Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

Using the full potential of digital publishing linked to formatting and uploading skills, I am able to offer readers a choice of book style in the new gripping  Zara Vine Dark Crime Series to suit their taste and mood. This may be a first, so be one of the first buy! Contents identical for all. Click links for full details. In paperback and Kindle   Amazon UK.  Amazon US. 

This is the original with full Maff Robinson designed wrap around cover, part hand painted, part digital. The book is in the American 6 x 9 inch format with #14 case print, making it a very easy read.

Here we have the British popular paperback size, 5 x 7 inch, which fits more easily into a bag or pocket when travelling, with an impact cover which cannot be missed if you read in public! #12 case print to make for a compact package.

A combination of the Maff Robinson Image and digital, 6 x 9 inch format but with the smaller case #12 print, making a slimmer volume.

In the mounting tension and confusion with dissenting ministers, threatening partners and a rebellious party, which we  optimistically call the government, I begin to detect three possibilities.

The first is that we crash out without reaching an agreement. This will trigger widespread disruption of everything, a plunge in asset values, especially housing, shortages, queues, a crisis in business and manufacturing, job losses and tax rises. In short it would be a self inflicted disaster which would bring about the collapse of the government and the massacre of the owners of the fiasco, the Tory party, at the following election. It will  lead to likely Scottish independence, as shackled to a disaster, would hardly be the popular choice in a referendum in such circumstances. It will also lead to the detachment of Northern Ireland, which like Scotland voted to remain, into some kind re-union with the south, most likely as a self governing province. The UK would be England and a restive Wales.  For all those reasons, in spite of her mantra that no deal is better than a bad deal, May knows she cannot go there. So does the DUP leader, Arlene Foster.

So this is her current plan. To agree, if unable to secure a long term agreement with the EU, to have the whole United Kingdom remain in the Customs Union, subject to all its rules, indefinitely. That will protect the economy, jobs and normal everyday life. The hard Brexiteers will go ballistic and those of them in the government will resign en masse. But May knows that the majority of both the Tory and Labour parties will back her, together with the SNP and the DUP as well as the majority in the House of Lords. And she knows too that in a second referendum, the alternative hard Brexit would lose big and if staying in were an option on the ballot paper, that would win comfortably overall.

The final possibility is that the government collapses quite soon and before anything can be formalised. Then it’s Corbyn.

Not really. It is just a bad idea conceived with good intentions.

A taxation and benefits system has limitations on what can be done in four areas. The first it must be understood by those who are going to receive it. The second it must be straightforward to administer. The third is that the IT technology must be available to run it. Finally it must be fully funded if a benefit and collectible if it is a tax.

It is now clear that the years late brainchild of Iain Duncan-Smith who resigned because his cabinet colleagues were wrecking it by withdrawing funds, is a no goer causing great hardship and anxiety to the weakest in society who are the least able to cope. It should be scrapped by the government. Otherwise the government itself will find itself scrapped, because on top of every other malfunction of this hopeless administration this will be the last straw for voters, angry at being conned again and again and again.

Labour has said it will scrap it.

Amazon UK              Amazon.com 

St.John Whilloe is the black sheep member of a wealthy legal family, whose firm of solicitors looks after the affairs of many of the top families in the country. He is consulted by a young woman who claims to be frightened by her husband. Things are not as they seem and St.John finds himself drawn into a complex web of intrigue and murder. He is soon in a race against time to solve a mystery with roots in a tortured family history, with sinister paranormal undertones.

It is too early to tell what  impact of the Kavanaugh appointment to the Supreme Court will have. The whole process has shown America at its worst and the structure of the US Supreme Court is like no other. It is as if the founding fathers took fright at the potential of their new democracy and curbed its power by setting up a nine headed king who in the end would have the final say. At first it was a court of law, but now it has become a kind of council of state and, if the fears of some commentators and academics are to be taken seriously, one in the grip of partisan ideology. Let us hope, when the dust settles, unfortunately Trump keeps kicking it up, impartiality and fair judgment will prevail.

Nevertheless hopes,  especially of those who strove so hard and successfully to drive the Kavanaugh appointment through, are raised in the expectation of rolling back rights to abortion, gay marriage, LGBT issues, gun control and a host of other personal freedoms and protections taken for granted in most other Western countries. Certainly such moves would strain the Special Relationship, with the social models of the US and UK out of step with each other. Shared values would have a hollow ring.

Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy and right hand man, flew to Scotland on a mysterious peace mission in 1941, which has never been convincingly explained, to meet unidentified politicians who wanted to end the war.  Who was plotting against Churchill? What were the peace terms on offer? What happened to Hess? Was he killed in the War? Was the prisoner in Spandau a double?
There are many questions to which in the modern day one man, Saul Benedict has all the answers, because his parents were players in the drama involving Churchill, Hitler, leading politicians and an important Royal. Saul is an author and declares his intention to write a book to reveal all, but he is shot dead, apparently accidentally by a poacher. But was it an accident? Rick Coleman, an investigative journalist, determines to find out. Taking place in the modern day but with flashback chapters which gradually unfold the hidden secrets, the novel is a fast moving and compelling read.

                  Amazon UK           Amazon US

It is really quite shocking that in boasting about the level of spending on  education in England, the government used figures which included private school fees paid by parents, out of their own pockets, to independent schools, as well as tuition fees paid by students to universities. When it did so it was rebutting claims by Head Teachers of state funded schools that they were bending under the weight of austerity and cuts.  Clearly it deliberately used a figure which did not relate to the issue, which is funding cuts to state schools and rising student numbers.

In most walks of life connected to business and the professions, lying to achieve advantage through false claims is a criminal offence. It is time the sanction is extended to politics. Lying governments are an unsavory deviation from democratic standards which this country, above almost all others, claims to uphold.

Readers asked the author ‘What inspired you to write this new series?’

Tor Raven replied.

‘First I read nearly a hundred modern thrillers, all on Kindle, in the crime genre, written often by female authors. A few were American, the rest were British, Scandinavian and Icelandic. I learned the kind of thing go getters like to read, very different in style to the traditional stuff I had been writing. I spent time talking to young people, absorbing how they use and speak English, which has evolved significantly since social media burst upon us. I saw that a lot of fiction is read on phones while multi-tasking, or on tablets if more relaxed. It is rare to see a book on a plane or train now. But for those who prefer, in addition to the e-book, Zara also comes in full size paperback with easy read print.

The pressures in our modern society cry out for a strong heroine who knows her mind and thrives on challenge. Zara will not let you down. As for the choice of name? It is international and once you say Zara Vine twice it sticks in your head and you never forget it. Finally, to introduce her to you, I selected the darkest subject matter that troubles everybody and is shaking all public institutions, especially the church, to the core.

Now read Book One! You will be gripped from the start and I think you will like Zara Vine. This is the first in a series, so there is lots more Zara to come.’

Click Image for Amazon UK         For U.S.A    Click Here

Government is about leadership as much as it is about anything. It is also about unity, common purpose, and a narrative which connects. It is  about a vision which is translated into policies that deliver outcomes which advance the standard of life of the population by all measures and in every quarter. Those were once the core values of the Tory party. Now it is failing by every single measure.

Everybody is arguing with everybody, plotting and planning for a variety of outcomes, not one of which has enough support to get anywhere. Candidates to replace May are lining up and jockeying for position. None inspire nor command enough backers to carry the day, but they and their sponsors seek out every media opportunity to savage each other. There is no longer a cabinet but an argument. The parliamentary party is a fight.

Unless something, someone or all of them get a grip, they are headed for one thing and one thing only.

Corbyn.