The Spider’s Web is the latest Sherlock Holmes novel from Philip Purser-Hallard and published by Titan Books. The story is set in London 1897 where Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson are at the conclusion of a murder investigation. They are immediately involved in a subsequent case when a corpse is discovered at a society ball. Holmes starts to interview the Moncrieff family and other guests to determine the identity of the dead man. It does not take long for Holmes to find the thread that leads to long buried family secrets and a rather complicated blackmail scheme.

So I have long lamented this tendency for these Sherlock Holmes pastiche writers to continuously have Holmes face an investigation into the supernatural or to have him encounter historical or other literary figures from the Victorian era. I thought Purser-Hallard had avoided the temptation to do either and then I read the Author’s Note at the end. Apparently, all the major supporting characters in this novel were actually taken from the works of Oscar Wilde. I have never read Oscar Wilde so I did not recognize any of the names.

Also, I had some trouble staying interested in the story anyway, which does not bode well for any interest I may have to try out Oscar Wilde stories. Purser-Hallard just didn’t grab my interest immediately with this one. Actually, my interest waned considerably as I trudged onward. He isn’t a bad writer, but this ended up not being one of the better Holmes novels I have read. Also, I was exasperated that the backdrop was the setting provided by another author.

Anyway, the 2021 literary indulgence continues as I learn what Fredrik Backman makes of Anxious People.

The Scent of Blood is a Doctor who audiobook from BBC Audio and is written by Andrew Lane. Dan Starkey performs the reading and is quite good.

A journalist in 1890’s Edinburgh named James MacFarlane has a line on vampires possibly lurking in the streets. He encounters a mysterious known as the Doctor on a hunt of his own.

This is an adventure featuring the Doctor in what is commonly considered his eighth incarnation, as played by Paul McGann. The script is solid but not really all that remarkable. What is remarkable is how well Starkey imitates McGann’s vocal mannerisms. Starkey does not do a perfect impression, but he does hit it well enough to imagine how McGann would say the lines. I liked the setting and time period even though the Victorian age is visited often in Doctor Who. It’s an enjoyable enough of an effort from Lane, but nothing that will stay in my memory for very long.

Mastermind is a Doctor Who audio play from Big Finish Productions and is an episode from the range known as The Companion Chronicles. Jonathan Morris is the scriptwriter with Ken Bentley and Jason Haigh-Ellery sharing the director duties. There are actualy no real companions of the Doctor’s here, but there is one persistent enemy known as the Master, played this time by Geoffrey Beevers. Daphne Ashbrook and Yee Jee Tso return to roles as Ruth Matheson and Charlie Sato, respectively. Matheson and Sato are two UNIT soldiers introduced in a previous episode entitled Tales from the Vault.

For a number of years, the Vault has had one living occupant who would awaken from a coma every five years. This would be other renegade Time Lord known as the Master. This would be decayed husk version of the Master, played chillingly by Beevers. Sato and Matheson try to learn of the reason for the Master’s latest visit on Earth and the events which led to his discovery in a locked penthouse. The Master, in spite of his hideous appearance, still has the power of persuasion, which still could be underestimated in spite of the precautions taken by the UNIT guards.

This ended up being an intriguing departure for this series. Beever has such a compelling, malevolent silkiness in his voice that firmly keeps one’s attention. It’s amusing to hear Ashbrook and Yee Jee Tso since they were both in the 1996 television movie which introduced Paul McGann’s version of the Doctor. Of course, they are playing two original Big Finish characters this time, and their performances hold up as well. Anyway, everyone does well, and the script is pretty well done. I am not exactly sure why there are two directors, but the episode still works. There is some exploration into the pasts of Sato and Matheson and an effort to present a piece of the Master’s long and complicated history. He certainly was not any less malevolent. I enjoyed this one even with the Doctor being absent here.

Shadow of the Daleks 2 is a Doctor Who audio play from Big Finish Productions which continues the story of the Fifth Doctor following what he calls a temporal trail leading to another confrontation with the Daleks. There are four short plays directed by Ken Bentley that make up this compilation that was started in the previous release, Shadow the Daleks 1. The Doctor is played by Peter Davison. He keeps finding himself in the different situations and setting where he sees the same four faces in different guises. The guest cast is comprised of Jamie Parker, Anjli Mohindra, Dervla Kerwin, and Glen McCready. Nicholas Briggs fires up the voice modulator in order to rant and shriek as the Daleks. I was pretty enthusiastic about the first half of this saga, and this second half does pretty well. I think I liked the first one better since I was less familiar with the set-up.

