Tag: books

Book Review: Winter Finds Love And More Murder

~ Peter Kanelis ~ Leave a comment

After That, the Dark is quite the compelling addition to the Cameron Winter mystery series penned by Andrew Klavan. This is the fifth novel in the series and was released late last year.

Things are looking up for the former assassin and current English professor, Cameron Winter. The ongoing depression that sent him to therapy some time before seems to have lifted. He is falling in love with a woman who seems to really want to be with him. Of course, that doesn’t mean that dangerous men have decided to let the good professor live in peace. Cameron’s girlfriend, Gwendolyn Lord, tells him of a locked room mystery in which a rather unconventional murder suspect was himself dispatched by an unusual projectile. Cameron Winter decides to make a few inquiries and learns that the man who was killed in Oklahoma had inexplicably murdered and child. Winter also learns that an old adversary is stalking him once he learns that some troubling experiments may be in the works stemming from a mysterious billionaire who has some connection to his mentor known only as the Recruiter. Winter finds that his tendency to amateur sleuthing may lead to a violent end for a blossoming romance that bring him a peace that he has never known before.

This has been an interesting series so far, and this novel brings the development of Cameron Winter’s character to a critical point. The structure of the novels was a little unique in that Winter’s past comes to light during the scenes when he is in therapy. The reader gets to know of the Recruiter, a man of deep faith and deadly cunning. The Recruiter has his own enemies closing in, and Winter has to determine if his trust and faith in him has been misplaced or not.

Klavan has often claimed that this is his best novel in this series. I am not sure about that, but I can agree that it’s quite good. There is a bit of a twist that dips into some science fiction elements, but it still works. I also like that Cameron seems to be evolving as the series moves along, and the introduction of Gwendolyn Lord raises the stakes quite a bit if he continues to probe the oddest of misdeeds on the side.

It’s a little debatable for me if this is the best novel in the series, but there is no question that reading it is time well spent for mystery fans. I am quite ready for the next installment to be released later this year.

In the meantime, I return to a recent addition to a much longer running range written by Jonathan Kellerman. Alex Delaware and Detective Milo Sturgis find another potential killer is stalking the streets of Los Angelos as if it’s Open Season.

Film Review: An Android Named Alice

~ Peter Kanelis ~ Leave a comment

Subservience is a very mediocre science fiction film directed by S.K. Dale and written by Will Honley and April Maguire. This is another film which delves into the potential troubles of having a synthetic caretaker in the household. Megan Fox is in the lead role as the android who is given the name Alice.

Other cast members include Michele Marrone, Madeline Zima, and Matilda Firth. The actors were reasonably well cast. I never considered Fox to be a uniquely memorable actress, but she does well enough in this role.

A husband and father is needing a little extra help caring for his daughter when his wife is in need of a heart transplant. He goes to the local android dealership and finds a hot-looking brunette model that should stir up no temptations. Anyway, the young daughter likes her immediately and names the artificial aide Alice. Alice starts to develop something resembling an obsession for the husband. She offers to help the hapless guy named Nick with stress relief of the most carnal kind which leads to more confusion. Then, the wife finally undergoes the heart surgery which actually turns out to be successful. She makes it home which really makes matters more awkward, bringing out Alice’s more homicidal urges.

The film is nicely shot, and the performances were not noticeably lacking. The plot is just too familiar and tediously predictable. Megan Fox wasn’t given much material to have her seductive android character stand out.

I did find that having the wife go through a heart transplant was something resembling originality. Really, Megan Fox was the only actor I actually recognized. I was pleasantly surprised that the other cast members weren’t really bad.

The problem, as usual, lies in the writing and tapping too much into a very familiar trope of science fiction.

Yet again, I have to conclude that this film manages to avoid being utterly terrible without much else to give it merit. Nothing extraordinary to see here, even with a steamy Megan Fox sex scene.

Book Review: Bolitar In The Rough With The Wrong Club

~ Peter Kanelis ~ Leave a comment

Back Spin by Harlan Coben is another satisfying thriller featuring that sleuthing sports agent Myron Bolitar, and sees him unearthing secrets and scandal in the supposedly civilized world of professional golf.

