Although there have been several scholarly editions, and they are frequently quoted by historians, the letters remain cryptic and indigestible in the mass.Blood and Roses creates a seductive gateway to them. Helen Castor uses her formidable knowledge of 15th-century local politics, and a rich variety of sources, to illuminate their background, and to bring wives, daughters, sons and lovers vividly to life. She skilfully allows the story to unfold without warning of coming events, so the family’s dramatic ups and downs become thrilling soap-opera.A manor house is besieged, and Margaret Paston carried screaming out of it Ambushes threaten in London alleys. A newly-knighted John Paston writes excitedly of jousting beside Edward IV. There are scoldings and reproaches, endearments and rages, orders for pink and yellow stockings and half a pound of cinnamon – even a valentine.Page-turners are rarely written by scholars of the 15th century, but Castor wears her learning admirably lightly. Blood and Roses is nothing less than a ripping yarn.The reviewer’s life of Thomas Malory is published next spring by HarperCollins Buy any book reviewed on this site at postage and packing are free in the UK. The location of every speed camera in Britain will be published by police this week as the Freedom of Information Act takes effect.

The internet speed-trap “map” has been condemned as a charter for excessive speed. Motorists will also be told the revenue that each force receives from the cameras, a figure bound to be controversial because motorists accuse police of profiting from them.However, police have decided against disclosing “flash points” – the speed that triggers a camera, or the amounts raised by individual cameras.From the New Year, police forces will also release files on high-profile investigations such as murders, and details of chief constables’ daily expenses, including travel and hospitality. This echoes the decision earlier this year to publish details of MPs’ expenses.Acpo has spent three years putting together a strategy for the freedom of information law, identifying the areas where the public was likely to make the most demands for documents.Chief inspector Paul Brooks, from Acpo’s FOI team, said of the camera information: “We felt it was just and right for the public to know these things. But where we go into operational policing issues that is where we will protect information.”But a spokesman for Brake, a road safety charity, said: “Telling the public where the cameras are defeats the object of having them.”. As the Blunkett affair unfolds it comes increasingly to resemble the time-honoured panel game in which prominent celebrities make outlandish claims and others are invited to judge their credibility… Oops, it turns out that this is to be his principal defence to the Budd inquiry. Still, he denies directly intervening in her case and no one can prove otherwise.But here comes a “killer email”.

To everyone’s surprise a damning exchange emerges between his office and the immigration department. “Just wondering if you have any update on the settlement (domestic worker) case I faxed through to you the other day?” wonders his private secretary. The next day she hears back from the top man at the office of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND): “Sorted – she has been granted ILR [indefinite leave to remain] – papers will be sent to her shortly … They pulled it out of the queue and made a decision – (no special favours, only what they would normally do but quicker).”It’s the end, but the departing Blunkett has got one more change of story: the letter to Ms Casalme “inadvertently” found its way into a bundle of official papers sent to his office while he was in Wales and his officials wrongly thought he meant them to express the case.Verdict: BluffKimberly QuinnThe claim: “I wasn’t after revenge at all,” the 44-year-old publisher told her friends at The Sunday Telegraph last week “All I wanted him to do was leave me alone.

I never thought it would come to this.”The reality: Kimberly is in a terrible pickle. She’s broken off a three-year affair with the Home Secretary but he is being very difficult about a child he believes is his. She just wants to get on with life and forgiving second husband Stephen but “old Beardy”, as her friends call Blunkett, is dragging her through the family courts Time for a briefing war. (If Mrs Quinn was eschewing vengeance when she gave evidence to the Budd inquiry from her hospital bed, one is forced to wonder what she’s like when crossed.)She tells Sir Alan Budd, an economics professor, that Blunkett had said of the infamous letter, “Give it to me, I will take care of it”, and had said when the visa came through, “I’m glad I could help.”For good measure the Budd report records that his former lover asked for two other cases to be taken into consideration – helping her to get an American passport for her son and visa to travel to Vienna for Ms Casalme.