The collection begins with Echo Chamber by Jonathan Banks. The Doctor curiously finds himself as a host of a radio talk show and is not sure how he got there. An rather interesting concept that seems pretty workable in only a one part story. A rather amusing beginning that turns rather dark toward the end, which is appropriate when the Daleks are involved.

Roland Moore follows that up with a pretty impressive story entitled Towards Zero where the Doctor arrives at an old country house in time to solve his own murder. It’s a pretty convoluted setup but an intriguing story that moves the Doctor in a direction where he starts to get answers.

Castle Hydra is the third story and is written by Lizzie Hopkins. The Doctor arrives at a castle that serves as a prison for some familiar faces and answers are coming to light as to why the Doctor knows the faces involved in his most recent adventures. Some of the action sequences were not quite as effective on audio, but Hopkins seems to be a competent enough writer, and I will be interested to see what else she comes up with in future scripts.

John Dorney brings the whole matter to a conclusion with Effect and Cause. Dorney is a frequent contributor to Big Finish scripts and does a very nice job of bringing this series to a close. The explanation for this confusion in time and reality is actually pretty creative.

The first volume is probably a little better, but I also had a better idea what to expect in this one. Peter Davison puts in a pretty good performance as usual. There was no explanation as to why this Doctor was on his own through this whole thing, but I found myself not caring much about that. This was an unusual set of adventures for this Doctor as I noted in my entry concerning the preceding volume, but I was glad some risks were taken by Big Finish in this.

The Night Fire is a crime novel written by Michael Connelly and reunites his most popular characters. Retired LAPD Detective Harry Bosch is working with current LAPD Detective Renee Ballard on a case that was apparently in the unauthorized custody his mentor, who recently died. Ballard herself is working on a disturbing murder of a homeless man who had been burned alive. The Lincoln Lawyer himself, Mickey Haller, is defending a man accused of killing a district judge in a park. It’s quite the free-for-all of homicidal behavior in this one.

It will come as no surprise to say that I enjoyed this novel. I appreciate that Connelly has avoided the obvious cliché of having Bosch as some grandmaster mentor of homicide investigation to Renee. Ballard has plenty of experience and talent to offer of her own in spite of the lack of years compared to Bosch. Bosch is also having a personal crisis involving his health, but that ends up being of some use during his investigation. He also gets involved in Haller’s case when the client may actually be innocent, and Bosch wants to make sure that a real killer answers for the judge’s murder.

The title refers to the inner fire that burns in all of these protagonists that keeps them motivated to seek the truth in whatever crime they are investigating. Bosch and Ballard both have challenges in their professional and personal lives that potentially distract them from that goal, but they still focus on their various investigations and pursue the answers relentlessly.

Connelly will likely maintain a consistent quality in his works. It’s fun to see what direction his characters take, particularly Harry Bosch as he continues to navigate his new retirement status which competes with his desire to take more murderers off the street. Connelly has assured his fans that Bosch is not likely to disappear from the canon for quite a while. Also, he created someone worth following with Renée Ballard.

The Night Fire does have quite a lot going on, but Connelly does tie up the threads pretty nicely. So the streets of his version of Los Angeles are just a little safer now.

The next literary indulgence will involve a return to 221B Baker Street London inn 1897. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson will have their own crime to solve within Philip Purser-Hallard’s The Spider Web.

Wonder Woman 1984 is a superhero film with Gal Gadot returning to the title role. Patty Jenkins returns to the director’s chair and has co-written the screenplay alongside Geoff Johns and Dave Callaham. Chris Pine returns as the resurrected Steve Trevor, Wonder Woman’s lost love from the First World War and previous movie. Kristen Wiig and Pedro Pascal sign on as the main antagonists. Connie Nielson and Robin Wright are also seen in flashbacks to young Diana Prince’s childhood on the secluded island of Amazon warriors.

By day, Wonder Woman lives as Diana Price, a senior anthropologist at the Smithsonian Institution. At least that was what she was doing in 1984. A foiled robbery leaves a collection of artefacts to be identified by Diana’s department. Among the mysterious items is something known as a “Dreamstone” which actually has the ability to grant wishes, which leads to the return of Chris Pine’s Steve Trevor. Pascal plays Maxwell Lord, a slick business owner with a troubled oil company. Kristen Wiig plays a very insecure woman named Barbara Minerva, who later gains a lot more confident and lethal when she becomes an adversary known as Cheetah. So everyone gets a wish but there is a cost that is not immediately apparent. The whole planet starts to go nuts, and Wonder Woman is the only one there to sort it all out.

