Richardderus reads 50 mysteries & thrillers in 2013

I have a category called Orphans, which will still catch all the other reading I do in 2013. Thinking 60 reviews as my target.

My 2013 ORPHANED books ticker:




New for 2013 is my Short Story collection challenge, my first time doing this and so a ticker-to-itself thread, thinking 48 reviews as my goal. I'll keep the thread over in the Short Stories forum.

My 2013 SHORT STORY collections ticker:




Then there's the the 75 Books Challenge for 2013, which will be non-fiction and non-genre-fiction books published in 2012 and 2013, plus recommendations from other 75ers.

My 2013 NEW books ticker:




THIS THREAD is the mystery-genre thread with a goal of 50 reviews. Way way way too many of my reviews this year, in all forums, were mysteries and thrillers, and while I love them, I don't want to get too rut-ified and read only those books while keeping up my self-made review writing census.

My MYSTERY & THRILLER books ticker:




Books are reviewed in post:

0. Books Can Be Deceiving...#8.
(Pearl Rule 27)

1. Three for a Letter...#15.

2. Bruno, Chief of Police...#20.

3. Speaking from Among the Bones...#26.

4. Death of a Cozy Writer...#34.

5. The Anteater of Death...#35.

6. Mrs. Malory Investigates...#40.

7. Ashes to Dust...#45.

8. All I Did Was Shoot My Man...#53.

9. Thereby Hangs a Tail...#54.

10. The Case of the Gilded Fly...#59.

11. Sacrifice Fly...#72.

12. The Pericles Commission...#73.

13. Blood of the Prodigal...#78.

14. Lake on the Mountain...#82.

15. The Raven's Gift...#89.

16. The Last Kashmiri Rose...#92.

17. Antiques Roadkill...#94.

18. Close My Eyes...#96.

19. Tilt-A-Whirl...#103.

20. Mad Mouse...#113.

21. Strike from the Deep...#116.

22. Red to Black...#117.

23. My First Murder...#120.

24. Sendero...#128.

25.

26. A Murder is Announced...#138.

27. Casino Royale...#139.

28. Live and Let Die...#140.

29. Moonraker...#141.

30. Diamonds Are Forever...#142.

31. From Russia With Love...#143.

32. Doctor No...#145.

33. Goldfinger...#146.

34. For Your Eyes Only...#147.

35. Thunderball...#148.

36. The Spy Who Loved Me...#149.

37. On Her Majesty's Secret Service...#150.

38. You Only Live Twice...#152.

39. The Man With The Golden Gun...#154.

40. The Hanover Square Affair...#163.

41. The Dark Vineyard...#170.

42. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd...#178.

43. Outerborough Blues...#191.

44. The Gauguin Connection...#194.

45. Black Irish...#197.

46. The Merry Misogynist...#211.

47. The Dinosaur Feather...#214.

48. Whack-A-Mole...#216.

49. Black Diamond...#219.

50. A Regimental Murder...#226.

51. A Conspiracy of Paper...#237.

52. A Spectacle of Corruption...

53. The Irish Village Murder...#245.

54. The Adventure of the Cheap Flat...#251.

55. The Kidnapped Prime Minister...#252.

56. The Adventure of the "Western Star"...#253.

57. The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim...#255.

58. The Million Dollar Bond Robbery...#257.

59. The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor...#258.

60. The Tragedy of Hunter's Lodge...#259.

61. The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb...#260.

62. The Case of the Missing Will...#261.

63. The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman...#264.

64. The Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan...#265.

65. Murder on the Orient Express...#280.

66. Cards on the Table...#281.

67. Three Act Tragedy...#282.

68. The Long Way Home...#283.

69. The Innocent Mrs. Duff...#288.

I can't wait to see what you post here. LOVE this genre and haven't read enough of them lately. Smooch.

*smooch* I've got a good'un up first. Just you wait and see!

Taps fingers impatiently....Decides to wait 'til next year. Trounces off with her glass of bubbly.

Richard, you have me running all over LT to keep up! What a great way to get my exercise.

Now, I don't read much mystery or crime lit, and pretty much no Thrillers, but occasionally you have caught my eye and have encouraged a little change of habit in chez moi. That is a good thing. So, we shall continue in 2013 watching your fare, and picking up a piece from time to time. Thank you for your careful and thoughtful reviews; and for all the good time joking too.

Thanks, Karen44! I hope 2013 will present me some more opportunities to convert you.

Hoping to have a good one to add to your review pile sometime this year. Keep your fingers crossed.

27. Pearl Ruled: BOOKS CAN BE DECEIVING by JENN McKINLAY

Rating: 1.5* of five (p76)

The Book Description: Lindsey is getting into her groove as the director of the Briar Creek Public Library when a New York editor visits town, creating quite a buzz. Lindsey's friend Beth wants to sell the editor her children's book, but Beth's boyfriend, a famous author, gets in the way. When they go to confront him, he's found murdered-and Beth is the prime suspect. Lindsey has to act fast before they throw the book at the wrong person.

My Review: Writing serviceable. Characters stock. Narration uninspired. Why the 1.5 stars? Now really. I like cozies, but knitting and discussing Rebecca when the horrible circ-desk dragon lady comes in? Just as the town nutball stands on his head to tell the director when they need to run the library book sale? P.U.

But what did it, what made me so mad I went outside and tossed the book in the bin before the garbage guys picked up, is the fact that the sleuth, the love interest (or I miss my guess), and the suspect get off a boat, find the body, and I simply couldn't bring even a small frisson of interest to the party. Not a whit. Yuck. Yikes.

I can't even quote anything because it's all much of a muchness, and not one turn of phrase or description so much as made an impression. This is so ~meh~ that the Mouldering Mound of ~Meh~ has misplaced it.

Special note to Danny dearest: AVOID! The knitters discuss mean things about Danvers. Mean!

>7 tututhefirst: I have little doubt you will do exactly that, Siren of the Bookstacks. Little, meaning NO, doubt.

Thank you Richard dear. I love to find books to mark AVAAC (Avoid at all costs). {{Smooches}}

>10 tututhefirst: *sweeping bow*

Oh! I like AVAAC

One less book on my TBR list. Thanks Richard! Sorry you had to sacrifice yourself for the good of the rest of us. Brownie points duly awarded. : )

Review: 1 of fifty

Title: THREE FOR A LETTER

Author: MARY REED and ERIC MAYER

Rating: 3* of five

The Book Description: High jinx in the imperial court mixes with lowlife in Constantinople's mean streets...

"If the perfect historical mystery is one that uses the past to let us see the present from a new angle, then this is darned close to being the perfect historical mystery."--Booklist (starred review for Two for Joy)

It is 539 AD and as the reconquest of Italy draws toward its close, a pair of eight-year old twins descended from the last Ostrogothic king have become valuable pawns in Emperor Justinian's plans to restore the glory of Rome. Unfortunately, during the performance of a play at a banquet honoring the two young diplomatic hostages, death makes an entrance and claims one brother.

Then Empress Theodora's favorite mime vanishes and John, Lord Chamberlain to Justinian, is ordered to find both the missing mime and the murderer.

In this third John the Eunuch novel, his investigations are hampered by squabbling courtiers, servants harboring social ambitions, an eccentric host, and an egotistic inventor, not to mention the complications posed by a herd of prophesying goats and a protective whale. His friends the Mithran Anatolius and the excubitor captain Felix only add to John's worries when they fall under the spell of two ambitious women. Can the trio avoid Theodora's wrath as they work to protect a child and stop a heartless killer? It is uncertain whether the solution lies within the villa where all have assembled or back in Constantinople--or in some other world altogether.

My Review: I was robbed! Hours and hours of my life, robbed from me as John and Anatolius careen from pillar to post and do very little of any interest! I was subjected to the drear and dull prattlings of an eight-year-old with an overactive imagination, a poor sense of self-preservation, and a somewhat appalling callousness! I want those eyeblinks back!

Characters are summoned forth, do next to nothing, and vertiginously disappear. Some amazing coincidences are mooted, and then dismissed, and then lo and behold come back again as faits accomplis. Oh the humanity, he said, as the Constantinopolitan Hindenburg burns.

So Theodora, Imperial Wench of the First Water, is getting no image burnishment here, and one wonders why the authors don't do more with her. At the moment, she's a cardboard cut-out of a mean girl. My long-term interest in a mystery series is bound up in the characters the author(s) develop for me to invest in and follow with interest. John the Eunuch is interesting, but the other players are becoming tiresome. Reduced by a vastly overcomplicated plot with more coincidences than even Shakespeare would feel comfortable perpetrating on his miserable, long-suffering audiences to broad-strokes walk-ons, Felix (the equivalent of the police lieutenant all detectives know) and Anatolius (well-placed and wealthy young sidekick) come off as boring one-note lech-boys; Hypatia (salvaged serving girl) as a cipher; and Peter (wise old fool/servant to John) as a foolish old man. The suspects, too numerous to enumerate, don't take shape at all. Theodora, see above. Eeeaaarrrgh!

So why three stars, with this litany of whinges and bitches? For this line:

John did not press {the suspect} further. It had struck to him on more than one occasion that the Christians' rigid insistence on their god's exclusive sway, so at odds with human nature, would finally prove to be their undoing.

(p317, hardcover edition)

Fifteen hundred years on is a looong finally, but permaybehaps it's coming to be. I live in hope that it is true, that my shining City on a Hill of Jesuslessness is at last in sight.

In the meantime, the series bought itself one more shot. One. And it had better count.

>8 richardderus:: Thank you, my Dear One, for alerting me to this book so that I may avoid even seeing its cover. But no one has ever understood me as you have. No one.

I dunno. Is Three for a Letter a drop for me, or shelve for later?

You're welcome, Gail. I'll let you know after I read vol. 4, as it won't be until then that I will see the place of this book in the scheme of things.

Hoping, for both our sakes, that you'll find one you can get more excited about. Enjoying the reviews nonetheless.

>17 Jim53: Thanks, Jim! I'm deep into one I'm very much liking so far...Bruno, Chief of Police.

Hallo RD!

One redemptive line in a book I will never read.

Good review.

Review: 2 of fifty

Title: BRUNO, CHIEF OF POLICE

Author: MARTIN WALKER

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Book Description: The first installment in a wonderful new series that follows the exploits of Benoît Courrèges, a policeman in a small French village where the rituals of the café still rule. Bruno—as he is affectionately nicknamed—may be the town’s only municipal policeman, but in the hearts and minds of its denizens, he is chief of police.

Bruno is a former soldier who has embraced the pleasures and slow rhythms of country life—living in his restored shepherd’s cottage; patronizing the weekly market; sparring with, and basically ignoring, the European Union bureaucrats from Brussels. He has a gun but never wears it; he has the power to arrest but never uses it. But then the murder of an elderly North African who fought in the French army changes everything and galvanizes Bruno’s attention: the man was found with a swastika carved into his chest.

Because of the case’s potential political ramifications, a young policewoman is sent from Paris to aid Bruno with his investigation. The two immediately suspect militants from the anti-immigrant National Front, but when a visiting scholar helps to untangle the dead man’s past, Bruno’s suspicions turn toward a more complex motive. His investigation draws him into one of the darkest chapters of French history—World War II, a time of terror and betrayal that set brother against brother. Bruno soon discovers that even his seemingly perfect corner of la belle France is not exempt from that period’s sinister legacy.

Bruno, Chief of Police is deftly dark, mesmerizing, and totally engaging.

My Review: First in a series! Words to gladden a satisfied mystery reader’s heart. First in a cozy series set in a French village. First in a series featuring a male lead who loves kids, works his land and his job, has lovers (women, boringly enough), and commands the respect of his entire territory by being unflashily committed to justice, even when the law is in conflict with it.

Bruno is a very good man, one who did everything he could to save the life of the woman he loved in the Bosnian war, and still failed; he’s a damaged man, and he would be the first to say so; but he never once puts a foot wrong in dealing with the souls in his care. We meet him, in fact, helping the local farmers evade the stifling EU bureaucrats bent on enforcing health codes that simply don’t apply to the ancient market town of St-Denis. Any wonder everyone loves him?
So a murder occurs, one that Bruno can’t hope to handle solo: An elderly Algerian immigrant, veteran of the French Army and holder of the Croix de Guerre, appears to be the victim of a far-right racist hate crime. Things don’t look good for the town’s small Algerian community’s peace of mind, but the trail of evidence developed by Bruno with his colleagues from the various and confusingly similar French policing agencies lead them to an unexpected resolution to the crime. What makes that so satisfying isn’t that it was a surprise, which it was not about halfway into the book, but that it was handled with the tact, grace, and dedication to justice that make cozy mysteries satisfying.

There is food, there is wine, there is a dog, there are no cats...it is as if Walker went over my personal checklist and gave me all but one thing on it (Bruno’s straight). I’m okay with that. But most of all, Walker gave Bruno wonderful people to work with, people whose deep and dense roots are charmingly intertwined and wonderfully deftly worked into the narrative. Infodumps are rarely this good. It is a major plus for the series, always assuming it continues.

I can’t quite get to four stars for the book, though, because it’s atmospheric and delightful, but not quite suspenseful enough. The author tips his hand more than forty pages before the end of the book. Okay, yes, it’s a first mystery, but I think a little more care could have gone into the Big Reveal. It’s only a quarter star knockdown because the Big Reveal is a very very surprising facet of French history I hadn’t so much as heard tell of before, and that’s worth a lot of pleasure points. The red herring wasn’t quite all I’d hoped for either, leading nowhere a lot sooner than I would have expected. Again it was interesting, and it cast a bit of light on my idea of the EU’s cultural landscape from a new angle. But it was just this side of perfunctory in its use.

All the cavils aside, the book is a pleasure to read, and the series will be one I follow for at least a few more outings, possibly much longer.

I keep meaning to try this series, Richard, and I'm glad to see you liked it! Great review - thanks!

I hope it makes a success with you, Joanne, though I suspect it will. Such real characters!

I think I'll be putting that one on the library hold list. It sounds worth trying.

Oh yes, do! I think you'll really find a lot to enjoy about it, Ellen.

Boo, a new series. I mean, yay! a new series!! ( I am conflicted since I can't make headway on the series I have already started.)

Review: 3 of fifty

Title: SPEAKING FROM AMONG THE BONES

Author: ALAN BRADLEY

Rating: 3.9* of five

The Book Description: Eleven-year-old amateur detective and ardent chemist Flavia de Luce is used to digging up clues, whether they’re found among the potions in her laboratory or between the pages of her insufferable sisters’ diaries. What she is not accustomed to is digging up bodies. Upon the five-hundredth anniversary of St. Tancred’s death, the English hamlet of Bishop’s Lacey is busily preparing to open its patron saint’s tomb. Nobody is more excited to peek inside the crypt than Flavia, yet what she finds will halt the proceedings dead in their tracks: the body of Mr. Collicutt, the church organist, his face grotesquely and inexplicably masked. Who held a vendetta against Mr. Collicutt, and why would they hide him in such a sacred resting place? The irrepressible Flavia decides to find out. And what she unearths will prove there’s never such thing as an open-and-shut case.

My Review: The ending threw me a curve.

The middle was a busy muddle.

The beginning was a laugh a minute.

And I enjoyed it all. I didn't know who the murderer was, and when revealed I was a bit surprised I hadn't thought of that. I was mildly ticked that, at the ending of the book after the murderer was disposed of, a loose end wasn't tucked tidily away but rather left to be part of the cliffhanger resolution. If Mr. Bradley should happen to pass into his Eternal Reward before the next book is completed and edited, I shall engage every root woman and witch doctor and psychic and spiritualist I can locate to hound the rotter into spirit-writing it.

So, since I'm usually a tartar about judging cozies, demanding the characters and the plot mesh, why am I still reading these somewhat ramshackle novels? After all, the murderer's identity isn't at all well set up, and the red herrings are ummm far-fetched, and the propulsive event is barely, barely set up and then ignored.

Yeah, well, cozies are about characters and about a species of ma'at maintenance, and these novels deliver all the pleasures of those qualities in spades, doubled. Bradley's quite improbable little genius Flavia de Luce is a pill of the first water, a know-it-all, and a little girl on the edge of some enormous growings-up that all of us who've passed through adolescence can empathize with. Her passive, defeated father, her cruel sisters, her delightful world of Buckshaw with its fully equipped chemistry lab and its decaying splendor, and the people of Bishop's Lacey, all mix together into an immersive Barsetshire-esque experience of enfolding charm and warmth.

This is the fifth book, don't begin here if you're picking up a new series as too much will be a spoiler for some payoff surprises in earlier books. But should you pick up the series at all? Hmmm. Don't, if you're a puzzle-solver; don't, if you have to have a sleuth whose abilities and access are believable; do, if you're after the aforementioned immersive experience.

But, if you do read the book, I defy you not to laugh at the fate of the Heart of Lucifer.

Sounds like a perfect cozy. No mystery there!

Heh, no indeed. It's not perfect, but it's a lot of fun if one's forgiving.

This may be of interest to Flavia fans: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/director-sam-mendes-options-...

Love the Flavia books, even if she is such a fantasy. They're so much fun, and as you say, transportive to another world.

Happy week-end, Sweet Cheeks.

>29 donnao: WOW! Sam Mendes no less! I love the Call the Midwife series, it's impressively well-made and the stories are so involving. It's good to know the series will be in good hands.

>30 Matke: morning, Danvers, where's the coffee? xoxo

Yeah the books will be delightful on film if they get the charactors/actors right. I love these books....just finished the last one.

>32 readtochildren: Casting will indeed be everything, and I am at a complete loss as to who they could put into the Flavia role.

Review: 4 of fifty

Title: DEATH OF A COZY WRITER

Author: G.M. MALLIET

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Book Description: From deep in the heart of his eighteenth century English manor, millionaire Sir Adrian Beauclerk-Fisk writes mystery novels and torments his four spoiled children with threats of disinheritance. Tiring of this device, the portly patriarch decides to weave a malicious twist into his well-worn plot. Gathering them all together for a family dinner, he announces his latest blow – a secret elopement with the beautiful Violet... who was once suspected of murdering her husband.

Within hours, eldest son and appointed heir Ruthven is found cleaved to death by a medieval mace. Since Ruthven is generally hated, no one seems too surprised or upset – least of all his cold-blooded wife Lillian. When Detective Chief Inspector St. Just is brought in to investigate, he meets with a deadly calm that goes beyond the usual English reserve. And soon Sir Adrian himself is found slumped over his writing desk – an ornate knife thrust into his heart. Trapped amid leering gargoyles and stone walls, every member of the family is a likely suspect. Using a little Cornish brusqueness and brawn, can St. Just find the killer before the next-in-line to the family fortune ends up dead?

My Review: Well! That was nice. I reviewed this author's first entry into a newer series, Wicked Autumn, in 2011, and I was underwhelmed. The identity of the killer and the motive for the killing in that book annoyed me beyond measure. That series isn't one I'm inclined to follow, given how very many there are to sample.

THIS series, however, is a bit more to my liking. I think the character of St, Just, the policeman, is bland, a little uninteresting, but the characters of the bit players were vivid and amusingly overstated. I enjoyed the process of unwrapping the secrets and lies told by the many suspects in a series of nasty homicides, and the golden-age-mystery nature of their interconnections.

Was it fresh, new, and exciting? No, not really, and not even particularly fresh a take on why the victims were offed. But, and this is crucial, the pace is excellently maintained and the cast is well presented...no character is slighted and none is made too much of as a red herring. It's a tough balancing act and Malliet gets it just right.

So I think I'll get the next one from my village liberry and see what it has to show me. Pretty darn good work to overcome my annoyance with another series by the same author.

Review: 5 of fifty

Title: THE ANTEATER OF DEATH

Author: BETTY WEBB

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Book Description: But if Lucy, the pregnant Giant Anteater from Belize, didn't kill the man found dead in her enclosure, who did? California zookeeper Teddy Bentley must find the real murderer before her furry friend is shipped off to another zoo in disgrace.

Then another human bites the dust, the monkeys riot, and the wolves go nuts. Things get worse when the snooty folks at Gunn Landing Harbor attempt to evict Teddy from the Merilee, her beloved houseboat. That's just the beginning. Her father, on the lam from the Feds for embezzling millions, gets targeted by a local gangster; and Caro, Teddy's socialite mother, a former beauty queen who loathes Teddy's dangerous job, starts introducing her to "eligible bachelors." But Teddy has already given her heart to Sheriff Joe Rejas, a migrant worker's son. Caro is not pleased.

Zoo life, animal lore, and the leaky ups and downs of Central Coast California houseboat living create a thrilling backdrop for murder.

My Review: Very pleasant read, enjoyable way to wile away a few hours, and a chance to go behind the scenes of a zoo.

Plus I now love Lucy the Anteater as a character.

None of the human characters left me with such warm feelings, though I like Teddy and can see she'll be interesting as time goes by. Joe, her love interest, is clearly being set up as a complex character with A Past, and Teddy's mother Caro is more to my liking by the end than she is at the beginning.

But. And this is a big one. The killer and the motive for the killings of the two characters who die...well, it wasn't deft, and it wasn't in keeping with the build-up. Way too little made of the killer, at least for the sake of the big reveal, so we're not given any click of puzzle pieces coming together until too late to make it fully satisfying.

Still and all, it's a darn sight more fun to see a mystery keep me guessing than require me to close my eyes and will the knowledge away every twenty pages! So this series is a next, please, as I move on to book two. Always a good feeling for a serial series murderer...I mean murder mystery fan.

Of course I do.

Thumbs for both, Rdear.

A serial series murderer? Oh my. Shh. don't tell anyone.

Hi Richard - I've enjoyed your posts for the last couple of years and am excited to see this thread. I think Bruno will be a fun read for me, fitting in with some of my recent non-fiction about Paris, Angela Davis, and Algerians! Think I'll also go for the Betty Webb just for the time in the zoo! Thanks for the reviews.

Merrikay

>36 Matke: Thanks, Gail! Oh dear, did I type that out loud? Now I have to keill everyone.

>37 mkboylan: Thanks for unlurking, Merrikay, and for the nice compliment! I can imagine fewer antidotes better than Bruno for depressing non-fiction. Enjoy.

Ooh, several attractive-sounding new authors. And my library has some of them!. All I need is time.

Review: 6 of fifty

Title: MRS. MALORY INVESTIGATES

Author: HAZEL HOLT

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Book Description: The first book in the delightful British cozy mystery series featuring Mrs. Sheila Malory, a plain-spoken widow residing in the little seaside town of Taviscombe, England. When pretty but avaricious Lee Montgomery disappears, her fiancé Charles Richardson (an old flame of Mrs. M's) enlists Mrs. Malory's help. The dauntless Mrs. Malory soon suspects the worst. Little does she realize the terrible secrets her investigation will reveal....

Or this superior jacket copy from the UK reprint of the book: Everyone knows that impertinent Lee Montgomery is marrying Charles Richardson for his money. After Lee vanishes, Charles' friends breathe a sigh of relief. But Charles loves his pretty fiancée and is determined to get her back. He enlists the talents of Mrs. Sheila Malory, whose pastimes include reading nineteenth-century novels and ferreting out the truth. Mrs. Malory, a reluctant amateur detective, is soon convinced that Lee has been the victim of foul play. The residents of the sleepy seaside village of Taviscombe, England, are about to discover just how difficult it is to keep their terrible secrets with Mrs. Malory on the case.

My Review: This is a very good debut mystery, and a pleasure to read. Imperfect, of course, in that it feels a bit rushed, and some characterizations get slighted, but better that than the Dreaded Book Bloat that seems to afflict so many writers in the 21st century. "Why use one word for gore when fifty-six will do? Oh, split them between gore and sex? Naaah, sixty-eight words about sex. Emotions? Not unless it's a woman pining for/plotting revenge on an abusive man!"

*snore*

So here is Mrs. Malory, a widowed Marple-esque unthreatening Everylady of A Certain Age ("fifty-four, if I'm honest," she says charmingly) owned by a Siamese named Foff and a Westy named Tris, mother of an Oxford student, and lifelong resident of a seaside village that's so much like Jessica Fletcher's Cabot's Cove, Maine, that I raised my eyebrows into my hairline. As this now resides east of my ears, this is no mean feat.

I love moments in the book such as her reunion with her girlhood crush-object, her older brother's boarding school chum. Holt writes a short vignette of Mrs. M's girlish moment of Rapture as this older, handsome god grabs her for the final dance at the Hunt Ball, a memory she has while sitting in a tatty but clean cottage lounge across from the sixty-year-old wreckage of that beautiful boy. It is so moving, and so very much the way a person of this vintage feels and thinks (well, *I* do and so do most of my friends), and says volumes about the sleuth and the course of the series.

Imagine a mystery series set in Barestshire, written by Angela Thirkell's granddaughter, and there you have the affect of the series. Its effect on me was to cause me to reserve the next three books.

40: That sounds like a very pleasing bit of escapist reading, with perhaps something extra, some depth of insight to touch the heart. I'll be interested to see how you like the next installments.

>41 Meredy: I agree with that assessment, and will be trotting out reviews as I bookhorn the reads in.

Great review of BRUNO, CHIEF OF POLICE, thanks, I have just purchased a copy for my Kindle...

Oh good! Please come back and let me know how the read went.

Review: 7 of fifty

Title: ASHES TO DUST

Author: YRSA SIGURÐARDOTTIR

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Book Description: In 1973, a volcanic eruption buried an entire Icelandic village in lava and ash. Now this macabre tourist attraction proves deadly once again—when the discovery of fresh bodies casts a shadow of suspicion onto Markús Magnússon, a man accused of killing his childhood sweetheart. His attorney Þóra Guðmundsdóttir finds that her client has a most inventive story to tell. But the locals seem oddly reluctant to back him up...

