Showing 41 - 50 of 120
The Cold War: Phase 2
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 18/04/2016
» The implosion of the Soviet empire was greeted with a sigh of relief in democracies by all but the cloak-and-dagger novelists. Who would replace the Soviet Union as the common enemy? To be sure, terrorists are sinister, but they lack the cohesiveness that was a mark of the KGB.
Empires don't endure the ages
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 23/05/2016
» Empires have come and gone throughout human history -- some lasting more than a millennium, others less than a century. Contemporary historians keep analysing the reasons for their rise and fall. They peruse the same documents and works of earlier historians and eyewitnesses, yet often arrive at differing conclusions.
Scandinavian myth
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 17/02/2017
» However much we desire to live in peace, when our nations' leaders beat the drums of war we are obliged to exchange our sickles for guns and march off to combat evil (our side of course good). Through training and luck we return victorious from the fray, perhaps without a leg but with a medal to compensate for it.
Hey presto
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 15/02/2016
» In every category there's a person or group recognised as the best in their field of endeavour. Not all people agree with the judges' choice. Arguments invariably ensue over, "This award or prize goes to …..", "Are they blind or deaf? W, Y, Z was better than X by a long shot."
Far-fetched plot
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 02/12/2016
» Three decades ago a Baltimore, Maryland, insurance man Tom Clancy entered the literary world with The Hunt For Red October. Acclaimed critically and popularly, he never looked back. Never in the military, his interest and research in the weapons of war elevated him to the rank of military analyst.
Right vs Justice
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 09/02/2015
» It would be only a slight exaggeration to say that Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks of the North Yorkshire Police is as well known in the UK in this day and age as London private detective Sherlock Holmes was a century ago. Less so in the US with its plethora of shamuses. But crime thriller fans the world over rate him as one of the best.
Show me the motive
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 24/08/2015
» Motives for acts of violence range from crimes of passion to drive-by shootings -- that is from defending family honour to reducing the food chain indiscriminately. They aren't justifiable under law and are equally penalised. There are a myriad of motives, often the perpetrator unable to explain what made him or her do it ("maybe I drank too much").
More old hat
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 14/09/2015
» Together with their military, British boffins played a major role in defeating their Teutonic foes. Their whizz kids -- scientists, academic -- came up with radar and opened up the Enigma machine. (During World War I they invented the tank.) Hitler's boast of winning the war with secret weapons was played down.
A new crime series
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 01/06/2015
» Time was when James Patterson penned a crime novel annually. Then semi-annually. Then seasonally. At the rate this reviewer is now receiving them, they seem to be coming out weekly. No sooner do I critique one than the next crosses my desk. Alone and with his team of co-authors, he's clearly on a roll.
An enduring spirit
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 18/01/2016
» With the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki the world entered the atomic age. More devastating hydrogen bombs were tested, weapons of mass destruction indeed. The US and USSR rattled theirs at each other over the next 44 years, until the Soviets called it a day and the Cold War was over.