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Review of David Mark’s Debut Crime Novel “Dark Winter”

24 Wednesday Jul 2013

Posted by Martin J Frankson in Review

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Crime, dark winter, david mark, Fiction, Frankson, Hull, literature, review, writing


ImageWhat doesn’t kill you makes your stronger they say. Maybe, but not for some of the poor sods in David Mark’s splendid debut novel Dark Winter.

Set in a wintry Hull in the east Riding of the giant English county of Yorkshire (The Texas of England in my book), the first of a series of murders is off young woman is hacked to death in the Cathedral during a pre Christmas Evensong in full view of the congregation. The protagonist, Detective Sergeant Aector McAvoy was in attendance and was in close quarters to the murderer but the killer was too quick and slipped like sand through McAvoy’s fingers.

More murders ensue of course and are seemingly unrelated to one another except for one thread: they had all been sole survivors of past tragedies but during the course of this novel, had met their end violently in the manner from which they had hitherto escaped all those years ago.

McAvoy is Scottish, hailing from outside Edinburgh. A gentle giant with a conscience the size of a small country,  this serves as his moral compass by which he charts his course, a course from which he does not deviate either for sake of expediency or  easy life. This is the one of a few off the key planks of the conflict that exists between him, his colleagues and the top brass in the police force. He wears his heart on his sleeve and is given to Kevin Keegan-esque fits of emotion which raise an eyebrow or two when the pressure gets a little much.

He is set apart from his colleagues for being the whistleblower who blow open corrupt CID team that led to the dismissal of a Detective Superintendant and some of his erstwhile colleagues being transferred out.  Those around him don’t entirely trust or rate McAvoy. A lesser man would have skulked off to lick his wounds as a security guard or in a desk-job but McAvoy clings to his course and sails in that direction throughout the novel.

His frame is mentioned quite a few times in the novel in juxtaposition to how it belies his actual nature. Brooding, emotional, conscientious and fair. In fact, there is something of the Shrek or the Beast from Beauty fame. This character has rich deep roots in world literature and Mr Mark has expertly reinvented and renewed this character in this novel.

The dialogue is realistic, witty where appropriate and the register aligns totally to that of the characters which is a skill in itself. The narrative is well paced, never dull and the plot and how it unfolds is peeled before the reader at a rate and manner that resulted in me reading this book in two sessions. The plot twists are believable, surprises are peppered deftly without making the reader sneeze and the climax was truly a paragon of excitement, breathlessness and genuine terror as the personal life of McAvoy and that off the killer crossed paths resulting in a race against the clock and a denouement worthy of a Bond movie.

Last but not least, Hull, not exactly New York or Chicago, London or LA, proved itself a silent but brooding atmospheric character in its own right, one whose hands shapes the minds, hearts and lives of those who live there especially those in the novel itself. All places have this quality but its few authors who can skilfully transfer this to the page. Mr Mark did this in spades.

An ace book from an ace author and I commend this book to the House (spot the frustrated MP)

Dark Winter is published by Quercus and is available in paperback, hardback and eBook from Amazon

Book Review : Raymond Chandler – A Life by Tom Williams

26 Wednesday Sep 2012

Posted by Martin J Frankson in Review

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biography, crime fiction, Frankson, Noir, pulp fiction, Raymond Chandler, review, Tom Williams


ImageTom Williams has embarked on a very daring literary journey in writing a biography of a man whose life seemed to have been definitively covered  by Frank McShane’s seminal 1976 biography ‘The Life of Raymond Chandler’.  

So whither ‘A Mysterious Something in the Light’ ? Is this biography the equivalent of stealing into the orchard at night after the fruit pickers have gone home for the day?

You would be forgiven for thinking so but let me assure you that, this is not the case with this particular biography. Chandler was highly complex individual whose personal life, work and psyche were a byzantine nest of subterranean tunnels that to this days, decades after his death, still retain many darkly virgin coal seams of uncovered facts and secrets that shine a new light into the many shadowy corners of one Raymond Chandler, iconic and pioneering mystery and crime writer of the early to mid twentieth century.