My Review: This is a dark, dark, dark book. It's not for the depressive or the depressed. The congenitally chirpy should read it because they'll finally be brought down enough not to infuriate the rest of us.

Thora (I can't do the ASCII again, it hurts my hands), the sleuth in the series (of which this is installment 3, though the first I've read), is very matter-of-fact, very unflappable. She's not unemotional, not really, as her actions indicate. But she is one of those folks in life who create a sense of calm for those around them by being solid and confident. And usually right.

The story is propelled, and I use that term advisedly, by the short chapters headed with the date and day of the week. It's an additional source of tension-building, and honestly it's not crucial because believe you me there is oodles of tension in the plot already.

I admire the Icelanders. They put the banksters who crashed the economy in jail, threw the gummint out, and they protect their people in so many ways, unlike the austerity addicts in the rest of Europe who are effin' over the people to please those same profiteering banksters. Oops, political rant, sorry. I meant to segue into, "But considering how much murder there seems to be in that country of a half-million or so, I won't be visiting any time soon." Heh. My bad. Arnaldur Indridason's novels, these by Yrsa Sigurdardottir, they paint a grim picture of the beautiful island of Iceland. Surely it's a happier place than this!

I remember watching with thrilled terror as Heimay erupted on the TV in 1973. It was so exciting to see it in color, and in almost real time! (They were simpler times, younguns, stop smirking.) The author's choice of setting is guaranteed to make me sit up and take notice. But the plot she sets in motion is what relentlessly pulled me along.

So why three and a half stars, when surely that sounds like a full four are merited? Because, I blush to admit, the place and personal names are a bugger for me to keep in my head. The text uses all the proper diacritical marks though thankfully not the thorn and eth letters that would ordinarily feature in the names. I blush to admit this, it's so very annoying a trait in me, but the Nordic languages are damn close to impenetrable to me for these reasons...the letters and the weirdass placement of accents that don't mean accenting and umlauts that don't do what I expect them to. I can't speak along in my head as I can with French or Spanish or Portuguese. It all turns into a Prairie Home Companion joke-Norwegian-accented muddle.

Yes yes, it's my problem not the text's fault, but it's my review of my response. So I assign my rating accordingly. Condemnatory tuttings are not welcome, or invited, nor will they be met with saintly silence.

This book was a LibraryThing Early Reviewers win.

45: I've been enjoying your reviews as much for the asides as for the review content itself. Hurrah for this line:

The congenitally chirpy should read it because they'll finally be brought down enough not to infuriate the rest of us.

I also have trouble with some of the names in Nordic fiction, especially (and this bothers me if an author in any language does it) if several important characters have names starting with the same letter. There shouldn't be more than 26 important characters anyway, so why not give them distinctive names? That way, if you can't parse the whole thing, you can at least remember that G is the protagonist, A is the victim, and B, Y, and M are the principal suspects.

>46 Meredy: ...I've never parsed it that way...what a great idea!

I thank you for saying such nice things about my reviews!

Excellent review as always, Rdear. Not sure about the Icelandic saga, but will look it over.

I am reasonably fond of Thora, RD, and unlike your goodself have read the first two but not this, the third installment. She is human in her cravings and failings and solves mysteries the way most of us would in a mostly befuddled manner. As always your reviews are a joy to read.

>48 Matke: Thanks, Gail! Don't pick this one up.

>49 PaulCranswick: Lovely thing to say, Paul, thank you!

You've intrigued me, RD, I admit it. I have become more interested in books about Iceland, Greenland, and the Scanda-hoovian countries in recent years. I got started with Independent People for bookclub 3 years ago, a wrist-slitter if there ever was one, and I was moved by it. Smilla's Sense of Snow, the Girl series (Sweden), the start of the Kurt Wallander series (Sweden), the Harry Hole series (Norway).... tiny steps in a new direction for me.

So I'll add YRSA SIGURÐARDOTTIR to my wishlist, drat you.

Smooches and hugs and happy thoughts to you.

Egads, Horrible, back away from the gloom! Too much Scandi will cause your navian to collapse. Soon you will only be found curled tightly in the fetal position moaning hopelessly and surrounded by lingonberries!

Review: 8 of fifty

Title: ALL I DID WAS SHOOT MY MAN

Author: WALTER MOSLEY

Rating: 2.5* of five

The Book Description: In the latest and most surprising novel in the bestselling Leonid McGill series, Leonid finds himself caught between his sins of the past and an all-too-vivid present.

Seven years ago, Zella Grisham came home to find her man, Harry Tangelo, in bed with her friend. The weekend before, $6.8 million had been stolen from Rutgers Assurance Corp., whose offices are across the street from where Zella worked. Zella didn't remember shooting Harry, but she didn't deny it either. The district attorney was inclined to call it temporary insanity-until the police found $80,000 from the Rutgers heist hidden in her storage space.

For reasons of his own, Leonid McGill is convinced of Zella's innocence. But as he begins his investigation, his life begins to unravel. His wife is drinking more than she should. His oldest son has dropped out of college and moved in with an ex-prostitute. His youngest son is working for him and trying to stay within the law. And his father, whom he thought was long dead, has turned up under an alias.

A gripping story of murder, greed, and retribution, All I Did Was Shoot My Man is also the poignant tale of one man's attempt to stay connected to his family.

My Review: Horrible person that I am, I won this book in a LibraryThing giveaway in DECEMBER 2011 and somehow never posted a review.

Probably all for the best, since I thought this book was a hot mess. Too much going on, too little attention paid to too many variables, and as a series entry it fell on its keister. The scatteredness means that the sense of building up to something that a series should have is missing.

Leonid runs around and brings justice where it's overdue. In the process we meet every single person, criminal or ex-criminal, in Manhattan. Yay, and boo. Why I should know about some of these wacky ex-crims is beyond me, and because Mosley is chopping and changing the narrative so much, it's just too much for my two-volt nervous system to absorb and call it "pleasure reading."

There's a line in here about success making Leonid crave a Coney Island...chili cheese dog with onions...and that, for me, sums the book up: Filling processed food-like substance for the brain, but plan on sleepin' alone because the aftereffects are noisome.

Review: 9 of fifty

Title: THEREBY HANGS A TAIL

Author: SPENCER QUINN

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: The second book of an irresistible series narrated by a loveable and wise dog. In the newest Chet and Bernie mystery, Chet gets a glimpse of the show dog world turned deadly. "We run a detective agency, me and Bernie, called the Little Detective Agency on account of Little being Bernie's last name. My name's Chet, pure and simple. Headquarters is our house on Mesquite Road, a nice place with a big tree out front, perfect for napping under, and the whole canyon easily accessible out back, if it just so happens someone left the gate open. And then, up in the canyon -- well, say no more."

Praised by Stephen King as "a canine Sam Spade full of joie de vivre," Chet and his human companion Bernie have both had some setbacks in life -- Bernie in combat, Chet in K-9 school, but together they make up a team like no other. In Thereby Hangs a Tail, Bernie and Chet are called on to investigate threats made against an unlikely target -- a pretty, pampered show dog named Princess. What seems like a joke turns into a serious case when Princess and her owner are abducted. To make matters worse, Bernie's on-again, off-again girlfriend, reporter Susie Sanchez, disappears too. When Chet is separated from Bernie, he's on his own to put the pieces together, find his way home, and save the day.

With genuine suspense and intrigue, combined with humor and insight into the special bond between man and dog, Thereby Hangs a Tail will have everyone talking.

My Review: Cute! Very cute! Chet is such a clever boy I want to give him Milk Bones until he faints!

And that's kinda the problem under the fun: Cute. It's fun, yes, and it's pleasantly written with a well-imagined dog's point of view. But I think this is a series that needs to be taken in annual doses, and in the proper mood. I am, admittedly, as curmudgeonly as the day is long. But I'm not immune to charm. The series has charm.

It's just, well, it's wearing a bit thin at the elbows. Also, I hate Suzie. But I would, wouldn't I, being a dour old gay guy?

But then there are moments like this, and I can't help grinning:

All at once, I was kind of tired, too. I lay down under the hall table. A roof over your head is always nice. I realized that the house had a roof, of course, so in fact I had two roofs over my head, even better. And what about the ceiling? Under the roof, right, but still a kind of roof, too? I got a bit confused.

That's Chet, a bright dog, narrating. The snap-snap-snap of a dog processing into dog-think the idea of roof-house-safe and making it better by getting under a table rings completely true to me. And the magic for me is in Quinn's rendering that into non-cloying humanspeak.

And then there's the ending. Whee dawggie. White knuckles and bright flashlights exciting, and even though I was pretty darned sure I knew whodunit, but please forgive me if I don't tell you the bit I was most tensed up about and the bit that Chet, for all his smarts, didn't see as scary and troubling as I did.

Read 'em one at a time, in order, and these books will give you thrills and grins and not a few gnawed knuckles. Like the one skinless, bloody nubbin I've got workin' over the unresolved plot line that I can't tell you about. GAH!

I've never heard of that Spencer Quinn series, but I'm as susceptible to cute dog stories as the next curmudgeon. I'll have to look for the first in the series at the library.

The first is Dog On It, and it's a doozie!

Looks like my library has several of the Chet books, including 'Dog On It', so I'll be picking that up next week. Thanks for the tip, even though I need to start another series like I need another hole in my head. :-)

>57 rosalita: *evil Muttley laugh* My work here is done.

Review: 10 of fifty

Title: THE CASE OF THE GILDED FLY

Author: EDMUND CRISPIN

Rating: 2.5* of five

The Book Description: Theater companies are notorious hotbeds of intrigue, and few are more intriguing than the company currently in residence at Oxford University. Center-stage is the beautiful, malicious Yseult, a mediocre actress with a stellar talent for destroying men. Rounding out the cast are more than a few of her past and present conquests, and the women who love them. And watching from the wings is Professor Gervase Fen--scholar, wit, and fop extraordinaire--who would infinitely rather solve crimes than expound on English literature. When Yseult is murdered, Fen finally gets his wish. Though clear kin to Lord Peter Wimsey, Fen is a spectacular original--brilliant, eccentric and rude, much taken with himself and his splendid yellow raincoat, and given to quoting Lewis Carroll at inappropriate occasions. Gilded Fly, originally published in 1944, was both Fen's first outing and the debut of the pseudonymous Crispin (in reality, composer Bruce Montgomery), whom the New York Times once called the heir to John Dickson Carr . . . and Groucho Marx.

My Review: Tedious, fusty, and supercilious.

Well, that about sums that up.

59: Hmm. I read that one decades ago, about when I'd run out of John Dickson Carrs and was finding the endings of Agatha Christies too guessable. All I remember now is that I liked it--possibly even for the same reasons that you didn't. Give me a mystery by an author with a grown-up vocabulary and a rock-solid command of grammar, throw in a little British humor and irony and some literary allusions, and I'm pretty much of a pushover. I don't know how I'd feel about it now, hundreds of thousands of pages later, but at the time I went and chased down the other Gervase Fens and enjoyed them all.

I wonder if you'd feel a similar sense of pleasure today, too. It's been a long reading life, and some things don't make the journey well.

I have just finished BRUNO, CHIEF OF POLICE, and enjoyed it (3.5/5). Good writing, with the bonus of learning a bit about a different culture and WWII history. I will read the rest of the series :)

Good! made me smile, too.

I re-read all the Edmund Crispins ... two years ago, I think.... and really liked them.

ATD.

*smooch*

*smooch* back

Not unusual, the ATD on this. I don't need too many friends with precisely my taste, since echo chambers give me a headache. I want to learn about books I'd never even hear of without my friends!

65: I agree with you (if I may): if we see things exactly alike, one of us is superfluous.

I went looking for Gilded Fly in my library yesterday, but it might be too deeply buried for a quick grab. You've made me curious to know how I'd view it now.

What's ATD?

Agree to disagree.

Richard and I do it frequently. :)

Thank you for the definition! That will save me a sleepless night. I found hundreds of solutions for ATD but none fit the context - but some were pretty funny.

>66 Meredy: Perzackly!

>67 karenmarie: :-*

So what were some of the (printable) funny ones? Inquiring minds need to know.

*smooch* RD!

Aw, come on, that was a whole day ago! My memory isn't up to recalling stuff I don't write down.

In a similar vein, a game I like to play involves coming up with words to fit licence plates - in B.C. we have 3 letters (and 3 numbers). You have to be fast. My old plates had BPJ that I memorized as British Petroleum Jelly, a sort of Jeopardy "before and after" category.

Review: 11 of fifty

Title: SACRIFICE FLY

Author: TIM O'MARA

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Raymond Donne wasn’t always a schoolteacher. Not only did he patrol the streets of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, as one of New York’s Finest, but being the nephew of the chief of detectives, he was expected to go on to bigger things. At least he was until the accident that destroyed his knees. Unable to do the job the way he wanted, he became a teacher in the same neighborhood, and did everything he could to put the force behind him and come to terms with the change.

Then Frankie Rivas, a student in Ray’s class and a baseball phenom, stops showing up to school. With Frankie in danger of failing and missing out on a scholarship, Ray goes looking for him, only to find Frankie’s father bludgeoned to death in their apartment. Frankie and his younger sister are gone, possibly on the run. But did Frankie really kill his father? Ray can’t believe it. But then who did, and where are Frankie and his sister? Ray doesn’t know, but if he’s going to have any chance of bringing them home safely, he’s going to have to return to the life, the people, and the demons he walked out on all those years ago.

Intense, authentic, and completely gripping, Tim O’Mara’s Sacrifice Fly is an outstanding debut from a stellar new voice in crime fiction.

My Review: It's a first novel. It's got holes...the techie dude has a disk drive in his computer? like a desktop? no way...it's got people who disappear for good in unceremonious ways...a first date ends in a cop call, the lady gets in a cab and *piff* never heard from again?...and the baseball angle isn't particularly well integrated into the story...we never see or experience Frankie anywhere near a baseball and it's his future we're supposedly believing is in the Majors? Plus the author appears to be a Yankees fan. Strikes one and two. He's two fouled-off pitches into strike three for being nasty about the Mets.

But it's got something, it's got some verve and energy that I like, and it's set in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where I've had some ties for quite a while, so I'm as happy as the problems will let me be that I got this book as a gift.

The resolution to the death of Frankie's father is less a story of murder than of an unregrettable death. Ancillary violence is overplayed a bit to give things a noir feel. It works pretty well. The cop-world feels authentic, and the inhabitants of Ray's former life are like the cops I've known in the past. His schoolteaching life, mercifully, isn't a lot in evidence. The idea of it is enough to make the point that this isn't a man who takes the easy way through life.

Muscles reached into his pocket and took out two white pills. "Take these," he said.

"Ibuprofen?"

"Wintergreen. Every time you exhale, I get hit with a faceful of vodka. Where the hell'd you go last night?"

A snippet of smile-inducing chit-chat between Ray and his physical therapist, whose tender ministrations to Ray's badly damaged knees he spends the entire book avoiding. It's this sort of throwaway moment that marks a writer to watch. It's natural, it's funny, and it's well played for a smile when one's needed.

"The mayor has little interest in abandoned pools. Or abandoned people."

"You're preaching to the choir," I said.

"Do you know, when they decided to shut this pool down, when they decided they could spare no more resources for the maintenance and security? That same year the millionaires running this country announced massive tax cuts. The federal government paid billions of dollars to the arms builders to produce weapons they told us they hoped to never use. They even found enough money to help other countries buy weapons and train soldiers and contribute to the culture of death."

Sing it, soul brother! I testify! Speak the truth!

So yeah, I'll be picking up the next book in hopes that some of the apostrophized plurals and the whack-a-mole character vanishings and the like will be smoothed out. Because this is one promising debut and one interesting series character.

The Yankees shit's gotta go, though. Me and my voodoo dolly are at the ready, should it prove necessary.

Review: 12 of fifty

Title: THE PERICLES COMMISSION

Author: GARY CORBY

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: Nicolaos walks the mean streets of Classical Athens as an agent for the promising young politician Pericles. His mission is to find the assassin of the statesman Ephialtes, the man who brought democracy to Athens and whose murder has thrown the city into uproar. It’s a job not made any easier by the depressingly increasing number of dead witnesses.

But murder and mayhem don’t bother Nico; what’s really on his mind is how to get closer (much closer) to Diotima, the intelligent and annoyingly virgin priestess of Artemis, and how to shake off his irritating twelve year-old brother Socrates.

The Pericles Commission is the first in an exciting new series by first-time novelist Gary Corby, who takes us to Ancient Greece at one of the most exciting times in history. In this wonderfully approachable, historically rich novel, Athens is brought vividly to life in a mystery engaging from the first page to last.

My Review: A Mouldering Mound of ~Meh~ read. Nico's coming of age as an Athenian and a politician was not without interest, and the love-match he wants to make with Diotima is a bit amusing, but the overall action contains few moments of surprise and almost none of suspense.

It passed some time, and I cared enough to finish it, but unless the next one grows wings and flaps in my door by itself, this will do it for me.


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Oh, man, I despised The Case of the Gilded Fly. Pretty much like a very drunk, much attenuated Wodehouse. Those little mannerisms drove me right straight up the wall. Urg. That said, I (somewhat foolishly) picked up another in the series and really liked it. Don't remember the title, though. And I'd like to read The Moving Toyshop because the plot seems intriguing.

I liked the single Harry Hole book I read very much. Also one by Robert Barnard, a British author of uneven production who when he is good, is very good indeed, set in Norway. That was a winner too, although dark, dark, dark.

Unfortunately I can't get interested in the Sookie books. My step-daughter, however, loves them.

The Chet books sound great, and I like the one-per-year concept. I read many an author that way, as otherwise I'll be snoozing and letting the book hit me on the nose.

I am compelled to report back, Richard, that I have now read the first three books in the "Chet and Bernie" series, and your review was spot-on. They are cute! cute! cute! but a little repetitious and occasionally tedious. Still, I think Chet's adorable and Bernie has redeeming qualities. And I can't stand Susie, either. I was kind of hoping she'd stay kidnapped, frankly.

One of my good friends saw me checking out the books at the library and said, "Oh, no! You're not going to read those — they're terrible!" So after I read them I told her they weren't terrible, just not Rex Stout-level great. I asked her what she hated so much and she said she couldn't stand how easily distracted Chet was, so that the reader ends up missing a bunch of clues while he's off slurping Cheetos off the carpet. I told her she was clearly not a dog person because that is exactly how a dog would narrate a book. We agreed to disagree.

I will probably continue reading the series, although I agree that putting a little more distance between reading each book would probably improve my impression of the series as whole.

75 - Now THAT was a priceless conversation!

>74 Matke: Maybe it's first book blues with Gilded Fly, but still don't think I'll try any more. I can't read Harry Hole books. I'm too juvenile. The Sookie books are not really an acquired interest, one likes 'em or one doesn't, and there's an end to it.

Chet and Bernie are really best read one at a time.

>75 rosalita: It's downright crucial to space them out. And yeah, the friend isn't a dog person or that would be a big part of the series' charm. I've got A Fistful of Collars hangin' fire here. Maybe this fall.

>76 mkboylan: I'd've enjoyed being a fly on the wall, woudn't you?

Review: 13 of fifty

Title: BLOOD OF THE PRODIGAL

Author: P.L. GAUS

Rating: 3.8* of five

The Publisher Says: Plume's paper edition copy: A compulsively readable new series that explores a fascinating culture set purposely apart.

In the wooded Amish hill country, a professor at a small college, a local pastor, and the county sheriff are the only ones among the mainstream, or "English," who possess the instincts and skills to work the cases that impact all county residents, no matter their code of conduct or religious creed.

When an Amish boy is kidnapped, a bishop, fearful for the safety of his followers, plunges three outsiders into the traditionally closed society of the "Plain Ones."

Ohio University Press's hardcover copy: From the choppy waves off Lake Erie's Middle Bass Island to the too tranquil farmlands of Holmes County's Amish countryside, mystery and foreboding lurk under layers of tradition and repression before boiling up to the surface with tragic consequences.For Jon Mills, the journey begins with his decision to retrieve his ten-year-old son from the hands of the Bishop who bad ten years earlier cast Mills out of the Order, the same Bishop who is Jon Mills's father.

When Mills turns up dead, dressed in Amish garb, and with the boy missing, Professor Michael Branden plunges headlong into the closed culture to unravel the mystery and find the boy.

My Review: I don't imagine that I need to go over my hostility, nay hatred, for christian religion and its evils yet again. But given that I am without sympathy for the central organizing principle of the book's characters, why on EARTH would I pick it up?

Because it is never a good idea to shut one's self off from points of view not one's own. Illumination comes only when the curtains are open.

I started reading the book with modest expectations, and the writing delivered on those admirably. Not one paragraph stands out in my mind. No phrases clink against the myriad of quotes stored in my magpie's-paradise of a memory. Not one single crappy turn of phrase, a few slightly ungainly sentences, but overall a solid B+ effort of writing. It's the first in the series, so that's okay by me.

The murder and its motivations made me smile. Seeing a grand high muckity-muck of a christian sect that's looney even by their looney standards get it in the eye? Bliss! Seeing their bizarre separatist way of life illuminated so clearly? Fascination. The sleuthing team's interconnectedness and small-town life-long knowledge of each other, and watching that develop and alter, was a pleasure.

Gaus very clearly understands the world he's writing about, and clearly also makes a strong effort to be fair and informative to and about it. He doesn't go all preachy-teachy and he doesn't gloss over the good or the bad effects of the Plain People's (hubristic) separation from the world of the English and its attendant vanities. (Isn't a focus on eliminating vanity simply vanity in sneakers?)

I liked the book. I'll read the next few, though I doubt there's enough there there to keep me reading for all eight that exist to date. Of course I could be wrong, heaven knows it wouldn't be the first time.

But my wrongness aside, don't turn away from the pleasure of acquainting yourself with this interesting, weird world.

I rated the Gaus book about the same as you did when I read it. I think I gave it 3.5 stars. I haven't made it to the next in series yet, but I will eventually get there.

It's not one of those series I feel compelled to read one after another, either, Lori.

Hi Rdear.I'll definitely read at least this first one, as odd ways of life are interesting to me.Thanks for the rec.
I know you're no fan of plays,but I have to tell you that I'm thrilled with my brother's kindness in bringing me Asimovs Guide to Shakespeare for me to look over to see if I want to buy it, with no time limit. We share a love of unusual, fairly esoteric works.

Review: 14 of fifty

Title: LAKE ON THE MOUNTAIN

Author: JEFFREY ROUND

Rating: 3.9* of five

The Publisher Says: Dan Sharp, a gay father and missing persons investigator, accepts an invitation to a wedding on a yacht in Ontario's Prince Edward County. It seems just the thing to bring Dan closer to his noncommittal partner, Bill, a respected medical professional with a penchant for sleazy after-hours clubs, cheap drugs, and rough sex. But the event doesn't go exactly as planned.

When a member of the wedding party is swept overboard, a case of mistaken identity leads to confusion as the wrong person is reported missing. The hunt for a possible killer leads Dan deeper into the troubled waters and private lives of a family of rich WASPs and their secret world of privilege.

No sooner is that case resolved when a second one ends up on Dan's desk. Dan is hired by an anonymous source to investigate the disappearance 20 years earlier of the grooms father. The only clues are a missing bicycle and six horses mysteriously poisoned.

My Review: Well, that's fine so far as it goes. The "mistaken identity" is more like a con game's perp being discovered in a lie; the secret world of privilege part is heavily focused on the heteronormative christian right wing's assertion that it alone defines right and wrong.

So it's about perfectly cut out to suit my prejudices!

Round writes a deeply damaged and badly wounded noir hero in Dan Sharp, and gives him a drinking problem, a miserable proletarian past, and a penchant for dating screwed-up straight rich boys. Dan's not pretty. His appeal to the pretty men he lusts after is in his anger, his endowment, and his complete willingness to cut and run when he damned well feels like it. Means it will all be over and no lingering emotional ties need be fretted over.

Take out "proletarian" and it's me. So again, score one for Round in the designed to appeal to me sweepstakes.

The actual murder mystery bit comes with two adjunct plots, one missing person case that Dan is going to solve or die in the trying, and one complex self-realization plot:

Dan put the receiver down and stared at the wall. The room had shrunk over the last few minutes. He tried to ignore the nameless sorrow under his skin, the gnawing doubts that mocked his hope that life could be a fine thing or that happiness was possible. An acid loneliness came pouring in -- the same loneliness that enticed him to drink and told him he had no friends except the one on the table in front of him.

Well, yeah.

The resolution of the missing person case, when it happens, makes Dan go on a hard journey into his bitterness about the past. His family life was, um, rough and turbulent. His missing person was under the same sort of spell that Dan was himself, and then *click* a light goes on that illuminates for Dan the murder's shape which had eluded him (and the police) until now:

Grief. It was a powerful word beginning with a soft utterance and ending in a feather's caress. There's no way to say it without beginning and ending in a sibilant whisper. Intake of breath or out, it's still the same -- like a verbal palindrome. {The victim} had felt its pull, soft and seductive enough to make him sacrifice himself. He'd given in to its drowning embrace, giving up what he wanted most -- his freedom -- for what he couldn't live without: his boys. In doing so, he'd lost both. There wasn't a prayer or lamentation or elegy in the world that could convey, in words or music, the tragedy that this had brought about. There was nothing that could revoke or undo the senseless horror of what had happened to him....

