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David McK (3562 KP) rated Sharpe's Justice (1997) in Movies

Jan 8, 2023 (Updated Jan 8, 2023)

There's only, I think, a single novel in the original run of Sharpe stories by Bernard Conrwell in which Sharpe spends most of his time in England.

That's Sharpe's Regiment.

As such, it never touches at all upon the impact of the war on the 'ordinary folk', which is exactly what this one (of only two) specially-written-for-TV episodes do, with Sharpe returning home to England, during the peace of 1814, with his reputation restored (following the events of Sharpe's Revenge) in search of his money which has been stolen by his unfaithful wife who is now having an affair.

Posted to the Yorkshire moors, Sharpe soon finds himself trapped between his corrupt employers and their downtrodden (and luddite, as they fear machines are taking their place) workers, reconnecting with those from his childhood and discovering along the way that some of them are closer related to him than he thought ...

Kudos

Cori June (3033 KP) rated A Fine & Private Place in Books

Oct 26, 2019

A Fine & Private Place

Peter S. Beagle | 1988 | Fiction & Poetry, Science Fiction/Fantasy

8.0

(1 Ratings)

Book Rating

imagery (1 more)

characters

slow pacing (0 more)

Set in a the Yorkshire Cemetery in New York City A Fine and Private Place if doing it's job correctly; will make you think about both life and death. Michael Morgan is a man who doesn't want to be dead and will hold onto his lost mortality for all he is worth, Mr. Rebeck is an eccentric who lives in the cemetery forgotten about by the outside world, has food brought to him by a raven and converses with the recently dead. All three form an unusual friendship.
This book isn't in a hurry to get anywhere taking its time to get where it wants to go. The trip that you go on is beautifully described. There is a mystery behind the happening of Morgan's death, not hurried and at times easily forgotten.
It is a witty read and challenged me a great deal. I enjoyed the slow read so I could digest some of the concepts and think them over. A good read, if a slow one.

Kudos

Phil Leader (619 KP) rated Pictures of Perfection (Dalziel & Pascoe #14) in Books

Nov 25, 2019 (Updated Nov 25, 2019)

This is one of those books that perfectly demonstrates the skill of Reginald Hill as a crime writer. In the sleepy village of Enscombe the local policeman disappears. Sensing foul play, Dalziel, Pascoe and Wield begin to investigate, turning up a number of suspicious characters and long buried secrets.

We have the usual Dalziel blunt language and Pascoe's schooled intuition but it is here that Wield finally gets a chance to step forward and form the 'holy trinity' of Mid Yorkshire CID. Hill has cultured his characters very carefully and writes them with great affection and this story shows how much chemistry they have.

The plot in this novel is outstanding and perfectly shows off Hill's willingness to play with the police procedural genre and the reader's expectations. There are some terrific rug pulls here and Hill could almost be said to get away with murder when everything falls into place at the end.

A brilliant tour de force for one of the greatest crime fiction writers. I can't fault it. It is in itself a picture of perfection