Dean Barrett Book Review

Sweet Scotty Malone

Around 1900 hardy souls came out to watch the Cherries take on Cardiff City on Saturday afternoon, with 600 of them coming from South Wales.

Cardiff City came to Dean Court on the back of a 1-0 defeat to Celtic and set up with the same starting line-up.

The Cherries lined up with a stronger squad than the recent AFCB XI friendlies against Wimborne and Winchester.

AFCB: Flahavan, Purches, Cooper, Barrett, Malone, Feeney, Robinson, Arter, Pugh, Ings, Symes.

Subs: Jalal, Bore, Nelson, Baudry, Cummings, Gregory, Taylor, Lovell, Fletcher.

Cardiff: Marshall, McNaughton, Naylor, Gunnarsson, Hudson, Gerrard, Whittingham , Cowie, Parkin, Mason, Taylor.

Subs: Heaton, Taiwo, Gyepes, Keinan, Kiss, Evans, Wildig, Jarvis, Farah

The Cherries started very brightly and in the 7th minute, Danny Ings picked up a loose ball from Whittingham and cut inside having his shot palmed away for a corner. The resulting corner, the ball was headed away and fell to new on loan signing Scott Malone who unleashed a thunderbolt. It had so much power that it was past Marshall before he even realised. 1-0 Cherries.

The confidence was returning, the football was returning and it was looking good. The Cherries were controlling the game, with the back four dealing with any threat thrown at them. Pugh almost slipped Ings through but for a last ditch tackle and up the other end Cardiff had a free kick just over 20 yards out. Peter Whittingham has forged a reputation as a dead ball specialist, but he must have left his free kick for dummies book at home as his attempt was way over.

You don`t see many in friendlies, but Anton Robinson picked up a yellow card, for two great tackles, winning the ball on both occasions, however, the referee decided otherwise.

After being warned for the first, he was then booked for the second, which was all of 90 seconds later.

Cardiff did have an unusual weapon. A decent thrower of the ball, in Iceland`s Aron Gunnarsson, this could be a weapon for them this season and would easily rival Rory Delap if he can work on throwing it flatter. Anyway, a huge throw (roughly landing just past the penalty spot!!!) was rather easily dealt with by our centre backs.

On 35 minutes, after he had been clattered numerous times, Michael Symes went off with a knock to the back and on came Steve Lovell.

WoWasis book review: Dean Barrett's 'Permanent Damage ...

(2010, ISBN 978-0-9788888-2-4). 

At 382 pages, it’s a robust page-turner, the story of a series of crimes that originally began in war-era Vietnam, and continue through to present-day Bangkok. There are the usual dodgy characters that Barrett loves, comprising ex-military and ex and current spooks, spiked with romance, death, and plenty of compelling plot twists. Essentially, the story revolves around a Western woman coming to Bangkok to find the killer of her father. But in the usual Barrett style, nothing is really as it seems. There’s plenty of local color, much of it occurring in an expat bar in Bangkok’s Washington Square. The author’s done his spook homework, too, knowing, for example, that all mobile phones act as microphones even when turned off, unless their batteries are removed. We especially loved his treatment of the character of Chu-hua, a previous love-interest of Sterling’s, a protagonist who seems to be working simultaneously for everyone. 

Our only fault with the book was that it could have used a better proof-reader, as some of the names are mis-stated, and some of the grammar is skewed.  Barrett’s a real wordsmith, but authors can be their own worst proofreaders (we know, it’s happened to us, too). As another reviewer stated, “if you read this book be prepared to do some detective work on your own.” The reader can get through it, however, and the book’s a good one, and worth reading. Barrett’s amalgamation of the military, intelligence, and go-go bar worlds is always fascinating, and there’s not a boring page in the book. Buy it now at the WoWasis estore , powered by Amazon.

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