Losing his sons was a threat the victim couldn't endure. Dan, being a deeply loving dad despite his screwed up self, figures out the identity of the culprit, the reason for the crime, and the whole point of his own involvement in the missing person case from the blinding flash of insight that grief is at the heart of all the troubles in all these cases.

This is the way I like my noir. Dark, bitter, and with a chaser of sadder-but-wiser. I'll read the next book, and that's sayin' something for an overbooked and underlifed biblioholic.

So why not a full four stars? Because the novel, while first in a series, is far from Round's first book. There are pacing and bloat issues. About fifty pages of the book could go and no one would suffer, while the story would gain. Some scenes...notably the resolution of the first death...were rushed and not fully interwoven into the narrative, while others, notably the set-up of Dan's crappy relationship with a man destined to shuffle out of his life in short order, were longer than dramatically necessary to introduce the character flaws in Dan that we need to know about. So a small bit knocked off there, and a bot more for the curiously unnecessary and stunted relationship between Dan's son and the son's best friend, which felt completely grafted on and was unnecessary given how it ended.

But I go back to this fact: I will read the next one. I'm looking forward to it, as a matter of fact.


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That sounds like a good one, Richard! I do like dark and twisty ...

Seems like a really good one, Rdear. Thumbing...

Nice review Richard! And a thumb from me too.

>83 rosalita: It's dark and twisty, all right...if you're not an "ewwww-ick" type homophobe, it should deliver the goods, Julia!

>84 Matke: Thanks, Gail! *smooch*

>85 VivienneR: Oh thank you! I love surprise thumbs!

I'm a lot of things I wish I weren't, but I'm happy to say that's not one of them!

Wunderbar, then this book should give you some good suspenseful moments. Dan's backstory is pretty well explained and how it's integrated here is both telling and moving.

Review: 15 of fifty

Title: THE RAVEN'S GIFT

Author: DON REARDEN

Rating: 3.8* of five ***LibraryThing Early Reviewers ARC***

The Publisher Says: John Morgan and his wife can barely contain their excitement upon arriving as the new teachers in a Yup'ik Eskimo village on the windswept Alaskan tundra. But their move proves disastrous when a deadly epidemic strikes and the isolated community descends into total chaos. When outside aid fails to arrive, John’s only hope lies in escaping the snow-covered tundra and the hunger of the other survivors—he must make the thousand-mile trek across the Alaskan wilderness for help. He encounters a blind Eskimo girl and an elderly woman who need his protection, and he needs their knowledge of the terrain to survive. The harsh journey pushes him beyond his limits as he discovers a new sense of hope and the possibility of loving again.

My Review: That summary's pretty generic. Here's what I think you should know: Expect to flip pages fast enough to fan yourself cool on a hot day. Expect to invest real interest in the characters. Expect to spend at least one too-late night as the ending draws nigh.

Don't expect to learn the culture of the Yup'ik, or get inside the heads of any Yup'ik people. Don't expect the plot to do more than propel the real story forward. Don't expect to slip mentally naked into a pool of sweet-scented prose-water. Don't expect to think about these characters for days, weeks, after the deeply satisfying ride is over.

This is chapter 42:

He swore he would keep track. He would record each day forward from the day she died. Never forgetting. Never losing count. That day was the day he awoke with {her} cold in his arms. The day he could not stop trying to imagine being a father. Of {her} finally a mother. He just couldn't do it. He had no images in his mind of what that son or daughter might have looked like. Would he or she have his grandmother's eyes? The eyes he never looked into?
But worse, it would be the day he would have to start trying to keep his word to {her}.
And on that day, he knew in his heart, he couldn't keep it. She had whispered into his ear and asked him to do the unthinkable. And he said he would. He would have told her anything she needed to hear. And he did.
{She} whispered her dying wish into his ear, "Promise me you will love again...Promise me."
"Promise," he replied.
Asking him to promise he would keep on living would have been too much in and of itself, but to love again?
Impossible.

That's it. The entire chapter. So now you know what you're looking at: Short chapters made of short sentences piled atop each other, building thorny defensive walls against loss and loneliness and the icy freezing cold of being irretrievaby, irrevocably left behind. Sometimes you're inside, sometimes you're outside.

If that style fails to appeal, pass on. But Pintail, a Canadian division of Penguin, should find plenty of people happy to visit the amazing, beautiful Alaskan tundra with John and his dependents. I'm very glad I spent the time I did with this promising, exciting debut thriller.


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Another excellent review, Richard. Thumb from me.

Thank you, Joe!

Review: 16 of fifty

Title: THE LAST KASHMIRI ROSE

Author: BARBARA CLEVERLY

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: In a land of saffron sunsets and blazing summer heat, an Englishwoman has been found dead, her wrists slit, her body floating in a bathtub of blood and water. But is it suicide or murder? The case falls to Scotland Yard inspector Joe Sandilands, who survived the horror of the Western Front and has endured six sultry months in English-ruled Calcutta. Sandilands is ordered to investigate, and soon discovers that there have been other mysterious deaths, hearkening sinister ties to the present case.Now, as the sovereignty of Britain is in decline and an insurgent India is on the rise, Sandilands must navigate the treacherous corridors of political decorum to bring a cunning killer to justice…knowing the next victim is already marked to die.

My Review: This series begins on a high note, with the character of Joe Sandilands romping through soon-to-be-de-Britished India. He is an appealing character. He isn't, however, interesting enough to make me want to read more books in the series.

About the mystery itself, I was a little bit more interested in its solution than I expected to be. I was pretty sure I knew who was murdering the women, and was suspicious about why...but honestly I was surprised by the motivation of the killer. I was a little more involved than I expected to be as the body count mounted.

What I wasn't was convinced that the killings were in any way part of a pattern that convinced me. Sandilands appears to be chasing his own tail, and I'm never clear that he's actually investigating and solving the actual crime.

Well, it's not a terrible book. It's nicely written. India is a good backdrop, and ti's well evoked. But what we have here is a failure to launch. I'm...well...oh heck, I have to say it...bored. Bored. Bored. Bored.


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Yeah, that was my reaction to this one, too. Too bad.

Review: 17 of fifty

Title: ANTIQUES ROADKILL

Author: BARBARA ALLAN

Rating: 2.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Brandy Borne and her mother Vivian find themselves investigating the murder of a crooked antiques dealer who just happened to take Vivian for all she was worth. Now they are in a race to find the murderer before he or she strikes again because they could very well be next!

My Review: ~meh~

Pleasant enough, I suppose, nothing at all wrong with it except that there's nothing to like. It's mildly amusing. It's a mystery about the same way any book is a mystery, in that one doesn't know how the author's going to wrap it up. But...how spoiled does this sound...I expected more. I wanted to chuckle more, even I don't know even laugh out loud once or twice.

A few smiles, one snicker.

~meh~


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>93 jnwelch: It really is, Joe, the idea for the series has such promise and it simply...well...it just doesn't get there.

Review: 18 of fifty

Title: CLOSE MY EYES

Author: SOPHIE MCKENZIE

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: When Geniver Loxley lost her daughter at birth eight years ago, her world stopped… and never fully started again. Mothers with strollers still make her flinch; her love of writing has turned into a half-hearted teaching career; and she and her husband, Art, have slipped into the kind of rut that seems inescapable.

But then a stranger shows up on their doorstep, telling Gen the very thing she’s always wanted to hear: that her daughter Beth was not stillborn, but was taken away as a healthy infant and is still out there, somewhere, waiting to be found. It’s insane, unbelievable. But why would anyone make that up? A fissure suddenly opens up in Gen’s carefully reconstructed life, letting in a flood of unanswerable questions. Where is Beth now? Why is Art so reluctant to get involved? To save his wife from further hurt? Or is it something more sinister? And who can she trust to help her?

Ignoring the warnings of her husband and friends, Gen begins to delve into the dark corners of her past, hopeful she’ll find a clue to her daughter’s whereabouts. But hope quickly turns into fear and paranoia, as she realizes that finding the answers might open the door to something even worse than not knowing. A truth that could steal everything she holds close – even her own life.

My Review: I won this book in an email giveaway from St. Martin's/Minotaur Books' e-newsletter, Criminal Element. Whee! Thanks guys!

Sophie McKenzie is one to watch out for. She can tell a story that, when you realize the underlying conceit of it, only makes the story she's crafted more interesting, sharpens the poignancy of it, and makes the ending both inevitable and sharply, horribly shocking.

Oh dear. That doesn't sound like something one would necessarily want to read, does it.

Um.

You see, there is a layer of the story that I, Mr. Get-Over-It about spoilers, don't want to give away in advance. The dawning realization about the underpinning of the story McKenzie is telling you is one of the most satisfying pleasures of the novel. There's really no Big Reveal, no Moment of Truth, in this realization. It's a dawning awareness of a resonance, a few details that catch on a thorn of memory, unraveling a strand in the plot that..."OH! I get it now!" And that wonderful moment is what I don't want to deprive you of.

So! How's the weather where you are? I can't review the book too closely, you'll get it and that'll just blow it all. I had curry-toast with sharp cheddar for lunch today. We're out of chutney, though, darn it. I had some olives, luckily, and they were tasty with the curry-cheddar spicytart flavors. Much like the novel I'm not discussing. The narrative's complexity of savor is there, just needs to be experienced.

Hell's bells. Buy the darn thing and read it. Suspense novel readers won't see new ground broken, but a very good and carefully crafted story is a generous reward for your eyeblinks. Even if the underpinning of the story isn't obvious to you until the last page, the reward is a solid, suspenseful story of one woman's path out of the featureless gray fog of depression. Like any journey, it has antagonists and it has guides and it's not always clear who is what to whom.

And that, my friends, is the fun of reading a suspense novel, isn't it? Savor. Enjoy. Smile knowingly early on or slap your forehead and shout "of course!" at the end...no matter, you're in for a treat.


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That thud you just heard? That was me, caving in to buying the book...

How can I resist a review like that? And why should I even try to? Onto the wishlist!

>97 Matke: Heh...I finally got you, my pretty...

>98 rosalita: Thanks, Julia! I expect it will give you some fun times. Do be sure to let me know, okay?

You talked me into it.

>100 mkboylan: My evil plot to deforest the world is working!

LOL yes it is.

Review: 19 of fifty

Title: TILT-A-WHIRL

Author: CHRIS GRABENSTEIN

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: There isn't much sun in the fun when a billionaire real estate tycoon is found murdered on the Tilt-A-Whirl at a seedy seaside amusement park in the otherwise quiet summer tourist town of Sea Haven. John Ceepak, a former MP just back from Iraq, has just joined the Sea Haven police department. The job offer came from an old army buddy who hoped to give Ceepak at least a summer's worth of rest and relaxation to help him forget the horrors of war. Instead, Ceepak will head up the murder investigation. He is partnered with Danny Boyle, a 24-year-old part-time summer cop who doesn't carry a gun and only works with the police by day so he has enough pocket money left over to play with his beach buddies at night. In the first novel in a new series written in the spirit of Carl Hiaasen's work, the Tilt-A-Whirl murder pushes Ceepak's deep sense of honor and integrity to the limits, as unexpected twists and turns keep the truth spinning wildly in every direction.

My Review: A first-person narrative by the brilliant, damaged sleuth's awestruck sidekick. A murder richly deserved, a plot cleverly sewn to established behaviors of irreproachable characters, and a very dark and twisted resolution that provides restitution for many past wrongs, all for the price of an insalata caprese on a baguette with taro chips.

I started reading this free Kindle edition this afternoon, nursing a sore back and a bad mood. I stopped a few minutes ago, drew a deep breath, and said, "golly gee willikers, that was a corking experience!" (Ceepak rubbed off on me a little. It's only temporary. I hope.)

I was rather constantly reminded that Ceepak was modeled on Sherlock Holmes, in fact a wee bit heavy-handedly (the cigarette butt, the musical obsession, the lighthouse), but honestly it never made the story less enveloping. The town and the townie-sidekick made me appreciate Ceepak's character's Sherlockian traits. The more Danny, out narrator, talks, the more Ceepak learns and, importantly, teaches. The specific information Ceepak seeks about the locations of stuff around the little resort town is less important than is the lesson that Danny is being offered at every step. It's so well-done that I suspect readers can whip right past that piece of subtext and lose no speck of pleasure in following Ceepak around as he pulls threads and worrys knots and always, always obeys his orders. Even when they come from people who have no idea what they're doing.

The crime scene team at the scene of the murder is led by a revolting slob instead of a brilliant, world-renowned forensic scientist, who happens to be away on vacation when this crime is committed...the murder of a billionaire. Hard luck! It's so awful how things don't happen the right way, although the sloppy lead forensic guy probably gets a come-uppance offstage. Which kinda sucks, I'd really have enjoyed seeing him suffer...though I have some hopes he'll reappear to be a thorn in the side of our Dudley Dooright detective, this shell-shocked love child of Sherlock and Adrian Monk.

I'm all ready to be a big fan. I'm hoping I'll be as happy after I read the next one. Because I read this on the !*&$^^!%%#% Kindle, I can't quote the nice, dry asides and observations that Danny, our Watson-meets-Archie Goodwin, makes, but I smiled a lot, chuckle a good bit, and laughed out loud at least three times.

Yeah, four stars. That's fair. The extra fractions of a star get deducted for a few small breaks, like an attitude shift on Danny's part that goes from up to down to up again a bit too quickly; the resolution of the original red herring being a smidge on the done-and-dusted side; and a bit at the end with Ceepak doing something I found, well, forced and unnecessary.

None of which should even slow you down in your sprint to the Kindle store to spend a *whopping* ninety-nine cents to procure your lease on access to the file. Five hours happily spent making a new bestie? For a lousy buck? Be a devil, risk it!


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Thanks, that sounds entertaining. I can use some fun right now. I see my library has 27 titles by this guy!

Richard, I love the 'Tilt A Whirl' series! I've read the first three and am looking forward to the next.

>104 Jim53: Entertaining is the perfect word for his books, Jim. A lot of the ones in your liberry are probably his YA works, so be aware of the distinction!

>105 rosalita: Hi Julia! I'm glad to know that the first three are all consistently good.

Nabbed this for my kindle thanks to your heads up. Glad you enjoyed. I'm hoping to get to this before the end of time!!

>107 tututhefirst: Oh good! What with your Maine Reads choices to review, I expect it will be a struggle to fit in any purely-for-fun reading for a good while to come. Sending hugs northward.

Maine Reads and Bobbie bidness managing are definitely keeping me busy, but I have to have brain candy to keep from being overwhelmed.

This title would suit that need admirably. Unchallenging, with all the usual elements deployed, and told with a fresh voice. Likable! Not hugely memorable, but likable.

Review duly thumbed and book added to kindle.

Are we in the category of co-dependent?

I doubt it. *smooch*

Review: 20 of fifty

Title: MAD MOUSE

Author: CHRIS GRABENSTEIN

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: It's almost Labor Day, and the end of summer could mean the end of someone's life in this exciting sequel to Chris Grabenstein's Tilt-a-Whirl. Young Danny Boyle, the part-time summer cop "down the shore" in Sea Haven, New Jersey, gets taken on a wild ride when he and his longtime beach buddies become the unwitting targets of a mad-man's twisted scheme for revenge. Fortunately, John Ceepak, the cop with a soldier's unshakeable code of honor, stays at Danny's side to help him negotiate the quick twists and turns that threaten to destroy his life, his friends, and everything about the world he loves. Whipping from the boardwalk to the beach and back again, Mad Mouse keeps zigging and zagging at a breakneck pace, all the way to the surprising finish.

My Review: Second verse, same as the first/Coulda got better....

I enjoyed the time off from the troubling events I'm seeing develop at Goodreads. I hid myself in this enjoyable, light-weight read...

...and *whammo* got the boom lowered on me. Every one of us has done things that, had we known what we were doing at the time, would never have been put into action. Fortunately for most of us, the people we've hurt or mistreated don't come after us with sniper weapons in hand and murder at heart. Danny Boyle, the cool kid from school who never left the town he grew up in, has some of those and here they come with guns and murder all at the ready.

Grabenstein's writing is smooth, very easy on the eyes and ears, and carefully crafted. He chooses the scenes of his story with a very practiced and able eye. He offers an interesting angle of view. But the impact of the story is never in doubt, since his main character is the one in the sniper's crosshairs. Readers of Tilt-A-Whirl are already invested in Danny, and those who start here are probably not that far behind.

In the end, though, after going on the ride with Danny, it's the perp that leaves one almost breathless in horror, pity, fear, loathing. It's all so, so pointless. Except to the unhappy victim. And I don't, this time, mean Danny or his friends.

Very affecting.

What worked less well for me was the grafted-on feeling that the romance, which apparently blew up overnight, left me with; the Ceepak presence was deployed in an oddly spotty manner, feeling not exactly perfunctory but less personal than in the first book; and the new character Buzz was, well, here I can say it, perfunctory. Quick strokes, convenient presence, but not integral or maybe integrated, into the action.

A series I will pursue, no doubt, and with pleasure. Just a few clouds in the sunshiney sky. Nothing to suggest even a rain shower, still less a storm. I like finding myself in Sea Haven, and that says a lot.


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Another excellent review from you of the 2nd Ceepak. This has quickly become one of my favorite series. I totally agree with you here about the romance graft. I thought it detracted more than it added to the mystery and to Danny's character development.

Not to mention Ceepak's borning romance with the waitress. Yuck. Not well-handled. BUT four stars anyway because the sheer scary Menendez-Brothersness of the killer!

Review: 21 of fifty

Title: STRIKE FROM THE DEEP

Author: BOB BRANCO

Rating: 3.8* of five

The Publisher Says: Modern-day Somali pirates have been capturing merchant ships for ransom. Suddenly, in a move that rattles the world's economies, giant oil and liquid natural gas tankers are mysteriously taken off Arabia and Africa, far out at sea in the darkness of night. Held for record ransom demands, these ships are taken to strange new pirate hideouts along the North coast of Somalia. When pirates fire on the responding international task force ships and aircraft, the world watches as an entirely new type of war at sea begins.

I requested a copy of this title from the author.

My Review: Tom Clancy's death in October 2013 opened the field for military thriller writers for the second time in his career. After he published The Hunt for Red October in 1984, military thrillers were once again on the readerly radar of many many men. Clancy dominated the field he had opened for almost thirty years.

Rest in peace, Mr. Clancy. Your successors are lining up to entertain the men, women, and boys of the world with tense, exciting, well-wrought storylines of high-stakes chases, maneuvers, and back-stage politicking. Here's one of the first to come out of the gate, and it's a strong contender for a place on the military thriller reader's Holiday present list.

Don't kid yourself...it's a novel, but it's not a farrago or a fanciful conceit. Branco took a very real and worsening concern for the shipping industry, piracy based in the lawless failed state of Somalia, and ratcheted up the stakes. I suspect it's only a matter of time before the book is seen as predictive instead of entertaining. If, that is, the events haven't already played out like this, only with more silencing oil poured over them.

When Jason Stewart, commanding the USS Farragut, is ordered to look into the status of a supertanker full of liquified natural gas en route from Nigeria to Mumbai, the plot kicks into high gear and doesn't stop. Alternating sections of the story are told from the major points of view...the pirates, the motivating malefactors, the loyal henchrats...seldom staying with us long enough for the reader to become inured to the action.

Back and forth, cat and mouse, and all told in a spare, clipped narrative voice that feels more like it's overheard than written for an audience, there's just barely time to get in the swing of Lt. (jg) Christine Johnson's duty shift before we're aboard a pirated vessel and experiencing the terror of a crewman about to die, and before that becomes squicky we're in a plush Moscow office listening to a very, very ruthless and unpleasant man give orders that appall the reader who rejects Ayn Rand as a moral guide.

Navy veteran Branco can be relied on for accuracy, and savvy world citizen Branco can be relied on to "get" the power dynamics of world-straddling military forces both pro and con. There is not a jot of doubt about who is doing wrong here, but there is not a hint of lazy, demonizing anticharacterization at work either. Everyone here has a motivation for acting in a particular way, and it's never simplistic.

I am obligated by my inner elitist to mention the intensely annoying lapses in observing the conventions of standard punctuation (e.g., when mentioning a city, one must use the formula "City Name, State Name," and not "City Name, State Name" and then bang on with the sentence!), and I for one do not welcome sentence fragments or dependent clauses plopped in my dialogue without commas to set them off, and don't even get me started on the series or Oxford comma so blithely ignored throughout...but overall, as witness my rating, not even these cavils led me to stop reading (a frequent occurrence, even in well-told stories) or to smack the author upside the head with a single-star rating (less frequent occurrence, as it's more or less the nuclear option when a story is poorly told).

I liked the story. I was excited to see what happened next. I'd say that any reader who laments the loss of Tom Clancy's military thriller creation machine should celebrate this Veteran's Day by ordering a copy of Bob Branco's book and sinking into a satisfied haze of acronyms and action.

****NOTE THAT THE KINDLE EDITION OF THE BOOK IS FREE FOR A LIMITED TIME!****


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Review: 22 of fifty

Title: RED TO BLACK

Author: ALEX DRYDEN

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Finn is a veteran MI6 operative stationed in Moscow. In the guise of an amiable trade secretary, he has penetrated deep into the dangerous labyrinth that is Russia under Vladimir Putin to discover some of its darkest secrets, thanks to a high-level source deep within the Kremlin.

The youngest female colonel in the KGB, Anna is the ambitious daughter of one of the former Soviet Union's elite espionage families. Charged with helping to make Russia strong again under Putin, she is ordered to spy on Finn and discover the identity of his mole.

At the dawn of the new millennium, these adversaries find themselves brought together by an unexpected love that becomes the only truth they can trust. When Finn uncovers a shocking and ingenious plan—hatched in the depths of the Cold War—to control the European continent and shift the balance of world power, he and Anna are thrust into a deadly plot in which friend and foe wear the same face. With time running out, they will race across Europe and risk everything -—career, reputation, and even their own lives— to expose the terrifying truth.

My Review: I enjoyed this read more than I expected to, and less than I should have. It's a very, very scary and plausible tale of a plot to use the West's greed to bring it down. After all, Marx wrote, “The last capitalist we hang shall be the one who sold us the rope.” He was a prescient thinker, was Marx.

I'm not going to go into the bits of the story because the spoilers would be epic. And also, the story told is either instantly obvious...the New Russia is a viciously capitalist and socially Darwinian funhouse mirror of the West's nastiest, least admirable qualities, and will therefore succeed in out-competing the West...or completely incredible, as to a triumphalist Teabagger idiot.

I'm on the instantly obvious side, obviously, and that's why I enjoyed the book more than I expected to. Russia's manifold social problems are all traceable to its insanely lopsided wealth distribution. That should ring an entire cathedral's worth of bells for anyone in the USA. If it doesn't, then the Teabagger idiot triumphalism is likely to obscure the evidence of a calculated takedown of Western economies.

Anyway. What didn't work well for me was the narrative structure of the book, with its reported-not-experienced quality, and the fact that the main characters were sketched more than drawn. I need to feel some sense of connection, positive or negative, to the people who are taking me on the journey that is a book. Here, in Anna and Finn, I felt I was being told a bit about the people in a not-very-close friend's long, detailed story. That was, I think, a result of the all-flashback narrative structure. The past can enhance the present in a story, there is no doubt, but the past doesn't enhance the past with anything like as much intensity. It simply becomes more flashback.

Overall, in the scheme of things, is this a thriller I'd recommend to a fellow subway rider? Maybe not, since it's so slow-paced. But for me, and those like me who lean to the political left, it's got a lot of confirmation-bias appeal. The fact that the author makes a very strong point of thanking Russian sources who need to remain anonymous is telling. And unsurprising.

And very, very disheartening.


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Richard, I nabbed "Strike From the Deep" from Kindle, but I haven't gotten to it yet. It sounds fairly promising from your review, so perhaps I'll get to it sooner rather than later.

I hope you'll enjoy the read, Julia!

Review: 23 of fifty

Title: MY FIRST MURDER

Author: LEENA LEHTOLAINEN
Translator: OWEN WITESMAN

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: Maria Kallio has just been assigned her first murder investigation. To prove to herself and her squad that she has what it takes to be a detective, she’ll have to solve the death of Tommi Peltonen. Found floating facedown at the water’s edge of his Helsinki villa, Tommi had invited his choir group to spend a weekend at his retreat. But beneath the choir’s seemingly tight-knit bonds seethed bitter passion and jealousy. As Maria sets out to determine the difference between friends and foes, she uncovers the victim’s unsavory past—and motives for all seven suspects. Now it’s up to her to untangle a complex set of clues before the killer strikes again.

The first book in Leena Lehtolainen’s bestselling Finnish crime series starring Detective Maria Kallio, My First Murder offers hard-boiled realism from a female perspective.

My Review: I gave in and read a Scandicrime book. It's a serviceable police procedural told in first person by thirtyish Maria Kallio, law student and relentlessly single female interloper in the world of career police detectives. She appears as a replacement for a broken-down cop who injured himself in the line of duty, and she rapidly worked her way up the chain of command because 1) she's a girl and b) she's tough as nails.

Now, as to the mystery part, I liked it fine but didn't love it. Some interesting characters were adequately developed. What made my eyebrows rise was the reportedness of the atmosphere in which Maria works. She tells us a wee bit, basically a log-line, about the other crimes she and her department are pursuing; not enough to make us care, more than enough to make us curious, and just enough to bring the sense of urgency about the main case of this book to a halt. Can't put this down to first-book-itis, either, since this author had her first book published when she was twelve!

