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Phil Leader (619 KP) rated Find My Brother (John McBride #3) in Books

Nov 13, 2019

This is the third novel Chilcott has written featuring SAS soldier turned watercolour artist John McBride. In this he sees a woman looking distressed in a pub when he is out painting. She tells him that her brother, an investigative journalist, has gone missing after infiltrating the local anti-fracking protesters. Fancying a bit of adventure, McBride agrees to find her brother. He does this by taking the same route - join the protesters and as too many questions. He discovers that the protesters are being secretly financed by Russia, and that anyone suspicious is quietly made to disappear and shipped across the Baltic never to be seen again. McBride needs to find the journalist, escape from captivity and then make it all the way back to England with Russians trying to stop them.

This novel is a throwback to the cold war thrillers of the sixties and seventies, the spy hero having to work against the odds and use his cunning, wits and physical endurance to survive. With McBride being ex-SAS it is not a great leap of the imagination to see how he manages to survive in hostile territory with Russian solders and undercover agents trying to stop him at every turn. There are some nailbiting scenes and not all goes to plan for the two escapees.

This definitely had the 'just one more page' factor for me and I just wanted to get to the end to see what happened. The story moves at a good pace - Chilcott writes like an author on a mission with spare and clean writing that still conveys everything it needs to. The plot is fairly realistic without too much that is coincidental or far fetched and everything proceeded in a logical manner.

I wasn't a huge fan of the previous book, Cruise the Storm but could see that Chilcott was able to write a good story. This book has proved it and I will look forward to reading more.

Kudos

How Far She's Come

Holly Brown

6.0 (1 Ratings) Rate It

Book

From the highly acclaimed author of Don't Try to Find Me and This is Not Over comes the...

Suswatibasu (1703 KP) rated Spotlight (2015) in Movies

Aug 9, 2017

Spotlight (2015)

2015 | Drama, Mystery

8.6

(21 Ratings)

Movie Rating Watch

Actors are superb (0 more)

Such an important film, well worth all the awards

"If it takes a community to raise a child, it takes one to abuse them."

Spotlight is such an important part of media history because they uncovered one of the darkest secrets of one community, which mirrors all communities. The film is awe-inspiring, so much so that I wanted to go back into a newsroom and be a TV journalist again at the forefront of major news. This is literally the best film for journalists to watch and for audiences to understand what it's like to work in a newsroom. More importantly, it shows how vital the media can be when actually doing proper investigations.

It is extremely dark given the subject nature - but having been in a similar situation breaking the story of Jimmy Savile in the UK for British media, the film completely reflects my own personal experiences.

Kudos

Bookapotamus (289 KP) rated The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in Books

May 25, 2018

I really enjoyed The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the story disgraced journalist, Mikael Blomkvist, hired to investigate a prominent Swedish family, the Vangers, and the mysterious disappearance/death of a little girl, Harriet Vanger, 40 years ago.

He ends up working with a young female hacker-extroardinaire who has SERIOUS emotional baggage, and together they uncover clues that the police missed all those years ago, and find out some pretty damning family secrets.

Lisbeth Salander is badass. I loved her in this - she is now a favorite female lead character of mine. Larsson developed her character so much that I'll be surely reading the other two books in this series to see how she progresses and comes out of her dark, exterior shell... but hopefully doesn't lose her edginess and fearlessness in the process.

Steig Larsson is pretty twisted and disturbed, and I'm pretty sure he was a misogynist. But, this book is genius and I think it deserves 5 Stars.

Kudos

Erika (17789 KP) rated Occupied (Okkupert)- Season 1 in TV

Mar 2, 2019 (Updated Mar 2, 2019)

Occupied (Okkupert)- Season 1

2015 | Drama, Thriller

9.0

(1 Ratings)

TV Season Rating

When I read that Jo Nesbo had created a television series, I was all in. Nesbo is one of my favorite authors.

When Norway is the first country to move to using all green energy, the rest of the world, specifically countries that rely heavily on oil, try to convince the government to stop the move. When the PM of Norway refuses, Russia invades Norway. This series covers a month at a time, and features several characters in the government, as well as a journalist.
At first, this invasion is seen as temporary and friendly, but when everything starts to turn more sinister, the more interesting the show becomes. The show is mostly in Norwegian, with some portions in English, but the translation seems to be spot on.

Overall, an engaging series, and I can't wait to watch season 2. It is a little creepy that this invasion completely seems like it could happen in real life.