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Agatha Christie’s Marple: A Caribbean Mystery (2013)
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Agatha Christie’s Marple: Season 6, episode 1. A Caribbean Mystery (2013) demonstrates an old truism about amateur sleuths who infest villages. At some point in their careers of solving crimes in these self-contained communities, the authors run out of people who have motives to kill people. Or, to put it another way, there’s no-one left alive. The desperate authors must therefore send their sleuths away on holiday. At this point, estate agents (or realtors for my American readers) become relevant because the substitute for a gripping plot is location, location, location. In this case, as the title suggests, Agatha Christie sends Miss Marple (Julia McKenzie) off to the West Indies where, somewhat improbably, she meets up with Ian Fleming looking for inspiration for his first spy novel. If ever there was a clear signal Charlie Higson, the scriptwriter, thought he was in trouble, this is it. Trying to distract us with jokes about eccentric twitters who announce themselves to the world as Bond, James Bond is the ultimate act of desperation.
Anyway, throughout this ninety minute extravaganza, we’re treated to shots of palm trees in daylight, palm trees as the sun goes down in a dramatic sunset, and palm trees in contrived jungle conditions. And then there’s the beach, and two dramatic and big rocks overlooking a dangerous cliff top, and the shanty town replicating the West Indies of the 1950s. And all those marvellous old cars. . . As always with these productions, everything looks right. Even the clothing is almost entirely unsuitable for a hot climate and very much in fashion for middle class holiday getaways. So where are we? Tim (Robert Webb) and Molly Kendall (Charity Wakefield) run a quaint little hotel called the Golden Palms on the fictitious island of St. Honoré — and just to prove how fictitious the entire exercise, the locations for whole episode were apparently in and around Cape Town, South Africa. Not that there’s ever any obligation to use the real setting for “foreign” locations but it seems a long way to fly to get the result.
Nice looking beach
As is required for these Golden Age murder mysteries, a group of eccentric white guests huddle in their hotel oasis surrounded by all these foreigners. For the most part, they are afraid to leave and this creates the necessary ring fence more usually engineered by snow fall, bridges being washed away in sudden storms, and so on. Culture can trap people just as effectively as geography and extreme weather events. Leading the pack is a slightly over-the-top Antony Sher as Jason Rafiel who later triggers the events described in Nemesis. He’s accompanied by Warren Brown taking a rest from Luther, and avoiding Oliver Ford Davies as the delightfully boring Major Palgrave who has pictures of all his favorite murderers with which to regale the other guests. Then there’s the usual cast of “characters” from the slightly loopy clergyman to the loud American couple.
I suppose the virtue of plots like this is that, the more nonsensical they are, the more clever we’re supposed to think them. If only we were brighter, we could have picked up that “clue” earlier. Yes, well, pigs will fly one day. So for inspection by Miss Marple and Jason Rafiel, we have a group of people who, for one reason or another, all know each other. Imagine how this works. Here’s this hotel on an island and, having travelled the world, here comes Major Palgrave with his photographs. This is not his first visit, you understand. So it never occurred to him that he might have met one or more of these people “somewhere else”. He’s old. He only has one eye. And he’s old, so he has never noticed until sitting beside Miss Marple, that one of the people in his line of sight is that well-known murderer. . . Well, he’s old and so he gives a great start of surprise and alerts said murderer that the Major’s one eye and two little grey cells have finally identified the fiend. Naturally, said murderer cannot permit the Major to live another day. He might tell the same story again to someone who might actually believe him and that would never do. Now let’s switch the point of view. All the guests have had the chance to see the Major over their visits so, to avoid any embarrassment of the old guy suddenly pulling out his photographs and remembering, the killer simply needs to stay away, or leave early if it’s the first visit. Or if the fiend is one of the hotel owners or staff, it’s a simple matter to reject the Major’s request to stay — sadly the hotel is fully booked this year. The entire premise of this story makes even less sense than usual for a Christie.
Having killed off the second most interesting actor on display, we then get a story about people holidaying on an island and, every now and then, Miss Marple walks into shot. There’s an incredible amount of action and dialogue shown as filler to create atmosphere and suspicion until our sleuth can do her thing and overhear something or gossip to glean facts. I suppose the second murder is quite ingenious but, as is often the way with screen adaptations, the melodrama of the shooting at the end is laughable. And the screen romance which may be coming to fruition. . . Well let’s just say it’s one of these remarkably unlikely outcomes that Christie might have enjoyed. If there’s anything to like about this episode at all, it’s the performance of Antony Sher. It’s nicely judged and, for once, there’s real chemistry with Julia McKenzie. Put all this together and A Caribbean Mystery is nothing to mention in a postcard from a holiday destination that, at times, actually looks worth visiting — such great palm trees.
