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A few things Jill knows for sure: Murder investigation is a two-piece puzzle. One piece is the crime scene and it forms half the picture; the other is the witnesses and suspects. Ideally, the two halves come together and form a complete whole and the case is solved. They say New Orleans is like a woman, beautiful, deceitful, and deadly.
When she beats up a rival coach on national television, she is fired and flees to a tiny town outside New Orleans to take refuge with her cousin Ellis Delaney and his wife. Working at Ellis' pawn shop, Nora meets Cleo Sweetleaf, who becomes a mentor and a second father. While Nora takes stock of her life, her everlasting hunger for strange women causes trouble from sunup to sundown. When Cleo is murdered, Nora, spurred on by revenge, is drawn into solving the crime.
But after being beaten and left bleeding in an alley, Nora might not solve the mystery alive. Womanizing tough broad Nora Delaney meets her match in Max Abbott, a sex-crazed dame who may or may not have the information Nora needs to solve a murderbut can she contain her lust for Max long enough to find out? Dames, booze, and murder is the oldest story in the book, but this time, it happens too fast to Nora Delaney, who is a notorious womanizing college basketball coach.
After her ex is found murdered, Nora chases the scent all the way from Los Angeles to Tulsa to find some right angles in this nasty business, only to be waylaid by a gorgeous, gin-swilling skirt who has information as well as an appetite for women like Nora. If you like sex and humor, this book is for you. After losing lives on a mission gone wrong, Maji Rios feels anything but ready for a covert operation to protect volatile Spanish pop star Erlea from the paparazzi and death threats.
That mistake cost her a thriving sports medicine practice and her trust in herself. When an unlikely friendship with Erlea turns deeper, she has a choice to make—run or double down on love.
The journalists also filmed the funerals of the IRA members in Belfast. Satisfied by the journalists' findings, Bolton sought a conclusion to the programme; as the British government refused to comment, Bolton recruited a leading human rights lawyer to give his opinion on the findings.
The documentary was broadcast on 28 April just under two months after the shootings , despite two attempts by Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe to have the Independent Broadcasting Authority postpone the broadcast. Using the eyewitness statements, the documentary questioned the government's version of events, and suggested that the three IRA members may have been unlawfully killed.
Reporter Julian Manyon summed up the programme's findings: The final contributor was the lawyer recruited by Bolton, who suggested that a judicial inquiry was necessary to resolve the conflicts. The morning after the broadcast, several tabloid newspapers attacked the documentary, accusing it of sensationalism and "trial by television".
Other newspapers accused "Death on the Rock" of misrepresenting the eyewitnesses' statements and criticised the IBA for allowing the documentary to be broadcast. The eyewitnesses interviewed for "Death on the Rock" gave evidence at the inquest into the shootings; most repeated the statements they had given the programme, but one witness—who had told the programme he had seen a soldier stand over one of the IRA members and fire at the man while he was on the ground—retracted his previous statement.
As a result of the retraction, Thames commissioned an independent inquiry into the making of "Death on the Rock"—the first time an inquiry had been commissioned into the making of an individual documentary. The Windlesham—Rampton report found that the programme's tendency was to present evidence that the IRA members had been unlawfully killed, but that it sought to raise questions rather than to reach a conclusion.
The authors made several criticisms of the documentary, but overall found it a "trenchant" work of journalism, made in "good faith and without ulterior motives". This Week was a current affairs television series that began in In , it was renamed TV Eye and took on a slightly lighter format; the title This Week was restored in , after which it became steadily more journalistic.
The programme was broadcast simultaneously across the ITV regions and became a mainstay of ITV's current affairs programming. By , the programme had interviewed several prime ministers and leaders of the opposition, including Margaret Thatcher the incumbent prime minister , who had been interviewed for three full episodes.
On 6 March , three members of an IRA Active Service Unit — Daniel McCann , Mairead Farrell , and Sean Savage —were witnessed parking a car in a car park in Gibraltar ; the car park was used as an assembly area for British soldiers preparing for the weekly "changing of the guard" ceremony outside the Convent the residence of the governor of Gibraltar. The three were suspected by the British authorities of being part of a plot to detonate a car bomb in the car park while it was full of soldiers preparing for the ceremony; while the suspects were walking back towards the Spanish border, they were shot dead by British soldiers, members of the Special Air Service.
In the immediate aftermath of the shootings, the British government released a statement to the effect that a large car bomb had been found in Gibraltar, and that three suspected terrorists had been shot dead by the Gibraltar Police.
The same morning, Ian Stewart , Minister of State for the Armed Forces , told BBC Radio 4 that "military personnel were involved" in the shootings, and that "a car bomb was found, which has been defused". The following day, Sir Geoffrey Howe , the British foreign secretary , made a statement to the House of Commons regarding the shootings, in which he informed the house that the IRA members were unarmed, and that the car parked in the assembly area did not contain an explosive device. Howe stated that the IRA members "made movements which led the military personnel, operating in support of the Gibraltar Police, to conclude that their own lives and the lives of others were under threat".