So what was I left with? A sea of Finnish names, all of which look wrong to me, and locations I know nothing whatsoever about, and a sense of being slightly seasick as Tommi and Tomppa and Tiina and Tiiu and Riku and Antti all blended into a mass of UUUUUIIIIUUYYPPPPAAAA. Finnish, when spoken, raises my hackles with its sheer alienness. When written, it causes me distress because it's got nowhere for me to grab hold of anything to give it meaning to me. Plus everything seems to wear umlauts, those freaky-deaky fangmarks that make all previously comprehensible sounds turn into strangled moans.

It's free to borrow on your Kindle, and that's what I'd recommend you do. At $2.99, it's not a break-the-bank download, but see if you can hang with the sheer Finnishness before committing actual funds to it.


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tuu baaadd, tuu muuch Finniishness. Thiink II'll paass.

"characters adequately developed" is damning with faint praise. er, faaiint praaiise.

:)

Ha! At least you didn't trouble with the umlauts! They even put them over Ys!!!!!

*shudder*

And you gave it a 3???

Yeah, the 3 was mostly due to the intriguing view of Finland as a criminal hot-spot. The Baltic countries barely exist on my mental map, so I liked the setting enough for that extra half-star.

I'm mining this for ideas for the spousal unit birthday in April - found at least one..... oh way up top, now I forget - the one set in France.

I loved the discussion of wrist-slitting scandi fict. Yah, Independent People Halldor Laxness is pretty bad. Knut Hamsun might be even worse!!!!! What was I thinking when I read those books??????

>20 richardderus: A new series you have the nerve to introduce me to? I just found this one Bruno, Chief of Police on audio. It actually sounds like something my dad would have loved. I'm looking forward to pretending we're sitting in front of a radio listening to the story. As always... a thumbie for you.

>125 sibylline: (a bit late) Scandigloom and Scandidoom is nothing newm. (Couldn't resist, sorry.) I think the scariest imaginable thing is reading a Jo Nesbo novel and Njal's Saga at the same time. *eep*

>126 tututhefirst: I'm working on my yodel of praise for The Dark Vineyard, Tina...that's book 2...so I shall soon be pouring Tabasco on the already-salted wound.

*gleeful hand-rub*

Review: 24 of fifty

Title: SENDERO

Author: MAX R. TOMLINSON

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: In 1987, the dirty war that will last twelve years and kill thirty thousand Peruvians finally reaches up through the Andean cloud forest for Nina and her family. Nina’s father is shot by soldiers, her mother raped, and her brother lost to the shadowy ranks of Shining Path guerrillas. And when Agustín Malqui, the village pastor, files a legal complaint against the military, it’s no surprise when he disappears in the middle of the night—just another casualty of the military regime.

Twenty-odd years later, Nina, now an officer in Cuzco’s tourist police, comes across a familiar name on the police printer that she scans daily for any trace of her long-lost brother. Agustín Malqui is alive. After spending years in a political prison, the broken pastor has been wandering the country, saving souls and drowning his demons in pisco. Nina tracks him down, only to lose him yet again in a police sweep of political malcontents. But before Malqui disappears, he tells her a drunken tale she can scarcely believe: that her brother Miguel is still alive.

Despite warnings and threats from her chief and the pleadings of her lover, an officer in Peru’s anti-terrorist branch, Nina presses on to find Malqui. Her search takes her through Peru’s underworld, from remote villages high in the Andes to the steaming jungle haunts of the narcotraficantes, and ultimately to a secret political prison in the altiplano, where she learns the truth about Malqui and her own vanished brother.

My Review: I've been to Cuzco twice, and Peru three times, in my life. I very much like it there, and I am a big fan of the Andean people's surviving culture. I came to the book ready to love it.

I liked it a whole lot.

There are the accustomed ebook-original glitches, typos and oddly placed punctuation marks and continuity errors. I don't want to dwell on them, but one big one is the last-name change of a major character between books one and two. I sigh, and remove one star.

Ninasisa is a really sympathetic character to build a series of thrillers on, and full marks to Mr. Tomlinson for making her believably damaged by her and her country's fraught past. Nina, as she is known in most of the book, has sustained losses that would wreck a lesser person's entire life. Nina isn't rising above her beginnings, she's building her future on making the beginnings part of it. She never hides or is shamed by her mountain-Indian origins, despite the fact that she's dating a Spaniard (a white Peruvian) from Cuzco's upper classes.

She never forgets that her roots are down low, despite a US university education and a job with the Tourist Police. She could credibly downplay the past, but chooses not to, and that provides a lot of conflict between herself and the class- and race-conscious Peruvian culture. Reading her interactions with the gigantic lower-class majority of Cuzco, the ancient Inca and modern Andean capital, rang very true to me. (My contact with same having been an Andean tour guide who was at pains to inform his American guests of the true nature of poverty.)

I removed one more half-star for the first-time novelist errors of characterization, such as the all-villain-all-the-time bad guys, and the overwhelming goodness of all the womenfolk. It's not tragic, but it informs the ending of the book, which...well...it was certainly dramatic and very well set-up by the rest of the book, but was...pat. Expected. Predictable, if excitingly written.

Make no mistake, this first novel of a series is a very worthwhile way to wile the hours away. If you've never been to Peru, you'll feel like you have after reading this. If you have been to Peru, you'll feel that little pleased jolt when Tomlinson mentions a place you've visited. It's a good read.

Not quite excellent. Not perfect. A good, solid read, delivers on its promise of action, and manages a vivid sense of place. At $2.99 for the Kindle version, it's worth that and more.


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Well I couldn't resist that last one, and it's only $2.99 on Kindle. Great review and I also had to request Shining Path from the library.

No reviews posted on Sendero Richard, maybe you could post yours.

>129 mkboylan: Oh, I *am* pleased! I got a nice email from the author about the discrepancy I pointed out in my review, saying neither he nor the editor he hired for the second book had noticed the accidental last-name change, and it would be corrected in the second book.

I was very very impressed by that.

ETA >130 mkboylan: I was sure I had! Well, I will now, thanks.

>130 mkboylan: That IS nice and impressive!

Maybe you did and I messed up. When I click on Cathedral of the Wild, which I reviewed recently, it says no reviews, but then shows the review. I've been having those types of problems lately. Weird.

Now when i click on Sendero it says"none" in the review column up top but does show your review below. It'll probably clear up.

I wonder what kind of gremlins we, the users, DON'T see...I'd hate like hell to be in the customer interface business.

Review: 25 of fifty

Title: WHO SINGS TO THE DEAD?

Author: MAX TOMLINSON

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Who can you trust in a country haunted by its past?

On the hunt for an abducted Indian beggar girl, Peruvian National Police officer Nina Flores is determined to track down the suspected kidnapper, a man who resembles what the locals call pishtacos: tall, pale ghosts who steal children. In spite of being jumped by a mysterious attacker, and the murder of a woman who gets too close to the truth, Nina is blocked at every turn by her superiors. Then she discovers links to a second case reaching back twenty years to the country’s dirty war. Defying the powers that be, Nina forms a shaky alliance with a member of a brutal drug cartel and heads deep into the Amazon jungle. She will bring the lost one home, or die trying.

My Review: My goodness. This is another case of a thriller that thrills, but leaves some nagging questions in the reader's mind. None are fatal to the story. All are significant enough that I feel I must mention them.

I very very much enjoy the Peruvian setting. I love Ninasisa's complete and understated conviction that she can handle any-goddam-thing that Peru, the USA, the narcotraficantes, can dream up to throw at her. The view of the politics of The New Peru is, I am convinced, accurate: Good people trying to make amends and start anew, bad people trying to make a buck and get a piece of the pie, and world leaders silently tolerating what would, in their own countries, cause revolution and outrage.

Weltanschauung = Weltschmerz, I suppose. Frantz Fanon needs to reincarnate in Peru.

Nina, as she is referred to most of the time, is a poor girl from a poor family, who made it into a darn good job because her narco uncle feels bad about her orphanhood and subsidized a US university education for her. He would have preferred that she stay there. She came home and became a Tourist Police officer...an interface between Peru's lawlessness and tourists' expectations of a civilized experience.

Now she's embroiled in a chase, thinking that one of the street kids she looks out for as a form of paying it forward is being pedophilically used after being snatched off the street during Easter Week chaos by an American tourist.

The chase is remarkably slow. Many days go by, a week or more before Nina can get close to the perp. Any police department will tell you that this is a *terrible* sign, no search, no discovery, no demand for ransom within 48 hours maximum usually means it's a recovery mission and not a rescue. Tomlinson makes sure we experience Nina's frustration, which becomes problematic because it's all we experience. There is nothing that impels us to invest in the lost child, since her older sister is the character we see more of and we don't see all that much of her. Common thriller techniques, like dates and times as chapter headings, or short fast chapters, aren't employed here. It leaves out a kind of urgency that can only help readers see how much Nina cares, that she's investing so much time.

Nina's new crush object, after the first book soured her relationship with an earlier paramour, is terribly convenient and quite promising. He is drawn with care to show what about him attracts and then interests a wary, heartsick woman of early middle age. Because he is so sketchily filled in, I can only be morally certain that he's younger than she is. That's certainly not unheard of, and it's clear that Nina possesses the attributes that interest straight men, but it does raise a question I wondered about in the first book: She's in early middle age, at 36, and no one...not one soul...says anything about her being an old maid or a lesbian or boo-turkey about it. In Peru. A Catholic patriarchy.

That ain't bloody likely, more especially since she takes such an interest in the sex workers and children of Cuzco. SOMEone would make a jibe about her getting the kids she never had, looking for a girlfriend among the whores, etc etc etc. Men are like that, and so are some of the cattier women that Nina runs up against.

And the American villains of the piece? Well, sketched in adequately to show why they're villains and what damage they've caused and endured. The ending, however, doesn't hang together where they are concerned, and the final chase scenes lack a sense of more than theatrical stakes because of it.

And finally, a niggle. Something that gets under my saddle and rubs a blister on my hide. PICK A CONVENTION. Italicize Spanish and Quechua, Spanish or Quechua, but not sometimes and then not. Also, choose a single spelling convention, either American (Cuzco) or Peruvian (Cusco). Different between books. That isn't good. Italicize Spanish AND Quechua, or just Quechua (which I'd recommend, since in Peru it's still a second language and that reinforces the Peruvianness of the books). And spellcheck is NOT your friend in Spanish. Barracho doesn't mean anything that I know of.

These are issues that affect fussbudgets like me, though, and only because I'm engrossed in the story and don't want to notice extraneous stuff like that. I like Nina, I like Cuzco, I like where it seems we're headed, and for the price I can't imagine a better deal.


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Wanted to let you know I finished Sendero and really enjoyed it. I was planning to read the next one in awhile but after reading your review of Sings I zipped over to Amazon and bought it and the other one based on Inez. Your reviews are great! So glad I found this series. Thanks.

I wanted to wait to purchase until I read a couple of other things on my plate, but i wanted to get them while they are so cheap. Do you know if typically those inexpensive books stay so or go up in price as the author gains popularity? I mean specifically do the author's early works increase in price?

>136 mkboylan: Thank you very kindly, and I'm happy to have introduced you to a good new series. As far as I know, the usual trend in prices is downward for earlier work.

Review: 26 of fifty

Title: A MURDER IS ANNOUNCED

Author: AGATHA CHRISTIE

***THIS REVIEW IS OF AGATHA CHRISTIE'S MARPLE, THE TV PROGRAM, ADAPTATION OF THE BOOK***

Also note that Amazon US offers the Kindle version of this story for $1.99 today, 28 June 2014!

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: The villagers of Chipping Cleghorn, including Jane Marple, are agog with curiosity over an advertisement in the local gazette which read: 'A murder is announced and will take place on Friday October 29th, at Little Paddocks at 6:30 p.m.' Unable to resist the mysterious invitation, a crowd begins to gather at Little Paddocks at the pointed time when, without warning, the lights go out ...

My Review: Jane Marple, in this episode of the delightful ITV series, suffers her own loss in the course of solving this murder. As always, Geraldine McEwan is pitch-perfect as the demure and sweet Miss Marple. The villain of the piece is a favorite character of mine, played ably by a face familiar to all who have watched any modern Christie adaptation.

The plot is, unusually for the Marple TV adaptations, very similar to Christie's novel's plot, but makes a few additions that I myownself approved of. These included a subtle lesbian subtext for Miss Marple's niece. It is very clear that Miss Marple knows this fact, and is utterly unfazed by it. I find this very much in character for Miss Marple, the woman whose life in St Mary Mead has shown her all of human nature...and taught her to value goodness over propriety.

In fact, I'd rate the TV version a full star higher than the novel, which was only moderately good. The surprising thing for me was that the secondary characters, like Mitzi the paranoid cook and Col. Easterbrook the drunken soldier, came more fully alive in their brief moments of screentime than they ever did on the page.

Score one for the reviled small screen!


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Review: 27 of fifty

Title: CASINO ROYALE

Author: IAN FLEMING

Rating: well, why not? 3* of five

**THIS REVIEW IS OF THE FILM**

Oops! Forgot one. This is 1967's film version I'm discussing, not the book, which was *awful*. That's not fair...it's not horrid writing, it's just so very very very dated and not in a good way. Kind of a time capsule of what was wrong with 1954.

Ya know...this film version was pretty damn lame, too. What redeems it is the sheer balls-out what-did-I-just-watch comedic pace of the thing. David Niven is LUDICROUS as Bond, but good as this character who isn't Bond but is called Bond. The return of Ursula Andress, this time as superspy Vesper Lynd (not to be mistaken for 2006's Vesper, completely different character), is notable; but the turn to the comedic and ridiculous is signalled by Bond having a child by Mata Hari, yclept Mata Bond.

It was one of the many moments where I rolled my eyes so hard I think I saw my brain. There's a bit with a flying saucer in London that convinced me I was having an LSD flashback.

Don't go into the film thinking it's a Bond flick and maybe it's okay...but frankly, it feels a little too Sixties-hip-via-Hollywood for me to do more than smile faintly.

Why watch it, then? Because David Niven is very good at being urbanely nuts. It's a meta-performance. If he arched his eyebrow any higher, he's lose it in his receding hairline. Because Ursula Andress is classic as Vesper. Because Orson Welles is endearingly baffled as Le Chiffre, seeming not to have seen a script before being shoved in front of the camera. It's like a Warhol-movie moment. If you're a straight guy, Jacqueline Bisset and Barbara Bouchet are pneumatically endowed. But Peter Sellers was a major disappointment to me. Clouseau was his only character at that point, I guess. Blah.

Fun. Not Bond, but fun. Sort of.


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Review: 28 of fifty

Title: LIVE AND LET DIE

Author: IAN FLEMING

Rating: 3.5* of five

**THIS REVIEW IS OF THE FILM** (The novel doesn't resemble the film too terribly much, being a very Cold-Warry Russkis versus Good Guys in the Caribbean; deeply uninteresting to a 1970s audience)

It's the 1973 first outing by Simon Templar...I mean Roger Moore!...that I review here.

Holy pimpmobile! I'd forgotten this was the blaxploitation Bond flick. Appallingly racist. Horrifyingly insultingly so. And may I just say, "INTRODUCING JANE SEYMOUR" is the most chilling phrase I've ever in all my life seen on a movie screen?

Introducing. Jane. Seymour. As in, "not seen on the big screen before?" She was in some other stuff...but nothing as big as Bond. And the horrible thing is that Jane Seymour's character is only able to tell the future as a tarot reader while she's a virgin. Does that clue you in on what Bond's gonna do?

But all that comes after Bond's first African-American love interest. He sleeps with her while in a pale-blue loser suit. With a white belt. Wearing a wife-beater under it. Oh gawd, the seventies.

Then Bond condescends to pop Jane's cherry and takes away he rpowers, which the sexist sociopath clearly doesn't believe in; things go further and further downhill as Geoffrey Holder does a horrifying turn as a voodoo priest in the most ridiculous half-white makeup...well.

So of course Bond solves the identity puzzle, rescues now-slutty Jane from her life of luxury, and brings down the (black, of course) drug dealer. Then Geoffrey Holder laughs his unique laugh as we head for the credits.

Wow. Forty years really makes a lot of difference in how things look. I never liked Simon Templar...I mean Roger Moore!...as Bond. From the get-go, I found him too TV for the role of the big screen's biggest baddest spy. What was charming and roguish in other performances was slippery and oleaginous in Moore's performances. But I had no memory of how revoltingly racist this film was. I shudder to say it, but I was probably blind to it because it was...ulp...the way I saw the lily-white privileged Republican world I lived in.

*gaaak*

Well, that's enough of that. The dumbest car chase ever put on film takes place in an alternate New York where there are only Chevrolet Caprices, Chevrolet Impalas, and Cadillac Eldorados on the roads. Except one elderly Ford truck, which the lone Chevrolet Biscayne in New York, carrying Bond, hits head-on and somehow Bond isn't even scratched despite not wearing a seat belt. Yeah! Now that's the Bond we all love!

And the title tune. Oh my goodness, the title tune. It's one of the indelible memories of 1973, along with the Rayburn Committee hearings and the Energy Crisis. Pretty good tune. But earwormy as all hell! Once in your mind, it ain't a-comin' out easy.

"Enjoy."


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Review: 29 of fifty

Title: MOONRAKER

Author: IAN FLEMING

Rating: 4* of five

Yes, again I'm rating the 1979 movie, not the 1954 book. Get over it. The book was so ludicrously dated that they had no choice but to make a clean sweep of all the space parts.

The pre-credits sequence of this film is the absolute all-time best thrill ride in the Bondiverse. Seeing it again on the teensy netbook screen was just as thrilling and pulse-pounding as it was to see it in the theater 34 years ago. A parachuteless Bond flung from a plane, chasing a villain with a parachute, wresting the parachute from the villain, and death to baddie while Bond tiptoes lightly to earth.

It's WONDERFUL.

The plot's standard Bond piffle. Villain with all the money in the world manages to hide a space base in the jungles of Brazil, creates a supermegaultra whiter-than-white Master Race, blah blah you know the drill. What makes this fun to watch are the chase scenes in Venice...so beautiful, Venice!...Rio de Janeiro's cable cars, which had me whimpering in terror...and lastly, most campily, in outer space. That bit, the last half-hour or so, hasn't aged well.

I really love this film for its sheer, balls-to-the-wall speed of pace. Unlike many Bond films, the yip-yap seems to take less time than usual. This perception is helped along by the forgettableness of the yip-yap, I think.

Possibly the stupidest thing that happens in the film is the 7ft2in tall assassin, Jaws, who repeats from The Spy Who Loved Me, turns good because of the love of a (tiny, blonde) woman. Jeez. Possibly the best thing that happens, after the amazing opening sequence, is the launch of six space shuttles...filmed before even one had actually launched! It's quite impressive.

Shirley Bassey's back, singing "Moonraker", the last one she'd ever sing. Thank goodness. Apparently the producers asked her to do this after Kate Bush (!!) said no. The tune's just about what you'd accept in a 1959 film, not a 1979 film.

All there is to say con, I still give this one a pro rating.


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Review: 30 of fifty

Title: DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER

Author: IAN FLEMING

Rating: 3.5* of five

Again a reminder that these reviews are for the movies by these titles, NOT Fleming's books. I wasn't at all drawn to the books I read, and I've since sampled a few others, and to me they're repellently dated. This one perhaps least of all, really, as we're still in kerfuffle mode over conflict diamonds.

So this 1971 outing is based on the 1956 novel, and marks the last *canonical* film Connery made. Never Say Never Again wasn't a Broccoli-produced film, and made use of a story not ever precisely made into a novel, so...

Jill St. John spends a good deal of time scantily clothed. This mildly annoyed me as she tended to drape herself over pieces of furniture I wanted to look at, and her mammary hypertrophy blocked my view of Connery once in a while.

The plot is of a ridiculousness expected from a Bond film; Bond drives a 1970 Mustang, possibly the lowest styling point that Mustang has ever hit; Charles Gray (the Criminologist from Rocky Horror Picture Show) eats up the scenery as Blofeld, the ongoing villain/nemesis; so, you know, what's expected of a Bond film viewing experience.

Shirley Bassey sings the second most-boring theme song (after Adele's dreary "Skyfall") in the canon. It amused me, mildly, and the inclusion of two gay killers was pretty hotsy-totsy stuff for 1971. So, well, it was Bond so it was better than boring; but it lacked something, so I can't give it a good rating. Just not enough SOMEthing.


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Review: 31 of fifty

Title: FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE

Author: IAN FLEMING

Rating: 4.5* of five

It's the 1963 movie with Sean Connery that I'm rating. I tried reading Casino Royale recently, and found it dated and even more sexist and racist than I was expecting. I'll stick to the movies. Connery's nice to look at. The gadgets are hilarious, and so is Q. The theme songs are great.

This film is easily my favorite of the early Bonds. It's wacky, it's lovable, and the SMERSH plots are crazy funny in a fifty-years-on world. I loved the sheer over-the-top maleness of Connery's Bond, and can see why he was cast in this first film: He just *is* Bond!

The book is less fun, being more longface about England losing the Empaaah and Bond's backstory (almost entirely omitted from the movies) coming more to the fore.


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Hiya, Handsome! Look at you with all these various threads - I can't keep up... Off to look for that Miss Marple....

Review: 32 of fifty

Title: DOCTOR NO

Author: IAN FLEMING

Rating: 4* of five

Again rating the film from 1962. Cannot read the books, they haven't aged at all well. This book's focus on loyalty was presented in an unpleasant, torture-pornish way that I found ghastly.

And in so many ways, neither has the film. Ursula Andress, the most-remembered woman in the cast, plays Honey Ryder (!), and she is the last of three women to find 32-year-old Connery irresistible. (Well DUH.) But her role as eye candy for the straight boys is all she does. Her emergence from the sea in what was for the day a teensy bikini, but for today's audiences might as well be a burqa, led to the current Bond iteration's scene with Halle Berry splashing up out of the sea in, basically, nothin' much. How things have changed in 50 years.

I found myself drooling over the decor. (Hey, the story's ridiculous and the effects are risible, had to look at something!) Midcentury Modern for days! Gorgeous copper-plated doors and beautiful leather-upholstered walls! OOO AAAH. Bond driving that adorable Sunbeam convertible was fun for me too...and the tank with fins! Ha!

So yeah, I give it four camp-stars and enjoy it for what it now is: the birth of a cultural phenomenon, interesting more for what it says about our progress than for any intrinsic merits it has.


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Review: 33 of fifty

Title: GOLDFINGER

Author: IAN FLEMING

Rating: 4.8* of five

The 1964 film gets almost five stars. I doubt very seriously the book would get more than one. (Well...in fact, maybe three...Bond is less of an automaton in this one, but it's still way too misogynistic and torture-porny for me.)

So, first let's talk about the song. *swoon* If you don't like the song, don't ever tell me. I will unfriend you and make a voodoo dolly to do awful, awful things to you. Ever read The Wasp Factory? Yeah, that'll sound like Sunday school. K? Clear enough? Good.

Then there's Connery beefcakin' around in a skimpy swimsuit. There's a passel of cool cars, including the iconic Aston Martin DB5 *swoon* and a 1964 Thunderbird and a 1964-1/2 Mustang convertible *gasp* and...I'd better stop, things could get messy.

The real over-the-top-putter moment is the fight sequence in Fort Knox, with all that lovely (fake) gold. Odd Job, the villain with the lethal hat, comes to a shocking (heh) end, after a balletic slugfest. And of course the nuclear bomb inside the truckbed tool case is disarmed at...007 seconds to go!

I feel sure there was a plot in there somewhere, but frankly if you're watching Bond films for plot you're a sad creature. It's got verve and gusto and style. Watch it to bathe in the unrepentant sexism and piggery and racism of a bygone day, served up without malice. It's all there, it's all appalling by today's lights, but it wasn't put there to shock or edify as it would be today. That's just how it was, so that's what they show.

If they remake this one in the Craig reboot, I will be on tenterhooks waiting to see what they come up with to call Pussy Galore the pilot.

I loved every ridiculous frame of it.


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Review: 34 of fifty

Title: FOR YOUR EYES ONLY

Author: IAN FLEMING

Rating: 3.25* of five

(Frankly, it's hard to see anything in common between the short story by this name and the film...except Jamaica as a setting.)

Wow! What a film. 1981 was quite a year at the movie-house: Arthur, Das Boot, Gallipoli, Chariots of Fire...and this. The movie doesn't follow the book's plot particularly closely, adding stuff from another short story, inventing stuff...but what the hey, why should this one be different?

It's a standard revenge-action-espionage flick. Nothing in space, some stuff underwater that makes some kinda sense, and the best Bondmobile ever: A Citroën 2CV!

from Wikimedia on a Commons license

So yeah, being a little sarcastic there, but this film brings out the snark in me. Simon Templar does his smirking best as Bond. The man's just about as sexy as beans on toast.

But the reason I watched it again, after not liking it in the theater in 1981 (a horrible year in my life, which probably had a lot to do with my response), is the fact that this is Bond as a SPY! An actual espionage agent. It's refreshing to see, after the previous decade's endless progression of villain-fighting. That got tedious. Carole Thingummy, as Melina, was ~meh~ but the story was more involving and less superhero-suspend-all-disbelief-ye-who-enter-here and so a big relief to see.

Sheena Easton sang For Your Eyes Only, another ubiquitous Bond theme. It was wearing after a while, but it was memorable. I suppose modern audiences, desensitized by the horrors of hoop-pup and elektronika and suchlike nonmusic, will feel that way about Adele's blah, forgettable Skyfall.

