Looking For Madeleine: Bad Book Good Comments

There are some that contribute to a vibrant internet and there are some that don't.

Some, who's sole contribution to said vibrancy, is commonly found to be little more than a whinge on someone else's blog or website, and oft irrational in the process.

Topping this latter group are trolls, be they amateur; sad little people who really should get a life, or professional trolls, equally sad inasmuch as they fuck for money but refuse to call themselves whores.

Trolls who's activity on the web, and must be said, those that engage them, often constantly, fit only one description: mindless. Totally bereft of any intellectual input or value, mind-numbingly mindless.

As such, my standard policy is never engage with the trolls, and never recognise them on these unhallowed pages. But . . .

But on this rarest, no, on this unique occasion, we have, in a minor role must be said, one such troll. As ubiquitous as she is mindless, our Pamela.

But why you might ask, why on this occasion? Well, apart from being quite funny, very much so in places, our Pam is an essential part of this post, being as she is, the perfect foil that enables me to present to you, more of the imitable writing of the previously featured "Vten."

I have edited out the chaff, the less interesting, but the essence remains intact.
  
Drive on. 

Customer Review
5.0 out of 5 stars Very impressive
By Zombie Flickfan

At last we have an independent, easy-to-read book from accredited authors who spent two years studying the case before publishing.

"Looking for Madeleine" delivers the promise of being a definitive account as it painstakingly sorts through the mire of myth and counter myth about this heart-breaking case.

The authors take the reader through every aspect of the case, from the events leading up to almost-four year old Madeleine's abduction, all the way through to the most recent developments of the Scotland Yard investigation. It is a professional and unbiased account which focuses purely on established facts and no attempt has been made to gloss over the faults of any of the parties involved.

We are used to hearing criticism of the Portuguese investigation, but refreshingly, the authors have highlighted many aspects of the investigation where praise is due. For example, the thoroughness of many aspects of data collection and the tireless dedication of many of the police officers working on the ground.

The book deals sensitively with the private and often crippling despair of the parents as they struggled to come to terms not only with the disappearance of their daughter, but the Goliathan task of having to conduct a worldwide search for her on their own. As one of the benefactors who stepped in to help them said, how can you find a needle in the haystack when you can't even find the haystack? We also learn of the cruel, vicious and often sinister campaign of hate and "black propaganda" which rages unbound on the world wide web.

It is clear that Summers and Swan have gone to a great deal of effort to research and verify the evidence of the case - i.e. the sniffer dogs and the forensic findings. However, the explanations are then relayed to the reader in layman's terms and facts pertaining to the various instances of corruption within the Portuguese legal system are diplomatically handled.

This is a fast and effortless page-turner of a book which I read in a single sitting.

I would therefore recommend to readers that if you only read one account of this tragic case, then make it this one.


pamelag says:
I look forward even more to reading this after your review Zombie Flickfan. I am at a loss to know why I have to wait until Thursday but assume demand has been high.


pamelag says:
I look forward even more to reading Looking for Madeleine after your review Zombie Flickfan. What I have seen already has my interest.


Vten says:
One question... how can you credibly claim that this work is in any way authoritative and trustworthy based on 'two years' of the authors studying what is an active, unconcluded case? This is not a case that can, by definition, be objectively assessed unless one is prepared to make reference to one troubling fact: that two police forces in two countries have investigated the case, the first of which concluded that the most likely and most evidenced scenario was the one involving the parent's culpability, the second having spent millions of pounds and having failed to find a single scrap of evidence which made the former (and still most likely) conclusion any less likely. There is no credible, objective, 'investigative' way to address the fact that all the available evidence points to a conclusion which is very inconvenient for the very people who insist that the story leads in an unevidenced, unsupportable, unquantifiable direction away from themselves, and no other evidence exists which materially supercedes the place that the initial investigation arrived. Nor is there any address of the fact that there are literally dozens of nations on earth whose police forces have acknowledged that they also would have held the same suspicions, conducted the same investigation, and come to the same conclusions as the Portuguese.

A pattern is emerging. The McCann Organisation rejected the work of the investigating police department, and hired their own string of abysmally poor private dicks to propagate their narrative with half truths, non-truths and anecdotal fact-ettes. Then they rejected the work of a second investigating police department and continue to run with the nonsense drafted together by their own string of corrupt private dicks, and peppered the world with frivolous court cases intimidating dissenters and investigators from turning a critical eye on them. And now, in the UK, the only nation in Europe which has banned books which cast a critical eye on this unsolved, still active police investigation, we have a mysteriously favourable dynamic duo of apologetic journalism writing the 'definitive' tome, not on the evidence, not on the fate of the missing girl, not addressing the contradictions and issues, but re-affirming the elevation above suspicion attained by the globally recognised most likely prime suspects in the case.