Chandler was born to Maurice and Florence Chandler  nee Thornton in Chicago 1888. Florence was originally from Waterford, Ireland and from rather comfortably-off Anglo-Irish Quaker stock. Maurice was an American engineer. Mother and father were ill suited.  He was unreliable and prone to alcoholism and violence. In 1900, Florence after having given her failing marriage many chances, decided enough was enough and returned to Waterford with the twelve year Raymond.

But this was not a typical Irish family by any means. The Anglo-Irish fell between two cultural stools. They were not Gaelic but descended from wealthy English landowners who didn’t see themselves as Irish yet they were not quite English.

A people lost between nations.

Soon after, he and his mother left for London where he was educated at Dulwich College where he thrived and remained until 1904. It was here that Chandler decided to become a writer but his first ventures into literary waters were not the crime or mystery that he’s known for but pastiches of Arthurian/Chivalric legend

Not quite American, not quite Irish, not quite English, Chandler harboured a sense of being an outsider, not quite belonging. This was one of many shadows from his childhood that cast a long umbra for the rest of his life.

The young Chandler had enough and left the emotional safety of his life with his mother Florence and returned to America where he believed he could reinvent himself and start anew.

Like many young men of perhaps a sheltered upbringing, the First World War thrust them into corners of the world that they otherwise would not have seen, shaping Chandler’s persona further. He had worked in a succession of dull office jobs which reminds of what Orwell wrote in Keep the Aspidistra Flying ‘Why are young men condemned to a good job in an office’? However during this time, Chandler was writing poetry and had his first tastes of literary success in the long forgotten Chamber’s Journal, still couched in the vein and influence of Arthurian legend.

Chandler joined the Canadian army. His decision was actuarial as the US army would not pay to support his mother, Florence if he were killed. Chandler returned to Europe where he saw front line action in the trenches. He made it through the war, physically at least and in 1918, joined the RAF before being demobbed in 1919 and returned to LA where he fatefully fell in love with the woman who was shape the rest of his adult life, Cissy Pascal, 18 years his senior.

The ravages of war had turned the young Raymond to an alcoholic albeit a seemingly high-functioning one.

“When I was a young man in the RAF, I would get so plastered that I had to crawl to bed on my hands and knees”

But now married and established as a high flying oil executive and moved to Los Angeles during the era of Prohibition, a tense and edgy era where corruption and organised crime were born and grew quickly in a dark symbiosis which coloured every strand of the civic and social fabric of the precocious new upstart of a city. It was during this time that Chandler’s fingers were burned by the flames of an attractive investment scam namely that of Julian Petroleum. It was both this direct and other indirect news items of injustice that gave form and shape to the noir sensibilities of corruption that became the hallmark of his most famous works.

His alcoholism became more noticeable during this time and indulged in extramarital affairs which led to a short-lived separation between Chandler and his wife Cissy. They got back together but his troubles with the bottle and the negative effect it had on his mood and behaviour had a large part to play in his eventual firing from his oil executive post in 1931. He was 43 but this cloud had a silver lining and gave him the impetus to focus on his writing full-time.

It was a financially challenging time, living on  $25. This is the equivalent to $462 per week in today’s money according to  http://www.usinflationcalculator.com. Not a sum that allowed a couple to indulge in luxury and life was pretty meagre but it was an auspicious time as this was the heyday of the new pulp magazines that captured the nation’s imagination, one of the most famous being The Black Mask. It was establish in the early 1920’s but steadily grew in reputation and circulation, its stories being steeped in the realism that its readership craved. Dashiell Hammett and Erle Stanley Gardner were regular contributors, such was the pedigree. Their work drew its realism from Hammett’s work as a real life private detective and Stanley’s own law practice. Chandler did not have this advantage but he used his imagination and knowledge of the crookedness of Los Angeles to whet and hone his literary style.

1939 saw the publication of his first novel The Big Sleep followed by Farewell, My Lovely in 1940, novels which introduced Philip Marlowe to the world. It was his second novel that caught Hollywood’s eye when it was produced as but morphed into the 1944 film Murder My Sweet in the US but released under the original name in the UK.

Despite his novels having stirred up rumours of repressed homosexuality, literary success and acclaim followed leading to a spell as a Hollywood screenwriter where he had a very uneasy working relationship with Billy Wilder which nevertheless, led to the production of the stylistic and cinematically acclaimed Double Indemnity in 1944. Chandler later worked with Hitchcock but their relationship was strained. Alcoholism seems to draw a veil of taciturnity over every aspect of Chandler’s life and poisoned most of his key working relationships which should have been more fruitful.