Bah. She's better than that.

Oh yeah, For Your Eyes Only. Decent, if only just, and worth a rental.


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Review: 35 of fifty

Title: THUNDERBALL

Author: IAN FLEMING

Rating: 4* of five

I am viewing the Bond films on Amazon Prime. 20 are available on Prime for free viewing until 1 Sept. This entry in the book series is a little odd, because the story and the book were the subjects of prolonged litigation among the writer of the story, the author of the book, and the producers of the film. As a result, this film was made again in 1983 by the title Never Say Never Again, Sean Connery's swansong as Bond.

That was a better film.

(This novel's awfully muddled history is a main factor in the craziness that has kept Bond films from being made on a regular schedule. Kevin McClory claimed his screenplay was unfairly used as the base of the novel...probably he was correct and should have received payment for all things to do with it...but he went on to claim rights to Bond, the character, and generally screw the pooch until his death in 2006. May he rot in obscurity.)

This one also has a crap theme song sung by Tom Jones. I remembered it not at all from the first time I saw the movie in a theater, probably 1966 or 1967. I was much more impressed then by the underwater fight sequences. Now they just make me claustrophobic.

So nuclear bombs stolen by Blofeld, pretty girl tries to kill Bond, Blofeld's second in command screws up and hires the only white men in the Bahamas as henchrats and all of them screw up. Bond repeals the laws of physics as he opens metal hatches underwater with trivial ease and slams through aboveground hatches without causing any sound. Bond uses someone who deserves to die as a human shield against a 9mm round, and the bullet stops inside them. Yakity blah blah, standard Bond stuff.

What elevates this silly romper-room antic mess into four-star territory is the sheer verve and the evident glee with which all involved go after the action. Connery's genuine terror of the sharks involved in the plot makes his performance sharp. Apparently his marriage was in trouble, so he went after the women with a starved hunger that's impossible to mistake. And the world's stupidest supervillains make some HILARIOUS mistakes...fixed water cannons that could easily be sidestepped? C'mon...but gosh was this fun.

Doesn't hurt one little bit that Connery wore racy bathing suits for quite a lot of the film. Yum.

So anyway, it's not the best Bond film and it's not the best film-film, but it has zest and zing and I'm glad I rewatched it here these *gasp* forty-five or more years later. That song...what a shame. A good tune would've put it over the edge into 5-star territory!


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Review: 36 of fifty

Title: THE SPY WHO LOVED ME

Author: IAN FLEMING

Rating: 3.75* of five

1977's film, not 1962's book, is under discussion. The film is not one single thing like the book. Apparently, the story was forbidden to the filmmakers, though not the title. I had no idea the films were so contentious, litigious, and all-around ornery to make! This rewatch has been quite an education.

I now know I will never be A Critic, as in publicly known to the civilians, in books, music, or film. I hate the Po-Mo MFA Pit-Sniffers in vogue among Those Who Read Seriously (tedious people, even bores avoid them). I LOATHE rap, hip-hop, hoop-hup, elektronik bullshit non-music. And, yodels from the film establishment aside, I thought this entry in the series was ~meh~ because the villain's a bore, the Bond Girl looks like an insect with a boob job, and it stars Simon Templar.

Loved the car. A Lotus that turns into a submarine? Yee-haw! Since Jaws was our baddie's executioner, and actor Richard Kiel isn't blond, built, or hunky, there was a regrettable dearth of blond henchrat scenery to admire. Q was wonderful as always, and the death of Desmond Llewellyn is never more keenly disappointing than when comparing today's line-up with the classics.

The Egypt and Sardinia scenes are lovely; Stromberg's underwater castle is amazing and I want one; Bond's loser suits are a little less obviously made by Haggar out of Ban-Lon than before.

So why be so generous? This sounds like a squeak-to-make-three-stars review. Nobody Does It Better is why. Ubiquitous tune in 1977. Every time I started my car, this tune came on. I like it even now, Carly Simon's voice is that delicious to me. And Carol Bayer Sager ("Don't Cry Out Loud") writes the hell out of a song! Marvin Hamlisch ("The Sting" and A Chorus Line) composed it; he's got one helluva track record too.

So here endeth my re-watch. After this, all the ones I haven't watched aren't connected to Ian Fleming's books at all, until the Craig reboot of Casino Royale. It's been a big ol' hoot, I've had fun, and now I'm curious about the stuff that's gone on AROUND the films. Must find out if anyone's written about that yet.


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Review: 37 of fifty

Title: ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE

Author: IAN FLEMING

Rating: 4.5* of five

Again a reminder that this is a review of the 1969 film, not Fleming's novel. I found I wasn't able to get past the outdated attitudes in the novels. I think because books are important to me, enduring documents of their times, and films are slight and insubstantial entertainments, I judge films much less harshly. After all, I take them so much less seriously.

(I do have to say that this novel presents Bond as a much more human, emotional character, and that's not all to the good. Also Blofeld is a much larger part of the novel's warp and weft than he is of the movie's.)

This is only a 4.5-star experience because Lazenby's only outing as Bond was stylish and cool. It earned bad reviews for Lazenby, which endears him and his performance to me. Film critics in general are so full of hot air and bullshit that I love reading bad reviews so I can go and enjoy the panned product. I liked Heaven's Gate, for example, and I'd've never gone to see it if the critics hadn't howled their lungs out about its crappiness.

Anyway, Blofeld the recurring villain is played by Telly Savalas in this film. It's the absolute worst Blofeld I've seen. He got no pointy objects hurled at him, however. Hmmm.

Diana Rigg is The Girl. Okay, whatevs. The fact that her "father" is played by an Italian actor pretending to be Spanish and she's as British as shepherd's pie (and about as attractive, but then I'm pretty much immune to female aesthetic appeal), well it's a Bond film so one goes with it.

Joanna Lumley plays one of Blofeld's Angels of Death. The camp factor of this film just went up 2500%. It's also a little sobering to realize that Lumley was a comely youff when the film was made, and is now a grandmother. Tempus do fugit, eh what?

So that rating...is it purely contrarian? No. The film is very well made. The plot, while ridiculous, lacks gaping holes, unlike other entries in the series. The cinematography is as lovely as the series' standard, the script as witty as the best entries in the series, and Lazenby is very very very nice to look at. I also think he turned in a fine performance, and it's only butthurt Connery diehards who can't see that. This role isn't one for a Dramatical Genius to play, it's one for a film star to play. Lazenby COULD have been a long-run Bond. I think it's a shame he wasn't.

Pleasant way to pass a few hours, nice to look at, oh and the song! The song is sung by LOUIS ARMSTRONG!!!! Oh be still my heart. "All the Time in the World." I liked it. It's not up there with "Live and Let Die" or "Goldfinger" but it's a damn good song qua song.


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Good review. I prefer Joan Hickson as Miss M. myself.

It's interesting to me that there are some unsubtle portrayals of lesbian couples in Christie's work; if she portrayed a male-male relationship, I don't recall it, but some of her male characters were, well, portrayed as on the feminine end of the male spectrum. The women are shown as quite unremarkable, while the men seem to be regarded with less than complete acceptance. Any thoughts on that?

Review: 38 of fifty

Title: YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE

Author: IAN FLEMING

Rating: 3.5* of five

1967's film version of the book apparently kept nothing to speak of from the book's plot, little enough of the characters, and broke new ground in space science, if only physics would agree to operate by Bondiverse rules. So that raises the question:

What the actual fuck. Undetectable space launches from a densely packed island nation famous then as now for being xenophobic? Volcanos hollowed out and repurposed because they're extinct and then *KERPOW* they blow up on cue? The sorriest ninjas on record being trained in what appears to be a suburban garden?

Yeesh. No wonder Sean Connery was ready to leave the role after this turkey.

You might have noticed that Connery is, by Western standards, a large man. Tall. Muscular. Imposing. And he's now going to pretend to be Japanese. Forty-five years ago, there were very few Japanese men over 6ft tall. To the best of my knowledge, there are to this good moment a vanishingly small number of Japanese men with Scottish accents and furry chests. So when Bond is presented as a native husband for a local girl WITH HER OWN HOME AND BOAT, I rolled my eyes so hard I'm pretty sure I saw my brain. Like every damn single man on that island wouldn't be all up in Bond's business from second one, seeing as how he nabbed the most eligible woman in Japan!

So it sounds like 3.5 stars is ridiculously generous, doesn't it? There are reasons: 1) Bond's death scene at the beginning of the movie. So cool I get frostbite from watching it. 2) Blofeld's big blond henchrat. Scenic. 3) The Toyota 2000GT that Bond's first gal-pal drives:


Über cool car. And, trivia for the five of you still reading this, Toyota delivered the car to the filmmakers a couple weeks before shooting. Connery did not fit in the vehicle. At all. Toyota's staff said, "oh no, so sorry, we'll fix it" and they DID. I am constantly amazed that this level of customer service ever existed on the surface of the earth.

The house I live in presently was built in 1938. It's got golden oak floors, painted baseboards, dentilated crown moldings...very NOT 1960s decor. The films have reminded me of the ocean of blond wood, teak, copper, and faux stone that permeated the built environment of the day. Glass tables, horrible things they were too. An amazing number of ceramic lamps with cylindrical paper shades. As familiar to me as my beard, but not today's design vernacular by any stretch. I wonder, is it off-putting or old-fashioned looking to kids of the 1980s? (Kids HA most of y'all got kids of your own now.)

So at least one star added for taking me right back into a world I liked a lot, because it was the first one I ever knew. It had its charms. I prefer today, but that doesn't lessen the draw of a familiar past. That's a big part of the fun I get from rewatching these films.

ETA The song! I forgot to mention Nancy Sinatra's rendition of "You Only Live Twice", a syrupy ballad with a screechy violin hook that embeds itself in the brain extremely deeply. The hook is played over a lot of lovely scenery shots, so repetition does its ugly work. Still, it's nowhere near as horrible as the Tom Jones rendition of "Thunderball." That is just heinous.


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>151 Matke: Male homosexuality is, like male nudity, SHOCKING!! SHOCKING!! by definition. Males are, for better or worse, the dominant gender and the normative identity is heterosexual, so it's A Threat for people to see males in any but the most powerful of roles.

A huge fallacy, and a very bad misunderstanding of who *really* rules the world: Women. They give birth. They are, ipso facto, the rulers. Men do everything they can to make that fact obscure and devalued, but that doesn't make it less true.

*smooch* even though you prefer ol' Joanie to my dote Geraldine

Review: 39 of fifty

Title: THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN

Author: IAN FLEMING

Rating: 3* of five

**THIS REVIEW IS OF THE FILM**

I felt generous. The 1974 film, which is what I'm rating, is more or less a 2-star experience. Oh me oh my...an AMC Hornet, an AMC Matador, Simon Templar....I mean Roger Moore!...wearing loser suits...I mean leisure suits!...and the most horrendously offensive Southern stereotype sheriff in the history of moviemaking adds up to some seriously noxious stuff. Then there's the damnfool idiot chop-socky pandering, and the concomitant "Oriental" stereotypes...ugh.

Maud Adams is GORGEOUS. She's just luminous in or out of her clothes. Tattoo from Fantasy Island is the houseboy to the baddie, resulting in a regrettable lack of hunky blond henchrats for me to ogle. Britt Ekland, Peter Sellers' ex, plays the stupidest secret agent imaginable, who manages to get herself locked in the trunk of the baddies' FLYING AMC MATADOR *oh dear goddesses please keep my dinner down* with the macguffin in her handbag which she hasn't had the common sense to drop...well, it's ridiculous even for a Bond movie.

The ending is...it's...epic. Titanic. So awful, so ridiculous, so completely...I...words do not exist yet for the sensation of revolted, horrified, amused, aesthetically affronted...well.

The title tune is sung by Lulu. I do not know why they chose this singer or this tune. It's just awful. Hideous.

I didn't lke 1974 the first time around, and I don't like it any better this time. Oh wait...Bond's Bangkok hotel room was way cool, turquoise shantung walls and marvelous decorative accessories and wonderful closets...you see where my mind was. The "story" (which doesn't resemble the novel too terrible much, the novel in this case was far better) sure as hell wasn't doin' it.


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>154 richardderus: Wow.
From your remarks, I'd say that sans The divine Maud and the shantung walls, this loser should get a 0.5.

>155 Matke: I do have to say it wasn't a good movie-watching experience. The book, OTOH, was not as *hor*ren*dous* and should be burned only by feminists.

>144 katiekrug: Katie! You snuck in while I was mass-posting. *smooch*

Agatha Christie's Marple is a terrific series. Julia McKenzie, she of Fresh Fields and French Fields in the Britcom world, plays Marple as the tweedier, heartier side of the character. That interpretation is indeed in the books, and the stories. Marple wasn't one and only one character, since Dame Ags wrote the books over many years.

>153 richardderus: I had almost arrived at your conclusion, but deeply appreciate your articulating my unformed thoughts.

Of course, me lurve.

>150 richardderus: MichiganTrumpet loves her some Louis Armstrong!

OMIGAWSH...Until this good moment, I've read your LT name as "MichiganSTrumpet"!!!!!!

Ha! Good one!

Review: 40 of fifty

Title: THE HANOVER SQUARE AFFAIR

Author: ASHLEY GARDNER

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: London, 1816
Cavalry captain Gabriel Lacey returns to Regency London from the Napoleonic wars, burned out, fighting melancholia, his career ended. His interest is piqued when he learns of a missing girl, possibly kidnapped by a prominent member of Parliament. Lacey's search for the girl leads to the discovery of murder, corruption, and dealings with a leader of the underworld. He deals with his own disorientation transitioning from a soldier's life to the civilian world at the same time, redefining his role with his former commanding officer making new friends--from the top of society to the street girls of Covent Garden.

My Review: This will be your only warning: AVOID THESE BOOKS IF YOU ARE OF A SERIES ADDICTIVE BENT

Have y'all left who're leavin'? Good.

Go get this Kindle freebie, everyone else, and settle in for the haul. This series, starring wounded warrior Captain Gabriel Lacey, will now grab you by the heartstrings and cause you to leak water from the vicinity of your eyes. I do not know what this phenomenon is called, but it is unsettling.

I read mysteries, as I've mentioned before, in order to assauage a weird little part of me that craves the World to do the right thing. It doesn't, as the Supreme Court has proven yet again, five old men in black dresses telling a bunch of religious dupes that they can decide who has access to birth control (as if this is anyone's goddamned business but the woman seeking it), but I still crave a glimpse, even in fiction, of a world where the right thing is done.

I am not talking about the law. The law is written by lawyers. This means less than nothing when it comes to doing the right thing, or even following the promptings of honor.

The right thing, in this story, is learning the fate of a powerless girl. Learning the reason a girl ups sticks and runs as fast as she can away from her loved ones. Learning the secrets of people so powerful that knowing they *have* secrets is a life-threatening prospect.

And learning, in the end, who one needs to forgive and what one needs to forget aren't necessarily obvious at first glance. And certainly aren't easy tasks. Forgiveness, if sincere, is seldom anything but hard-won and almost never without a heavy, heavy price.

I read this book in about half a day because it answered a call in me, and left me deeply satisfied that I'd found a friend. An honorable idiot, with a foul temper, and a complete and thoroughgoing unwillingness to do things the easy way. In short, an uncomfortable companion and an irreplaceable friend.

Ten more books await me. I am deeply satisfied by that knowledge. Make of this what you will, but remember that you were warned.


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Thumbing you.

*smooching* you

>164 michigantrumpet: and >165 richardderus: - Should I leave you two alone?

;-)

>166 katiekrug: SSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

My Gentleman Caller reads these threads! Eeek!

Couldn't resist!

Dear Gentleman Caller,

Please do not be alarmed by the content of the above three posts. Richard has in no way acted in an improper manner and remains true to you and your relationship. It may help to know that Michigantrumpet is of the female persuasion and thus poses no threat to your good self.

Have a nice day!
-Katie

PS: Please know we were all tres impressed by your singular act of devotion in getting to a phone to call Richard during your vacation (which seems to involve *shudder* camping? Or otherwise roughing it? *shudder*) Good luck with your job prospect in Seattle. I love Seattle and look forward to visiting you both there :)

>168 katiekrug: LOL

Look sweetienubbins! See the nice lady being nice and everything? Some of them are nice! See?

*smooch*

Review: 41 of fifty

Title: THE DARK VINEYARD

Author: MARTIN WALKER

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: In this riveting sequel to Martin Walker's internationally acclaimed novel Bruno, Chief of Police, some of France's great pleasures--wine, passion and intrigue--converge in a dark chain of events that threaten the peaceful village of Saint-Denis.

Benoît (Bruno) Courrèges, devoted friend, cuisinier extraordinaire and the town's only municipal policeman, rushes to the scene when a research station for genetically modified crops is burned down outside Saint-Denis. Bruno immediately suspects a group of fervent environmentalists who live nearby, but the fire is only the first in a string of mysteries centering on the region's fertile soil.

Then a bevy of winemakers descends on Saint-Denis, competing for its land and spurring resentment among the villagers. Romances blossom. Hearts are broken. Some of the sensual pleasures of the town--a dinner of a truffle omelette and grilled bécasses, a community grape-crushing--provide an opportunity for both warm friendship and bitter hostilities to form. The town's rivals--Max, an environmentalist who hopes to make organic wine; Jacqueline, a flirtatious, newly arrived Quebecoise; and Fernando, the heir to an American wine fortune--act increasingly erratically. Events grow ever darker, culminating in two suspicious deaths, and Bruno finds that the problems of the present are never far from those of the past.

A splendid mystery, and a delectable serving of the pleasures of France.

My Review: The Doubleday UK meme, a book a day for July 2014, is the goad I'm using to get through my snit-based unwritten reviews. Today's prompt is to discuss your favorite novel involving food.

Well now.

I haven't read any new Montalbano novels this year, but Martin Walker certainly dials up the yum-yum in this book! He centers the plot on discovering the identity of who wanted the GMOs on the secret hilltop farm in Saint-Denis burned, and why. As always with Bruno's adventures, we're treated to a bit of utterly drool-worthy wine and food talk, plus Bruno's cheery, simple sex life (only slightly sarcastic there).

I love that the series, even though it's dealing with the arson of a state-secret agricultural research station, and the murder of a local young man-about-town, also takes into account the murder of a resident's dearly beloved dog, the breaking of a two-thousand-euro bottle of wine (treated as a crime, as well it should be!), and the discreet arrangements between a devoted husband and his paralyzed wife.

You know, Life.

And in the end, when the killer is revealed, and the family secrets that no one wanted aired come to Bruno's attention and Right is finally done, what happens? Dinner, no a feast!, is planned, with bécasses (woodcocks) accompanied by some of the world's most exquisite wines...possibly even a 1975 Pétrus *fantods*, one of the greatest Bordeaux wine vintages ever. After all, what could be more apropos, since Bruno is celebrating a new love entering his life....

Oh dear, mustn't spoil the very welcome and long overdue surprise!

I love the experience of reading these books, I enjoy Bruno's delivery of comeupance to the damnfool ambition-poisoned gendarme Duroc, I absolutely dote on his dog Gigi, and I can't wait to see what happens with the new vineyard in town that Bruno owns part of! the entire cast of crazies that Walker has created to bring Saint-Denis to life.


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Oh dear, I'd been trying not to get hooked on this series. I really liked the first one, but now that I'm caught up on Gamache, and Brunetti, and Montalbano, and Dr. Siri, and almost caught up on Duncan Kincaid, I've just put this puppie on reserve. Thanks for the prod.

>171 tututhefirst: Resistance is futile, Tina. Ticks too many "gotta love it" buttons to be resisted for long.

I see you have been enjoying a Bond marathon so to speak ...... nice bit fun though

>173 roundballnz: It was in August of last year, but you're absolutely correct about it being a nice bit of fun! I had a great time.

>168 katiekrug: Ha! And I more than persuaded -- I'm convinced!

>170 richardderus: Thanks a bunch for that one! *grumble, grumble*

>174 richardderus: ... Doh there is where you can tell I was not 100% myself :)

>175 michigantrumpet: *smooch*

>176 roundballnz: Heh!

Review: 42 of fifty

Title: THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD

Author: AGATHA CHRISTIE

Rating: 4* of five **THIS REVIEW IS FOR THE AGATHA CHRISTIE'S POIROT EPISODE AS WELL AS THE BOOK**

The Publisher Says: In the village of King's Abbot, a widow's sudden suicide sparks rumors that she murdered her first husband, was being blackmailed, and was carrying on a secret affair with the wealthy Roger Ackroyd. The following evening, Ackroyd is murdered in his locked study--but not before receiving a letter identifying the widow's blackmailer. King's Abbot is crawling with suspects, including a nervous butler, Ackroyd's wayward stepson, and his sister-in-law, Mrs. Cecil Ackroyd, who has taken up residence in the victim's home. It's now up to the famous detective Hercule Poirot, who has retired to King's Abbot to garden, to solve the case of who killed Roger Ackroyd--a task in which he is aided by the village doctor and narrator, James Sheppard, and by Sheppard's ingenious sister, Caroline.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is the book that made Agatha Christie a household name and launched her career as a perennial bestseller. Originally published in 1926, it is a landmark in the mystery genre. It was in the vanguard of a new class of popular detective fiction that ushered in the modern era of mystery novels.

My Review: Undoubtedly the most famous novel written by Dame Agatha. It is well-known even among non-mystery readers, poor benighted sods, and has been cited by scholars as a turning point in the history of the mystery genre as a literary force. An English professor, Pierre Bayard, has even delved deeply into the text to propose, from the book that Dame Agatha wrote, an alternative (and very interesting) ending!

I'm not going to spoiler the ending's Big Twist because the ten or twelve literate-in-English people who have never read it will come screaming in from the Internet to call me unpleasant names, and I'm done with that. It is indeed a Big Twist, it makes the entire experience of the book far more interesting than it otherwise would be, and it's just flat fun to come to, that first time, all unknowing.

So that said, when I first read this novel in 1973, I was all unknowing and was I gobsmacked! My oldest sister had a copy of it in her house, where I was visiting her, and she was deriving major amusement from my responses as the pages turned. It was a great way to spend a summer weekend.

Then after what, maybe 35 years, they make a Poirot TV episode out of the story. The vast bulk of you, having read the book, are now looking bemused, befuddled, or annoyed. How, you're asking yourself, can the Big Twist be preserved? How can the essential frisson-granting narrative device translate onto film, for pity's sake?!

Not all that well.

It's still a stylish and entertaining film, and I liked watching it, but it was NOT the equal of the book. For one thing, Inspector Japp appears out of nowhere and assumes his usual role as Poirot's foil-cum-sidekick. WTF? I screamed at the screen, WTF IS THIS HOOPLA?! (I used a dirtier word, but I am attempting to portray myself as a sweet and mild-mannered old man.) (Stop laughing.) Japp appeareth not in the novel! Not even close. It is but one of many shifts required to bring the story to the screen.

And for the only time in the entire history of the series Agatha Christie's Poirot, I wished they had just left the book alone and unfilmed. So why four stars? Because the book is five, and the film is three. Do the math. But don't bother with the show unless you're a completist.


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>178 richardderus: You use WTF but refrain from using shit? *snorts*

attempting to portray myself as a sweet and mild-mannered old man

The words "epic fail" come to mind...

>179 Morphidae: "WTF" means what the fudge, doesn't it? That's how the Youffs explained it to me...

Epic fail indeed, madam! I *AM* a sweet and mild-mannered old man!

Stop that cacaphonous cachinnation at once!

Love and totally agree with both the book and movie reviews.

Sweet? You can be.

Mild mannered? If you're not annoyed.

But I'm delusional myself. So those people said...

>181 Matke: Thank you, Danvers me lurve!

>180 richardderus: .... snort

>180 richardderus: MooooOOoooOooom! He's making me look up the big words again!

>183 roundballnz: *smooch*

>184 Morphidae: *smirk*

>185 richardderus: Hey, you're only allowed half a smirk because I knew what "cacaphonous" was without looking it up. Yo do know you spelled it wrong though? It's cacophonous.

*smirks right back*

NOOOOOOOOOOOO

NONONONONONONONONONONO

I *never* misspell words!!!

(there, feel better now? *smooch*)

>186 Morphidae: No, because I just realized I spelled "you" as "yo."

The shame! The shame!

Nothing worse than correcting someone's spelling and making a spelling error.

*sobs*

Thanks for "cachinnation," Richard! I'm always glad for a nice addition to my vocabulary. Hope you're doing well.

>189 Jim53: Fat and happy, thanks Jim...and just today got Black Diamond! Can't wait to dive in.

Review: 43 of fifty

Title: OUTERBOROUGH BLUES

Author: ANDREW COTTO

Rating: 3.9* of five

The Publisher Says: A beautiful young French girl walks into a bar, nervously lights a cigarette, and begs the bartender for help in finding her missing artist brother. In a moment of weakness, the bartender—a lone wolf named Caesar Stiles with a chip on his shoulder and a Sicilian family curse hanging over him—agrees. What follows is a stylish literary mystery set in Brooklyn on the dawn of gentrification.

While Caesar is initially trying to earn an honest living at the neighborhood watering hole, his world quickly unravels. In addition to being haunted by his past, including a brother who is intent on settling an old family score, Caesar is being hunted down by a mysterious nemesis known as The Orange Man. Adding to this combustible mix, Caesar is a white man living in a deep-rooted African American community with decidedly mixed feelings about his presence. In the course of his search for the French girl's missing brother, Caesar tumbles headlong into the shadowy depths of his newly adopted neighborhood, where he ultimately uncovers some of its most sinister secrets.