Not to mention that referring to skeptics and investigators with contrary conclusions as 'haters' is grossly unprofessional. This is the first time I've ever read investigative journalists acknowledge cadaver and blood dogs positively identifying predictable crime scene locations and then moving quickly on to dismiss that this should be taken as meaning anything. Clearly the authors have done no objective research in the statistical probability that the dogs drew incorrect conclusions and that the identified scenes were coincidental to the prime suspects and/or the case.

I agree that it is a fast and effortless page-turner of a book which can be read in a single sitting. For a work claiming to be 'journalistic' and 'investigative' and 'objective' on a case as complex and STILL ACTIVE as this, I think that's a shameful indictment. It testifies more to the book being designed to deliver a bite sized narrative which is easy to remember than it does to the intricate examination of the literally hundreds of inconvenient facts, details, evidences and contradictions which would be essential to genuinely investigate the case and come up with a conclusion on either side of the controversy.

I would also urge readers to have the utmost caution in reading these comment threads, as they appear to be being hijacked by characters like the ubiquitous 'pamelag' who is almost certainly an eternally-active pro-McCann apologist known as Pamela G***** who voraciously and viciously spends the bulk of her time attacking skeptics and investigators who doubt this very same 'safe' narrative via Facebook and Twitter. It would be safe to say that her conclusions and views are not remotely based on the reading of this book, since this book conforms with curious precision to the views she espouses by foregone conclusion as part of her ongoing association with the McCann Lobby.


pamelag says:
I am shocked as well Zombie Flickfan but it has indeed shown the size of the malicious campaign of hate that has come about post Madeleine's abduction. I find it all very sad.

I am getting into the book now and Anthony and Robbyn have helped in explaining just how confused everyone was by Madeleine's disappearance and how and why the media were contacted (also the British Embassy). Nothing most family & friends wouldn't have done in an effort to get a little child found surely?

I do hope Amazon get their act together soon and stop these malicious and planned attacks on authors such as Summers & Swan. Unjustified hate campaigns and the people to feel sorry for are those conducting this sorry and sordid campaign, not the authors.


pamelag says:
Don't let's get into the subject of Joana Morais or Mercedes or whatever her name is. It is quite obvious which side of the fence they sit firmly on but that is hardly surprising seeing as they are Portuguese like yourself I take it?

pamelag says:
Now why would Amaral give thanks for Mark Harrisons report? I would be very suspect of all goings on during that period of time. Why did Harrison ask for Grime for a start?


Vten says:
I'm sorry, but I raise an objection to that kind of racism, Pamela Gurney.

You are incessantly campaigning about a 'crusade' on Amazon because people who have read this volume expecting authority, authenticity, objectivity and information are getting nothing of the sort and instead are reading a re-hash of the same question-ignoring, evidence-overlooking, fantasy-propagating implausible apologist nonsense that you yourself are known for almost professionally publishing through social media.

As far as I can tell the only determined cyber-activist with an agenda on these Amazon comments is you.

In fact, your interference not only shows you up for the one-track foregone conclusion that you are and doubtless makes people wonder how one person can have so much time and energy to herald the innocence of people who've made themselves look guilty before the whole world, and can become an apologist for reckless child abandonment in tourist resorts WITHOUT being in the paid employ of someone with a vested interest.

If nothing else it will hopefully inform readers that they don't need to depend on a single book for their conclusions (which is what you and the McCann Enterprise would like to have everyone do - switch off the internet, and just read the book) but can research the ACTUAL POLICE FILES online quite freely and quite accurately in as much lurid detail as they like, and draw their own conclusions where information is not only freely flowing, but can even read about people like you and the extraordinary extensive efforts you make to be chipping in anywhere online that the name 'McCann' is even mentioned...


pamelag says:
Oh dear! I don't see anywhere that I have been racist Vten! I also refute that I am everywhere "chipping in" as you put it. Apart from at the moment trying to get through to the knuckle headed antis swamping Summers & Swan facebook page in their usual hordes. You are all extremely transparent I might add.

As for the police files please everyone remember they were translated by anti McCanns or the ones available to you are. Fortunately the police are the only ones to have the true and definite files in at their disposal.

I worked long and tirelessly on this case with many others some years ago and we too came quietly to our conclusion on the matter and that was Madeleine McCann was abducted professionally by persons known to the police but as yet found out. Professionally abducted and passed on to others for disposal and hopefully to a family not to paedophiles.