In 1946, Chandler left Paramount, disenchanted and indignant of the many perceived dishonourable practices he witnessed and partook in.  He and Cissy returned to La Jolla in California where he wrote two further novels The Long Goodbye and the not so well known Playback. However he was unable to replicate his original happiness there. Old friends and associates were no longer there and Chandler entered a period of introspection and detachment, exacerbating his increasing penchant for misanthropic grumpiness – a vicious circle.

In 1952, the Chandlers realised their long held dream of visiting London but Cissy was in poor health and the London of their daydreams was a disappointment in its realisation such as the still extant expectation of formal etiquette, something that the more relaxed culture of California had allowed Chandler to forget. However, he did discover that he was more respected as an artist and writer in England than in his adopted American homeland

‘In England I am an author. In the USA just a mystery writer’ he wrote to Paul Brooks.

After two months, the Chandlers returned to the US but Cissy became frailer.

In 1954, Cissy died and Chandler entered into a period of ever quickening decline. A paucity of literary output of any worth and a string of short lived and some bizarre love affairs were the background to his increasing alcoholism which reached terminal point in 1959 when he died in hospital.

Tom Williams, the author and latest Chandler biographer, has performed a worthy, lucid and very well written exercise in judiciously mining of rich seams of new found fact and epistolary evidence and has given new and refreshed insight into the man and surprisingly remarkably detailed information on the genesis and development of his craft as well as the trajectory of his somewhat mixed up, chaotic personal life. The prose is quite workmanlike but it lets the facts speak for themselves. Williams does pepper this biography with conjecture of Chandler’s thoughts and situational analysis where direct evidence may not exist but nevertheless, it is intelligently based on the ample evidence that Williams has dug up and there is little doubt in my mind that it is as near the mark as any biographer could come up with bar a time machine.

This is an excellent biography and I thoroughly enjoyed reading and savouring it.  Chandler like most literary heroes was a terribly flawed man but his canon mitigates this and thank goodness it is his literary reputation that eclipses his foibles and faults.

 

(I received this book courtesy of Rhian Davies @crimeficreader  & http://itsacrime.wordpress.com )

 

 

The RJ Ellory Scandal

02 Sunday Sep 2012

Posted by Martin J Frankson in The Arts in General

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Amazon, crime fiction, Frankson, review, RJ Ellory


I am sure all that will be said about RJ Ellory’s shocking admission recently has been said.

For those who may not know, Mr Ellory admitted to giving his own book 5 star reviews and rubbishing the works of rival writers with 1 star on Amazon

My post today is not a rehash of the anger and shock that many in the world of literature have aired on both conventional and social media in recent days but rather, to give advice on how Amazon and other online stores with review functionality, can salvage and ensure authenticity of reviews in the future

And it’s not that difficult. Here are some opening gambits of mine:

Reviewer Authenticity
In my opinion, posting a review is a privilege, not a right. It is a public act of potential influence and can have ramifications for the career of the author and the business of the publisher, agent etc. There’s an argument for online anonymity which on balance I believe lets us express opinions which may cause hardship to ourselves in the real world but in the case of online reviews of literary fiction, Amazon and it’s ilk should ensure the same personal authentication as it does when purchasing goods online

Fake IDs
I write under a pen name, Martin J Frankson but I make no secret of my real name, Marjorie Fudge, sorry Patrick Martin. There should be a means of allowing people to use fake names only if they are hyperlinked to an online directory which gives their real name. If I dislike a novel and feel strongly enough to post a negative review, I like to think there wouldn’t be a knock on my door at 3am the following morning by burley gentlemen in masks. If I am posting a diatribe on a political forum against terrorists who live in my area (which my family has been victim) then yes, I will use a moniker for my own safety. For a works of fiction which is within the realm of gentle folk, I see no reason to hide my identity.

Ethics
Most, if not all professions have codes of ethics. I believe there should be a code of best practice drawn up for writers which defines what should and should not be allowed in relation to online behaviour.

