blackmail
The demonising of homosexuals in postwar Britain
The tabloids in particular stirred up fear and distrust with lurid stories of orgies, prostitution, drug-taking, political corruption, sinister concealment and susceptibility to blackmail
An insight into the American Dream: Table for Two, by Amor Towles, reviewed
Recent short stories and a novella all feature protagonists in pursuit of an ambition that puts them in varying degrees of peril
Even the greatest tennis players need to be adored
Louis MacNeice once wrote that if you want to know what chasing the Grail is like, ask Lancelot not Galahad.…
Is there a moral difference between an NDA and blackmail?
Reader, may I call you John? Now imagine, John, that you are my employer and I know (or claim) that…
Circe has been recast as the girl next door – it’s a sign of the times
When poor old battered Odysseus landed on Circe’s island having lost all his ships (except his flagship) when he tangled…
Umberto Eco really tries our patience
Colonna, the protagonist of Umberto Eco’s latest novel, is the first to admit he is a loser. A middle-aged literary…
Curtain call for Ruth Rendell
Ruth Rendell’s final novel, Dark Corners, is about how psychological necessity can drive perfectly ordinary people either to terrible deeds…