Taking place over the course of a single week, Outerborough Blues is a tightly paced and gritty urban noir saturated with the rough and tumble atmosphere of early 1990s Brooklyn.

My Review: The Doubleday UK meme, a book a day for July 2014, is the goad I'm using to get through my snit-based unwritten reviews. Today's prompt, number 12 in the series, is to discuss the book that gave you the best sense of place.

I moved to Manhattan in the 1980s, when it was still dirty, stinky, vice-ridden, and a boat-load of fun. Now it's clean and sanitary and there's a damn Disney store where there used to be hookers, drugs, and other useful things. Yuck.

Anyway, the same thing happened to Brooklyn about ten years later. This development is called "gentrification" and it's a double-edged sword. Nicer middle-class neighborhoods, no place for the poor to live...well, can't make an omelette....

Cotto's reluctant sleuth, Caesar, came to be in this country because of his great-grandmother:

My mother's mother came to this country in the usual way--she got on a boat with other immigrants and sailed from Sicily. She wasn't one of them, however: neither tired nor poor or part of any huddled mass. Instead, she traveled alone, with her money in one sock and a knife in the other, coming to the new world with an old world motive--to murder the man that had left her for America.

Such a fine, upstanding family! Things don't get a lot better in succeeding generations, and Caesar is running at top speed to get the blood-feuding nightmare of his family away behind him. So why does he agree to help the waifish French lassie, Colette, find her brother Jean-Baptist (sic)?

Because he wants some. Because the bar where he works is closing in on him. Because. He starts to search for the boy, an artist, and he gets himself tangled with some people who are where they are because it's where they want to be:

The lady in the liquor store sold me a fifth of whiskey and the landlord’s name without taking her eyes off the book she was reading.

It's clear that Cotto knows his folks well, and has their collective number. It's also clear that Caesar is walking streets deeply familiar to Cotto:

In the open sky above the hushed streets, the moon was a porcelain plate on a black table as I walked home. A breeze raised the collar of my jeans jacket as I sliced through the silvery silence, past unlit buildings and quivering trees and cars idle by the curb. The air felt like glass. I crossed empty corners under the mauve light of overhead lamps.

A more perfect, more poignant recreation of a fall night's walk in the seaport of New York I haven't read. Something that people who live here forget is that this is a seaside place, it was a port for centuries, it is spang doodle on the Atlantic Ocean, and that means the seaside is all around:

The full moon rose above the harbor as brightly lit tour boats skimmed along the black water, the brilliant cluster of lower Manhattan piled like stacks of coins from a treasure chest in the distance. Up the river, bridges arched across the wide water all the way up the east side, while the Brooklyn side was marked by soft, round lights, like a string of pearls.

I've stopped for that view any number of times in the past, and it never failed (or fails) to render me immobile with a blazing bolt of homecoming joy.

So, Caesar and his quest kick into high gear, several associates of his prove to be more than what they seem, and the more questions he asks about Jean-Baptist (sic) the more trouble he gets into. Beatings. Threats. Some sex. Memories blast our guy at every turn, all the crap he's wanted to escape from bubbles up as he searches the druggier parts of Brooklyn for Colette's foolish artist wannabe brother:

Gypsy cabs jostled and honked...Dollar vans lined the sidewalk and people piled in and out. As I walked down the slope, the buildings grew smaller and squalid. Trees vanished...and the heat picked up. Beyond the brick wall of the Navy Yard, the silver skyline of Manhattan glimmered in the distance like a mirage. The industrial remains of the flats were low and decrepit and mostly abandoned, though a few beeping forklifts unloaded trucks here and there. The storefronts were shuttered except for a bank busy with Orthodox Jews. The funk of a chicken processing plant contaminated the air.

I walked along the high brick wall that separated the Navy Yard from the street, frequently stepping over pulverized vials that sparkled like jewels on the sidewalk. There was no shade. I blinked away the dust.

Yep, been there. The Navy Yard, by the mid-1990s, was a cheap warehousing area, and the publisher whose office work I did had his books stored there. Not a super-nice place to walk at night. Fascinating history, and very different now, but this passage nails the sensation of blasting heat and stinking blight that permeated the place then.

More stuff about the search for Colette's brother turns up nasty secrets involving everyone Caesar knows, information that he uses to get a ghost from his own past laid to rest, and then *clap clap* the mystery's solved.

This made me mad. I don't like being taken on a ride and then dumped outside town, told I'm there, and left.

But you know what? Homecoming means more than how you traveled to get there. I liked the people I met on the trip. I liked the evocative landscape descriptons. I liked the sense of Caesar's working through so much about his past wasn't going to Make Shit Better, because landing him in more trouble later means more of this:

Past the projects, the land opened up and water came into view. The breeze carried rain and salt. Jetties and barrier walls supported the shore, which was stacked with crumbling brick warehouses. Out in the channel, the Statue of Liberty stood alone on her little island, her corroding flame held high in the air as the sun set over the industrial shoreline and skyways of New Jersey. Across the narrows, the bluffs of Staten Island wavered in the smoky light of dusk that turned the Verrazano into bronze. Faint light burnished water into busy with freighters and tug boats. A lone sail boat flitted in the distance. On the near shore, on a slip of water between a jetty and the land, a blood red barge bobbed on the tide.

And that, laddies and gentlewomen, is good.


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Sounds like the start of a good joke doesn't it? "A French girl walks into a bar ..."

I also now have an ear worm of that jazz standard "String of Pearls". Could be worse .. Has a wonderful trumpet solo in the middle. :-)

Seriously though, great review. I hate endings like that. Sometimes the journey makes up for the disappointing destination.

>192 michigantrumpet: Thanks Marianne! I have the same earworm, and honestly I don't care. It's such a beautiful tune.

The author sent me a message about ten minutes after I posted the review on Goodreads, thanking me for pointing up the beautiful phrases and apologizing for the abruptness of the ending. He's a terrific guy, on a sabbatical in Rome and eating his way through the city.

Have I mentioned that I hate him?

Review: 44 of fifty

Title: THE GAUGUIN CONNECTION

Author: ESTELLE RYAN

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Murdered artists. Masterful forgeries.
Art crime at its worst.

A straightforward murder investigation quickly turns into a quagmire of stolen Eurocorps weapons, a money-laundering charity, forged art and high-ranking EU officials abusing their power.

As an insurance investigator and world renowned expert in nonverbal communication, Dr Genevieve Lenard faces the daily challenge of living a successful, independent life. Particularly because she has to deal with her high functioning Autism. Nothing - not her studies, her high IQ or her astounding analytical skills - prepared her for the changes about to take place in her life.

It started as a favour to help her boss' acerbic friend look into the murder of a young artist, but soon it proves to be far more complex. Forced out of her predictable routines, safe environment and limited social interaction, Genevieve is thrown into exploring the meaning of friendship, expanding her social definitions, and for the first time in her life be part of a team in a race to stop more artists from being murdered.

My Review: The Doubleday UK meme, a book a day for July 2014, is the goad I'm using to get through my snit-based unwritten reviews. Today's prompt is to discuss a beach read, a novel perfect for an afternoon under a beach umbrella sipping drinks with silly names brought by hotties clad in as few clothes as local law allows.

Ahem. Well. Isn't that how everyone spends a day at the beach?

The Gauguin Connection has many sterling qualities, like a wonderful main character, and a completely beguiling cast of supporting characters. (I convinced my Gentleman Caller to read this by saying he reminded me of Vinnie. To my relief, he found that touching and endearing, "worth reading a stupid mystery novel for.")

What makes this such a good beach read is simply that: The interplay of the characters. Dr Lenard isn't consistently drawn, the art-crime plot seems very slapdash to me, and so on and so on. All those quibbles aside, I loved these characters and wanted to sit quietly in the room while they did what they do. Which is mostly sit around computers in different rooms and bicker amusingly.

I mean to tell you, though, if savoring the interplay of high-level snark with pomposity, the collision of wit with literal-mindedness, doesn't sound compelling to you, horseman, pass on. I found it deeply funny at times, and snortingly amusing all the time. So download it onto your Kindle for free, put the Kindle in a quart-sized Ziploc, seal it, and head for the sand. Tip the hottie well, and in advance, for the best drinks service. Relax into bliss with the wacky crew of Strasbourg (!)-based art crime solvers.


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Nice review! I had a good time with The Gauguin Connection, too, and you can't beat the price.

Thank you for the compliment! I have gladsome tidings for you from the Reading Front: The Dante Connection is just as much fun.

Heh.

Review: 45 of fifty

Title: BLACK IRISH

Author: STEPHAN TALTY

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: In this explosive debut thriller by the New York Times bestselling author of Empire of Blue Water, a brilliant homicide detective returns home, where she confronts a city’s dark demons and her own past while pursuing a brutal serial killer on a vengeful rampage.

Absalom “Abbie” Kearney grew up an outsider in her own hometown. Even being the adopted daughter of a revered cop couldn’t keep Abbie’s troubled past from making her a misfit in the working-class Irish American enclave of South Buffalo. And now, despite a Harvard degree and a police detective’s badge, she still struggles to earn the respect and trust of those she’s sworn to protect. But all that may change, once the killing starts.

When Jimmy Ryan’s mangled corpse is found in a local church basement, this sadistic sacrilege sends a bone-deep chill through the winter-whipped city. It also seems to send a message—one that Abbie believes only the fiercely secretive citizens of the neighborhood known as “the County” understand. But in a town ruled by an old-world code of silence and secrecy, her search for answers is stonewalled at every turn, even by fellow cops. Only when Abbie finds a lead at the Gaelic Club, where war stories, gossip, and confidences flow as freely as the drink, do tongues begin to wag—with desperate warnings and dire threats. And when the killer’s mysterious calling card appears on her own doorstep, the hunt takes a shocking twist into her own family’s past. As the grisly murders and grim revelations multiply, Abbie wages a chilling battle of wits with a maniac who sees into her soul, and she swears to expose the County’s hidden history—one bloody body at a time.

My Review: The Doubleday UK meme, a book a day for July 2014, is the goad I'm using to get through my snit-based unwritten reviews. Today's prompt is to discuss one's favorite crime novel, in honor of some British crime-novel beano.

Now. There are those *significant glares* who claim to be all innocent tra-leee-laaaaaah when accosted and reminded of their culpability as Satanic Book Warblers. Oh, just all the eye-battings and who-meings and fan-wavings of an amateur production of Gone With The Wind. Here is the evidence linking my purchase of this novel from its proximate warbler Bonnie to the ur-Warbler, the coven's second-in-command after the Greater Trilliumated Warbler herself, the Ombre-crested Satanic Book Warbler. Go on, click through. The guilty party is even bolded for your convenience.

Despite there being naggingly annoying lapses in continuity at three or four points, I was sucked into the violent and rage-filled vortex of this book from the get-go. The story, a standard one, is told at a breathless pace in direct, unpretentious language. The setting is seared into my memory. I feel as if I could find the park, drive the streets, point to the places I'd read about. I'm sure as hell not stopping for the cops there, Absalom/Abbie excepted.

The family secrets, the community guilt, the larger and wider implications of the vicious and bloody killings, make this procedural far more than an afternoon's entertainment. It's not Art, it's excitement! It's brutal and tough and doesn't give a flying fuck if your girlie-girl feelies are all bent. It's too busy setting you up for the next bashing!

I liked the hell out of it. It's good, every now and then, to sluice the nicey-nice from one's brain with a bracing dose of mean as fuck because I wanna be. There is NO oxytocin released in the reading of this book. Adrenaline, yes; androgen, oh my yes. We won't go into the testosterone release figures. Post-menopausal women are cautioned that they might find themselves assuming male secondary characteristics.

The sensitive members of the party are STRONGLY cautioned not to so much as handle this book. Don't do it, don't even contemplate it. Not for yinz.

Fans of the 87th Precinct, we found you a new writer to follow!


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I think I just got hit by a BB with this one. Nice review!

>198 AHS-Wolfy: Thank you for stopping in to say so! I hope you enjoy it.

Some more great reviews, but I'm steadfastly avoiding ALL bullets to keep the decks clear for ... St. Mary's Chronicles!!!

I do love the word quagmire, though. I need to use it more often. As in:

"I'm in such a quagmire over next week. I have a big trial and the other side is being unreasonable in their demands for settlement. Should I hold firm and try the case or just pony up my client's money so I will have more time for .... St. Mary's Chronicles!"

Spending client's money = no referral business...St Mary's will await your undivided, unannoyed attention.

xoxo

Well how could I bypass that terrific review which I immediately thumbed Richard. I might be a bit chagrined to find myself identified as a "Satanic Book Warbler," but I will defend your right to choose any phrase you want to describe me when I try to entice people to read good books. Even you. I'm not nearly as bad as Suzanne. Mark didn't like the book at all. Imagine.

BTW, number two in the series is out now. Hangman: A Novel. Just sayin.' Haven't read it yet.

>202 brenzi: Ha! Beat you to that warble, I ordered it today for my Thingaversary celebration. I think it was a really exciting, good procedural thriller. And Abbie is a terrific character, Irish by way of African-American. Talty did such a good job laying out conflicts with long, long legs.

Double post removed.

Passing through.

Two thumbs issued.

Perhaps Black Irish isn't precisely the book for me, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate your great review. Gauguin Connection is on the kindle waiting, with so very many others.

>204 Matke:, >205 Matke: Thanks, Danvers me lurve! DO NOT READ Black Irish it will give you nightmares.

xo

Thank you, Darling.

Please excise the double postage.

They're slightly different. I consider one a draft, the other a missive. How's that?

xx

oo

ear scratches for Stella

She needs 'em, I just cleaned her ears. Poor thing is MOST put out.

Review: 46 of fifty

Title: THE MERRY MISOGYNIST

Author: COLIN COTTERILL

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: In poverty-stricken 1978 Laos, a man with a truck from the city was "somebody," a catch for even the prettiest village virgin. The corpse of one of these bucolic beauties turns up in Dr. Siri's morgue and his curiosity is piqued. The victim was tied to a tree and strangled but she had not, as the doctor had expected, been raped, although her flesh had been torn. And though the victim had clear, pale skin over most of her body, her hands and feet were gnarled, callused, and blistered.
On a trip to the hinterlands, Siri discovers that the beautiful female corpse bound to a tree has already risen to the status of a rural myth. This has happened many times before. He sets out to investigate this unprecedented phenomenon--a serial killer in peaceful Buddhist Laos--only to discover when he has identified the murderer that not only pretty maidens are at risk. Seventy-three-year-old coroners can be victims, too.

My Review: The Doubleday UK meme, a book a day for July 2014, is the goad I'm using to get through my snit-based unwritten reviews. Today's prompt is the twenty-third, favorite novel with an exotic background.

Laos in 1978 counts as exotic to me. I'm not sure the Laotians would agree, probably thinking of Long Island suburbia as exotic. It's all where you stand.

I love the series mystery world for its orderliness and its assurance that Right will be done. In this sixth Dr. Siri mystery, Right is indeed done and just in the nick of time. There's a secondary plot that I wasn't sure was needed, concerning Crazy Rajid the naked Indian who hangs with Dr. Siri, Comrade Civilai, and Inspector Phosy down by the Mekong. It doesn't seem necessary to me, but then why the hell not, it was fun.

The crimes and the punishment are well-handled here, and the believability of the situation created was up to snuff. But the star of the series, pace Dr. Siri, is Laos in all its tropical glory. I thoroughly enjoy my trips there, which I most emphatically would NOT if the trips were physical. As I huddle in front of the air conditioner, cursing temperatures that make me sweat and suffer but which would seem almost wintry to the Laotians, I visit the beauty of the jungle...without the bugs or the sweat.

I love that. Thanks for taking me there, Colin Cotterill!


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>211 richardderus: The armchair traveling is a big part of the fun in the Dr. Siri series for me, too, Richard. I'm like you when it comes to sweaty, insufferable temps; I have a feeling I wouldn't like a big dose of it half as much up close and personal. The plots in the series seem as exotic as the locale - I never know what's going to happen next.

>212 jnwelch: And this one's twist was a BIG twist. Yeee-ikes!

Review: 47 of fifty

Title: THE DINOSAUR FEATHER

Author: SISSEL-JO GAZAN
translator: CHARLOTTE BARSLUND

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: How could one man inspire such hatred?

Professor Lars Helland is found at his desk with his tongue lying in his lap. A violent fit has caused him to bite through it in his death throes. A sad but simple end. Until the autopsy results come through.

The true cause of his death - the slow, systematic and terrible destruction of a man - leaves the police at a loss. And when a second member of Helland's department disappears, their attention turns to a postgraduate student named Anna. She's a single mother, angry with the world, desperate to finish her degree. Would she really jeopardise everything by killing her supervisor?

As the police investigate the most brutal and calculated case they've ever known, Anna must fight her own demons, prove her innocence and avoid becoming the killer's next victim.

The Dinosaur Feather is the most fascinating, complex and unusual Scandinavian crime novel since Smilla's Sense of Snow.

My Review: The Doubleday UK meme, a book a day for July 2014, is the goad I'm using to get through my snit-based unwritten reviews. Today's prompt is the twenty-fifth, a book that's a guilty pleasure.

Scandicrime has, apart from Jussi Adler-Olson, eluded me. I'm not hooked, I'm not repelled, I'm simply bemused by the warbles and hoots of addicted rapture. I gave up on Arnaldur's books because grim, I disliked that rape victim trilogy deeply, I can't read books starring a person named Harry Hole. I simply can't. So me and the Scandis, we're not besties.

I do, however, really really like this book. It's got a background--and ONLY a background, no sciencey stuff need slow you down--of one of the most fascinating paleontological issues around, that is the dinosaurian origins of birds. It features a detective with angst. (Hoo BOY does he have angst.) The suspect is a single mom in search of a degree to build a good life for herself and her baby. And as a bonus the victim badly needed killing, and was dispatched in a way that still fills all the nooks and crannies of my soul with schadenfreude.

So why call this almost-four-star read a guilty pleasure? Because it's relentlessly downbeat. Yes, the crime is solved, but honestly I wish it hadn't been. The dick who died? Yeah, well, pity about that, please pass the jelly. The secrets that erupt into unforgettable daylight? Better for everyone if they'd just stayed secret and life had percolated along with shiny surfaces and unpocked skin.

And I thoroughly, completely reveled in the nastiness. Shame on me! #sorrynotsorry


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>200 michigantrumpet: >201 richardderus:. Held onto the clients money. Late breaking investigation showed the opposing party behaving contrary to her claims of complete and utter disability. Turning into a battle royal, which is fun but eating into reading time. *sigh*

Keep all the wonderful reviews coming!

Review: 48 of fifty

Title: WHACK-A-MOLE

Author: CHRIS GRABENSTEIN

Rating: 4.6* of five

The Publisher Says: An innocent discovery on the beach in Sea Haven leads John Ceepak, the cop with an unshakeable code of honor, and his rookie partnet, the twentysomething wisecracker Danny Boyle, into the hunt for a long-dormant serial killer who might be crawling out of his hiding hole to strike again.

Like the relentless rodents in the Boardwalk arcade game, gruesome clues keep popping up all over the island as Ceepak (the former soldier who will not lie, cheat, or steal, nor tolerate those who do) finds himself up against an adversary with an even stricter code, a code he rigidly enforces.

When the killer targets his next victim, the consequences become dire for Ceepak and Boyle. This is a game they have to win!

My Review: A solid four-star outing for that Dudley Do-Right of the Jersey Shore, John Ceepak, and his wing man young Danny Boyle. One thing's for sure, the villain of the piece gets a hellacious run-around before he's brought to justice.

The first two books in the series were good fun, with lots of wisecracking and silliness from Danny, along with some very Monk-like fun-making at Ceepak's expense. This outing has the fun, less of the fun-making; in fact, the shoe goes very much on the other foot this outing. I enjoyed that.

I also enjoyed the darker and more intense pace of this entry in the series. It serves the characters well because it's about them growing up and filling in their roles as a team. There's so much more to work with in a book-three mystery, an established sense of place and a mode of communication and a web of memories to draw on. Grabenstein does all of that, stays true to Ceepak's character in every way and manages to continue Danny Boyle's maturation and education without *whap*smack*bang*ing us to notice it. In this book, Danny's lessons are pricey and yet completely relatable. Don't get me wrong, I was still hollering at the Kindle, "DON'T YOU DO THAT! NO NO!! NOT THAT!" Danny wasn't listening. In a world with smartphones, I think I can be excused for mistaking the Kindle for an old Dick-Tracy-style two-way wrist radio.

That's my story, anyway.

By the end of the book, when the stakes were ratcheted higher than ever before, I was over-pushing the paging buttons and having to back-track. I was that wrapped up in the ending. You know how the Big Reveal is so often the Middlin' Reveal? Not this time. Nope. Big Reveal is a biiiig surprise.

The solution to the crime isn't too shabby, either. Heh.


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one of my favorite series..thanks for introducing me

>217 tututhefirst: So glad to hear it, Tina! I've got the fourth one coming soon.

Review: 49 of fifty

Title: BLACK DIAMOND

Author: MARTIN WALKER

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: The third installment in Martin Walker's delightful, internationally acclaimed series featuring Chief of Police Bruno.

Something dangerous is afoot in St. Denis. In the space of a few weeks, the normally sleepy village sees attacks on Vietnamese vendors, arson at a local Asian restaurant, subpar truffles from China smuggled into outgoing shipments at a nearby market—all of it threatening the Dordogne’s truffle trade, worth millions of dollars each year, and all of it spelling trouble for Benoît “Bruno” Courrèges, master chef, devoted oenophile, and, most important, beloved chief of police. When one of his hunting partners, a noted truffle expert, is murdered, Bruno’s investigation into the murky events unfolding around St. Denis becomes infinitely more complicated. His friend wasn’t just a connoisseur of French delicacies, he was a former high-profile intelligence agent—and someone wanted him dead.

As the strange crimes continue, Bruno’s detective work takes him from sunlit markets to dim cafés, from luxurious feasts to tense negotiations—from all of the paradisial pleasures of the region to its shadowy underworld—and reunites him with a lost love, an ambitious policewoman also assigned to the case. Filled with an abundance of food and wine (including, bien sûr, many, many truffles) and a soupçon of romance, Black Diamond is a deliciously entertaining concoction that delivers all the complexity and delights of the Dordogne itself.

My Review: I'd like to be clear about one thing up front: No one pays me to write my reviews, and I got no free copy of this book to review it. Save your nastygrams.

What I did get from this third outing in the Bruno, Chief of Police, series was a serious jones for truffes cendrillons (or cendrées, as I knew the dish), the coal-baked tarts filled with truffled foie gras that are outstandingly rich and almost incredibly expensive. They're also the only way I actually *like* truffles.

*pause for near-lethal drooling*

So. Anyway. Truffles are obscenely expensive fungi, and the Périgord (where fictional St-Denis is located) is one of Earth's best places to find the highest quality variety of them. Naturally, this being a Bruno story, the initial push into crime and dishonesty comes from shenanigans at the truffle market. Naturally, this being a Bruno story, the malfeasance and wrong-doing stretch farther and wider than that. Naturally, this being a Bruno story, there is loving and glorious detail lavished upon the preparation and eating of meals. A very great deal less attention is paid to Bruno's rugby-playing, fire-fighting physique in action amoureuse.

I'm down with that. Sex I can get anywhere. A series of mysteries where Pomerol *drool* is fleetingly mentioned and Dom Pérignon is casually served at a public function (!!!), where the meals are...so listen, I don't need to belabor this, it's effin' para-bloody-dise that Walker's describing. A hot rugby-playing 40-year-old cop who can cook and knows his wines. Yes please.

By the end of this entry in the series, it's clear that our lad is as always the bestest Boy Scout in all France and he's got not a single problem with doing the Right Thing even if it's political suicide, even when it costs him dearly and personally, and then refusing to dodge, bob, and weave when shady souls want him to trim his sails expediently.

For this very reason, Bruno ends this installment with a vastly better material life, and a very greatly enlarged circle of influence. Hobnobbing with royalty, even minor royalty, grants a man access to things previously not available. Very useful in a sleuth's development; and as done by Walker in this book, perfectly logical and in fact sort of inevitable.

I'll cut to the chase: For a series-mystery fan, this procedural-cum-cozy-via-thriller series is catnip and should not be resisted. For a foodie, it's madness to pass up. For one who fancies gentlemen of a certain interesting age, it's damn near mandatory reading. (My Gentleman Caller has a serious book-crush on Bruno, for example. I'm not jealous it says here because so do I.) And if wine interests you, for heavens' sake go NOW and buy them all!


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Now, there you go again. *Adds Bruno, Chief of Police to the RBR pile.* (That's Recommended by Richard, in case you were puzzled.) Must begin at the beginning, of course.

>220 laytonwoman3rd: My review of it.

Funny, I've had the first three in this series sitting on my shelf for a few years and yet.....you are certainly persuasive though Richard and I don't often see 4.5/5 out of you so maybe I will finally start this series. Thumb applied.

>222 brenzi: Thank you for the thumb, Bonnie! Keep in mind that the series grows better as the books go by. I very much liked the first one, but by the third, Walker is *streets* ahead of his initial chops.

>219 richardderus: I recently read the first Bruno based on your earlier mention. Wasn't entirely sure about how high a priority yo put on continuing, but this review has me reconsidering. Thanks, I think!