This Week 's editor, Roger Bolton , initially believed there was little merit in investigating the shootings. Based on the official account of events that was presented in the immediate aftermath of the shootings, Bolton believed that most people would think the IRA members "deserved what they got". Shortly afterwards, he dispatched two of This Week ' s journalists, Julian Manyon and Chris Oxley, to Gibraltar and Spain respectively to gather more information on the shootings. After ten days' investigation, Oxley was surprised to learn that the Gibraltar Police were handling the police investigation into the shootings, having been closely involved in the events leading up to them.
He also grew concerned that the police investigation was insufficiently rigorous when he learned that the police had not taken statements from residents whose flats overlooked the scene of Farrell's and McCann's deaths. The Gibraltar coroner, Felix Pizzarello, welcomed This Week ' s investigation, telling Oxley that he hoped the journalists would uncover witnesses who could assist the inquest. Bolton added Alison Cahn to the team on 18 March; her task was to visit the flats which overlooked the petrol station where McCann and Farrell were shot, with the aim of interviewing any residents who might have witnessed the events of 6 March.
Stephen Bullock, a local lawyer who had witnessed the events while out for a walk with his wife; and Josie Celecia, a housewife who had seen the shooting of McCann and Savage from her apartment window. Both witnesses' statements appeared to the journalists to be inconsistent with the official account of the shootings. The journalists quickly decided they needed expert advice on ballistics and explosives, to which end they engaged Lieutenant Colonel George Styles , GC , a retired British Army officer who had served as a bomb-disposal officer in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. Styles arrived in Gibraltar on 23 March, and immediately went to inspect the car park where Savage had parked the white Renault on the day of the shootings, after which he walked through the town along what the journalists believed was the IRA members' most likely route.
When asked his opinion by the journalists, Styles cast doubt on the authorities' stated reasons for the shootings. He explained to the journalists that, had Savage's white Renault contained a substantial bomb, the weight would have been evident on the vehicle's springs. Styles also felt that the potential bomb was unlikely to have been detonated with a remote detonator on account of the buildings between the scenes of the shootings and the likelihood that it would be drowned out by other radio signals in the area.
Finally, the journalists asked Styles to examine the scenes of the shootings, including ricochet marks that the soldiers' bullets had left on the pumps at the petrol station where McCann and Farrell were shot. As Styles was examining the ricochet marks, Alison Cahn was approached by an elderly woman, who led Cahn to a nearby apartment building.
There, the woman introduced Cahn to her daughter—Carmen Proetta—who told Cahn that she had witnessed the shooting at the petrol station; although initially reluctant, she was persuaded by Cahn to give her account of the events in an affidavit. Proetta asserted that, immediately before McCann and Farrell were shot, she saw a police car travelling north on Winston Churchill Avenue with its siren activated; as she watched, the police car stopped abruptly and four men—one uniformed police officer and three men in civilian clothes—jumped out.
She stated that the three men in plain clothes, all carrying pistols, leapt across the central reservation barrier, at which point she saw McCann and Farrell raise their hands. Proetta believed that all three men then opened fire, while McCann and Farrell had their hands in the air, and that neither suspect made any movements towards their clothing or Farrell's handbag.
She went on to state that she witnessed one of the men crouch over McCann and Farrell while they were on the ground, and continue to shoot them. The journalists also discovered that Proetta's account of the soldiers arriving in a police car matched some of the newspaper reports from the day after the shootings. By the end of March, Cahn had traced two further witnesses to the shootings—Diana Treacy, who claimed to have seen the soldiers shooting Savage in the back without warning and continuing to shoot him while he was on the ground, and Kenneth Asquez, who had provided a hand-written, unsigned statement, but was extremely reluctant to be filmed or named as a witness.
He had come to the attention of the journalists through another witness, who provided Cahn with a video recording of the aftermath of the shootings. In both documents, Asquez stated that he had been a passenger in a car that was passing the scene of Savage's shooting on 6 March; he described seeing Savage lying on the ground with a soldier standing over him, and witnessing the soldier shoot Savage "two or three times at point-blank range" while the latter was on the ground.
Julian Manyon arrived in Madrid on 11 March, and shortly afterwards engaged Henry Debelius, a journalist and American expatriate, as an interpreter and consultant for the programme. Within days, the two men wrote to the Spanish police headquarters to request information from the authorities and assistance in reconstructing the surveillance operation that preceded the shootings as the IRA team travelled through Spain.
The Spanish surveillance operation included multiple cars following the suspects' vehicle, periodically "leap-frogging" each other to avoid attracting attention; use of a helicopter to track the team's movements; constant radio communication between the officers involved and police headquarters; and officers monitoring the suspects' movements at fixed observation posts. The spokesman also told the men that the Spanish kept the British authorities constantly apprised of the IRA team's movements, and that the British were aware of Savage's arrival at the Gibraltar border, and allowed the white Renault he was driving to enter the territory.
