mystery | Thinking about books

Elementary: Season 1, Episodes 23 & 24. The Woman and Heroine (2013)

May 24, 2013 David Marshall Leave a comment

This review discusses the plot so, if you have not already watched this pair of episodes, you may wish to delay reading this.

In discussing Elementary: Season 1, Episodes 23 & 24. The Woman and Heroine (2013), the question that must perforce occupy us for the next thousand or so words is a simple one. What do we expect from the final narrative contributions to conclude a twenty-four episode series? Note that I said series and not serial, i.e. that almost without exception, each episode has been a standalone and the average viewer’s enjoyment would not be affected by whether previous episodes had been viewed. Except, of course, this series insisted on showing the final two episodes in sequence on the same night. This signals a slightly greater level of ambition. Indeed, there are references back to the last two episodes (A Landmark Story and Risk Management) although, again, the average viewer might not even notice. So is this a success and so, to some extent, redeem the series?

Jonny Lee Miller looking tense

I suppose the first part of the answer is that it reaches a climax and there’s quite a pleasing emotional pay-off in the naming of the bee. Whereas other series have chosen to leave cliffhangers with viewers supposedly left on the edge of their seats during the summer, desperate to discover which of the series characters have been killed off, this satisfies us with the identification of Moriarty (Natalie Dormer) and offers an explanation of why she staged her own death and now chose to reappear. Although it fails to tie up loose ends, e.g. whether Moran survived, it does rather neatly leave us poised to start the new season with a clean slate. As an aside, I note the obvious failure to end canonically with the death of Moriarty. Since a woman with her talents and connections is unlikely to spend too long in an American jail, I look forward to seeing more of Natalie Dormer in the role. I thought she made a very good villain (as she has to a slightly lesser extent in Game of Thrones). Resuming the game with Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) and Dr Joan Watson (Lucy Liu) would be an interesting possibility in Season 2.

So to the crux of the matter: Holmes has “recovered” Irene Adler from the clutches of Moriarty. There she was calmly painting. The next minute, Sherlock is clutching her to his heaving bosom. This has come as a shock to our eponymous hero and he’s mentally AWOL for most of the first episode. This leaves Watson in the driving seat and she’s more than equal to the task. In the private consulting business, you never know what small piece of information may prove critical, so even though Watson plays fair by admitting the coincidence of recently studying paints, it does enable the police to track down a key New York hench-person who, to put it mildly, is upset by his unmasking. Meanwhile, Irene Adler is cycling between PTSD and a version of Stockholm Syndrome which serves the purpose of keeping Holmes off balance. However, the flashbacks to London show Holmes stopped thinking the moment he set eyes on Irene. From the outset, he correctly identified her as a master forger, but he never takes the further step of associating her with the commission of any other crime. I don’t care how besotted he is and how diligently he chases her, this is a woman worth pursuing for her intelligence. He should suspect her of further criminal behaviour. I confess I had rather been assuming this was a long-term relationship with the couple getting to know each other rather well. What we see here is lust at first sight and the abandonment of common sense by our hero in a relationship based on a two actual and one anticipated sexual encounters, one following an expedition into a Roman sewer to provide the requisite level of uniqueness. I can’t say I find the subsequent breakdown even remotely credible. He’s far too self-centred for a casual sexual relationship to destablise him to this extent and so quickly. Perhaps we’re supposed to attribute the breakdown to guilt. He thinks Moran killed her because of his interest in her. Surely that just makes him angry, motivating him to greater efforts?

Lucy Liu gives Natalie Dormer the guided tour of the brownstone

Now let’s look at this from the other side of the coin. Here’s this man chasing her. Obviously they have a good time together sexually but he’s dangerous because he’s sitting up in bed beside her analysing the assassinations performed by Moran. It’s therefore entirely reasonable for her to decide to fake her own death and disappear so she can get on with being a criminal mastermind without having to worry about the man in her bed. But we’re supposed to believe she’s fallen in love with this emotionally shallow man who’s being led around by his penis. Worse, when he collapses into self-destructive addiction, she’s supposed to “love” him rather than feel contempt for the pathetic weakling. I don’t think so. In terms of intelligence and in personality terms, she’s obviously better than him, i.e. ignoring the fact she’s using this intelligence for criminal purposes. So why reappear? Ah well he’s rebuilding thanks to Watson and with a big crime set in motion in New York, there’s a risk Sherlock might get in the way. Since she’s set everything up, it’s credible for her to set out to distract him. That he’s immediately reduced to a quivering jelly is a further nail in the romance stakes. How can she feel anything but contempt for this embarrassing wreck?

I think the scriptwriters painted themselves into a corner and, having done so, failed to come up with the best solutions. I’m not saying it’s a complete failure. Indeed, I think it’s a very brave shot at something very difficult, if not impossible, given the way they planned for the narrative arc to work out. But I just don’t buy into the idea that Irene Adler loves this man and wants to rescue him from himself. To make that work, the backstory has to show a real relationship between equals stretching over a significant amount of time and not snatched moments based on uniqueness. As to the major crime underway, the Greek shipping magnate Christos Theophilus (Arnold Vosloo) is primed to assassinate the key Macedonian politician’s son so that Moriarty can collect on a massive currency deal. This is a very ingenious crime based on a good understanding of the regional politics. The device of having New York’s finest driving through traffic to prevent the assassination is a tiresome cliché but it does at least give an extra few minutes of screen time for Inspector Gregson (Aidan Quinn) and Marcus Bell (Jon Michael Hill). They have deserved better from this series. So we end up with Holmes and Watson in a more solid relationship, and Moriarty lives to fight another day, i.e. to order the assassination of both Holmes and Watson from her jail cell during the summer recess. That’s makes Elementary: The Woman and Heroine as good an ending as we could have expected to an indifferent season. One or two of the episodes were pleasing but the overall standard was poor to middling. If the television company had commissioned only ten episodes at ninety minutes including ads, we might have achieved a reasonable standard. As it is, we got no better than we deserved.

