Advantages: A moving, compelling and evocative personal account of a true hero. Disadvantages: None
INTRODUCTION
We owe an immense debt of gratitude to the service men and women who have sacrificed so much to defend our freedoms, none more so than to the brave ?Few*? of the Royal Air Force (RAF) who defended our skies against the sustained waves of bombers that the Luftwaffe hurled at English cities during the Battle of Britain in the autumn of 1940. (*the phrase comes from a Winston Churchill's speech made on 20th August 1940, when he said "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few ".)
Geoffrey Wellum was one of those men, patrolling the blue skies in his Spitfire with his fellow pilots of 92 Squadron at the tender age of 19, an age where for many of us, the most important decision revolved around which pub to go to with our mates on a Friday night. He left school, at 17, to join the RAF two ...
Advantages: Quirky, wordy, brainy, zany Disadvantages: Christopher Biggins
Mark Lawson, he wants to be Geoffrey Hill (brainy poet) and Benny Hill (zany non-poet). It is not a case of pushing the Benny out, or the Geoffrey for that matter. His habitual presentation style, standing hands by his sides, speaking directly to camera in his posh RADA-trained voice, might sound forbidding. But he aims, he says, for his programmes to be as much music hall as lecture hall. He wants to be neither the breathlessly enthusiastic celeb presenter nor the earnest academic.
He achieves this mainly visually. He subverts TV conventions, especially those of the worthy documentary form. So while an interviewee faces the camera, apparently speaking to him, you?ll see Meades wandering across the background of a shot. A blow-up Meades doll stands in for him on a show which explores his fear of heights. He?ll be seen peering through ...
Advantages: Great story well written Disadvantages: Too much chance and luck involved in plot
Background:
This is the second Geoffrey Archer novel I have read, the previous one being Shadow Hunter. Having now learnt the difference between Geoffrey Archer and Lord Jeffrey Archer the former Politian and writer. I saw this in my local bookshop and liked the sound off it so I decided to give it a go.
About the Author:
Geoffrey Archer had a successful career in the media as a National journalist before taking the plunge and becoming a writer. He was born in 1944 and since this switch he has written nine highly acclaimed novels. This is his newest thriller and was written in 2004.
Synopsis of the book:
The book begins in 1948, when Tom Sedley's 14 year old sister is brutally murdered in a quiet and supposedly friendly part of North London. Within a short space of time a tramp is arrested and charged with the crime ...