The team decided against using Adams' interview, and only 45 seconds of the footage was used in the final cut. In lieu of filming an explosion, This Week interviewed Noreen Hill—whose husband was left in a coma as a result of a smaller bombing in Enniskillen in November —to "depict the human tragedy of IRA bombings". Based on the information his journalists had gathered from eyewitnesses in Gibraltar and that provided by the Spanish authorities, Bolton believed his team had enough to broadcast a documentary about the Gibraltar shootings.
The journalists filmed those eyewitnesses who were willing to speak on camera. They also rented a helicopter, and—with the assistance of the Spanish authorities, who provided two police officers who had taken part in the operation—filmed a reconstruction of the Spanish surveillance operation. Throughout the investigation, the authorities in Britain and Gibraltar refused to provide any information or to comment on the journalists' findings. Thus, This Week were unable to present their conclusions to a member of the government and broadcast their reaction, as was the usual practice for closing such a documentary.
In place of such a conclusion, Bolton approached George Carman —a leading London lawyer specialising in human rights issues—who agreed to be interviewed for the programme. On 26 April, two days before "Death on the Rock" was due to air, the British government intervened to prevent its broadcast. Howe telephoned Lord Thomson , chair of the Independent Broadcasting Authority IBA , to request he force the postponement of the broadcast on the grounds that Howe feared the documentary might prejudice the coroner's inquest.
Start by marking “Murder on the Rocks (Gray Whale Inn Mystery, #1)” as Want to Read: (A Gray Whale Inn Mystery #1) Murder on the Rocks, the first in Karen MacInerney's "Gray Whale Inn Mystery" series, should have a lot going for it. Start by marking “Murder on the Rocks (Mack's Bar Mystery, #1)” as Want to Read: Mackenzie "Mack" Dalton is a Milwaukee bar owner with a nose for trouble--literally. Allyson K. Abbott is a pseudonym used by Beth Amos, author of the suspense novels COLD WHITE FURY, EYES OF NIGHT.
Thomson personally viewed "Death on the Rock" before making the final decision to permit its broadcast, with two alterations to the commentary. My colleagues and I saw no reason why the IBA should prevent Thames' journalists interviewing those who claimed to be eyewitnesses and investigating the affair as numerous other journalists had since the shootings, provided that the criminal record of the terrorists and the enormity of the outrage they planned was made clear and the legal position had been established to our satisfaction".
Jun 19, Linda rated it really liked it Shelves: Trivia About Murder on the Roc May 19, Liz Jones rated it really liked it. It went on to claim that several of the programme's witnesses felt that "Death on the Rock" had misrepresented their statements. Overall, I enjoyed the story. A police detective Duncan is undercover at the bar. Murder on the Rocks begins when Mack finds a dead body in the ally behind her bar.
Final editing of the programme was still under way while the IBA was considering Howe's requests, causing Bolton to worry that it would not be completed in time. The editing was eventually finished just ten minutes before the documentary was due to air. The programme opened with excerpts from two of the interviews prior to the title sequence, followed by an introduction from Jonathan Dimbleby , who told viewers that the evidence presented in the programme was "of critical importance for those who wish to find out what really happened in Gibraltar last month".
Manyon pointed out that the IRA expressed regret after Enniskillen, but that they were by then already planning to attack Gibraltar. Manyon continued to narrate as the programme reconstructed the IRA team's movements through Gibraltar towards the border until McCann and Farrell reached a petrol station on Winston Churchill Avenue.
The commentary again cut to Howe's statement, after which Manyon detailed This Week 's investigation. Celecia described witnessing McCann and Farrell walking along Winston Churchill Avenue before hearing several shots, and then seeing a soldier continue to fire at the pair while they were on the ground. Proetta told the programme she saw a police car arrive opposite the petrol station, that three armed men in plain clothes then disembarked, jumped across the central barrier, and shot McCann and Farrell while the latter had their hands up. Treacy, meanwhile, was walking along Landport Lane when Savage ran past her, pursued by at least one soldier.
She stated that she did not hear any warning before Savage was shot; she ran away after the shooting began. Asquez was not named in the broadcast; his statement—that he saw a soldier firing at Savage while the latter was on the ground—was read out by an actor. Styles told Manyon he believed it unlikely that the IRA would have succeeded in detonating a bomb in the assembly area from the petrol station where McCann and Farrell were shot a distance of approximately 1.
Returning to Proetta, the documentary heard her reaction to Howe's statement that McCann and Farrell made threatening movements; Proetta believed that the incident was triggered by the siren from the police car on Winston Churchill Avenue. She believed that any movements McCann and Farrell made were in response to the siren, and was adamant that the pair had their hands up when they were shot. Carman, the QC recruited by Bolton, was the last contributor to the documentary.
Presented with This Week 's evidence, he disagreed with Margaret Thatcher's statement that the inquest would be sufficient to establish the facts of the incident. He opined that a more powerful judicial enquiry, possibly headed by a British High Court judge, would be better equipped to eliminate the inconsistencies between the official version of events and the eyewitness statements.
In conclusion, Manyon asked Carman "do you believe this case is so important that the government should take such extraordinary steps in order to clarify the facts?