For the reviews of other episodes, see:
Elementary: Season 1, Episode 1. Pilot (2012)

Categories: TV and anime Tags: Aidan Quinn, Arthur Conan Doyle, Elementary, Heroine, Jon Michael Hill, Jonny Lee Miller, Lucy Liu, murder, mystery, Natalie Dormer, Sherlock Holmes, The Woman

A Decent Interval by Simon Brett

May 20, 2013 David Marshall Leave a comment

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In A Decent Interval by Simon Brett (Severn House, 2013) A Charles Paris Mystery, we join our hero in his lonely life as an almost consistently successful actor now arrived in the alcohol-fueled wilderness years better known as the late fifties. . . How wonderful it is when work does come in after an eight month hiatus even if he does briefly have to become a Roundhead. So he’s untimely ripped from the comfort of his chair in front of the television next to the bottle of Bell’s and sent on location with Tibor Pincus in deepest Newlands Corner (near Guildford) where he’s to re-enact the Battle of Naseby for a documentary. Fortunately, such is the amount of whisky consumed on the shoot, he has no problem in falling down in death many times, including some deaths in Cavalier costume. He’s not a one-man army, you see, but two armies for the price of one. Imagine his pleasurable surprise when there’s an immediate prospect of more work. This time from director Ned English who’s fronting for the entertainment mogul Tony Copeland. The plan is to bring high culture to the masses by transplanting two celebrities into a modern production of Hamlet as the titular Dane and Ophelia. Both have triumphed in television contests: one for singing and the other explicitly to cast a wannabe as Ophelia. The director needs everyone else to be reliable, biddable and prepared to work for the Equity minimum pay. This makes the rehearsals with two amateur actors interesting and, when part of the scenery falls on the young singer during the technical rehearsal, the understudy is quickly in his stride.

Simon Brett in the pink

Sadly, understudies do not make for good box office. If the Twitter generation, which has the attention span of a gnat, is to be induced to part with money, there must be someone “they” want to see. A replacement with good looks and acting talent is drafted in. With the show now touring the provinces, the Twitterati’s attention is reignited by the mysterious death of the Ophelia. Appropriately, Charles Paris is the one to find her dead in a dressing room. This production is turning out to have the same potential for bad luck as The Scottish Play. With another understudy stepping into the role, business at the box office remains brisk as the ghoulish speculate on who will be next to be injured or die. With the police now interested in establishing the cause of Ophelia’s death (not drowning, you understand), our hero finally engages his brain and begins the process of analysis we readers know so well — this is the eighteenth Charles Paris investigation. So he listens to many, speaks to a few and soon has ideas about who might be responsible for what’s going on.

The pleasure in reading Simon Brett is twofold. What he writes is always drawn from the hard reality of the world. But to keep the mood on a lighter note, the text is littered with casual comments and asides that bring smiles to your lips. That said, the events on display here are essentially tragic. Relationships are fractured and broken, people’s hopes and dreams are shattered, despair abounds in many lives. Indeed, at every level, what we see is failure on an epic scale, broken only intermittently when individuals rise above the pack with a brilliant performance. Moments later, the light in the darkness is extinguished and the cast falls back into the reality of their mundane lives where compromise and forgiveness are the only ways to save people from themselves. As a matter of technique, Simon Brett makes it all flow so easily. Too often, authors who set out to leaven tragedy end up forcing situations to generate the humour. This is silky smooth with an elegance about it that few others can match. The result is a delight demonstrating two further truths: that knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to Heaven (although whether our hero considers the return to his lonely seat in front of the television heavenly is moot — a West End run would have been preferred) and that when a son gives to his father, both cry (although in this case, the father has such a monstrous ego, he won’t cry for long — probably only a few minutes in fact). A Decent Interval gives us food for thought while entertaining us. Charles Paris may not be Horatio holding the bridge, but he shows us he can be positively Nelsonian in the right circumstances. You can’t ask for more than that.

For a review of another book by Simon Brett, see Blotto, Twinks and the Dead Dowager Duchess.

A copy of this book was sent to me for review.

Categories: Books Tags: A Decent Interval, Charles Paris, mystery, Severn House, Simon Brett, theatre

Elementary: Season 1, Episode 22. Risk Management (2013)

May 17, 2013 David Marshall 2 comments

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This review discusses the plot so, if you have not already watched this episode, you may wish to delay reading this.