This thing is a mess, but Gal Gadot and Chris Pine help make it a watchable mess. I am not sure why this story needed to take place in 1984. There wasn’t much to help remind me of that this was supposed to be taking place in 1984. Of course, I may have been trying too hard to make sense of the plot to really focus on the details of the setting. There were some charming and amusing moments. Gadot is a good actress and incredibly beautiful, so that helped keep my attention. It was good to see Chris Pine again, although I am concerned that he is going to keep showing up in more implausible ways if this series continues. It is, of course, a comic book movie, so the implausible is actually quite routine. Anyway, the two leads and their chemistry is really the best thing about this film.

I was not sure that Wiig was going to be a good fit as someone who might be able to take down Wonder Woman, but she did fine overall. Pedro Pascal was also fine but rather unremarkable.

This film has taken some rather brutal criticism by the pros, but it was not quite as bad as I feared. It’s not that great either unfortunately. Much of the criticism is fair. This is just a film that left me with a mixed reaction. I liked it for the most part, but the previous film in 2017 was considerably better. I do want to see Gal Gadot continue in the part though. That casting decision was a stroke of genius. I just wish the genius flowed over into the plot of this particular movie.

News of the World is a Western drama starring Tom Hanks and Helena Zengel. The cast also includes Bill Camp, Ray McKinnon, and Mare Winningham. Not only did Paul Greengrass direct this film, he also co-wrote the screenplay alongside Luke Davies. It is based on a novel by Paulette Jiles.

The story takes place not long after the end of the Civil War, and Hanks plays a veteran who makes his living traveling to small towns to bring news of events from around the world. He is asked to take a young girl who lived in a Native American tribe for several years to her only living relatives in the San Antonio area. The journey of course contains much peril and disaster, or it would be a tough movie to sit through.

Although it has a bit of a slow start, this movie did not end up being that tough to sit through. There is some amazing scenery long the way of what is supposed to be Texas High Plains. The film was shot in New Mexico mostly, but it works. Unsurprisingly, Hanks puts in a strong performance. The kid, Helena Zengel, was also quite the find. She is actually a 12 year-old German actress, which works nicely because the character’s family were apparently German immigrants or of that particular lineage.

This type of film seems to be quite a departure from where we usually see Tom Hanks, however he carries it well as expected. I was also drawn to the rather unusual occupation of his character, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd. I presume such news readers actually existed at one time, but this was the first I had ever heard of such a thing.

It turns out this film is something I am finding myself appreciating more when I look back on it. There are some elements of the film that take some patience, and there are some coincidental lucky escapes that are sometimes a little hard to buy into completely. These minor flaws actually aren’t too distracting, and I probably only notice them because I know I am going to present a blog. Anyway, the gist here is that this film does deserve some attention.

The Christmas Chronicles 2 has Kurt Russell return to the red coat and flowing beard of Santa Claus with Goldie Hawn joining the fun as Mrs. Claus. Chris Columbus directed this film which he co-wrote with Matt Lieberman. Darby Camp, Judah Lewis, Tyrese Gibson, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, and Julian Dennison are also included in the cast.

Dennison plays the main antagonist, a disgruntled elf who was cursed with being human and wants to take revenge by stealing the Star of Bethlehem and ruining Christmas for everyone. Santa Claus has the help of his wife as well as young Kate Pierce and the son of her mother’s new boyfriend to save the holiday.

This film is incredibly ludicrous but reasonably fun. I can’t help but have some affection for Russell’s take on Santa Claus anyway. It was also amusing to have Hawn have a more active role than her cameo in the previous film. The children did fine in their roles as well.

The film has its amusing moments, but sometimes it felt a little overstuffed with various themes and sentiment. Russell’s enthusiasm as Santa Claus does give it enough charm to make it watchable. It probably won’t go down as some great Christmas comedy classic, but it manages to avoid being a complete disaster.

