Russell James (1)

The Maud Allan affair refers to the so-called fourth trial of Oscar Wilde. In 1918, seductive danseuse Maud Allan brought libel charges against a fiery, jingoist MP after he claimed Maud to be a leader of the never-well-defined Cult of the Clitoris. He maintained that she, in common with 47,000 British islanders, was being blackmailed into betraying Britain to the Germans. The secret accounts of the 47,000’s deviant behavior were supposedly cataloged in an alleged German “Black Book.” Proof of Maud’s guilt included her erotic “Visions of Salome” dance as well as her work toward bringing Wilde’s “Salome” to the stage. In being libeled as a lecherous lesbian sadist, Maud’s trial also ended up as an attack on that other pervert par excellence, Oscar Wilde. Guilt by association, and so forth. It’s pretty spicy stuff that, disappointingly, did not live up to its promise.

The problems with James’ approach to this convoluted story are manifold: A) Most authors should not adopt the first person perspective for historical figures. More often than not, the author’s vision of the character just doesn’t square well with the historical figure. In this book, Maud is sounded out with the author’s tin ear. B) The book gets caught in the blender that combines fact with fiction. The result is some awkwardly placed plot expositions written for the lowest common denominator reader with very little knowledge of WWI or the major political players. C) The first half of the book is dedicated to developing the many threads that formed the background to Maud’s trial. It’s all needlessly complicated, imbalanced in its storytelling, and littered with irrelevancies. By the time the reader gets to the trial boredom has already set in like mud in a WWI tommy’s boots.

I give credit to James for taking on an ambitious project. Unfortunately, this is the sort of spice that, in the wrong hands, turns to heartburn.… (more)

Finally we have V2, a book of nude pictures of ‘supermodels’ taken by photographer Russell James during a Victoria’s Secret Swim Suit Shoot on Branson’s Necker Island.

These women have wonderful bodies – more curvaceous than catwalk models yet more subtle than ‘glamour’ models, they are perfectly proportioned and a pleasure to look at., and have been photographed with technical expertise.

But if you want to view great nude photography rather look at Helmut Newton or Sam Haskins; if you want mere erotic titillation, invest in Hustler. V2 fails at both. It does contain lots of images of nipples though, if that’s your thing…… (more)

The idea behind this book is a good one. You look up a detective from the genre such as Auguste Dupin for instance.It then tells you the author,and gives you quite a good resume of the life and cases ect of that detective. All well and good and very useful too.
However there are some elementary errors which soon become apparent. Early in the book we are told about the Sherlock Holmes Museum at 221b Baker Street. Wrong,wrong,wrong ! The site of 221b baker Street is home to the Abbey National Building Society,who not only handle thousands of letters sent to Holmes there,but also do a nice little booklet on the address.
later in the book under the entry for Bull-Dog Drummond is a photograph of Jack Buchanan or so the caption tells us,but no,wrong again,it is in fact clearly Ralph Richardson.They are both listed in the entry correctly as playing the role.
The most important thing missing however is AN INDEX. The thing is virtually useless without this tool to help us.If the reader does not know the author to link up with a detective,then they must laboriously work their way through the whole book in an effort to find who they are looking for.Ok a lot are obvious,but do you know that S.J.Haymon wrote the Inspector Jurnett books or that Thea Osborne is Rebecca Tope's character,or indeed that Mark Treasure appears in the books of David Williams as a banker and part-time detective.No neither did I,but as I say you have to know the links yourself before you can use the book properly.mad or what.
Don't tell me there is no room for an index as in the back of the book where it should be are 25 pages of fairly useless 'information',which if you wanted it at all (which I doubt) could easily be found elsewhere.
I give it it's rating for the idea behind it and for the new detective characters which I have found (with difficulty) but it should and could be a 5 if only the above were put right. Such a great shame.… (more)