Perhaps published authors should not be allowed to review anyone’s work as it can be argued that’s it’s a conflict of commercial interest.

Post a good review for a writer in the same publisher stable, one stands open to gilding the lily. Posting a bad review of a rival, well its obvious.

Reviews are really for the readership, by the readership and only the readership.

Personally, this does not diminish RJ Ellory’s standing as a writer in my eyes but unfortunately it diminishes him as person.

If he is genuinely sorry about it however, then in my opinion, let’s move on from it.

At the very least, this has brought the issue of authenticity of online reviews into the fray of public debate.

As for me, I only review books I like and feel evangelical about but as for Amazon, I don’t think I’ll bother until they start tightening their ship’s loose timbers.

Review of ‘The Murders of London’ by David Long :

11 Friday May 2012

Posted by Martin J Frankson in Review

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Tags

book, david long, Martin J Frankson, murders of london, noirista, review


“Bear in mind these dead:
I can find no plainer words.”
John Hewitt

Image

Think of the room you’re in now.

How long has that room been there?

What emotions and dramas have played out on life’s living stage where you are sitting now? All those conversations and emotions have gone somewhere you know.

They don’t simply vanish.

Murders of London, by David Long, is a deliciously dark and glossy compendium of both notorious (Denis Neilson) and lesser known (Franz Muller – Britain’s first train murderer) London murders and murderers spanning the nineteenth century to the present day. Each story is told succinctly yet in good detail, without falling into the trap of reading like teletype. Addresses are given along with contemporary photos of the buildings that hosted these evil deed(s), allowing those of us of a more macabre bent to visit these sites virtually or in person.

Certain stories may jump out at you for no reason.

One which did just this for me was the case of the murder of Elsie Batten in 1951 by 21 year old Edwin Bush. The address of the antique shop where she worked and met her fate is 23 Cecil Court, London – now Goldsboro Books. I realised while reading it that I visited this shop only last year without knowing its history at the time.
Some stories have ossified with history and you may read them as though they are now just good old yarns. Others may leave you cold for the fact is, the dead can sometimes stop you in your tracks and remind you that they too were alive.

Just like you.

For now.

Many of the older premises are no more, with newer, shinier edifices taking their places but some remain curiously in place and unchanged; they are very much still with us (unlike some of their unfortunately erstwhile guests). Denis Neilson’s old flat in Muswell Hill for instance. Going by the photo, it looks like someone actually lives in it. Don’t they know what happened in it?

But then again, do you know what happened in yours?

You might be a little surprised.

This is a great little book, surprisingly full of detail and very well researched. The stories are written with a humanity that is rarely found in a book of this type.

The only criticism I would have is that the book would benefit from an index or a map; even so, I would fully recommend this book for lovers of the darker side of life’s long and winding streets.

Murders of London is published by Random House and available now.

 

Review of the Martin O’Brien novel “The Dying Minutes”

14 Saturday Apr 2012

Posted by Martin J Frankson in Review

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crime fiction, Martin J Frankson, Martin O'Brien, review, Rhian Davies, The Dying Minutes


[This article written by Martin J Frankson, edited by Rhian Davies (@crimeficreader) of crime fiction review website It’s a Crime UK Books]

Crime writing is like the contents of a wine cellar.  Some bottles are best saved for cleaning the bicycle chain.  And then there are bottles like Chateau Lafite which are so exquisite that within a few sips, one is torn between devouring the bottle whole or putting it in a handcrafted leather carafe and sitting back and admiring it.  The Dying Minutes by Martin O’Brien is a Chateau Lafite novel: this is high-end, literary crime.

Set in Marseille, our hero is Inspector Daniel Jacquot.  Imagine Morse but sullied with one too many walks on the wild side, with a whiff of musk-infused danger, and in a relationship.  The overall story is a race against time between Jacquot, helped by his sometime friend and head of homicide Isabelle, versus two of Marseille’s longstanding crime families to find long-lost gold bullion that was siphoned off during a heist in 1972.  There are deadly consequences of course, and some old graves are dug up.

A dying crime lord, Jean Lombard once knew Jacquot’s long dead colleague and friend Barsin, but what was the nature of their relationship?  Allusions are made to Jacquot’s past when he and Barsin took risks and crossed the line.  It’s hard to discern where the dividing lines are to be drawn between Lombard and Barsin, if any.  There is obviously a history between the two, and this adds to the darker hues that are painted across Jacquot’s portrait, casting long but intriguing shadows for the entire length of the book.