The teen-aged son of a pair of prominent golfers is apparently abducted. The husband was on the verge of a comeback after losing the US Open several years ago under some questionable circumstances. Myron’s peculiar and dangerous best friend, known as Win, is strangely reluctant to lend. Not only Myron is finding out long buried secrets of the family, but he learns something of Win’s troubled past that could explain his unique emotional detachment from most people and strange, strict code of ethics. A kidnapping is always terrible and traumatic, but Myron is finding this situation more complicated than most.

This novel was first published in 1997.

Coben delivers a pretty solid suspense story with a healthy collection of red herrings. He does a pretty good job ratcheting up the tension with the questions concerning whether this kidnapping is some kind of hoax or something even darker than it seems.

Myron is a pretty interesting protagonist on the whole. He seems to be on a roller coaster relationship with a woman he cannot quite shake in spite of her history of flightiness. He is a sharp investigator even though that isn’t his profession. His ethics as a sports agent seem a little too perfect to be believable, but that’s kind of understandable. Myron is a flawed but reliable character. His friendship with Win is the winning ticket as far as holding a reader’s interest. Windsor Horne Lockwood III is one of those sidekick characters that could seem to overshadow the main hero at times since he is so complex and fun to follow.

There is a lot to like about Back Spin. It’s not exactly going to be the brightest star of the mystery genre, but it will be a solid, reliable distraction from the pressures of everyday life, which is something Coben is trusted to deliver consistently.

Next up on the eternal literary journey is an anthology that is published annually. I am going to see what works were selected by John Grisham for The Mysterious Bookshop’s The Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2025. This is one of the many publications presented by series editor Otto Penzler.

Book Review: Grace In Space

~ Peter Kanelis ~ Leave a comment

Project Hail Mary is Andy Weir’s most recent science fiction novel which was published in 2021 to well-deserved acclaim.

Dr. Ryland Grace wakes up with no memory of how he got aboard a spaceship many miles from Earth. He has to piece together clues that will reveal the nature of the mission he was on to save the planet. His other two crew members died while in an induced coma for the trip to another solar system. As Grace races against the clock, he soon discovers that he is not alone in the system, and an unlikely alliance is forged with a being from another civilization trying to solve a similar catastrophic threat facing its own homeworld.

Weir continues to demonstrate a talent for making the science in his works seem plausible. It’s easy to determine that he actually does quite a bit of research.

Some of the scientific jargon and exposition does slow the pace of the story somewhat, but that’ problem’s something that seems kind of expected and hard to avoid in a work such as this.

Weir’s previous two novels, The Martian and Artemis had protagonists who were persistently sarcastic in their narration. Although this novel has much of the familiar sort of humor, the blatant sarcasm is a bit more restrained which I: appreciated. I don’t necessarily mind sarcastic heroes, but when two different characters share that trait, it does make me wonder about the author’s ability to come up with more diverse personalities.

Anyway, the film adaptation of this novel is just a few days away, and I wanted to read the book before I would make my way to the cinema, so that mission is accomplished.’

I expect the novel will be better as usual, but this is also basically a very enjoyable and thought-provoking read. In spite of a bit of slogging through some technical exposition, I still appreciated the plot and the grit exhibited by Grace and his alien companion who is dubbed “Rocky”. I did appreciate the detail that went into explaining how Grace and Rocky would eventually be able to communicate. Weir is a talented and imaginative enough of a writer to make the technical jargon tolerable.

Although this is clearly a pretty fantastical situation, Weir’s obviously careful research into the possibilities is much respected and appreciated. It does lend some kind of credibility to the tale when some actual scientific theories seem to be genuinely considered in the real world.

I have now read all three of Andy Weir’s current works and hope to hear some news about his fourth contribution before too long.

There are plenty of options in the reading queue, but I have decided to return to the works of Harlan Coben for my next indulgence. This time, it appears that even a relatively quiet and civilized game such as golf has its rough players. Everyone’s favorite sleuthing sports agent, Myron Bolitar is going to learn that very thing in Back Spin.

