Welshrogue

13 years ago, Harry Bosch was unable to find who killed Marie Gesto and since then has been haunted by the failure. Now a serial killer is confessing to have killed her and to make matters worse, it appears that a lead that wasn’t followed up 13 years ago, could have lead Bosch to the killer before he continued to kill.

While this is a Michael Connelly novel, it has a plot that could have been pulled from a Jeffery Deaver story. It twists and turns as Bosch works through everything to find the truth. Michael Connelly always gives you more than just a straight forward description of a location, often giving you the history behind a place as well as his knowledge of jazz music that filters through Bosch.

Harry Bosch is a shining knight dressed as a detective. He has his faults, he has a lot of history which readers are lucky enough to be reminded off often, and he is someone you would want in your corner. How Harry Bosch hasn’t made it to the big screen is beyond me. He is perhaps one of the best, realistic characters that I read and find that as soon as I finish the latest book I have to resist going back and re-reading all the books again. They are that good!

Echo Park is one of the best Connelly books I have read. It actually felt too short but that is a big compliment when you want a book to last longer than it does because you are enjoying it so much!

Detectives Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett find themselves not only chasing a drug dealer but trying to keep Marcus’s little sister out of trouble while she runs a DEA operation in Miami.

If you are looking for sensibility, realistic action and tactics and a plot that resembles a plot, don’t watch this. If you want to see car chases, explosions, and the always popular lead actor diving through the air firing guns or rolling on the floor firing guns, sit down and start eating popcorn!

A Simpson/Bruckheimer production directed by Michael Bay, and that pretty much details what you are going to see for the next couple of hours. Amazing looking scenes, fancy camera angles for the sake of making the audience going wow, more explosions than you can count and lots of wrecked cars.

Its a fun movie with lots of action, personable leads (Will Smith and Martin Lawrence) but its a very different movie to say, Miami Vice which was much more realistic with its gun fights. You will see two cops armed with handguns going up against several bad guys with automatic weapons. You will see destruction on a large scale that not only would get the cops fired but would result in several deaths in the real world.

But Bad Boys 2 is not the real world and not expected to be, so instead the viewer can enjoy a couple of hours away from the grind of life and enjoy a good looking action movie!

A Wall Street stoke broker becomes a psychotic killing machine as he loses touch with reality.

Christian Bale stars as Patrick Bateman the psycho whose life no longer can keep his mind occupied and away from his murderous urges.

This is one of the funniest, darkest movies I have ever seen. It is so dark, so violent and yet, keeps you laughing all the way. Patrick Bateman’s discussions of Huey Lewis and the News as well as Whitney Huston and Phil Collins are hilarious considering he is usually about to kill some unsuspecting victim at the same time.

Setting the movie in the late 80s was a move of sheer genius, as it takes away from the violence by making this look dated with its ‘cordless’ phones that are the size of PSP’s, the wireless stereo headphones as well as the music.

This is a very dark movie that a lot of people probably won’t ‘get’ or like but its their loss, because this is one of the craziest, funniest movies I have seen.

A flying boat has a midair collision in the same area that a top secret test flight occurs and the daughter of the pilots of the flying boat tries to prove that her father was not to blame for the crash, while the software genius behind the test flight has his own worries to contend with.

A very inventive plot finds the US government matched up with a young female lawyer who is defending her surrogate family. Neither realise who or what they are up against though as the battle goes to the courts. I found Skyhook a little too much legal battle compared to other books by John J Nance but still enjoyable with good characters and scenarios.

A good book, perhaps with a little too much legalese in the courtroom scenes but still a good book!

John Steed, secret agent for the Ministry, and Dr Emma Peel find themselves trying to save the world from a madman with a weather changing machine.

Based on the classic 60s television show, The Avengers movie stars Ralph Fiennes perfectly cast as Steed and Uma Thurman is pretty well cast as well as Emma Peel. Set in an alternative 1960′s, Avengers is an interesting movie filled with sharp dialog, some great old cars and interesting sets. Considering the source material, the movie is pretty consistent with original Steed, Patrick Macnee making a appearance.

I should point out that the grand villain of the piece is Sean Connery in his overacting best. He is quite clearly, his character, not the actor, insane and yet Connery plays him so well that its so much fun to watch.

There is a scene that involves Steed talking dirty about ladybirds and then there is the classic evil corporation meeting with all the participants dressed up in giant teddy bear outfits stays in the memory long after the professional sessions are over.

The Avengers is a wonderfully over the top interpretation of the 60s classic. Its silly, sometimes overly so, but thats not always a bad thing. The movie will never be mistaken for a classic or even a great movie but it passes the time, and at least its not a chick flick.

An orbiting space station named Babylon 5 is a meeting place for races from all over the universe, a buffer zone for those in conflict and a general trading station. Orbiting the planet Epsilon Eridani III Babylon 5 is the last remaining station left and will become the only hope for peace in the universe.

Starting in 1994, Babylon 5 was a sci fi show that had a plan, a 5 year arc with a main story with a lot of smaller stories keeping the action going. It had several different races that mixed with the humans, Narn, Minbari and Centauri being the main ones. While each race were biped and human shaped, each were distinctive. The Narn were lizard like, the Minbari had a head piece that looked like bone, and the Centauri had very strange hair.

Babylon 5 was notable for its effects, which were created to begin with three Amiga computers. The computer graphics were very distinctive as were the designs of ships and stations. The battle scenes were probably some of the best seen on television.

The music for the series was created by Christopher Franke from Tangerine Dream fame. Again, it was distinctive and instantly recognizable.

Babylon 5 had a large number of main cast members which gave the show a feel similar to Hill Street Blues, with several different stories weaving around each other with different shows hilighting different characters and explaining characters histories and back stories.

Among the actors who featured in the show were Stephen Furst (Flounder from Animal House), Bill Mumy (Will Robinson from Lost In Space), and Bruce Boxleitner (TRON, Bring Em Back Alive, Scarecrow and Mrs King).

Babylon 5 was different to any show in the past because rather than a week to week series, it had a longer aim, a 5 year aim. The combination of this with state of the art (at the time) graphics and ships, and  solid plots as well as the interaction between the characters made Babylon 5 very watchable and addictive.

Nick Stone is in Switzerland with his girlfriend and no worries, until his girlfriend goes on a rescue mission to help the poor in the Congo and Nick realises how much danger she is in.

Another great thriller from Andy McNab, this one dealing with the Congo and child soldiers. Its brutal, doesn’t pull any punches and is simply unputdownable. Every ‘contact’ reads as if its been reported after the fact of a real firefight. Characters react as you would expect them to, and the plot flows naturally without it feeling contrived or forced.

A graphic novel about the horrors of child soldiers that keeps the reader hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. A brilliant book as usual.

Jason Bourne digs deeper to find out who he is and when get gets a lead, he tracks it down. This is made harder by the CIA trying to kill him and anyone who might help him find the truth.

Matt Damon returns as the super assassin Jason Bourne in the third and final installment of the series. The action is pretty much like the other two movies, fast, furious and pretty convincing. The fight scenes are often pretty shaky with the camera work but not to the extent of say, Spiderman.

Again, the supporting cast are outstanding with names such as Scott Glen,  David Strathairn and Albert Finney. While obvious comparisons are made between Bourne and Bond, perhaps a better comparison should be made between Bourne and Terminator, bot appear to be unstoppable, able to outwit everyone and look moody.

A very good ending to a brilliant series of movies, a series that not only has, hopefully, sparked interest in creating more movies with realist action and plots, but made Matt Damon into a very believable action figure.