I suppose we have to consider Elementary: Season 1, Episode 22. Risk Management (2013) the story of three women rather than as an adventure for the hero created by Arthur Conan Doyle. Let’s start off with the question of Irene Adler. As has been trailed for some weeks, this is the episode Natalie Dormer is due to appear. Opinion among the experts favoured the notion she would appear in the flesh and not by way of flashback. The explanation why she should have been involved in staging her own death is left to the final pair of episodes being run together as the season finale. Not unnaturally, the speculation is that she is Moriarty and that explains why Sherlock has twice been spared death. However, en route to the reveal in the final seconds of this episode, we’ve been treated to a despondent Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) eulogising the woman as the superstar of her gender. It seems she not only had the body of a sex goddess, but also possessed the aesthetics of an artist and, most usefully of all, a brain. On the receiving end of this definition of a paragon (except possibly the reference to a brain) is Dr Joan Watson (Lucy Liu) who, as she forcefully points out to Inspector Gregson (Aidan Quinn), has not been blessed with a penis. She has to sit through this remarkably unromantic moment demonstrating just how self-absorbed Holmes is. Anyone with even a hint of empathy would hesitate before passing this message of perfection on to a woman who might just be interested in something more than a platonic relationship. That said, Watson seems to be holding up the reputation of her gender both with the work to show who had committed tonight’s murder and by refusing to be marginalised by Holmes — she clones his phone so she can follow him.

Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu before the breakdown

So far she’s doing her “stand by your man” schtick with considerable style. Whatever her actual strengths and weaknesses, Watson is determined to take the professional risks she thinks necessary to be the person she wants to be (not the person other people want her to be). Through her express role as a sober companion and now as an apprentice consulting detective, this Watson has become an emotional rock for this Holmes. She and Gregson are only too aware that this makes her a potential target for Moriarty. If she goes, the recovering Holmes could be thrown back into his pit of despair. Indeed, we see symptoms of collapse in the childish petulance Holmes shows when challenged by Moriarty to solve the case properly. So there’s an essential paradox in Watson’s role. Holmes fears losing her and, in a part of his mind, wants her to be safe and so seeks to exclude her from the danger zone. But the other part of his brain realises that, if she’s not there showing her mettle, she’s not earning his respect as a person. For all Irene Adler has been grated mythical status as the embodiment of all female virtue, she ran out on Holmes. Watson has refused to do that and is, at the very least, Irene’s equal — it will be interesting to see what motive the scriptwriters give Irene for leaving Holmes.

Which brings us to the third woman, Katie Sutter (Francie Swift) whom I find to be completely incredible. She has been in a relationship with Daren Sutter (J.C. MacKenzie) for more than twenty years and, for most of that time, he’s been depressed by the murder of his sister. As they approach the twentieth anniversary of her death, he becomes suicidal so this loving woman convinces him that a local man was the murderer. This framing of the victim is plausible. It would take the investment of significant time and energy to determine he could not have been guilty. Her husband does not feel the need to take the time. His drive for revenge is absolute and, when he has killed this man, the depression falls away from him. For the first time since his sister died, he feels at peace. Perhaps I lack a romantic spark but I don’t believe a successful business woman would arrange for her husband to kill a man just because it would make him feel better. Indeed, the entire murder element in this episode is perfunctory. I assume Moriarty wishes both the husband and wife owners of this detective agency out of the way and, wow, it just happens they have both planned a murder. How remarkably convenient and so lucky Moriarty can call on the services of Holmes to solve the case for him (after a little prompting, of course). It’s also nothing but a coincidence that the murder du jour is a moral message to Holmes on the practice of revenge. To say this is heavy-handed scriptwriting is an understatement. With on the question of the script, we should also note Marcus Bell (Jon Michael Hill) had another line to speak this week.

Elementary: Risk Management sees Holmes relegated to sidekick status as his mind comes under pressure when tasked to solve a murder by Moriarty. I’m not sure the heroes of television shows like this are supposed to stop thinking clearly and turn into spoilt children. I agree with the scriptwriters to the extent that Holmes is a proud man, but the husband as killer in this episode seems a more credible character. Once aimed by his wife, Daren Sutter is completely energised and focused on achieving his revenge. Holmes is the exact opposite. He’s losing the chance to identify Moriarty until Watson solves the case for him. Oh wait. . . That’s the point, isn’t it. The two scenarios have been crafted as mirror images. Both men are weak failures. Respectively as a sober companion and a loving wife, these two strong women manipulate and “save” the men in their lives. The one so he can spend the rest of his days in jail — ironically an unhappy man because he now knows he killed the wrong man — and the other so he can be built up and knocked down by Irene Adler. If Irene is Moriarty, the canonical Holmes must eliminate her by going over one of the New York waterfall installations by artist Olafur Eliasson. Or Moriarty will kill her for real this time.

For the reviews of other episodes, see:
Elementary: Season 1, Episode 1. Pilot (2012)

Categories: TV and anime Tags: Aidan Quinn, Arthur Conan Doyle, Elementary, Francie Swift, Jon Michael Hill, Jonny Lee Miller, Lucy Liu, murder, mystery, Risk Management, Sherlock Holmes

A Murder in Passing by Mark de Castrique

May 16, 2013 David Marshall 2 comments

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A Murder in Passing by Mark de Castrique (Poisoned Pen Press, 2013) is the fourth Sam Blackman Mystery based around the Blackman and Robertson Detective Agency. Sam and Nakayla have a growing reputation as investigators despite the fact their work ethic is more on a hobby level. Their finances are sound without having to work too hard. Sam was a Chief Warrant Officer working for the military police. He’s now retired with a prosthetic leg replacing the one he lost in Iraq. Having overcome the inevitable self-pity, he’s proved his ability in civilian life, making loyal friends and the inevitable enemies as a private investigator.