The scenes are filmic and diversions from the main storyline are at the right narrative junctures to give the reader a welcome break from proceedings; whilst at the same time, these diversions are germane to the plot itself.

The writing is rich, luscious even.  It’s generously peppered with French phrases which are charming but can annoy after a while.  Whilst it can be argued there is no direct translation for notaire, others such as c’est certain and c’est tout feel completely unnecessary.  Set in France, with a wonderful evocation of place and atmosphere throughout, it’s not necessaire for such bilingualisms to exist to the degree that they do.

At 473 pages, The Dying Minutes is quite a commitment and it will have you bathing in the textural languidness of language.  This race against time for bullion, with a few bodies thrown in, rests on the politer side of crime fiction when compared with Val MacDermid or John Connolly.  But on its own merits, The Dying Minutes perfectly fits the market for the very literary, well-crafted and beautifully written novel.

The novel – the seventh in the series – was published by Preface on 5 April and is available via Amazon here.  Further novels in this series can be found here.

© Rhian Davies (aka @crimeficreader)

reproduced here with kind permission

Trout Fishing in America : by Richard Brautigan

18 Monday Jul 2011

Posted by patrickmartinthewriter in Review

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Tags

Brautigan, Frankson, review, Trout Fishing


First published in 1967, Trout Fishing in America is a series of related vignettes that are based on Brautigan’s childhood, his life in San Francisco and a camping trip to Idaho with his wife and child. It’s  zen like, trippy, ethereal, left-field, mindbending, surreal, insightful, gonzo and hilarious all in a fine equilibrium. I found the book by accident during a booksale at the Queen’s Bookstore in Belfast (Note, the Queen has stopped buying books from this store in 1998 when some chewing gum got stuck in her crown when she put in on the counter while looking through her handbag trying to find her credit card)

Trout fishing is referenced thoughout the book both literally and allegorically. In this regard, its probably a distant cousin, albeit a wacky farout cousin of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance with regards to the subject being a fulcrum for larger or surreal issues to be leveraged.

The musican/singer Jarvis Cocker recites passages from Brautigan’s work when on stage and one of the moon’s craters is named after Shorty, a characters from Trout Fishing in America.

Nothing I can write here about this book can do it justice so this extract below is a worthy microcosm for this enigmatic and influential novel. The following is an epitaph ascribed to a character named Alonso  Hagen:

‘I’ve had it

I’ve gone fishing now for seven years

and I haven’t caught a single trout

I’ve lost every trout I ever hooked

They either jump off

or twist off

or squirm off

or break my leade

of flop off

or fuck off

I’ve never even gotten my hands on a trout

For all its frustration

I believe it was an interesting experiment

in total loss

but next year somebody else

will have to go trout fishing

Somebody else will have to go

out there’

 

 

Harrogate Crime Literature Festival : Radio 4 Broadcast from August 2nd 2010

06 Wednesday Jul 2011

Posted by patrickmartinthewriter in Review

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Crime, Harrogate, Harrogate Crime Lit Fest, Martin J Frankson, review, Theakstons


A massive thank you to my dear friend and fellow crime writer, Mary Hutchinson off  http://thetangledwriter.blogspot.com fame  for providing me with this wonderful link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00t6s8y

The Harrogate Crime Writing/Literature festival 2010 was given the privilage of a Frontrow special which was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on August 2nd 2010.

For everyone who is attending this year’s festival at the end of July, this will serve as a useful and interesting taster, especially the 7 minute segment on last years Dragon’s Pen event where a number of unpublished crime writers had the opportunity to pitch their novel to a panel of literary agents, within 2 minutes flat.

So, sit back, put up your feet and drop your weapons and enjoy this little nugget of broadcasting.

To my readership outside the UK, this link mightn’t work for you as it can only be listened to within UK borders.