>224 Jim53: Oh good, Jim! Give The Dark Vineyard a go...even it isn't quite up to the Black Diamond level. But it's better than the first.

Review: 50 of fifty

Title: A REGIMENTAL MURDER

Author: ASHLEY GARDNER

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: Captain Lacey returns in the second book of this series. After saving a beautiful woman from a mysterious assailant near the docks, Captain Lacey helps in her search for her husband's murderers. Her late husband was accused of committing a crime during the atrocities after a Peninsular War battle, and Lydia Westin wants Lacey to clear his name. Lacey investigates with his usual thoroughness, bringing in Lucius Grenville, the immensely wealthy Regency dandy, to help him. But murder and mayhem follow, and James Denis once more tries to recruit Lacey to help him with his underworld activities. This book introduces the characters of Lady Breckenridge and Grenville's irrepressible footmen, Matthias and Bartholomew.

My Review: How unpleasant it was to find that the criminals were portrayed as evil, and that evil took the form of...gasp!...sodomy! Perish forbid!

Well, that might just be it for me and the author. I have not yet decided whether or not to bail on the series. I'm angry about this, and I won't soon forgive the shoddiness of the trick.

Wonderful reviews as always! Especially >216 richardderus:.

And...another Bruno! I just read the first one, hoping to be led out of the endless Black Book Funk. I was completely set free by a delightful main character, beautiful countryside and dreamy foods and wines. You're completely responsible for this rescue, btw, as you recommended the series to me. I love it!

>227 Matke: Oh goody good good! Bruno succeeds in saving another life. I'm up to book #4, The Crowded Grave, and liking it a lot.

Begone, Black Book Funk!!

You are a reviewing maniac... lots of them, all good. I've been missing a lot!

You've had a few other things on your mind!

Piling on with Bruno love. Library download popped up available as ebook. It's going to quebec with us tomorrow - we are heading out for the Bury Your Dead tour and a celebration of 47 years of wedded togetherness. Thanks again for the good lead.

Oh YAY!! And Quebec is, next to Saint-Denis itself, the best place I can imagine reading the book.

Forty-seven years! Goodness, I was only 8 when you got married. What were you, ten?

:-)

Good morning, Richard.

xo

>233 Matke: *smooch* Hope you're well, my dear Danvers.

I need another series like a hole in the head, but I think Bruno chief of police is going on the wishlist. *sigh*

>235 michigantrumpet: *smirk*

I mean, I mean, oh good, yes you'll love it!

*smirk again*

Review: 51 of fifty

Title: A CONSPIRACY OF PAPER

Author: DAVID LISS

Rating: 3.9* of five

The Publisher Says: Benjamin Weaver is an outsider in eighteenth-century London: a Jew among Christians; a ruffian among aristocrats; a retired pugilist who, hired by London's gentry, travels through the criminal underworld in pursuit of debtors and thieves.

In A Conspiracy of Paper, Weaver investigates a crime of the most personal sort: the mysterious death of his estranged father, a notorious stockjobber. To find the answers, Weaver must contend with a desperate prostitute who knows too much about his past, relatives who remind him of his alienation from the Jewish faith, and a cabal of powerful men in the world of British finance who have hidden their business dealings behind an intricate web of deception and violence. Relying on brains and brawn, Weaver uncovers the beginnings of a strange new economic order based on stock speculation--a way of life that poses great risk for investors but real danger for Weaver and his family.

In the tradition of The Alienist and written with scholarly attention to period detail, A Conspiracy of Paper is one of the wittiest and most suspenseful historical novels in recent memory, as well as a perceptive and beguiling depiction of the origin of today's financial markets. In Benjamin Weaver, author David Liss has created an irresistibly appealing protagonist, one who parlays his knowledge of the emerging stock market into a new kind of detective work.

My Review: An honorable man sets out to right a wrong that he cares relatively little about. His quest leads him to wrongs he didn't know were possible, and that he cares a lot about righting. He can't fix it...nobody could then, and nobody can now...because it's all to do with human greed and viciousness.

David Liss came to my attention with this top-notch thriller. He takes the abstruse and impersonal concept put forth by (then-newly minted) economic scientists called "economist"s Hand of the Market, squeezes that bastard tight, and shakes out of it the economists' worst nightmare: The human cost of their depersonalized, accountability-free rent-reaping mills.

What makes Weaver a compelling character is his almost unbelievable level of alienation from every sector of London's social web. A Jew estranged from his family by disobedience. A Jew in the Christian London that persecutes Catholics, allegedly fellow Christians. An educated man who fought with his fists for money. An absolute outsider.

It makes for the best fictional characters, this does, and even better for a sleuth in a mystery. He has access to but not membership in many groups. He can ask questions because he's Different, and he can't be bought off by assimilation--too far outside the pale of anyone's social-group tolerance--nor can he be threatened by exclusion (from what that he isn't excluded from already?).

A successful thriller combines plausible action in service of believable stakes by a character with a definite and powerful moral compass. Delivered here in trumps. It's a pleasure to read a book that makes it clear that markets, all markets always and everywhere, must be controlled, damped down, and regulated to prevent the vile and contemptible from abusing the greedy and gullible. It is, in the end, the rest of us who pay the bill. It was ever thus. It will ever be thus, world without end.

Until we're no longer human beings, that is.


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Sounds good! I'll have to pull this off my TBR pile where it has been long waiting.

It was a very good read for me, so I hope it does the same kind of magic on you.

Thumb applied Richard.

A successful thriller combines plausible action in service of believable stakes by a character with a definite and powerful moral compass.

Sounds too good to pass up:-)

>240 brenzi: I surely hope it will give you the good cheer it did me, Bonnie.

I read Liss's earlier book about coffee (title escapes poor tired brain at the moment) and have had this low on the radar since them. Will continue to look out for it. First must get to number 3, 4, etal of Bruno (finished #2 this AM). You evil tempter you.

Review: 52 of fifty

Title: A SPECTACLE OF CORRUPTION

Author: DAVID LISS

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Moments after his conviction for a murder he did not commit, at a trial presided over by a judge determined to find him guilty, Benjamin Weaver is accosted by a stranger who cunningly slips a lockpick and a file into his hands. In an instant he understands two things: Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to see him condemned to hang--and another equally mysterious agent is determined to see him free.

So begins A Spectacle of Corruption, which heralds the return of Benjamin Weaver, the hero of A Conspiracy of Paper. After a daring escape from eighteenth-century London's most notorious prison, Weaver must face another challenge: how to prove himself innocent of a crime when the corrupt courts have already shown they want only to see him hang. To discover the truth and clear his name, he will have to understand the motivations behind a secret scheme to extort a priest, uncover double-dealings in the unrest among London's dockworkers, and expose the conspiracy that links the plot against him to the looming national election--an election with the potential to spark a revolution and topple the monarchy.

Unable to show his face in public, Weaver pursues his inquiry in the guise of a wealthy merchant who seeks to involve himself in the political scene. But he soon finds that the world of polite society and politics is filled with schemers and plotters, men who pursue riches and power--and those who seek to return the son of the deposed king to the throne. Desperately navigating a labyrinth of politicians, crime lords, assassins, and spies, Weaver learns that, in an election year, little is what it seems and the truth comes at a staggeringly high cost.

Once again, acclaimed author David Liss combines historical erudition with mystery, complex characterization, and a captivating sense of humor. A Spectacle of Corruption offers insight into our own world of political scheming, and it firmly establishes David Liss as one of the best writers of intellectual suspense at work today.

My Review: Last time we saw the Lion of Judah, aka Benjamin Weaver (né Lienzo), he had brought a species of justice to some victims of the South Sea Bubble. Now he's standing in the dock, convicted of a murder he didn't commit and facing the death penalty.

Well, there's nothing like making the stakes obvious from the get-go: Fail to solve the crime you've been convicted of and die; solve the crime and bring the political system of your homeland to its knees. Drama for *days*!

And well-done drama, if a bit crowded. Inevitably, setting stakes this high means that some smaller areas of interest (eg, the "romance") don't come to satisfying fruition. But there is more than enough good stuff here to make the less successful moments less important than the overall tale's pleasures. It's very satisfying to see a man of honor operating in that cesspit of dishonor that has always been, and seems as if it will always be, political action.

What I enjoy most about Liss's historical fiction is that it is obvious to me that he roots the action in fact while still making a cracking good yarn. He sees history as "his story," as the college-freshman joke went. And that's how I got interested in history, and it's why I find satisfaction in reading David Liss's books.


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>242 tututhefirst: Oh, The Coffee Trader! About Benjamin Weaver's elderly uncle's past in Holland. Good book.

As to being an evil tempter...well....

Review: 53 of fifty

Title: THE IRISH VILLAGE MURDER

Author: DICEY DEERE

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: Despite County Wicklow's dismal autumn rain, American translator Torrey Tunet is happy to be back in Ireland after a European assignment. She's longing for a lovely peat fire in her Ballynagh cottage when she spots a forlorn child fresh off the Dublin bus with no one to meet her. Reluctantly taking charge of delivering the child to Gwathney Hall, Torrey walks right into trouble. Historian John Gwathney has just been brutally gunned down, and the child's beautiful Auntie Megan--Gwathney's housekeeper and perhaps his lover--appears the likeliest suspect. But Torrey doesn't agree. She knows many eyes watch from behind the lace curtains of an Irish village, and no secrets are kept for long. Now, she's snooping into other people's business from the pub to the police station. Will her questions prove damning to a ruthless killer? Or deadly to herself?

My Review: Fourth in the series, I read this first. And to be honest, while it wasn't awful, it was nothing special and I don't want to pursue the series.

Why? Because. Well, if I'm honest, because it's got a staccato rhythm to its dialogue that made me twitch. Reminded me of an Ellen DeGeneres monologue, an experience I do NOT enjoy. People trail off, start up again somewhere else, and then simply run out of stuff to say.

Argh.

And then there are the chapters. They're perfect commercial-break-during-NCIS length. For others, this might be a good thing, but for me not so much. Plus I am less interested in clothing than author Deere appears to be. It isn't at all a *bad* book, just not one I found addictive. The mystery, which centers on a child, for once doesn't center on the danger to the child. I'm pleased by that, and by the community warmth and charm, and the sleuth's infectious good humor. She's a positive person, carping aside, and that makes for a better read than average. Try it...maybe start with the first one, The Irish Cottage Murder, but don't be reluctant if you're in the mood for a cozy and can deal with the dialogue's quirks.


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That sounds nice....
off to thumb if you have it here....

>246 mckait: Thank you, smoochling!

Hi RD!

I liked The Coffee Trader better than A Conspiracy of Paper but will look for A Spectacle of Corruption.

>248 karenmarie: Hmmm...I wonder if it's really worth it for you...I like the series, so I was ready to roll with it, but if you don't much like Benjamin I don't think it'll get better.

Sending smooches!

Okay, since there are so many books I actively want to read, I'll pass on the second Benjamin book.

*smooches* back!

Review: 54 of fifty

Title: THE ADVENTURE OF THE CHEAP FLAT

Author: AGATHA CHRISTIE

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A classic Agatha Christie short story, available individually for the first time as an ebook.

Poirot is fascinated by Hastings’ talk of an unusually ‘dirt cheap’ flat in an expensive part of London. With his suspicion aroused Poirot cannot resist investigating, much to Hastings’ dismay who thinks nothing of it…

My Review: The Kindle Single is 99¢; the Agatha Christie's Poirot episode from the second season is free on Acorn TV.

Honestly, Christie was a snobbish pill, wasn't she. Such a horrible opinion of Americans, of all foreigners apparently, and it makes some of her stuff not fun to read. This one, short as it is, caused me agita twice...the American chanteuse and the FBI agent in the filmed version are take-offs of Christie's musical-comedy versions of the New York Italian in the story...and the very Christie-ish withholding of knowledge from the reader. How does Poirot know about the espionage case? Ant any rate, I like the filmed version a good deal better. That's becoming the norm for me with Ma Christie.

This second-season one-hour episode is more fleshed out and fully realized than the story, as is to be expected; but it also offers a bit more fair play for the viewer than the reader, as we learn with Poirot and Hastings the workings of international "cooperation" involving the case. Still, the offensiveness of the American stereotypes prevents me from rating this any higher than I have, and honesty prevents me from giving in to my displeasure and downrating an involving and interesting episode in the TV series below this.

But I really want to.


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Review: 55 of fifty

Title: THE KIDNAPPED PRIME MINISTER

Author: AGATHA CHRISTIE

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A classic Agatha Christie short story, available individually for the first time as an ebook.

Just as the end of the First World War is drawing to an end, the prime minister is kidnapped and it is down to Hercule Poirot to locate him and avert an international crisis before a crucial conference convenes.

My Review: Another 99¢ Kindle Single/second-season episode combination.

The episode and the story are very very close in the course they steer. The difference is that the story is set at the end of WWI and the episode is set, as are all the Poirot episodes, in the 1930s. The main change this causes is that the Versailles conference is no longer the P.M.'s destination in France, but a League of Nations conference regarding German rearmament.

The German spy ring is replaced by an Irish Nationalist ring attempting to cause trouble for England, but otherwise everything remains status quo. Ma Christie does a creditable job with this early story; the espionage stories are generally more likely to age well, since bringing them up to period is easier. Espionage is evergreen, after all.


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Review: 56 of fifty

Title: THE ADVENTURE OF THE "WESTERN STAR"

Author: AGATHA CHRISTIE

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: A classic Agatha Christie short story, available individually for the first time as an ebook.

Movie star Mary Marvell consults with Hercule Poirot after receiving threatening letters that warn her to return her diamond, the famous ‘Western Star’, to its rightful owner. But who does own the diamond, and is it even the genuine article?

My Review: Again, a 99¢ Kindle Single as well as an episode of Agatha Christie's Poirot's second season.

Good lord, society was racist in those days. In 1923, when this story was published, making the villain Chinese was a piece of shorthand for morally degenerate furriner. That the ultimate culprits were not Chinese and that the reason for the jewel theft was simple and sordid adultery made the entire tale predictable. This was more of a Columbo episode than it was a typical Christie.

The look of these shows is stellar. I love it, this Art Deco beauty and lushness. What's very strange to me is how much the atmosphere of the stories (in these early seasons) depends on Poirot and Hastings acting like an old married couple. Bicker bicker bicker! Smile and make up. Bicker some more, Poirot says something cutting, Hastings acts hurt, smile and make up! It was 1990 when these were made, no one can convince me that there's any chance of this being unconscious or accidental.

Well anyway it's a charming way to pass an hour.


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Ah, Dame Agatha Christie Mallowan. I adore her stuff, except for a strange adversion to Tuppence and Tommy; always recognizing that she was writing in a time of much prejudice and much ballyhoo about the British Empire. The class structure was rigid and all-defining and her stereotypes were consistent and vivid. Did you know that her book Ten Little Indians was called Ten Little N* in England?

I can't stand watching any of the Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple movies or TV series - I had read most of the books multiple times before seeing anything on teevee and couldn't compare what I had imagined with what was in front of my eyes.

Her books have a place of honor in my library. Starting in 1987 my mother bought me a series, doling out 1 or 2 at each birthday or significant event..... and, the year I was pregnant with daughter she gave me 5 for my birthday. Happy days. I love 'em. Mom also bought me the books written as Mary Westmacott and her autobiography, which I read several years ago and thoroughly enjoyed. Drat her for not explaining her disappearance after finding out that her husband, Archie Christie, had cheated on her.....

Christie and Salinger are the only two authors whose short stories I really enjoy.

Review: 57 of fifty

Title: THE DISAPPEARANCE OF MR. DAVENHEIM

Author: AGATHA CHRISTIE

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Mr. Davenheim, a wealthy financier, leaves his home to mail a letter, then fails to return. The story fills the newspapers and intrigues Hercule Poirot, who challenges Inspector Japp with the claim that he can solve the case before the police, and without leaving his flat.

My Review: Another season two episode of Agatha Christie's Poirot that's available as a 99¢ Kindle Single. And this one is a prime example of how very good Ma Christie was as a puzzle-maker. She didn't need to resort to the sneaky withholding of information, as this story shows, she could lay it all out and still surprise one at the finish.

This is a favorite story of mine for that reason. The episode is even more fun because it of necessity expands on the story, fleshes things out, and offers some rather fun opportunities for dramatic tension. Miss Lemon is added to the proceedings, and I tell you true that Pauline Moran as Miss Lemon is one of my very favorite characters. Something about her tireless efficiency, her tenacity, and her charming devotion to Poirot combine to make her a charming English take on Della Street, Perry Mason's right-hand lady.

The solution, once revealed, is so startlingly simple that it made me wince to think I hadn't seen it from the start, and yet the clues were all right there. Hats off to a terrific mysterian!


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>254 karenmarie: Dame Ags is a powerful totem in literary terms, indeed. Your memories of her books as defining gifts are very strong because of your affection for her creations. What a gift she had!

Yep, knew that about the title of Ten Little Indians, and it's unthinkable now but commonplace back then. I find her characterizations of Chinese and Jews equally unappealing. But it was 100 years ago, give or take; this set of stories was published in 1923, for example. I wouldn't fit in to that world due to my late-20th-century sensitivities. (We do seem to be going backwards in this regard, at least here in the US.)

I'm of the polar opposite response to the TV series: I think Suchet *IS* Poirot, and more often than not prefer the shows' take on the tales to Dame Agatha's own. I like Miss Marple on screen more than on page, as well. I know Dame Joan Hickson has many admirers among Marpleistas, but for my money it's Julia McKenzie who embodies my vision of La Marple.

Tommy and Tuppence aren't among my favorite characters, though I love the way they age throughout the books in which they appear. No time-stands-still for them!

*smooch*

Review: 58 of fifty

Title: THE MILLION DOLLAR BOND ROBBERY

Author: AGATHA CHRISTIE

Rating: 3.8* of five

The Publisher Says: A young banker is suspected of stealing one million dollars in Liberty Bonds on a transatlantic journey to New York, and appeals to Hercule Poirot to clear his name. Poirot learns the identities of the three people who hold keys to the locked trunk, but it won't be as easy to identify the true thief…

My Review: A third season Agatha Christie's Poirot episode and a 99¢ Kindle Single combination again. Christie's powers of puzzle creation are always well deployed in service of financial skulduggery.

Again there are many expansions of the story in the series, making the experience of watching the tale unfold more satisfying. Quite a lot of detail gets added, including an accomplice for the miscreant who robs the bank who is quite poor at faking an American Southern accent.

But more than anything else, the demands of making an hour-long episode out of 20pp or so of story mean that the characters of Poirot and Hastings are more fully fleshed, and still keep to the spirit of Christie's vision for them. She used quick and deft strokes to evoke Hastings and Poirot in her stories; on the screen, the demands of filling screen time enable what feel like a collection of tics to flesh out into a relatable character.

The secondary players also have some heft to them on screen, whereas they're merely names and dashed off relationships in the story. It's another reason I enjoy the shows so much. The secretary/junior executive/manager relationships are much more satisfying. A very enjoyable outing!


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Review: 59 of fifty

Title: THE TRAGEDY AT MARSDON MANOR

Author: AGATHA CHRISTIE

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: An aging, heavily-insured country squire whose estate is in financial ruin is thought to have committed suicide. Hercule Poirot investigates, in the guise of a representative of the victim's insurance company, to uncover the identity of the real murderer.

My Review: Another 99¢ Kindle Single and Agatha Christie's Poirot third season episode combination.

The story is a bit silly. It features a bit of theatrics that, frankly, the audience of 1991 should have snorted and roll their eyes over. The motive for the murder was not at all mysterious in either the story or the episode.

The episode's framing device was very amusing. Quite charming indeed, Poirot being summoned to the murder scene before it occurs by a writer who has backed himself into a plot-corner! Ha, wonderful stuff added out of whole cloth.

But really now! The source of the murder idea was as lame as anything I've ever seen on TV, but the story...! Ye gawds. Just an excuse to write the fun little puzzle. I can't say it's out of the top drawer, but it's far from the worst I've seen or read from Christie.


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Review: 60 of fifty

Title: THE MYSTERY OF HUNTER'S LODGE

Author: AGATHA CHRISTIE

Rating: 3.25* of five

The Publisher Says: Previously published in the print anthology Poirot Investigates.

Poirot tasks his friends with solving a murder that is more like a riddle.

My Review: A third season Agatha Christie's Poirot episode, and a 99¢ Kindle Single.

The story is a completely different angle on the tale being told. It is more or less a report of events from Hastings to Poirot. Poirot and Hastings are there at the time the murder occurred. It makes a completely different experience of the tale.

The story was a bit dry; the entire ending was ridiculous, a piece of cheatery. But the ending of the episode, well now, that was a lovely bit of stagecraft. The tale itself is a standard murder-for-greed plot. The addition of a hunting party and a poor Bolshevik cousin to the episode made the experience more nuanced. The story is a good base for the episode, and really best appreciated as a source for the more satisfying realization on television.


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Review: 61 of fifty

Title: THE ADVENTURE OF THE EGYPTIAN TOMB

Author: AGATHA CHRISTIE

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Previously published in the print anthology Poirot Investigates.

A series of deaths around a pharaoh’s tomb is blamed on an ancient curse, but Poirot knows better.

My Review: A 99¢ Kindle Single and fifth season episode of Agatha Christie's Poirot.

The story is set entirely in Egypt. The episode is more wide-ranging, interweaving the Egyptian archaeological dig with New York and London. The deaths that Poirot investigates are all connected to the archaeological dig; there is a suspicion that an ancient curse is in action, an idea spread by the superstitious widow of the first victim. She calls in Poirot and Hastings to determine what has occurred.

The resolution of the deaths is the same in both iterations of the tale. But let me tell you somethin' the episode makes hay of the imagery reported in the story! Anubis-headed nightmares for me tonight.

The horror of human greed is eternal, isn't it. Appalling what people will do for enough money.


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Review: 62 of fifty

Title: THE CASE OF THE MISSING WILL

Author: AGATHA CHRISTIE

Rating: 3.9* of five

The Publisher Says: Poirot receives an unusual request for help from a Miss Violet Marsh, who was orphaned as a child and went to live with her peculiar Uncle Andrew. He died a month ago, leaving a will with a strange clause. Marsh has given instructions that his "clever" niece is allowed to live in his house for one month and in that time she has to "prove her wits" and find his second will. If at the end of that time she hasn't, all his worldly goods go to charitable institutions and she will be left with nothing. Can Poirot help her?

My Review: Another 99¢ Kindle Single and fifth season Agatha Christie's Poirot episode.

The story is very different indeed, the episode's murder isn't a murder but a simple death. The story goes from that point of difference to a paper chase of sorts, with his beneficiary sent looking for the titular document. The episode was more or less a straightforward murder-for-inheritance tale.

Much of the difference in framework comes down to The Big Reveal at the end of the episode. It makes a completely different tale out of the story, using only a few elements of the story. I like the story for what it is, a caper; I like the episode for what it is, a puzzle. They're really not closely related, and each stands well on its own.


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Her view of foreigners has to be looked at in view of the times the books were written and is less objectionable than the fact that in most US films the villain is invariably a Brit.

I agree Suchet is Poirot. Peter Ustinov was bearable but Albert Finney was truly awful and prevented the film being a classic as it should have been with such a stellar cast. As to Miss Marple give me Geraldine McEwan every time.

Review: 63 of fifty

Title: THE ADVENTURE OF THE ITALIAN NOBLEMAN

Author: AGATHA CHRISTIE

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A classic Agatha Christie short story, available individually for the first time as an ebook.

Dr Hawker receives a distressing call from a dying man who is then found bludgeoned to death in his flat. Poirot and Hastings accompany the doctor to the scene and find the remains of dinner for three, but where have the dining companions gone?

My Review: A 99¢ Kindle Single and fifth season episode of Agatha Christie's Poirot.

Hastings buys an Italian sports car, Miss Lemon gets an admirer, and Poirot gets a case. All three of these things are causally linked, and in some ugly ways. No one emerges from a brush with organized crime unscathed. It's a very sad story on many levels. The simple outlines of the case are simple: Blackmail, cover-up, murder, more cover-up, and surprisingly little time spent on what the blackmail was all about.

But for all that, a tale of the most involving and an episode most pleasurable.

Oh good gravy, I'm starting to sound like Poirot.


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Review: 64 of fifty

Title: THE JEWEL ROBBERY AT THE GRAND METROPOLITAN

Author: AGATHA CHRISTIE

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings are on holiday at the opulent Grand Metropolitan Hotel in Brighton, where they meet the wife of a wealthy stockbroker. As they discuss the jewels worn by Mrs. Opalsen, the great detective relates his experiences in cases which have concerned some of the best-known jewels in the world. Excited by his anecdotes, the wealthy matron eagerly offers to show him a very expensive pearl necklace, but when she goes to retrieve it, she discovers that it has been stolen...

My Review: Another 99¢ Kindle Single and fifth season episode of Agatha Christie's Poirot.

The story is a simpler version of the same basic caper tale the episode tells. The pearls are part of a costume drama produced by the amusingly named Opalsons, a theatrical couple on their uppers and using the famous Russian pearls to promote their crap show.

The theft is tempting Poirot to forget the doctor's orders that he take it easy at the seaside. He's stressed and needs time off. And now there's a tis-was over incredibly valuable pearls stolen from under the nose of the ladies' maid after the opening of the crummy play that Opalson used Poirot to help promote? Ha! Game on.

What a lark, and how different from the story. I think the criminals are the same in both versions. I truly enjoyed the enriched tale in the episode. Fun!