Film Review: Agatha In Disguise

~ Peter Kanelis ~ Leave a comment

Agatha and the Truth of Murder is a television movie which speculates how Agatha Christie herself would solve a murder. It takes place during the time of her eleven-day disappearance in 1926 and revolves around the murder of Florence Nightingale’s goddaughter which actually did take place in 1920.

Ruth Bradley leads the cast as the Queen of Crime herself. Other cast members include Pippa Haywood, Bebe Cave, Blake Harrison, and Ralph Ineson.

Tom Dalton penned the script with Terry Loane calling the shots as director.

In 1926, Agatha is facing the dissolution of her first marriage as well as frustrations of her mystery novels being found to be too predictable. A long-time nurse has come to Agatha to ask for her assistance in solving the murder of her friend, who happens to be the goddaughter of Florence Nightingale. The woman was beaten to death while riding a train. Her own private investigations do happen to lead to a small group of suspects. Agatha disappears for a time and goes undercover as a legal representative to look into some of these people who knew the young nurse.

Another murder occurs at the estate, and Agatha finds herself working alongside a detective who is short-handed due to the authorities frantically trying to locate the already renowned author herself.

This was actually a pretty fun movie, and Ruth Bradley seems to be a pretty solid casting choice. It’s still a somewhat predictable British murder mystery with all of the usual tropes, but it was still entertaining.

The disguise Agatha adopts is pretty simple but still rather effective. It works because this version of the writer is still recognizable in spite of the change in hair style and glasses.

I do not know much about Ruth Bradley, but she is a compelling actress. I was kind of aware of her because she had performed in the Big Finish Doctor Who audio dramas a few years ago.

I also found Ralph Ineson to be a great addition to the cast as Detective Inspector Dicks. There is a kind of a sweet moment when Agatha and the inspector bond over their failed marriages.

The plot is a little too much like one of Agatha’s novels at times and could have benefited from something a little original than the expected comparison.

Anyway, it was a bit more enjoyable than I expected. I think most Agatha Christie devotees would get a kick out if it.

Book Review: Nothing Like An Icepick Through The Eye

~ Peter Kanelis ~ Leave a comment

A Stab in the Dark is a pretty engaging mystery from one of the considered masters of the genre, Lawrence Block. It features the unofficial private eye, Matthew Scudder and was first published in 1981.

Nine years previously, a serial killer with an icepick terrorized New York City and then disappeared. The police have made an arrest, but the father of one of the victims believes that he did not commit the brutal murder of his daughter. Charles London comes to Matthew Scudder to take another look into his daughter’s death to see if the truth is something more her falling victim to a maniac. Scudder is an ex-cop who sometimes works for a fee or a favor. He dusts off his investigative skills and starts examining facts that are almost a decade old. Of course, Scudder unearths some uncomfortable secrets from the neighborhood where Barbara Ettinger met her tragic end. One killer is in custody, however someone even more cunning may be waiting in the shadows to savagely protect their secrets from Scudder’s prying eyes.

It’s a pretty straight-forward, tightly written novel that is not very long. Scudder is a bit of a train wreck with his alcoholism and cynicism, but he is still a capable and interesting investigator. He does have scruples and is a little more civilized at times then Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer, but he can handle himself in a fight if needed.

Block also creates a dubious set of suspects who are pretty compelling. The red herrings and clues are pretty well planned out as well.

I haven’t read a whole lot of Block’s works, so I am not sure where I would place this one in the rankings, but I did find that I enjoyed this one well enough to keep returning to the world of Matthew Scudder.

Block is a talented writer who keeps the story moving pretty well. Scudder gets a lot done between working his case along with some personal encounters in something that comes in under two hundred pages.

For those who like the old-fashioned, hard-boiled private eye novel where the protagonist is about as messy as those he meets, this one is a pretty good addition to the bookshelves.

I think more poor decisions and ultimately murder is called for when I return to the works of John Sandford. Deadline is the lucky winner for my next literary diversion.

