is fairly enjoyable, if not that unique. The story never quite manages to reach top gear but a creditable fourth perhaps. There is a good mix of crime and spy drama.

The main problem with the story though is the predictability. It isn't a bad read and will certainly pass the time of day but you probably won't want to ever read it again.