Carol Naylor's REVIEW it...

              And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. "Ten people dead on an island and not a living soul on it. It doesn't make sense. We don't know who did it, or why, or how." Regarded as Christie's masterpiece, the most difficult of her books to write and more than 100 million copies sold worldwide to cement the reputation of Christie as the Queen of Crime. Sarah Phelp's recent adaptation of the book was atmospheric and gripping with a stellar cast lead by Charles Dance, Aidan Turner and Sam Neill. The book needed an epilogue to explain who the culprit was and why he had chosen his particular victims for this fantastical crime, "something stupendous-out of the common. Something theatrical, impossible." Sir Thomas Legge, the Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard and Inspector Maine try to piece it together after the discovery of the bodies and can't quite get it right. "Some fanatic with a bee in his bonnet about

                       Maranda the Mermaid by K.J.Rollinson. "Panic and horror replaced the loving look in my eyes. To love a human was not possible. He should be told he had fallen in love with a mermaid." This delightful tale is aimed at the parents and grandparents of children between the ages of 5-10. Fantasy of the most innocent kind for those impressionable years. It is suitable for independent readers or ideal as a bedtime story. Enchanting reading. Maranda (star of the sea) Melanie Seagrove is 11 years of age. Known as Mysterious Maranda by her two close friends, Jill, also aged 11 and her brother, Ethan, aged 12. This is because of her Houdini act and leading a dual life of part-human, part-mermaid. If she wants to locate her mother, Marella, she uses a large conch shell which acts as a loud speaker, a bit like the “mob” in Golding's Lord of the Flies. Our heroine has to change her clothes and stuff all of her belongings into a bag which was then

                               The Catalyst by Joy Lennick. "The briefest hiatus and a deathly silence prefaced the sounds of human suffering." This novel touches on the three train and bus bombings in London on 7th July 2005, inventing a romantic and fictitious scenario for the two main protagonists who are caught up in the Aldgate terror attack. It was written in memory of those killed and injured whilst developing a personal  narrative of two people who share something in common-suffering. Both were injured physically and mentally but they did survive. They were the fortunate ones. From then on we have a simple boy meets girl tale and a romantic liaison ensues. For those of you who want something a bit more intense, I'd recommend Julie Nicholson's memoirs about her daughter Jenny who was blown up during this terrorist attack. Lennick's might show some suffering and give us some facts about the incident but it lacks the intensity one would hope to f