The book starts with our couple part of a small group investigating the woods for wild mushrooms in the Kingdom of the Happy Land. This historical estate was established by a group of emancipated and runaway slaves but has long been abandoned. Few disturb the land making it an ideal place for mushroom hunting. Embarrassingly, Sam falls over on to a rotten log covered in edible fungus. His hand goes through into what proves to be a hollow space containing a decomposed body. Just the luck of the draw, really. As the police begin their efforts to identify the body, Marsha Montgomery arrives in their offices with a story about the Kingdom, a stolen photograph, and her missing father. This quickly establishes the core of the story as based on a mixed race relationship in 1967 between Marsha’s parents. This year was significant in that the law was changed to allow such couples to marry. Obviously changing laws does not change people’s attitudes and prejudice may have been a significant factor in the white man’s disappearance. Almost immediately after they begin their own informal investigation to decide whether they will take on the case, an overzealous police officer arrests Marsha and her eighty-five year old mother without waiting for evidence to identify the corpse. The reason for the arrest is that Marsha, fearing her mother might have shot her father back in 1967, was seen burying the possible murder weapon in their back yard.

Mark de Castrique

This makes the legal situation of the defence interesting because, if the prosecution can’t prove the identity of the victim, they can’t begin to prove a murder case against the mother and Marsha was only five at the relevant time. There are also some really nice bits of reasoning like the analysis by a ex-sniper of the scene where the shooting is assumed to have taken place. Taking an overview of the plot as it’s slowly rolled out, this is a very elegant rerun of an “idea” that used to be quite common in mystery and detective fiction. Because culture evolves and changes over time, it’s been some years since I last encountered it which makes it all the more pleasing to see an author demonstrate a contemporary relevance. Even if you understand the significance of one piece of evidence when it emerges, the enjoyment of the book is not disturbed. The theme just changes from a mystery to an understanding of the family tragedy as it played out all those years ago and the effect it still has today. The author enhances the theme by including a modern couple weathering prejudice against people in a gay relationship.

Although the plot itself is interesting, the real attraction of the book is the characterisation of our two detectives and their friendly attorney. So avoid the need to repeat myself, you should look at the introduction to my review of Bleed For Me by Michael Robotham on the question of lead characters with a disability. In this instance, our hero only finds the body because he’s disabled. Having put the coincidence of the right person in the right place at the right time, he’s also very strongly invested in helping other Vets adjust to their newly acquired disabilities. Indeed, he takes a direct interest in helping a young man with a prosthetic hand find employment. When so many in the real world are reluctant to look beyond the financial cost of the wars the US has been engaged in over the last decade or so, it’s distinctly refreshing for an author to be telling a positive story about someone who has lost lost a leg but gained a new perspective on life. All this makes A Murder in Passing a great read.

For a review of another book by Mark de Castrique, see The 13th Target.

A copy of this book was sent to me for review.

Categories: Books Tags: A Murder in Passing, disability, Mark de Castrique, murder, mystery, racism, Sam Blackman

Treachery in Bordeaux by Jean-Pierre Alaux and Noël Balen

May 12, 2013 David Marshall Leave a comment

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Treachery in Bordeaux by Jean-Pierre Alaux and Noël Balen (translated by Anne Trager) (Le French Book, 2012) The Winemaker Detective Series (titled Mission à Haut-Brion in the series rather more provocatively titled Le sang de la vigne or The Blood of the Vine, in France). There are twenty-one books in the series which are “detective” novels, each one focusing on a crime in a different leading French vineyard and its appellation d’origine contrôlée. Under the same title, Le sang de la vigne, the books have also been a successful series on French television, so far running eight ninety-minute episodes. So here we go with the first run out in English for Benjamin Cooker, his wife Elisabeth, and Bacchus, their Irish setter. He’s the ultimate wine guru and winemaker who bottles from his own Bordeaux estate in Grangebelle on the banks of the Gironde, and writes the definitive guide to what’s drinkable in the wine world. Whether it’s a grand cru estate or a new blender, everyone waits in trepidation to see what his judgment of their latest efforts will be. His new assistant is Virgile Lanssien from Bergerac who, on his first day, goes with Benjamin to the Chateau Les Moniales Haut-Brion where an outbreak of Brettanomyces is suspected: a yeast that can change the taste and bouquet of a serious wine for the worst.

Noël Balen (left) and Jean-Pierre Alaux (right)

For a leading wine, this is a catastrophe unless the infection is nipped in the proverbial bud. Fortunately Cooker acts as a consultant and can call on top-class chemists and other experts, all of whom act with absolute discretion. It would be immensely damaging to the reputation of any major label if even a hint of scandal should emerge. The question, once the initial diagnosis is confirmed, is how the barrels should have become infected. It most commonly occurs in cellars which fail to observe even the most basic of hygiene standards. This cellar is run to the highest standards of care. It’s inconceivable that this could be accidental. The question, therefore, is who would have a motive to contaminate such high-profile wine and how was it done. For obvious reasons, the cellar has a good security system and only two individuals have keys and the access code.

Running in parallel is the provenance of an overmantle, a painting most often hung over a fireplace. To his surprise, Cooker discovers that there’s another very similar painting. When he investigates, he finds both paintings were almost certainly by the same artist and might have been a pair. In turn this leads to an ageing, alcoholic historian who rambles drunkenly through much of the history of the area and, in the final moments before falling into unconsciousness, volunteers the information that the two paintings were part of a triptych. From this brief introduction you will notice the welcome omission. This is a mystery without a murder! Too often writers of mysteries think they must kill off several people in order to entertain their readers.

This is a novella length but manages to cram in a mass of fascinating detail about winemaking and the history of the Bordeaux region where we discover much intrigue and skullduggery of different degrees of viciousness. It seems little has changed over the centuries. Treachery in Bordeaux should be of interest to anyone who enjoys a good mystery, and has an interest in wine and its place in French culture.