You see there is always that very good chance but you people, for some extraordinary reason are dead set of her having met her end in Praia da Luz without a single shred of evidence to that effect.

I think giving up on Madeleine is wrong and hopefully our Government will see fit to pursue this matter to the end and with the desired result.


Vten says:
So now you're suggesting that Mark Harrison and Martin Grime were corrupt and deliberately attempting to set up the McCann's?

For the public information, Mark Harrison was the Scotland Yard endorsed expert investigator dealing with Missing Children who was dispatched to work with the Policia Judicia and who was shocked and appalled that the PJ were actually following lines of investigation based on the noise the parents of the missing child were making pointing away in every direction other than themselves, and instead he advised the PJ that the starting place in any missing child investigation is to place the last people to claim to see the child alive and present, especially when they are the parents, based on tried and tested globally acknowledged police investigative methodology. No?

And you're insinuating that his work cannot be trusted and that he was corrupt and framing the McCann's.

And for the record, Martin Grime is the expert cadaver and blood dog handler from South Yorkshire Police with a sterling track record, who attended Praia da Luz at the request of the Scotland Yard investigative coordinator seconded to the Policia Judicia to have the dogs forensically examine the scene, resulting in them signalling strong positives for death scent and/or blood in multiple locations in the McCann's holiday apartment, on items of their clothing, on the child's soft toy, and then even more bizarrely, strongly in the hire car that was not in their possession until many days after the disappearance and on the hire car key, affirming Mark Harrison's suspicions and those of Goncalo Amaral as well as several other prominent police officers around the world who were not working on the case but were familiar with criminal behaviour, evasion, profiling and statistical probability, including John Stalker and investigators with the FBI.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Martin Grime and his dogs also attended a now infamous location on Jersey where it was alleged that the massive exploitation and murder of children in care was taking place, and the dogs identified secreted chambers, and the scent of both blood and death, before being mysteriously dismissed in the wake of both of these cases which bear the hallmarks of a cover up and are extensively reported upon by investigative journalists seeking to expose corruption. And unless I'm mistaken, those with a vested interest in Grime's dismissal from both those cases, and his discreditation, heralded his departure as a sign of his obsolescence, of the inaccuracy of the dogs, of the unreliability of the findings, and declared that there was (like Summers states) 'nothing to see here'. And yet I don't hear you mentioning that arguably the most prestigious police force in the world, the FBI, was falling over itself to contract Martin Grime's services - and those of the dogs Eddie and Keela - and all of them went on to successfully and flawlessly assist in a number of cases including several in which parents claiming 'missing' children had been kidnapped actually turned out to have deliberately or accidentally killed their offspring and disposed of the body, as indicated by Grime's dogs, and that in fact not only confessions but convictions have been achieved in the absence of strong physical evidence or the discovery of a body, based on the reliability and authority of blood and cadaver dog detection.

And you're insinuating that his work cannot be trusted and that he was corrupt and attempting to frame the McCann's?

Surely there's actually more statistical likelihood that he is impartial, professional, his work was spot on, the dogs were right, and now political interference in two cases has been conducted by those with a vested interest. This is, in fact, the only logical conclusion, given the number of times blood and cadaver dogs have been right compared to the number of times those in the frame for heinous murder or a wrongful death and a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice have been proved conclusively to be right...

Just so long as we're clear to make sure the actual facts about Mark Harrison and Martin Grime (and Eddie and Keela, the blood and cadaver dogs who indicated that the McCann's knew far, far more than they were telling) are known for the sake of fairness, rather than you leaving it at mentioning their names and insinuating that these unimpeached professionals were in some way corrupt or unreliable.

Perhaps you could also explain why it is that Mark Harrison and Martin Grime are, in the midst of all this controversy about why an 'official' investigation has utterly disregarded their inconvenient findings, prevented from discussing the matter in the public arena or writing their own book in defence of their work - when it is not remotely uncommon for investigating officers to write accounts of their investigations?

Vten says:
Actually, when you assert that someone's opinion is incorrect or invalid 'because' they are a particular nationality - Portuguese - it is extremely racist. You have no evidence that the Portuguese have made an incorrect investigation, assessment, or drawn an incorrect conclusion. In fact, a British court affirmed that there is no evidence to contradict the Portuguese conclusions of the parents involvement, other than the say-so of the missing child's parents. Further, to insinuate that not only were the Portuguese inherently inept, or wrong, but that inevitably by being Portuguese a commentator must be equally inept and wrong is utterly scandalous.