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>262 tendring: Xenophobia is an unattractive trait no matter where one sees it.

>263 tendring: Unlike many, I thought McEwan's Marple was a good take on the character. I prefer McKenzie only because I like the lady's voice so much more than McEwan's shriller tones. Both of them are superior to the Hickson interpretation, IMO.

I have ,by chance, recently seen both versions of " The Body in the Library".One the original and I think the first ever Marple made by the BBC starred Joan Hickson and she came acroos as unbelievably prim and proper.In the second made for ITV starring Geraldine McEwan she appeared more human and with a little twinkle in her eye.

Loving the joint reviews of the Christie books v. filmed versions! Thanks Richard!

Quick question -- which book is it in >253 richardderus:?

>267 tendring: I so enjoyed that episode of Agatha Christie's Marple! Joanna Lumley as Dolly Bantry was delightful. And McEwan was the ideal Marple for that story.

>268 michigantrumpet: I wonder how I did that...anyway, it was The Adventure of the "Western Star".

I have to say that the worst Marple I have seen is Margaret Rutherford although I read somewhere a rumour that Disney is making a Marple with her being played by a teenager. I so hope it is untrue.

>270 tendring: Margaret Rutherford's character was about as much Marple as I am. It was a travesty.

Marple as a teenager. Oh dear goddesses.

Ah well -- I remember Rutherford as Marple from childhood. I know now that few of the movies she was in actually derive from Christie stories and the ones that did have been heavily changed.

Query: Is the venom spewed towards Rutherford truly her fault or the fault of the studio/director/screenwriter who had a hand in the travesty?

I've liked Rutherford in other roles -- Blithe Spirit and The Importance of Being Earnest coming immediately to mind -- so perhaps the failing to 'capture' Marple isn't entirely on her shoulders?

>272 michigantrumpet: Good heavens, Marianne, I see how it sounds when you ask the question. Rutherford was hired by a studio to enact a role written for the screen under the direction of multiple executives. That anything of Christie's could remain in those circumstances is so improbable as to be impossible.

She herownself wasn't in any way involved in anything except delivering the performance required of her! I like her somewhat stumbly-bumble British eccentric persona. Just that it's not exactly the Marple I get from Christie's works.

Had the films been labeled "Jane Whatsit Solves a Crime in Spite of Herself" I'd be a big fan.

I'm a bit of a Whatsit fan myself!

I, too, am very much enjoying your comparisons of the stories with the filmed versions.

Finished the new Sarah Waters...
xo

>274 michigantrumpet: Heh~

>275 laytonwoman3rd: Thanks, Linda3rd, it's been very rewarding to read and watch. What with the filmed version of Curtain available for streaming at last, it's become a lot more interesting to me.

>276 mckait: Oho! I'll be by directly to see what you thought.

I totally agree that Margaret Rutherford was excellent elsewhere but for what ever reason as Marple she was truly awful.

I think poor Rutherford was simply badly advised to take the script on at all. It would have been a train wreck no matter who played that character called Marple.

Review: 65 of fifty

Title: MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS

Author: AGATHA CHRISTIE

Rating: 5* of five, mostly for the Agatha Christie's Poirot adaptation

The Publisher Says: Just after midnight, a snowdrift stopped the Orient Express in its tracks. The luxurious train was surprisingly full for the time of the year. But by the morning there was one passenger fewer. A passenger lay dead in his compartment, stabbed a dozen times, his door locked from the inside.

My Review: Well, that was a concise-to-the-point-of-terseness summary. But I suspect most of us who are voracious or even simply serious readers of mystery fiction don't need too much more than that to recall the details to mind.

The novel, published in 1934, is a bit of a stretch for a modern mystery-reader's sense of fair play. Poirot's famous/infamous "little gray cells" are pumpin' full-bore and lead him to near-miraculous feats of deduction. The novel's Poirot is, at the end, almost cavalier about the hugely out-of-character ending. It almost feels as if Christie said to herself, "Self, I've had enough of this character's ethics and am writing MY ending not his."

Her book, her rules.

The filmed version offers more scope for fair play with the reader as Poirot is seen to do things and discover things that lead him to a startling and evidently disturbing conclusion. In keeping with the films' expansion of the Poirot character, the book's resolution is more nuanced, and affords a modern viewer more satisfaction in that the character of Poirot is clearly emotionally involved in the murder's resolution and becomes a richer, more relatable person as a result.

Both versions of the story are so improbable as to be absurd, on the face of it. But in a world run on decent principles, such a story and such a resolution would be more common than not. I feel very Old-Testament-y about people who harm children or animals for cruelty or sport.

The film's other deviations from the novel are also deepening the sense of Poirot's reality as a person, and indicative of just how very surprising this ending is within the understanding Christie has given us of Poirot's essential relationship to crime-solving. A scene at the beginning of the film, between Poirot and a soldier, is particularly important in setting the tone for this story's exceptional place in the Poirot canon. Another early scene in Istanbul is, in my opinion, gratuitous; well conceived, but not necessary, and frankly unpleasant in the light it sheds on Poirot.

But the sheer visual beauty of this film! The pitch-perfect Poirot of David Suchet! Ah mes amis, this is the treat most exceptional, this feast is the repast most gustatorial for the lover of the how you call a crime drama. It is the pleasure most complete. Replenish yourselves and your little gray cells!


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Review: 66 of fifty

Title: CARDS ON THE TABLE

Author: AGATHA CHRISTIE

`Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: It was the match-up of the century: four sleuths--Superintendent Battle of Scotland Yard; Mrs. Ariadne Oliver, famed writer of detective stories; Col. Race of His Majesty's Secret Service; and the incomparable Hercule Poirot - invited to play bridge with four specially invited guests, each of whom had gotten away with murder! But before the first rubber was completed, the host was dead.

My Review: This review is of Christie's novel and the tenth-season film adaptation for Agatha Christie's Poirot. They earn the same rating.

One of the ways couples reinforce their pair bond is shared entertainment. My Gentleman Caller and I read a lot; I'm a big mystery fan, where he is less interested in the genre. We both enjoy mystery movies a good deal, though, and the Poirot series especially. Through the amazing and wonderful Internet, we can watch episodes together, discussing them in real time, or just canoodling in cyberspace. I think I'd go bonkers if I didn't have my fix of looking at his face this way.

So this evening we watched two of the movies. First up was this very entertaining adaptation of Christie's novel of psychology. Ariadne Oliver, an author surrogate character for Mrs. Christie herself, makes her first filmed and literary appearance here. Zoë Wanamaker is a wonderful choice to play Mrs. Oliver, being husky-voiced and of a distinctive and memorable appearance. It's one of the pleasures of the films that the actors cast in Christie's roles are uniformly excellent craftspeople, and Wanamaker is no exception.

In watching this adaptation, I felt a wee bit seasick. All the roles were there, just as in the book; but they had different names, unrecognizable motives, and switched-up personae. Colonel Race, a recurring Christie character, is called something else although it's only his name that's different. Rhoda and Anne completely switch purposes, though I have no earthly notion why. The motivation for the central murder is *completely* unrecognizable. It would, in fact, have been impossible for Christie to write it in 1935 and get the book published. The Superintendent is renamed and good gracious me how he is changed up! I mean to tell you, Ma Christie would likely be apoplectic over this particular bit of modification.

The victim, Mr. Shaitana, is portrayed by Alexander Siddig, who enacted the role of Doctor Bashir on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine about twenty years ago. I hadn't recalled that the man was so very tall and so very lean. As Shaitana, a furriner and an ethnic in racist 1930s London, he (Siddig) is perfectly chosen: He looks exotic and strange, skin of brown and eyes of green and wardrobe chosen to exaggerate the actor's dramatic silhouette. Mrs. Oliver as a stand-in for Christie herself comments on his foreignness by saying he "gives {her} the jitters." Really. Yech.

The mundane murder motive in the novel is considerably spicier in the film, and actually more fun for this modern audience of two. The book presents a more complete Christieverse experience, drawing the four sleuths and one suspect from the well she reused freely. Each decision has its advantages; on the whole, I can't say that one of the media is preferable to the other. I, and certainly my Gentleman Caller, don't subscribe to the Purity Test for films. The source material will always be altered to suit the demands of the medium. That's the way it works, and more often than not has to; not infrequently the adapted film is superior to the source material, if rabid ardent nut-level fans would simply see it. (And of course there are reverse cases by the scores, it's not a one-way street by any means.)

This film, substantially altered from an excellent novel, finds a different and equal excellence. The spirit of the story is intact, and is well served by the changes made for film. And as always, the role of Poirot is complete and entire in David Suchet's hands. And mincing feet. And waxed mustache. The story, either medium, is delicious and savory and a treat not to be denied oneself.


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Review: 67 of fifty

Title: THREE ACT TRAGEDY

Author: AGATHA CHRISTIE

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: At an apparently respectable dinner party, a vicar is the first to die...Thirteen guests arrived at dinner at the actor's house. It was to be a particularly unlucky evening for the mild-mannered Reverend Stephen Babbington, who choked on his cocktail, went into convulsions and died. But when his martini glass was sent for chemical analysis, there was no trace of poison -- just as Poirot had predicted. Even more troubling for the great detective, there was absolutely no motive!

My Review: This review is of the novel, eleventh in the series, and of the twelfth-season film adaptation for Agatha Christie's Poirot. They earn the same rating.

What a beautiful-looking film this is! The setting in Cornwall is stunning, and the house they chose for Sir Charles is breathtaking! The story is the same in both media, omitting the unnecessary written character of Satterthwaite as a less dimwitted version of Hastings.

Babbington's death is only the first of three apparently utterly unrelated murders. The second murder is horribly upsetting to all the characters. The third is simply incomprehensible to mere mortals...Poirot, of course, sees it in its proper light almost immediately. When the killer is unmasked, it is a bad, bad day for Poirot and a painful and frightening awakening for the younger characters in the story.

But the murders and the motives survive intact between the media. There isn't any need to change all that much in this installment of the series; no one's motives are altered and no action omitted. And that is a very good thing. I really enjoy a puzzler, and this one was. The ending is better on film because of Suchet's pitch-perfect delivery of his last line.

But all in all, the reason I like the story so much is that the older, distinguished gentleman gets the young and comely love-object because he is, simply put, irresistible. As we were watching along, my (absurdly younger) Gentleman Caller started to giggle. He noticed the plot point, and was highly amused that I'd suggested we watch this particular episode. I like that about him, that he sees the humor that I see.

Another delightful outing for the Little Gray Cells. Each version is a treat. Pick one, or do as I do and savor both.


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Review: 68 of fifty

Title: THE LONG WAY HOME

Author: LOUISE PENNY

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Happily retired in the village of Three Pines, Armand Gamache, former Chief Inspector of Homicide with the Sûreté du Québec, has found a peace he’d only imagined possible. On warm summer mornings he sits on a bench holding a small book, The Balm in Gilead, in his large hands. "There is a balm in Gilead," his neighbor Clara Morrow reads from the dust jacket, "to make the wounded whole."

While Gamache doesn’t talk about his wounds and his balm, Clara tells him about hers. Peter, her artist husband, has failed to come home. Failed to show up as promised on the first anniversary of their separation. She wants Gamache’s help to find him. Having finally found sanctuary, Gamache feels a near revulsion at the thought of leaving Three Pines. "There’s power enough in Heaven," he finishes the quote as he contemplates the quiet village, "to cure a sin-sick soul." And then he gets up. And joins her.

Together with his former second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, and Myrna Landers, they journey deeper and deeper into Québec. And deeper and deeper into the soul of Peter Morrow. A man so desperate to recapture his fame as an artist, he would sell that soul. And may have. The journey takes them further and further from Three Pines, to the very mouth of the great St. Lawrence river. To an area so desolate, so damned, the first mariners called it "The land God gave to Cain." And there they discover the terrible damage done by a sin-sick soul.

My Review: So, no spoilers. Let's just say that at least one person of my intimates will end this book smiling from ear to hobbity ear.

Now, the book. I mean, the object that is a book, not the novel inside the book. The dust jacket is printed, quite unusually, on case-spine binding paper. It's got an unusual and strong texture similar to painting canvas, which is appropriate; it makes the jacket image far more like the beautiful painting it is, which is a lovely touch; and they spent the spondulix to spot-varnish the author's name and photo, and the title, in a bid to look luxe. They succeed. The presentation is commensurate with the contents, classy and attractive and off-plumb enough to be irresistible.

The design of the jacket is important. Pay attention to it. Pay attention to the image artist. Pay attention to the image title.

Of the author's style I shall not speak except to say, if you're reading this book ten of the series, don't complain because you *knew* what you were in for before the book arrived. I myownself like it.

I wasn't entirely surprised by the ending, as it was more or less what I'd figured was inevitable. The action in the last three chapters kept me deeply involved. There is an element to the resolution of the story that I found weirdly out of kilter, but in the end found I wasn't willing to get sniffy about.

The book Gamache is reading appears to be, weirdly, a tract or sermon by Puritan Anthony Tuckney. What that might be doing in his hands I have no idea, given that he and his father (one presumes) are Catholic by upbringing...but then again, cosmopolitan and intellectually curious people read widely. The African-American spiritual Balm in Gilead is a lovely song. The book is a very important piece of the book's trajectory.

Errrmmm. Uh, well now. Without spoilering a lotta lotta stuff, the only other thing I can say is how much I appreciate being able to spend time with the Three Pinesians established and transplanted. I also appreciate the, uhhhmmm, recently established familial interconnections and their high-quality handling by Penny. Rang very true to me, both the ease and the unease thereof.

Potential converts: Start at the beginning, Still Life, and persevere. By the end of book 2, Penny is in her stride. Fans: DO NOT SKIP BOOKS 8 or 9! WAAAYYY important stuff happens and you can't just "pick it up" from context without losing some very very important subtext. Remember how Penny loves to layer her stories!


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Oh.....I so want to re-read Long Way Home again already. Read the ARC about 8 weeks ago. I so want to go to Three Pines. I will however, content myself with the lovely audible edition I just downloaded (it was one of my delayed blogaversary self-indulgences.) So glad you liked it RD. Hope the title presages good things for you this month.

>284 tututhefirst: I did indeed love the book, Tina, and hope your ear-read will make you smile as wistfully as re-reads will. *smooch*

I loved it enough to Not Care. To terribly Much. About the breakup. Of complete sentences into. A horrible mishmash.

What Armand is going to do next is the big question in my mind.

"Fuck, fuck fuck," says Rosa the duck.

>286 karenmarie: Heh. Now see? I like the emphaticalist tendency in that! (Remeber Funny Face and Audrey Hepburn's Emphaticalist philosopher crush?)

Rosa and Ruth are so cool. I love that La Penny can make them so real.

Review: 69 of fifty

Title: THE INNOCENT MRS. DUFF

Author: ELISABETH SANXAY HOLDING

Rating: 4.25* of five

The Publisher Says: Jacob Duff has it all: A beautiful and much younger second wife, a young son, a nice suburban house a train ride from the office in New York City and a position in society he was born into that shapes him. Now one year into his second marriage, Jacob questions his decision to wed a woman he feels will never fit into his mold of the proper wife for a man of his social station, but he is cognizant that any decision he makes will face the stern scrutiny of his Aunt Lou, whose wealth Jacob will inherit upon her death. What to do....

My Review: A Canadian Book Warbler made me do it. She warbled so loudly about this book that, well, what's a mere mortal to do except give in, order one, and read the damned thing? And now, like Raymond Chandler before me, I am a fan and have several other Holding novels to read.

Boy do I owe that Canadian big for this. What a fun, exciting, and well-made psychological novel of suspense this is. I was completely riveted. Mr. Jacob Duff is our PoV character, and a more revolting, self-pitying, entitlement-driven piece of work is impossible to imagine. Mrs. Reggie Duff, young and beautiful but of a lower social class than Duff is, has a loving heart, a naive trusting nature, and a poor education. Jay Duff, scion of Duff's late wife and himself, is a typical boisterous boy and loves his stepmama Reggie a lot, while alternating between fear of and indifference to his father.

Not one of these folks will emerge from the novel unscathed. Duff the snob wants to divorce Reggie because she's not well-bred; his eccentric Aunt Lou won't hear of it, reminding Duff that he married Reggie for exactly that quality and now he needs to suck it up and deal. Whiny spoiled Duff begins to scheme, to cast about for ways and means to get his own stupid, selfish way.

In the course of doing exactly the wrong thing, Duff manages to kill, cause the death of, and/or ruin the lives of every single person in his way. He's despicable. And yet Holding writes this story, from his PoV remember!, in such a way that it's really unputdownable. I am delighted that I read this entertaining and suspenseful book.


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>288 richardderus: Book bulleted to my Maybe Collection. Not my usual fare, but will put it on the maybe.someday.soonish pile.

I enjoyed that non-spoilery review of The Long Way Home, Richard, particularly being able to read between the review's lines, having read the book. I normally have no problem suspending disbelief with her plots, but like you I felt a couple of things (not just one) were a bit off-kilter toward the end. As you say, not enough to get sniffy about, and as usual I was entranced by the book. Maybe I'll pm you about them.

>289 Morphidae: Heh, don't break any bones rushing out to get whichever one it is!

>290 jnwelch: I know what you mean, but really only one BIG one got up my nose. Pobody's nerfect, after all.

Film Review

Title: STILL LIFE

Author: LOUISE PENNY

Book Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Winner of the New Blood Dagger, Arthur Ellis, Barry, Anthony, and Dilys awards.

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec and his team of investigators are called in to the scene of a suspicious death in a rural village south of Montréal and yet a world away. Jane Neal, a long-time resident of Three Pines, has been found dead in the woods. The locals are certain it’s a tragic hunting accident and nothing more but Gamache smells something foul this holiday season…and is soon certain that Jane died at the hands of someone much more sinister than a careless bowhunter.

With this award-winning first novel, Louise Penny introduces an engaging hero in Inspector Gamache, who commands his forces—and this series—with power, ingenuity, and charm.

My Review: Oh, the raptures of a first novel that also inaugurates a mystery series! It's like your first piece of birthday cake as a kid...OMIGOD this is good wait whaddaya mean I gotta wait another whole year to get another one you stink and you're mean *waaahIwantmymommy*

But crafty old fifty-plussers like moi wait. We lurk behind the bakery, sniffing the ineffable esters of birthday cakes destined for the inexperienced and the impatient and the indiscriminate, mentally filing away those scents most closely followed by moans and slurps of ecstasy, biding our time and hoarding our book-calories (aka money) to see which annual yumyums consistently produce those sounds and smells.

Here it is, ladies and what-all-else, the first birthday cake from Canadian cake-baker Louise Penny, and my GOD was it worth the wait!

A friend sent this to me as a Christmas gift. It came after self-same friend raved and jumped up and down and yodeled the praises of the series, featuring Inspector Gamache of the Quebec Surete (I can't help myself, I hear Gestapo jackboots and Euro-sirens every time I see that word) and the odd, off-kilter inhabitants of Three Pines, Quebec. I was practically panting with eagerness to get this package, which when it arrived proved to contain *several* of the Gamache series.

Being a good Virgo, I snatched up the first in the series, and applied eyes to page. Steadily. For four hours. I was 2/3 through with the book then, and *forced* myself to put it down because a) I had to walk the dog, b) I had to feed my 91-yr-old aunt, and c) I had to pee.

Let's talk about mystery series for a minute. I like them, as readers of past reviews will yawningly recall, because they satisfy my need for order, for the world to work *right* for a change. I think a lot of people feel similarly to me. But a series, iteration upon iteration of similar plots/characters/motivations/dialogue...what makes a well-read consumer of Lit'rachure such as I, and so many fellow LTers, am/are seek these books out? Comfort? Yes, but... Ease? Yes, but... Quality.

Some of the best storytelling going on in literature today happens in mysteries and thrillers.

Yeup, you can love or loathe Grisham's writing, but you CANNOT fault, in any way, his eye for a story. You can fairly say it's not to your personal taste, but don't even TRY to say it's "not good." Likewise James Patterson, Stephen King, Iris Johansen, et alii. There is a reason these folks are bestsellers, and it is NOT that the People got no taste. It's that these are storytellers, entertainers, creators of worlds we-the-people want to inhabit if only for a moment.

As was Homer, may I remind the snobs. No one thought much about Homer's stuff, except that it was rollicking good fun. Nobody even bothered to write it down for a few centuries *after* writing was invented. Somewhere on the Times bestseller list is the work of the Homer our culture will be remembered for, and it's not likely to be Faulkner. (Horrible thought: What if it's HEMINGWAY?!?)

Louise Penny's Three Pines is a place I want to go and stay, eating Gabri's bounteous cooking and flirting with Olivier and lusting from afar at unattainable Peter and gossiping unkindly with Ruth...then settling in for a long, quiet snifter with Gamache and Beauvoir and Clara, to think it all through and come to a reasoned conclusion about life. I am there with these people, these words-on-page creations that have the life only a deep well of talent can water into existence. I believe them. I think you will, too.

I offer this moment from very near the end of the book, when Clara realizes who murdered her very best friend:

Clara stared at her reflection in the window of {the victim}'s kitchen. A ghostly,frightened woman looked back. Her theory made sense.
Ignore it, the voice inside said. It's not your business. Let the police do their work. For God's sake, don't say anything. It was a seductive voice, one that promised peace and calm and the continuation of her beautiful life in Three Pines. To act on what she knew would destroy that life.
What if you're wrong? cooed the voice. You'll hurt a lot of people...But Clara knew the voice lied. Had always lied to her. Clara would know and that knowing would eventually destroy her life anyway.

If that doesn't make you sprint out to get this book, nothing else I can say will.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Rating: 2.5* of five

The Filmmaker Says: When a beloved schoolteacher is found dead, the possibility of murder leaves the quaint town of Three Pines aghast in this crime drama based on the award-winning novel by Louise Penny. The Film at Acorn.tv

The Film Review: Well now. I don't know what cause Louise Penny to distance herself from the film made of her first novel, and so far as I am aware, she hasn't been public about the cause of her breach with the filmmakers.

The only actor I recognized in the cast was Gamache, played by Nathaniel Parker. I had a dizzy moment or two when I first saw Peter Morrow, playd by one Gabriel Hogan. I was sure as sure could be that it was Henry Rollins with a bad dye-job and after a facelift. Then I wondered if permaybehaps Mr. Hogan was, errrmmm, a product of Rollins' rock-star years...no, born in 1973...so no go....

And do you now see the problem? I was able to trace these arabesques and follow these fancies because I was so very not wrapped up in the film. Parker does a rather blah job as Gamache, the lady who plays Clara is nothing special, we don't so much as hear BOO from Myrna, Gabri and Olivier appear to be acquaintances with a formal past. And then there are the police: Lacoste looks just right and isn't terribly busy onscreen, Jean-Guy is edgeless, but then there's Agent Nicol. She's perfectly cast for attitude, is Susanna Fournier. Manages to be just like Nicol in the book.

Whatever the alchemy is that makes a film adaptation great is missing from this one. It's pretty to look at. The actors aren't bloody awful in the roles. The screenplay has the events in order. And at the end of the 88 minutes, I was utterly uninterested in seeing more.

Bad, bad sign.


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Review: 70 of fifty

Title: THE SECRET ADVERSARY
The first Tommy & Tuppence novel and film

Author: AGATHA CHRISTIE

Rating: 3* of five for both book and movie

The Publisher Says: After WW1, childhood pals Tommy Beresford and "Tuppence" Prudence Cowley, lack money and prospects, become adventurers for the British Government. Rich American Julius P. Hersheimmer, powerful Mr Whittington, and an evil mastermind's conspiracy all seek Jane Finn, given papers vital to peace by an agent at the sinking of the Luisitania. Kidnaps, escapes.

My Review: The novel is a dated piece, lots of hoopla about Bolsheviks and the General Strike and Socialism!! Socialism!! Tuppence is a right little minx. Tommy is a public school boy in the most English sense of those words. It was, I suppose, delicious in 1922 for a mere woman to be the instigator of an adventurous life for the borning couple on the other side of the law; that she doesn't have to Pay Dearly For It is truly eyebrow-raising.

Sixty years later, along comes Francesca Annis to embody Tuppence, and speak the faithfully adapted words Dame Agatha wrote. Annis is just lovely. She does a marvelous job of scheming behind a melting smile. But all the to-ing and fro-ing! Just-missed-'em and who-said-what moments galore. It creaks, in other words, to more savvy modern ears, very much the way Mary Roberts Rinehart's books do, or Georgette Heyer's mysteries do.

All that said, however, I didn't hurl the book aside or stop the film. Because in the end, it was fun. Just a bit silly, but still fun, and to me that's worth a lot. But the Big Reveal is just so durned obvious! And the American character so, so buffoonish! Oh well, autres temps autres moeurs. It doesn't do to apply too much modern sensibility to olden days. But I will say this to modern audiences: Either medium, go in expecting a relaxed pace (the film is 2 hours!) and you'll be better off by the end.

The chase scene with a 1915 Rolls-Royce amazed me.


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>291 richardderus: The book in the post I referenced silly man, The Innocent Mrs. Duff in >288 richardderus:.

>294 Morphidae: OIC

It's waaaayyyy too good a read to consign to the "if Jupiter enters the seventh house of my cousin's hamster's next litter then I'll read it" pile!

>295 richardderus: Nah. More of the "every leap year" pile. :D

STILL too far down! Up, up!

>297 richardderus: Fine! Every blue moon. There's at least one a year. That's as far as I'll go!

Time for a new mysterys & thrillers thread! That's where the reviews of same will live.