For reviews of other Agatha Christie stories and novels, see:
Agatha Christie’s Marple (2004) — the first three episodes
Agatha Christie’s Marple (2005) — the second set of three episodes
Agatha Christie’s Marple (2006) — the third set of three episodes
Agatha Christie’s Marple (2007) — the final set of three episodes
Agatha Christie’s Marple: The Blue Geranium (2010)
Agatha Christie’s Marple: Endless Night (2013)
Agatha Christie’s Marple: Greenshaw’s Folly (2013)
Agatha Christie’s Marple: The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side (2010)
Agatha Christie’s Marple: Murder is Easy (2009)
Agatha Christie’s Marple: The Pale Horse (2010)
Agatha Christie’s Marple: A Pocket Full of Rye (2008)
Agatha Christie’s Marple: The Secret of Chimneys (2010)
Agatha Christie’s Marple: They Do It with Mirrors (2009)
Agatha Christie’s Marple: Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? (2009)
Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb (1993)
Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman (1993)
Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Big Four (2013)
Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Case of the Missing Will (1993)
Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Chocolate Box (1993)
Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Clocks (2009)
Agatha Christie’s Poirot: Curtain. Poirot’s Last Case (2013)
Agatha Christie’s Poirot: Dead Man’s Folly (2013)
Agatha Christie’s Poirot: Dead Man’s Mirror (1993)
Agatha Christie’s Poirot: Elephants Can Remember (2013)
Agatha Christie’s Poirot: Hallowe’en Party (2010)
Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan (1993)
Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Labours of Hercules (2013)
Agatha Christie’s Poirot: Murder on the Orient Express (2010)
Agatha Christie’s Poirot: Three Act Tragedy (2011)
Agatha Christie’s Poirot: Underdog (1993)
Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Yellow Iris (1993)
Trilemma by Jennifer Mortimer
Writing fiction is all about voice and point of view. As writers, we think about how we would tell the story face-to-face and then modify that version so the story works on the page. The inherent problem, of course, is that the page can’t represent all the body language, facial expressions and voice modulation that goes into a live performance. The best we can do is approximate the voice, add in more description, and hope for the best. As to point of view, assuming the writer is not going to be omniscient, we readers are invited to see the events through the eyes of one or more characters. This makes first-person narrative one of the traps for the unwary. Given that the author can “become” the protagonist and write as if he or she was thinking, speaking or doing, it’s easy to believe everything about the protagonist is interesting to the reader. After all, most authors find themselves interesting and therefore assume readers will like them as first-person narrators.
So here we go with Trilemma by Jennifer Mortimer (Oceanview Publishing, 2014) which is a first-person narrative featuring Linnet Mere. She’s a project manager superstar, specialising in large technology projects or bringing start-ups to the market. In this instance, she’s come to New Zealand to help launch a challenger in the broadband market. Although she was born in that country, her father took her to America when very young. This means she’s had no contact with her two sisters. She also has an “ex” who lives in New Zealand. So, from her point of view, there are three reasons for coming to the islands. Obviously she’ll be well paid for her work, she can put out feelers to her family, and make tentative moves to resurrect her lost relationship. Because this is a first-person narrative, we’re with Lin as she speaks for and about herself. The point of this novel, therefore, is that our protagonist cannot know the generality of what’s going on around her. The Board of the start-up has its own political agenda and it’s not being honest with all the key people whose job it is to get the technology up and running. Lin delays contacting the family because she’s uncertain of their welcome. And then there’s Ben. This is one of these complicated situations. He lives in a fairly remote area, earning a living by making furniture and looking after his daughter now aged seventeen. Getting him to leave his comfort zone and potentially take up a globe-trotting lifestyle while being “kept by” a woman is not going to be easy, even if it’s desirable.