A copy of this book was sent to me for review.

Categories: Books Tags: Jean-Pierre Alaux, Le French Book, mystery, Noël Balen, Treachery in Bordeaux, wine

Night Terrors by Dennis Palumbo

May 10, 2013 David Marshall Leave a comment

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Night Terrors by Dennis Palumbo (Poisoned Pen Press, 2013) is the third in the series featuring Daniel Rinaldi and, as with Fever Dream, our forensic psychologist with the hero complex has yet again survived to the end of a book. Back in 2003, there was an appropriately titled film called the Bulletproof Monk. Once you realised the hero had supernatural powers, all the silliness of his invincibility faded into the background. When something is explicitly a fantasy, you willingly suspend disbelief. But this book pushes the envelope of credibility as our hero is variously assaulted, rear-ended into a ditch, and shot at on several different occasions. To say he’s leading a charmed life is an understatement. Yet, if you’re prepared to look beyond this blurring of reality, what we have here is an above-average mystery puzzle for our sleuth to solve. After all, to write a series, the author is always obliged to keep the hero alive (or else pivot into a supernatural book in which his ghost continues investigate crimes in the mortal coil — observing what people say and do is not a problem, but telling the police whodunnit is a challenge unless they take instant messages by ouija board).

So where to start? Well there’s no better place than the first introductory scenes which represent one of the best starts to a mystery that I’ve read in quite some time. Boiling it down to its essentials, the narrative structure of this series is for there to be two “crimes” for our hero to investigate. In the last book, we had him consulting over a bank robbery while worrying about why someone committed suicide. This time he gets called out by a country sheriff who has a confessed killer in custody. The “accused” says he’ll take them to where the body is hidden but only if the increasingly high-profile Rinaldi is there to keep him safe from harm (both internally generated and externally applied by the local police). Very reluctantly, he gets into his car and navigates the icy conditions into the night. What they find when they finally reach the house in the woods is wonderfully atmospheric with a delightful twist borrowed from the horror genre. The only problem with such a strong opening is that, by contrast, the pace of the next section of the book feels so slow. Fortunately, the FBI then invite our hero to consult on one of their cases.

Dennis Palumbo deciding how not to kill off his hero

Before his retirement from the Bureau, an old FBI profiler had tracked down a serial killer who died while in prison. As a direct result of this death, he may now be on a hit list. Under normal circumstances, he would support the investigation through his expertise but not only has he retired, his mind is also worn down through his inability to sleep properly. He suffers from night terror. Because the FBI agent in charge considers both Rinaldi and his new patient outside the magic circle, neither are given access to the case files relevant to the threat. Needless to say, this excessive following of the book and rigid thinking is not going to solve the case. The real catalyst for action therefore comes when the sleep-deprived old guy decides to exit the hotel where the FBI has him in protective custody. This was not at all what the FBI operatives were expecting and it leads to Rinaldi going out into the field with one of the local detectives to interview a witness who may be able to identify the killer.

In the midst of this, the mother of the man who has confessed to the first somewhat gruesome murder contacts Rinaldi. She’s convinced her son is innocent and a situation is engineered forcing our hero to talk with the “killer”. But as our sleuth says to this highly respectable woman who swears her son was with her around the time of death, “If he’s innocent how did he know where to find the body and why would he confess if he was innocent?” Two very good questions, I’m sure you’ll agree. As is always the case when reaching the end of this type of book, our hero is able to say with compete certainty whether the man who confessed to the killing is innocent and who has been going around killing a prison guard, a judge, a prosecutor, and so on. The fact the key scenes of revelation take place on a factory roof at night gives the second meaning to the title.

Summing up, this is a top-class mystery with thrillerish overtones as our psychologist with an unadmitted death wish triumphs yet again. This is far better than Fever Dream so Dennis Palumbo is an author developing in technique and threatening to become one of the top mystery writers.

For another review, see Fever Dream.

A copy of this book was sent to me for review.

Categories: Books Tags: Daniel Rinaldi, Dennis Palumbo, murder, mystery, Night Terrors

Elementary: Season 1, Episode 21. A Landmark Story. (2013)

May 7, 2013 David Marshall 2 comments

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Elementary: Season 1, Episode 21. A Landmark Story. (2013) and a red-letter day in another sense. This is the first case that doesn’t get solved in a single episode. One of the most serious problems with this series has been the perceived need for there to be a crime committed and solved within time available. Imposing this arbitrary constraint has led to some truly awful mysteries and solutions. Apparently, this is the first in a four-episode sequence forming the season finale which offers scope for some welcome complexity as Moriarty comes into the frame. This episode therefore lays the ground in a number of different ways.

Vinnie Jones is back as Sebastian Moran and obviously top dog inside the jail. His approach to ensuring no-one will pass on the contents of the conversation with Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) is pleasingly direct. No matter that he lacks real credentials as an actor, our retired footballer does manage to come across as magnificently thuggish. He sets the ball rolling by summoning Sherlock and passing on news of a murder dressed up as natural causes. Since they both want to catch Moriarty, this is the first crumb in the trail of breadcrumbs for Sherlock to follow.

