Tag: crime

Tom Hardy Shines in Mobland : A Crime Drama Review

Ladies and gentlemen, this is straight off the press. If you are going to watch one crime series this year, then let it be this one. First off you’ll recognize the list of truly great actors involved – Tom Hardy, Guy Richie, Helen Mirren and Pierce Brosnan.

The Series follows the coming and going of a family of Irish gangsters called The Harrigans. They are vicious, but it is to warm to them. Most, if not all the action revolves around Tom Hardy who plays Harry DaSouza, a loyal fixer for the family. He finds himself in different predicaments as he tries to get the family out of one mess after another. All the time, his own family are causing further difficulties.

From Wikipedia – The Harrigans, a London crime family, find themselves in a battle with the Stevensons that could end syndicates and their lives. Harry Da Souza is a street-smart and formidable fixer employed by the Harrigan family to navigate and mitigate the escalating conflict threatening their empire. As tensions between the families intensify, Harry is tasked with protecting the Harrigans’ interests and preventing an all-out gang war.

The series is gritty, full of violence and realistic twists. Da Souza is not portrayed as some sort of Superman, and the different stories seem plausible.

As usual, it’s hard to know what future series will be like. They may just get silly as sometimes happens. But Series 1 is a must see for raw drama and emotion. At times, it feels like a grand Shakespearean play. Watch it, whatever it takes. It get five stars out of five for me.

Review of “The Missing Ones” by Patricia Gibney

This was published way back in 2017. It is the author’s debut and also the first in the renowned Lottie Parker series. The author is from the same town as myself. The story is set in Ragmullin, a clever anagram of the real town.

Make no mistake, she is picturing Mullingar at every stage. It made reading the novel quite an intimate experience, immediately recognizing where the different scenes fictionally occurred. The scenes of bitter cold and snow brought my memory back to a particularly harsh few winters from nearly a decade ago.

The central character is Detective Lottie Parker. A deeply flawed hard-nosed detective trying to juggle a demanding job with a complicated family life. Her husband died a few years previous leaving her a single parent.

There are numerous complex relationships like Lottie’s relationship with fellow detective Boyd, with her Sergeant, and then each of her children.

The case she is investigating is a series in a presumably normally quiet Ragmullin. The first occurs at the town’s Cathedral and it all revolves around what happened many years beforehand. What follows is a grotesque and excellently written tale of child abuse, corruption, and murder.

It is beautifully crafted and you’re never quite sure where it will go next or who is responsible for the grizzly killings. The author has stated that she just likes writing but this was excellently planned and thought out.

The scenes of child abuse may be too much for many and for those with a weak disposition, I’d give it a wide berth. But if you’re looking for a good crime thriller, look no further. My rating is five stars out of five.

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Pandemic of Crime (comedy)

My dear readers, today I have to inform you about something very serious in these awful Covid-19 times.  There is a much greater pandemic that you need to fear – it is a pandemic of crime.  But not of drugs and illicit sex.

I think we can still all remember the good old days.  Remember, when all you had to worry about was getting high or maybe being robbed or knifed on your way to get some groceries.

But now the world is beset by a plague of social distancing crime.  All you have to do is look out your window to see the horror of people walking too close together or too far from their homes.  The worst is the little kiddies or what I like to call “germ grenades”.  Honestly, what way are they being raised to not know to come within two metres of anyone.

Things have gotten so bad I had to report my own parents yesterday.  They told me where they were going for their “walk” and when I did the calculation after they left, it was 2.05km away.  You can only imagine my shock.  Talk about setting their impressionable 40 year-old son a bad example.  Well being the good citizen that I am, I immediately rang the local Garda Station.

“You want to report your parents, really?”

“Yes Sir,” I replied with conviction, “and you should fine them.  They knew what they were doing.”

Things haven’t really been the same in the house since.  The parents keep saying that they don’t want me there anymore.  Eh, haven’t they learned anything?  That would just be another breach.  I told them not to worry,  I won’t leave them alone during the crisis.

That’s it for now readers.  Stay safe everyone.