The Fourth Doctor Series 9 Volume 1 is a Doctor Who audio collection from Big Finish Productions. There are two adventures starring Tom Baker, Lalla Ward, and John Leeson. There are now joined by Matthew Waterhouse, reprising his role as Adric. Both episodes are directed by Nicholas Briggs. These two stories take place during the era of the television series in which the TARDIS was trapped in another universe known as E-Space where the Doctor, Romana, and K9 encountered an orphan who stowed away known as Adric. The television series only aired three stories that took place in E-Space, and Big Finish decided to add a few more stops before the Doctor escaped. I am glad they did.

Let’s take a look at the two stories in this set. Both are actually pretty engaging.

Marc Platt is the writer of Purgatory 12. The guest cast is comprised of Nimmy March, George Watkins, Amy Downham, and Liam Fox. The Doctor and his friends find an asteroid that serves as a penal colony, however the more dangerous feature here is the presence at the center of the rock that causes more havoc than the denizens of Purgatory 12. The story works well, but I thought it was more interesting to actually the dynamics of Adric’s sudden appearance of in the TARDIS and the aftermath of his brother’s death in the television story Full Circle. Big Finish does more to explore the relationships between the characters than what was written in the television series, and I actually found Adric to be a bit more tolerable. As usual, some of the imagery evoked by the story is a little hard to focus just by dialogue and sound effects, but I appreciated the episode overall. Tom Baker still sounds like he is having a ball, but he is my favorite Doctor, so I may be somewhat biased.

Chase the Night is written by another longtime Doctor Who contributor, Jonathan Morris. The guest cast for this one features Jane Asher, William Gaminara, Lucy Heath, Christopher Naylor, and Tania Rodrigues. This one has a unique concept of a crashed spacecraft that was converted into a kind of train in order to stay ahead of the dawn since the sunlight on this particular planet destroys everything in its path. But there is more to the planet than just an unusually destructive morning. This story had an interesting concept with a crashed ship being converted to survive an eternal trip around the planet as the surviving crew needs to stay in the night side. It appears to be an ambitious story idea, but Morris sells it quite effectively.

I probably prefer Chase the Night out of the two, but both episodes are quite enjoyable. There were some tales of tension between Waterhouse and Tom Baker many moons ago but that seems to have been healed by the passage of time. Of course, Tom Baker and Lalla Ward were once married, but any awkwardness from that seems to have also dissipated. Anyway, it was a fun set, and there are two more stories to get from this particular era. Waterhouse is considerably older than when he first played Adric. but he still manages to find the right tone in his voice to resurrect the youthfulness of that period in his life. Adric was never my favorite of the Doctor’s companions, but I am somehow glad that Big Finish was able to revisit this particular era. I am glad Waterhouse has been able to make a return to enjoy the nostalgia and still provide an effective performance. The ninth series Fourth Doctor adventures from Big Finish looks to be a fun ride, and I will be getting the second half very soon.

The Witch Hunter is a crime novel from Finnish writer Max Seeck. The Helsinki police have a perplexing murder on their hands. The wife of a very popular novelist is found dead propped up in a chair with a ghastly grin plastered on her face. The husband is on a book tour facing avid fans and one who asks about him being afraid of what he writes. The writer wrote a trilogy of novels known as Witch Hunt. The lead investigator is Jessica Niemi who has some dark secrets of her own. More bodies are found that mirror the descriptions of crimes that take place in the trilogy. A survivor is also discovered who seems oddly afraid of Jessica. A strange figure with horns is lurking around the crime scenes. It seems that Jessica has more than one killer to find. In fact, there may be a coven to unearth.

Overall, I like this novel but it had a leg up in that regard due to the genre. I did enjoy reading about something taking place in Finland, although I had some trouble really getting a sense of what that region was like, other than it is really cold. The chapters also sometimes alternate to flashbacks of an encounter Jessica had in Italy with a classical musician, an encounter that has a profound effect on the detective.

The plot does seem somewhat complicated as it unfolds. It was a pretty busy story to follow. I did like it for the most part, but I am not sure there is much terribly unique about it. Seeck seems to be a competent enough of a writer, but the novel was translated from Finnish. Still, he is a pretty young guy and is likely to improve with age and experience. He seems to have enough talent to stay in the game. The novel isn’t bad by any means, but the setting is the only aspect I am likely to remember for long.

Next up, I will be returning to the streets with Los Angeles with my next read. Even though Harry Bosch is now retired from the LAPD, that doesn’t mean he is out the game of solving crimes. He now has a new ally in his quest in the shape of Detective Renee Ballard, and they both are possessed by Michael Connelly’s The Night Fire.