I hope to God that the Portuguese don't think that I as a British person am inherently bound to supporting the lies, contradictions, inconsistensies and misdirection offered forth on behalf of these people, nor imagine for a moment that I'm the kind of person who would leave my children night after night in an unlocked holiday apartment, in a place I didn't know, while I ate and drank with friends, half friends and barely friends on the other side of the resort during a 'family' holiday in which half my 'family' had spent approximately ninety percent of their waking time utterly estranged from me, being taken care of by child care professionals, just because I'm British and we must all be the same.

Incidentally, Gurney... I commend you on denying on the one hand that you are 'everywhere' on the internet playing apologist for the McCann's, while not only being able to reply to this post within mere moments, but affirming that you are actually currently engaged in setting the record straight for any and every outraged person who considers this book a travesty of investigative journalism and who refuses to believe the lies you're actively helping to spin. Talk about transparency.

YOU have never worked 'long and tirelessly' on this case. You're a nobody. You're an internet nothing. You have no authority, no investigative kudos, you're just a very active internet bully, alongside several others on both sides of the opinion, and frankly those of us who do care about truth and corruption are sick of the lot of you hazing this case with your spin and your unsubstantiated claims and your elaborate plots by paedophiles or government agents or whoever else.

This case is very simple. Amaral knows it. Stalker knows it. Harrison knows it. Grime knows it. And Redwood knows it. Your friends definitely know it. And we, the majority of the British public, know it too.

And part of the 'how' we know it is that people like you and the McCann Organisation, the Clarence Mitchells, the Anthony Summers, all have to repeatedly attempt to swing and sway what we think in order to gloss over the glaring problems, in order to satiate searing consciences, in order to satisfy guilt and fear. Innocent people, simply looking for their child, would never in a million years give a damn about what the global public believe about them. It would make no difference to them. They would gladly acknowledge their own guilt in endangering their child, accept the consequences, and go on looking. No press conferences. No Oprah show. No books. No refusal to answer police questions. No wild speculations and conspiracy theories. No crusades and campaigns. No guilt-tripping the public into funding the search. No lawsuits to suppress speculation. No slandering the investigating police force. Just the quiet dignity of getting on with life in the knowledge that I screwed up looking after my own children big time, that people hate me for it, and that as a result of my actions I now fall under suspicion that I would have avoided entirely if I'd been a better parent. I'll be honest, I'd be so disgusted with myself, that I couldn't even make a self-righteous appearance in a court to attempt to prosecute anyone for thinking or speaking ill of me. The loss would so outweigh anything that could be a personal cost of my loss of reputation.

There is no, precisely no, zero evidence that the girl was kidnapped by anyone. That's an acknowledged, court-recognised fact. None. No credible lead or sighting. No evidence.

There is, however, evidence of the presence of blood and cadaverine in places that they simply shouldn't be, all seemingly coincidentally linked by their commonly being in the possession of the McCann's. No other viable explanation for them. Then there are all the telltale behavioural and linguistic giveaways, as identified by numerous profilers of international police forces. There are the numerous contradictions. There is, in fact, nothing BUT evidence that the girl met her end in PDL. And by contrast, precisely ZERO evidence that she ever moved out of that place. What is not available, for one reason or another, is the PROOF of that evidence. But the evidence is abundant. There are police files and years of after-the-fact observations that demonstrate it. In several countries of the world, the available evidence would have already resulted in a conviction. You may argue that it would be a wrong conviction, and that's your opinion. But the idea that there is 'no evidence' is nonsense. In some modern, civilised countries, the evidence is enough to convict. And cannot be countered by anything amounting to 'reasonable evidence' to negate the conclusion.

I agree that giving up on Madeleine, for the sake of justice, is wrong. I believe in going where the evidence leads. I believe that one investigation did that. And that investigation was ended on the say so of diplomats, not investigators. And then to start a second investigation without any consideration of the prime suspects and the available evidence is equivalent to the madness of doing something over and over again and expecting different results. Until the prime suspects and the available evidence are being considered, Scotland Yard cannot bring anything to a conclusion, and I notice your careful use of the term 'this matter to the end and with the desired results.'

I want the results that the evidence demands. I'm quite sure you and your friends have a strong idea of what the 'desired results' of investigation are. And you may get them. But if you do, there will be no end to the speculation and the books written by those who smell a rat.


pamelag says:
Blinkered and biased Vten in your endeavour to support Amaral and his book of lies. I've no more time to discuss this now. Amazon