Book Review: Is April Alive Or Not?

~ Peter Kanelis ~ Leave a comment

Below Zero i another effective entry into the Jope Pickett series written by C.J. Box. Even if the plot is not the best idea, Joe Pickett and his family are too charming and interesting for me to mind that very much.

Joe Pickett is on temporary assignment as game warden some distance away from his beloved family. His daughter, Sheridan, starts receiving text messages from her former foster sister, April. The problem is that April was murdered six years ago and thought dead. Joe and Sheridan find enough information to begin their pursuit of whoever is sending these text messages. Another problem is that there seems to be connection to some deadly environmental crimes. A father and son who are traveling with a young teen-age girl are at the heart of all these questions. Joe is not sure if he is headed to a joyous and unexpected reunion or a heartbreak that will shatter his family.

I thought the plot was a sort of mediocre idea with a couple of villains I didn’t find all that interesting. The title refers to a debt that a former mobster believes he owes to his radical son who monitors carbon footprints and the like to justify his crimes committed in the name of protecting the planet.

Although I was anxious to determine if April’s supposed resurrection was the real deal, I was not that enthralled with the duo who may be in her company.

The chemistry within the Pickett family remains as engaging as ever, so the basic plot being a little lacking wasn’t too distracting.

Sheridan gets to accompany her father on an investigation, and there was something about that I found to be endearing. The children are growing up within Box’s world. The family banter was well-written as well.

Anyway, it’s an enjoyable, if flawed, enough of a novel. The suspense of what happened with April did keep me engaged.

As another novel comes to an end, a new one is on the verge of being explored. This time, my attention will turn to Marcia Muller’s The Dangerous Hour.

Book Review: It Doesn’t Always Glitter On The Gold Coast

~ Peter Kanelis ~ Leave a comment

The Gold Coast is a novel that is a little hard to categorize in the recognized genres. Nelson DeMille is primarily known as a suspense or thriller writer, but this one has a bit more meat to it.

John Sutter is a married Wall Street lawyer who lives on a prestigious stretch of shore on Long Island. He and his wife have an unusual and rather strangely kinky marriage. Anyway, their lives take an unexpected turn when a reputed Mafia don moves in next door. Frank Bellarosa certainly knows how to make an impression. A peculiar friendship develops between the two men, and Sutter gets a glimpse into a world darker than he can imagine. His life and marriage were already complicated enough before Bellarosa’s arrival, and these new developments are about to take him into deeper waters in which he may never be able to escape.

DeMille is known to give his protagonists a certain bit of wry sarcasm that is kind of distinctive and common. The novel is written in first person from Sutter’s point of view, and he tuns out to be an interesting guy even if his profession sounds a bit stuffy.

In this edition, DeMille has penned an introduction in which he considers this novel one of his best works, and he is probably right. I have not read many of his works, but I have been exposed enough to them to determine that he does have talent. Many of his characters do sort of run together because it seems most of them have a similar sardonic manner. Fortunately, DeMille is actually rather funny in his prose, so it’s not that annoying or distracting.

The story does have a slow burn at the beginning. There is a lot of exposition describing the layout of the Gold Coast and the particulars of Sutter’s marriage. There is a sense of authenticity in that Sutter’s situation is rather complicated, which is more often true in real life, particularly when it comes to those with wealth and large assets. This means that DeMille does a great job of making totally fictional characters at least plausible.

Although I could probably have lived without the gratuitous sexual shenanigans between Sutter and his wife, this novel was a good start to the reading journey of 2026. I did enjoy it very much even though it took me a little longer than I prefer to get through it.

I should also mention that this novel was published in 1990, so it was kind of nice to get a reminder of what the country was like back then and in an environment and lifestyle that I will likely never be able to touch. DeMille does a great job of sparking the imagination and nostalgia which is one of the many great joys of being an avid fiction reader.

Now, I will be turning into some more familiar territory on my next reading selection. It has been a few months since I checked in with game warden Joe Pickett and his family. This will have a somewhat ironic title since my neighbors and I have just endured quite a blast of frigid weather. C.J. Box is about to continue the exploits of Joe Pickett with Below Zero.