We now need to reflect on the backstory. It’s been suggested that Irene Adler (to be played by Natalie Dormer in the final three episodes) was the emotional rudder to the Holmes ship. By removing her, Moriarty was neutering Holmes, sending him into self-destructive addiction. So if Moriarty is to pull the same trick again, Dr Joan Watson (Lucy Liu) must have become his important other. This is not, you understand, a sexual relationship. But as an addictive personality, Holmes has partially built his recovery program around this woman. That’s presumably why we have this scene in the park. While staking out the killer bees, Sherlock says, “The thing that’s different about me, empirically speaking, is you.” Although we’re still at a level of platonic friendship, Watson’s reaction looks equivocal. As I’ve mentioned before, this is dangerous territory. If the show makes them a “couple”, this is likely to change the dynamic of the relationship for the worse. The whole point of the Arthur Conan Doyle model is that Watson was loyal but not always around. It’s also a relief to see Watson allowed a little more personal space. Even though she disapproved of the autopsy, she was nevertheless provoked into action by Sherlock’s apparent incompetence. Or perhaps Sherlock was just manipulating her. Despite all this, the renewal of this show for another season presumably means that Holmes and Watson will be back. Hence, Moriarty cannot kill Watson — a big killer of suspense.

Vinnie Jones and Jonny Lee Miller discuss the weather

F. Murray Abraham appears this week as Daniel Gottlieb, an inventive serial killer who, as an engineer, delights in solving assassination problems through the appliance of science. Hacking a pacemaker is interestingly alarming for all those with that small piece of electronics inside their bodies. Dropping an air-conditioning unit on a target from a great height has a Wile E. Coyote/Road Runner quality about it. While the attack of the killer bees is a genuinely ingenious way to attack someone with an allergy. It now seems Moriarty has twice spared Sherlock’s life. Gottlieb was due to administer a heroin overdose but the job was “cancelled” — the only time this happened. The second time is in the hotel room towards the end of this episode when the sniper could have killed him. So the game seems to be to challenge the mind rather than kill the body.

As to the investigation element, there was the now usual trail of breadcrumbs to follow from the pacemaker to the air-conditioning unit to the bees. I was onboard up to this point. Leaving aside the problem of how our assassin is going to spray the intended victim with a bee-attracting substance, he has to keep coming back to feed the growing hive. And kidnapping him is OK. But the next link in the chain is hopelessly incompetent. I hate it when our heroes have to trail after a suspect at night down empty streets without being seen. It also takes remarkable foresight to bring a camera with a long lens and shutter speeds to die for. The piecing together of the final picture is simply incredible given the circumstances in which all the shots were taken. This guy had to stand in the same position without turning his head while the train was passing. Like that’s going to happen. Any sane arrangement involves the contact person using his mobile phone to report back to the hypothetical Moriarty. Once again, if you blinked, you missed Marcus Bell (Jon Michael Hill). Inspector Gregson (Aidan Quinn) gets marginally more time. So although there’s a lot of good things about Elementary: A Landmark Story, it’s hardly rescuing the sinking ship.

For the reviews of other episodes, see:
Elementary: Season 1, Episode 1. Pilot (2012)

Categories: TV and anime Tags: A Landmark Story, Aidan Quinn, Arthur Conan Doyle, Elementary, F. Murray Abraham, Jon Michael Hill, Jonny Lee Miller, Lucy Liu, murder, mystery, Sherlock Holmes, Vinnie Jones

The Sound of One Hand Killing by Teresa Solana

May 4, 2013 David Marshall Leave a comment

book

The Sound of One Hand Killing by Teresa Solana (translated by Peter Bush) (Bitter Lemon Press, 2013), is the third in the Barcelona series featuring twin brothers, Eduard Martínez and Borja “Pep” Masdéu, who unofficially act as private detectives. They keep their relationship a secret and just say they’re partners. On this auspicious day, they set off to meet their metafictional client, Teresa Solana. When they arrive at their offices (for which they don’t actually have a lease), they discover the chaos of a break-in. This is not a problem because Borja has the keys of a flat upstairs in the same block occupied by an American. There’s just one problem. When they enter the flat, they find his dead body.

This presents them with a dilemma. Do they meet with the client and then report the murder? In the end, the thought of a cash advance leads to them postponing the call to the police. There’s just one problem. They are hopelessly compromising the murder scene. Fortunately the client does pay them in advance. So everything’s all right. Well. . . if they tell the police, the client will hear they saw her in a flat with a dead body. And then there’s the small antique that Borja had hidden in the flat. That’s not strictly legal, you understand. So what choice do they have but to clean off all the evidence of their presence and leave the doors open so that the smell will attract interest and someone else will call the police. There, you see, an end to another successful day. Except the school pass on the news Eduard’s five year old son is well on the way to becoming a foul-mouthed football hooligan. This is an unwelcome distraction made worse when the police send a car for them. Apparently someone in the building opposite saw the brothers opening the windows in the American’s flat. No that must be a mistake, surely, their offices are immediately underneath.

Teresa Solana

The moral of this story is that, when you’re already in a hole, there comes a point when you must stop digging. It’s just that our two heroes never seem to have received this message during their basic training for doing whatever it is they do. That means it never rains but it pours and then the wind gets up and blows away their umbrella, and lightning stalks the land. It’s at times like this they should go to Zen Moments for a little meditation and relaxation.

From this introduction, you will understand the book is delightful fun. The whole point of farce is that the objective observer can see the build up to the approaching disaster but the protagonists remain oblivious. What gives added edge to the anticipation is the general air of improbability about the set-up. Surely no-one would get into this sequence of events and allow them to proceed. It would be absurd. . . but then we all think back to those times when we were caught up in events beyond our ability to control. We too were swept along and ended up the proverbial creek without a paddle.

