• LIFE

  Boston thriller

  Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 11/10/2019

  » Dipping my fingers into the book bag, out came yet another by James Patterson. Can this reviewer help that the Yank is one of the most prolific writers in the business? His co-author this time around is Candice Fox. Which of them came up with this plot, I wonder?

• LIFE

  How honest are you?

  Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 16/08/2019

  » Those finding a wallet or purse, particularly when stuffed with money or gems, have their honesty sorely tested when the owner's ID is included. Ought they notify him or her? They need the valuables themselves. Was it just luck? Didn't God mean for them to have it? Likely as not the loser is rich and shrugged it off to experience. Or not.

• LIFE

  A treaty for peace

  Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 23/11/2017

  » Following the two-decade-long Napoleonic Wars, Europe, not least France, licked its wounds and agreed "never again". Then they set about making a lasting peace. They felt able to do it. It was the Age of Reason and they were was intelligent as one could be in 1815.

• LIFE

  Targeted billionaires

  Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 08/06/2018

  » When a rich man meets his maker, I pause for few moments, not to mourn his life but to wonder what becomes of his wealth. Of no use to him now, is it buried with him? Like the pharaohs, he intends for it to accompany him in his next life? Is it inherited by his son? To do what with?

• LIFE

  Big city, small town

  Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 11/05/2018

  » People are natural actors. Observe how they tell stories to their friends, passing on telephone conversations or what they saw or heard. They mimic and flap their arms for emphasis. Hoping for smiles or groans. Novelists aim to do the same with more words. Alas, only the better ones succeed. All too many try and fail.

• LIFE

  Here comes the judge

  Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 07/04/2017

  » Ours isn't a very bad world, nor is it a very good one. We are born selfish, which isn't wrong in itself. What's mine is mine, what's yours is yours is only fair. However, what's mine is mine, what's yours is mine isn't. How do we protect ourselves when he proceeds to take what is ours?

• LIFE

  Ace hitchhiker

  Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 02/03/2018

  » British expatriate Lee Child has become perhaps the most respected thriller novelist in the US. His blurbs for colleagues' books send sales soaring. Jack Reacher, his literary creation, is a household name. Tom Cruise has played him in two successful movies.

• LIFE

  The war went on

  Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 18/07/2016

  » One of the annoying things about wars is that they don't all end when they are supposed to. After Yorktown, the American Revolution dragged on for two years. The Battle of New Orleans in 1815 was fought after the War of 1812 was officially over.

• LIFE

  For horse lovers

  Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 16/03/2015

  » Do you believe in coincidence? I do, because it has happened to me on occasion and there's no other likely explanation. Yet there are those who don't, and statistics have been made to show that there's a mathematical probability of such events occurring. But can't statistics prove just about anything?

• LIFE

  To protect and serve?

  Life, Published on 25/05/2015

  » Civilisation came about when people put away their clubs, picked up their hoes and left protection and order to those paid to enforce it. Marshals and sheriffs tamed the Wild West by jailing or killing lawbreakers. Robert Peel showed how urban police forces ought to be organised and properly run.

1 2 Next Last