Film Review: Murder At West Point

~ Peter Kanelis ~ Leave a comment

The Pale Blue Eye is an intriguing period gothic thriller written and directed by Scott Cooper. It was based on a novel written by Louis Bayard. Christian Bale stars as a retired detective who is asked to look into the mysterious hanging of a military cadet in 1830. Another cadet with the familiar name of Edgar Allen Poe, played by Harry Melling, is on hand to assist in the investigation. Other cast members include Gillian Anderson, of X-Files fame, Toby Jones, Timothy Spall, and Lucy Boynton.

As mentioned before, it is 1930, and a West Point cadet has been hanged. The detective is a retired alcoholic named Augustis Landor and is asked to start an investigation. A young but shrewd Edgar Allen Poe is enlisted to assist in this investigation. Also, a cow and a sheep turn up butchered.as well. Then, a second cadet is found hanged and mutilated. There seems to be some involvement of black magic, and Landor and Poe find their investigation taking them into the darkest of paths where there is little that is as it seems.

This turned out to have some interesting ideas, although I am not sure it was necessary to include Poe in this otherwise piece of fiction. The cast was well chosen so that certainly helps. The twist is a little too unexpected but not that bad. Some of the annoying plot holes are somewhat diminished by the talent of the cast. Bale is almost always quite compelling to watch and helps me forgive a lot of poor movie making decisions.

The set design and atmosphere were pretty well constructed. It has a great look and seems to fit the genre well.

The film is a bit on the gruesome side, but that doesn’t particularly bother me unless it fails to serve a purpose or just feels like it’s just there to test my stomach exclusively.

The film failed to keep me enthralled throughout, but it was not devoid of some worthy aspects to keep me at least mildly interested.

I suspect, unsurprisingly, that I would enjoy the book better if I happened to come across it. The movie didn’t really motivate me to seek it out.

Sherlock Holmes Audio Review: Dr. Watson Has More Tales To Tell

~ Peter Kanelis ~ Leave a comment

Sherlock Holmes Untold is another collection of audio dramas from Bog Finish Productions and probably the best release in this range. Jonathan Barnes has written the eight episodes in this collection, which were directed by Ken Bentley. Nicholas Briggs returns to the microphone as the most famous of Victorian detectives, Sherlock Holmes. Richard Earl returns as his superb version of Dr. John Watson. Other cast members include John Banks, Luke Barton, Jack Holden, and Anthony Whitelock.

It is 1913, and Prime Minister Jasper Cranfield is on a train with his assistant. He learns that Dr. Watson has somehow gotten aboard and wants to arrange a meeting with a mutual acquaintance. Since the journey will take a while, Watson starts to relate some cases involving Sherlock Holmes that have yet to be published. There is a common thread running these latest towels. Holmes and Watson face madness, murder, and blackmail through these tales, but there is something more menacing awaiting the arrival of this train.

I would normally do a bit of a summary of each episode, but since they are connected by one big story and there only one author, I will instead give my thoughts on this thing as a whole.

It is fantastic. Barnes manages to come the closest to the channeling the methods and style of Arthur Conan Doyle than many other Sherlock Holmes pastiche writers.

Briggs is not yet my favorite Holmes, but I am getting used to his style. Richard Earl continues to prove how perfectly cast he is as Watson.

Some familiar characters show up and are not used wastefully.

The thing with these episodes is that elements were mentioned in the original Doyle stories, and Barnes took these scant references and expanded on them to full episodes. He also created one threat running through all of them. A secret society known as the Lighthouse is the latest shadowy group to darken the door to 221 B Baker Street.

The sound design is excellent as well, but Big Finish hardly ever has a problem there.

Barnes expertly spreads out the clues as to the nature of the threat facing Holmes and Watson among a diverse set of episodes. He tends to write a compelling piece of audio drama, but he really outdid himself with this set.

Although no one can be better than the creator of these beloved characters, Barnes gets closer to the mark than any writer has in quite a while.