This is not to say The Sound of One Hand Killing is a comedy. That rather misses the point of farce. Although there are times when we, the audience, do laugh, the reality of the situations is often more cruel. Because of all the mistakes, misjudgments and misunderstandings, the characters frequently find themselves on the receiving end of humiliation and defeat. In more extreme cases, the threatened consequences of disclosure and discovery can be far more severe. If we do find this comic, it’s only because of schadenfreude, the sense of relief that we are not caught out in this way and some degree of pleasure the characters deserve their misfortune. Well, perhaps not all the misfortune of our heroes being involved in another murder and then kidnapped. It would be so helpful, in times such as this, to be able to speak more than just Catalan and Spanish. But you just can’t prepare in advance, particularly if you think you might be in China. Well that might just be another misunderstanding. And then they have to account to the metafictional author and, of course, there’s still the problem of who had what and wanted it, but might have got something else instead, or not as the case may be. On the way, at least one of the crimes committed is solved which is always reassuring because this is supposed to be a detective murder mystery novel. Or perhaps that’s not the point at all. You really should read it yourself and make up your own mind. I was fascinated.

And as a final thought, don’t forget the healing properties of purée of asparagus.

For a short collection by Teresa Solana, see Crazy Tales of Blood and Guts.

A copy of this book was sent to me for review.

Categories: Books Tags: Bitter Lemon Press, espionage, farce, metafiction, murder, mystery, Teresa Solana, The Sound of One Hand Killing

Elementary: Season 1, Episode 20. Dead Man’s Switch. (2013)

April 28, 2013 David Marshall 7 comments

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Elementary: Season 1, Episode 20. Dead Man’s Switch. (2013) had a better balance between narrative arc and individual mystery to be solved. Let’s start off with the general character development. The fact we’re seeing Alfredo (Ato Essandoh) for the third time is encouraging. If we’re going to be even remotely canonical, there should be several characters representing the Irregulars: those convenient urchins who know their city like the backs of their hands and can move around largely unobserved. This character is ideal for the purpose. As a car thief and recovering addict, he could be well-connected and supply lots of different services as required. We’ve already seen him teaching Dr Joan Watson (Lucy Liu) how to break into and steal cars (an invaluable skill for an investigator). He’s also useful to sit outside places in his car and keep watch (or try to follow people escaping the scene in cabs and lose them which is hardly what you would expect from an expert car thief and driver). So as Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) comes up to the one year anniversary of his last fix, we’re into a mini-drama as to whether our hero will go through a ceremony to collect a small token signifying the achievement. Naturally, Sherlock views this as an entirely private matter. Alfredo points out that’s a typically selfish attitude. He should show addicts newly entering the program that it’s possible to get clean and stay clean.

Of course, being a man obsessed with details, Holmes is failing to admit he had a lapse and so has not yet reached the full one year. Having failed is deeply embarrassing to a man who prides himself on his strength of mind. Hence his unwillingness to go through the ceremony. The subtext of the episode is therefore whether he will tell the truth about his lapse. That he eventually trusts both Watson and Alfredo is a sign he’s consolidating the recovery by sharing the burden of “sobriety”. There’s hope for him.

Lucy Liu, Jonny Lee Miller and Ato Essandoh

As to the mystery element, we have Alfredo introduce a private client. This should be happening more often rather than leaving our hero waiting for a summons from NYPD with another challenging homicide to solve. Appropriately, this is a blackmail case and we’re quickly given the name as Charles Milverton, a blackmailer who features in The Return of Sherlock Holmes. As in the original story, one of this blackmailer’s victims shoots the villain and stamps on his face. However, apart from this significant borrowing, the story then veers away into rather unnecessary complexity as Holmes runs around trying to find the titular Dead Man’s Switch. As in all good blackmail schemes, there’s a failsafe: someone hidden who will release all the incriminating information should anything happen to the more easily detectable blackmailer. The convenience of the internet as a mechanism for releasing this information is a pleasing modern development. At just the touch of a mouse or pad, our back-up can punish all the victims for killing their blackmailer. Except, of course, this assumes only one victim. In this case, Milverton is a professional who has information on many so, if one victim takes revenge, all suffer.

At this point, I need to express frustration that this Holmes can find out so much information on people and events in America through Google and whatever else he can use to dig out data online. It’s remarkable and, by my standards, unrealistic. For example, he can produce a list of nuisance claims against service providers alleging discrimination on the ground of weight that were quickly settled. I know that the identity of litigants is a matter of public record once proceedings are filed in court, but Holmes is finding cases that would probably have been settled by the attorneys before going to court became necessary. The whole point of nuisance actions is for the targets to make them go away as quickly as possible. Anything settled in this way would be covered by confidentiality agreements and inaccessible. For Holmes to not only come up with a list of such litigants, but also to produce newspaper photographs of two of these claimants, is magical. As is Watson’s ability to recall the identity of an ambulance-chasing attorney from a few scattered details of description.

Put all this together and you have an episode with such a high death count among the actors, there was only one left to be the killer. Worse, the killer had an accomplice who never actually made it on to screen. We have to be told about this person’s essential contribution to the plot by the semi-triumphant Holmes and Inspector Gregson (Aidan Quinn) who does get to deal with a minor moral dilemma in this episode and comes out of it all looking better. The relationship between Holmes and Gregson also seems to be healing. If you blinked, you missed Marcus Bell (Jon Michael Hill) who, in terms of dollars earned per words spoken and seconds on screen, must now be one of the highest paid actors on US television. He’s the most embarrassingly underused actor in a prime-time show. Would this treatment be given out to a white actor? I don’t think so. So put all this together and Elementary: Dead Man’s Switch is an average episode that moved us along in broad narrative terms but offered little of substance on the use of deduction to solve mysteries. Arthur Conan Doyle would not have approved.

