Friday, September 01, 2017

When is a poor review a genuine poor review, and when is it trolling? #2 Zarla

When a reviewer leaves 6 reviews in a day, and 3 more a few days later, something is up.  For UK-based "Zarla" it's all about rushing to the defence of the McCanns. It doesn't seem to matter to Zarla if her arch-defence against Shakedown's assessment of the McCanns involvement in their daughter's disappearance appears in reviews of books that aren't about Madeleine McCann. It's fairly clever though, associate a poor review for one book with a poor review of another, and vice versa.

This might be credible except it's all engineered on the spot, on a single day.

Zarla's main criticism is that the writer suffers from a "relentless obsession", and much of his work amounts to "obscene slander."

Zarla's obsession however, appears to be with the use of a narrative device to make allegations that could otherwise be a little sticky.  The McCanns are notorious for suing or warding off writers, as they did with lead Detective Amaral and criminal profiler, Pat Brown.

By providing a symbolic narrative device, one then procures a narrative license that allows a narrative to entertain various speculations.

Rather predictably, Zarla makes the use of this device her pet criticism, all the while crowing about libel at every chance she gets. Ironic, isn't it?




There are three additional reviews which continue Zarla's attack on the raven symbology.  She plugs these into entirely disparate narratives, from a trilogy dedicated to the '96 Everest tragedy, to the Amanda Knox case and then most bizarre of all, Shakedown's take on The Durrells.


Zarla's review on The Other Durrells is the longest and most enthusiastic of the lot.  Here she reveals just how personal the McCann's status are to her. She goes to some trouble to make scathing personal attacks.  This is indicative of an effort and some investment in the actual narrative for once, but the motive is really to find personal disclosures that she can use against the author.  That she digs up some of the most painful disclosures demonstrates to what extent Zarla feels personally impinged by the allegations in the DOUBT trilogy. 

In her review of The Other Durrells, Zarla circles back repeatedly [in the review and the comments following] to the McCanns.  She leaks crucial information in her comments below her review of The Other Durrells about herself which shows not only just how close her affiliation is to the McCanns [she is likely a relative or a close friend or both], but also her intimacy with the medical profession in the United Kingdom: 

I don't expect you to answer this, but will ask it anyway: the McCanns are 50 now and qualified to be doctors in the 1980s, when the government paid tuition and parents usually paid living grants (if parents earned below a certain amount, the UK government paid that too). You state that the McCanns, in 2007, would have been 70k in debt each from their 1980s/very early 90s training. 

Where did you get this absurdly inflated figure from?

I know a surgeon who qualified in the late 80s and they'd paid off their 10k student debts well before the 21st century came around. Why did you include 2017 costs for doctor training?

This is especially slippery:

I know a surgeon who qualified in the late 80s and
 they'd paid off their...

The answer to her question is the same answer to all information/insights provided in the Shakedown narratives: Shakedown references are clearly hyperlinked, as is this one.
Below is a screengrab of the original comment with the context in the surrounding comment envelopes.



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