“... Heron was living in Wear Garth with his younger sister Michelle, her boyfriend Darren ‘Psycho’ Baker and her two children. He told officers he didn’t know Nikki, but he sort of did. Sometimes she played with his nephew and he had offered her sweets.One​ of the first people I met when I went back to the North-East was retired constable Joe Bradley, who ...”

“... one Sinatra’s name was often linked with. Consider the following, from Cosa Nostra (2004), John Dickie’s history of the Sicilian Mafia: ‘Anyone who was worthy of being described as mafioso therefore had a certain something, an attribute called “mafia”. “Cool” is about the closest modern English equivalent.’ Discourse among ‘men of ...”

“... it has delivered, comparing its new system to the reconciliation process in South Africa.Steve Baker, the Northern Ireland minister, said last October that the Act was needed ‘because the chances of justice are now vanishingly small’. Others argue that the existing measures, imperfect though they may have been, were working too well for the ...”

“... may be a few lost souls who’ve never heard of him. Forget the overrated (and vapid-looking) Chet Baker. Art Pepper (1925-82) was an authentic American genius. One of the supreme alto saxophone players of all time – Charlie Parker included. A deliriously handsome lover boy in the glory days of his youth. A lifelong dope addict of truly satanic fuck-it-all ...”

“... hostility to the Community. She was still strong enough to ensure that her favoured successor, John Major, took over, but it soon became clear that he had no more intention than Lawson or Howe of hewing to her vision of Europe. With scarcely over a year in office behind him, Major signed the Treaty of Maastricht, after negotiating an opt-out from the ...”

“... signed by its sender and encrypted to its receiver’. The public key, or address, is matched, as John Lanchester handily described it in the LRB, to ‘a private key which provides access to that address’. A key is really just a string of numbers and digits: the public key demonstrates ownership of any given address; the private key can only be used by the ...”