For the reviews of other episodes, see:
Elementary: Season 1, Episode 1. Pilot (2012)

Categories: TV and anime Tags: Aidan Quinn, Arthur Conan Doyle, Ato Essandoh, Dead Man's Switch, Elementary, Jon Michael Hill, Jonny Lee Miller, Lucy Liu, murder, mystery, Sherlock Holmes

Agatha Christie’s Marple: Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? (2009)

April 22, 2013 David Marshall Leave a comment

television

Agatha Christie’s Marple: Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? (2009) is another of these rewrites — a task which, this time fell to Patrick Barlow. So how did he do? Well, from his point of view, he was starting from near the bottom of the barrel. No matter how you view the Christie canon, this is not one of her best works. Rather it’s one of these romance-tinged mysteries which has a couple of bright young things investigating skullduggery and coming out of the experience deeply in love. I think the kindest thing anyone can say of this early work is that it’s best left in relative obscurity. However, by changing things around to introduce Miss Marple, it’s possible to rescue the leaking plot, give it some cohesion, and raise the general standard of the mystery to solve. Watching the result proves the old adage that not everything that’s possible may actually be achieved.

Sean Biggerstaff

Let’s start with the set-up. Somewhat extraordinarily, the young man with time on his hands is first seen walking along the cliff top in full childhood mode. He’s playing cowboys and indians (although, given the relocation in time to the 1950s, I suppose he could be pretending to be a heroic Tommy). Either way, he’s using his fingers as guns and, at one time, is himself shot and falls down clutching his stomach. Unkindly, I was forming the impression this was a character in need of psychiatric assistance when he metamorphosed into Bobby Attfield (Sean Biggerstaff) because, attracted by faint cries not emanating from the circling gulls, he looks over the cliff edge and sees the body of a man on a ledge. Climbing down, he receives the fatal question forming the title to the book.

At this point, I need to make a minor detour through my own recollections of the time. Yes, by modern standards, it was remarkably amateurish. But if there was an unnatural death, an inquest would be held and our cowboy Tommy would be called. If he did not turn up to give evidence, questions would be asked. Put this the other way round. He was expecting to be called and, when the letter arrived, he set off, meeting Frankie Derwent (Georgia Moffett) on the train. She comes with him and they find the nominated building closed. So they just shrug their shoulder and go home? That’s not credible. They would hammer on the door of the building or go round to the nearest police station to find where the inquest is being held. They are socially responsible and intelligent people. If a mistake has been made, they would want to put it right. This fundamental plotting error is the first of an endless series that ends up in one of the worst examples of potboiling melodrama it has been my misfortune to see for years.

Georgia Moffett

I will spare you the catalogue of catastrophe. Suffice it to say that very little of what we see on screen makes any sense or allows us to see an investigation into the sequence of events that occurred six months earlier. Let me put it to you fairly and squarely. If Miss Marple is going to be able to reconstruct what happened in a house she’s never visited involving people she’s never met, how can she do it unless she physically goes there and talks with those people? The answer provided by this adaptation is that she can have perfect twenty-twenty hindsight without have any beforesight, if you catch my meaning. Apart from the killer(s), this Miss Marple does not meet with anyone who could possibly have told her what happened. We’re supposed to accept she could infer events from seeing the will. None of this rubbish about motive and opportunity. No grilling of witnesses. This is the ultimate rabbit from a hat without the intervention of a magician.

So apart from changing virtually everything without improving the outcome, can anything good be said about the production? I loved the old house they used as a setting for the larger part of the action. If you’re going to have people eavesdropping and lurking in shadows, you need the right place to do it and this house was absolutely perfect. Despite being given very silly things to do, the cast was unusually restrained and quietly impressive (except during the climactic denouement where all intelligence was abandoned. If you’re going to have a group of people pretend that any one or more of them could be murderers, they all have to look deeply suspicious and yet normal in a surreal kind of way. Without exception, this was done brilliantly. It didn’t matter which of them was guilty of the murder(s), they were all enjoyable to watch. As to Julia McKenzie, this was the first time I actually felt she was a good version of Miss Marple. She hid behind her knitting and was quietly sitting unobserved in odd corners as “things” went on around her. She was also more effectively proactive in protecting the two lovers in their naive efforts to solve the crime. As a final thought about the ending (ignoring the two love birds skipping off into the sunset, of course), it’s rare to have a whodunnit end with two of the “innocent” members of the cast under arrest for the murder of the murderer(s). Without wishing to spoil all the “excitement” you might derive from watching it, we have a quite deliberate execution scene. Although a good argument might have been made for self-defence, what actually happens is a deliberate act going far beyond what’s actually needed to protect the person under attack. I fear a mandatory life sentence would be required for these last minute killers. So Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? has a dire plot but a not unenjoyable piece of acting in spectacularly appropriate locations. This series is proving a disaster of unmitigated proportions.

For reviews of other Agatha Christie stories and novels, see:

Categories: Books Tags: Agatha Christie, Georgia Moffett, Julia McKenzie, Marple, Miss Marple, murder, mystery, Sean Biggerstaff

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Elementary: Season 1, Episode 21. A Landmark Story. (2013)

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