Collier's

Accusés de vol, trois étudiants de l'Université de Port Harcourt, au Nigeria, sont lynchés par la foule avant d'être brulés vifs. Quelques mois plus tard, le père d'une des victimes engage Philip Taiwo, un criminologue tout juste rentré des Etats-Unis pour l'aider à découvrir la vérité et trouver les responsables de la mort de son fils. Assisté de Chika, son chauffeur, Philip mène l'enquête. …

With his idiomatic and graceful style, pianist Philip Martin has established himself as the foremost exponent of Gottschalk. Much of his music is by no means easy to play; it requires an impeccable technique matched with Èlan and joie de vivre for its most effective execution. Although not essentially a great composer, Louis Moreau Gottschalk had a unique spontaneity and individuality which Martins performances bring vividly to the fore. The composers music was hugely popular during his lifetime and his works display a real melodic charm and a great sense of fun. Each of the eight discs in Martins extensive Gottschalk series has received wide acclaim and left pianophiles eagerly awaiting the next issue.

Shangri-La, Mark Knopfler's fourth solo release and his first since breaking his collarbone, shoulder, and seven ribs in a motorcycle crash in March 2003, finds the eternally laid-back Dire Straits frontman in familiar territory. Instead of constructing a song cycle about his brush with mortality – the wry "Don't Crash the Ambulance" aside – he uses his warm baritone and effortless guitar work to ruminate on everything from the plight of the modern fisherman – the beautiful and rustic "Trawlerman's Song" – to the entrepreneurial skills of McDonald's founder Ray Kroc ("Boom, Like That"). Knopfler has more or less abandoned the British folk and Celtic-influenced pop that began to surface on his previous two recordings, opting instead for a full-blown yet quiet and considerate collection of country-folk ballads and bluesy, midtempo dirges that revel in their uncharacteristic sparseness – one of the better examples of the latter is the gutsy, backwoods boxing tale "Song for Sonny Liston."