Marc Almond and Jeremy Reed at Wilton’s Music Hall, London : March 12th 2011

01 Wednesday Jun 2011

Posted by patrickmartinthewriter in My Favourite Poets, Review

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Jeremy Reed, Marc Almond, Martin J Frankson, review, Wilton's Music Hall


We snaked our way in the dark and dim, winding and wet laneways and alleys from Tower Hill tube station, up past St Katherine’s Dock and down the infamous Cable Street and then down Grace’s Alley to reach our destination. The streets were desolate except for a couple of guys who shouted across the road

‘Are you from round here’?

Well I wasn’t but I wished I was so I said something like ‘No but can I help?’

“Do you know where Wilton’s is?”

I smiled and replied ‘Marc Almond?”

Icebreaker or what!

That warm feeling of finding fellow traveller rushed back to all of us and the four of us all walked together to Wilton’s, floating on our verbal exchanges of mutual fandom and admiration for, who is, Britain’s and even arguably, the world’s greatest living torch singer.

We reached Wilton’s Music Hall. Have you ever seen the movie the Queen of the Damned, the movie that a hybrid of the Anne Rice novels The Vampire Lestat and Queen of the Damned itself? Remember the vampire bar, the Admiral’s Arms that was set in a very lonely derelict corner of the decaying docklands? Well, that’s exactly the setting and mood of Wilton’s Music Hall (http://www.wiltons.org.uk). It really is in the arse of nowhere but like all gems, best found and never forgotten when found in the junkyard and not the jewellers. The music hall is on the site of a Victorian sailor’s pub and the interior put me in mind of a derelict church – with a bar.
Supporting Marc Almond was the wonderful poet Jeremy Reed (http://www.jeremyreed.co.uk) who performed with his trip-hop accompaniment/partner The Ginger Light. I had never seen or heard such an imaginative manner of the performance and portrayal of poetry – and I have been to quite a few poetry evenings let me tell you but for some reason, I can’t actually remember any of them. This is something I doubt I’d ever say about Jeremy Reed however. Born in Jersey and formerly an acolyte and under the patronage of Francis Bacon no less than, he has been described as the David Bowie of the poetry world. A former winner of the Somerset Maugham Prize for Poetry, he has written over 40 books of poetry and literary criticism. He cut a dash on stage, black beret, and red scarf and every so often would scatter silver glitter over his head like confetti. The music would not have been out of place in a Future Sound of London CD. It was atmospheric and sending and was set to the wonderful Soho poem Nifty Jim.

A treasure of a cultural find and Jeremy Reed is certainly a seam of culture I will be mining and seeking out for a long time to come.

And then the main act, Marc Almond himself. The audience, a veritable mixture of Gutterhearts and Cellmates (a true fan-gang never dies, we merely lie in wait for the next gig), trendies, Goths, untrendies and ultrafashionable peacocks gave Mr Almond a rapturous reception. The set was an acoustic affair, piano, guitar, harp (played by the wonderful Baby D, ex Anthony and the Johnsons ) of Marc’s solo work plus a few well chosen covers too. Very few if any of the songs on the set list would be that well known but only to aficionados but aficionados we all were. No Tainted Love in sight but we didn’t mind. I won’t bore you with song titles of songs that you may not know. Sometimes the fourth wall was broken by Marc coming down from the stage and performing up and down the aisles. He did say that he felt overwhelmed by the acute reverence he was getting from the audience hence the assuaging of heavy vibes by being physically present in the midst of said worshippers.

God, if you are reading my blog, take note. It worked wonders for Marc Almond.

What really electrified the audience was Marc’s acappellas of self penned Soho songs that sounded almost like folk songs. In fact, I did think they were folk songs but the lyrics belied that illusion. Lyrics of ‘Billy Fury’ and ‘Jukeboxes’ are not the stuff of Fairport Convention. I later found out that these were written and recorded only recently and are only available on CD as part of Jeremy Reed’s poetry anthology Piccadilly Bongo. Songs such as Eros and Eye, Soho so Long brought shivers to many a timber in the audience’s spines.

The evening ended with a standing ovation and an encore of the seminal Marc Bolan classic Hot Love which went down like a firestorm.

An amazing, enigmatic, beautiful, imagination-firing evening of delight and discovery. The whole evening lasted over 3 hours and I wanted every second to flow like frozen treacle. I was sorry that it ended but the art, in combination with the venue was a potent fusion ; an alloy of art itself.

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