Jennifer Mortimer
So this is what the reliable voice tell us about the set-up. But in the first-person, we’re faced by an inherently unreliable narrator. There are so many things he or she cannot know. Think of Watson to Sherlock. He’s limited in what he sees and has to depend on Sherlock to tell him what’s actually happening. So Lin is highly competent in her professional capacity and as responsible as any normal person can be in her personal life. And, for a number of reasons, she’s a target. Take the work environment. She has to take tough decisions and this leads to resentment. Not only is she a woman in a country which celebrates the macho ethic through its rugby culture, but she’s also a decisive leader who works out all the angles and sees clearly which way to go. So whether she publicly berates a male colleague or quietly terminates his contract, it’s the same result. She’s made an enemy. What she cannot know is how far this resentment will go. Some men may just move on to another job. Others may allow the anger to fester. It’s the same in families. She does not know exactly why her family split and avoided contact. Approaching the New Zealand end of the break-up story may be the proverbial can of worms. In life, she’s not oblivious to danger, but she’s tough enough not to allow worry to hold her back. At some point, she’s always going to take the bold decision and do whatever’s necessary to get the right result.
In many ways, this is a book exploring the sexism inherent in patriarchal societies. New Zealand, like many developed countries, prides itself on the steps it’s taken towards gender equality. Yet, when you scratch the surface, little or nothing has changed — the men still think they are in charge. Hence, this is a fascinating exploration of the mindset a woman has to develop if she’s not only going to survive in the corporate world, but also climb the career ladder. It’s worth reading if only for that insight. The structure of the book also carries its own interest. I suppose it ends up being a kind of hybrid. It starts off as a conventional piece of modern literature about the corporate world. It interweaves elements of romance and the uncertainties of family relationships. And, in retrospect, it’s a thriller. Notice the key word, “retrospect”. Such is the strength or weakness of first-person narration. Since our protagonist is oblivious to the danger, so are the readers. The result is a clever piece of writing. As a purely personal reaction, I confess to being less than engaged during the first half of the book. I prefer a more real sense of menace to permeate the text. I’m also less than interested in the commercial exploitation of technology and the politics of competition. But as a reviewer, I’m very conscious of the general appeal of this type of book. Many will enjoy the scene-setting and, more importantly, the end result gives us the chance to reprise events to see which were significant and why. This makes Trilemma better than average on all three limbs of the “lemma”.
A copy of this book was sent to me for review.
Baptism by Max Kinnings
Baptism by Max Kinnings (Quercus, 2013) comes to me in the American edition. In the UK, it has been out in the market for some time and the sequel, Sacrifice, is already published. Such are the vagaries of the international publishing scene where there can be quite long delays between the launch of titles in different copyright jurisdictions. There are also problems in that the subject matter of the books may not transfer and find a resonance within the new culture. In Britain, using the widest term to embrace all the people who live in the constituent states, the London underground has an iconic status. Even those who live in the Outer Hebrides and have never been further south than Oban (not to be confused with the brand of sunglasses) have some awareness of the significance of this transport system. Indeed, because it’s embedded in the culture, it’s been a regular target for terrorist attacks, the first major bombing being in 1885. In due course, both the IRA and Islamists planted bombs. Given more than one-hundred years of attacks, Londoners have therefore become somewhat blasé about the continuing threats. Moving across the Atlantic, the recent attack by Al-Qaeda on American soil has sensitised local culture to the reality of its vulnerability to attack. Given this book offers a graphic description of an attack on an underground train network, the US market now has the opportunity to both explore emotional reactions to a home-grown terrorist attack, cf the Boston Marathon bombing, and to deal with the claustrophobia of an attack trapping several hundred in a deep tunnel.
As to the book itself, it’s a fascinating piece of writing on two counts. First as to the prose style: it’s what I might describe as meticulous. This is not in any way a bad quality, but the volume of detail creates a slightly dense text. This is a book that expects readers to take their time to absorb all the information on offer. Second, the structure of the plot is very dynamic. This author has significant experience in film and television. We therefore have very short chapters, each one dealing with just a few minutes of time with shifting points of view. On most occasions, the transition between points of view is consecutive, often just moving the plot forward on a different part of the underground train or in other locations of parallel significance where law enforcement plans its response. However on one or two occasions, there’s a slight reprise where we get the first run through a scene followed by a second person’s response. The overall effect is a very fast-moving narrative. Even though the prose itself invites a measured approach, the plot actually pulls the reader through to the end. For the record, there are spec trailers for a film version of this story: the shorter being at YouTube. These were shown at Cannes 2013 with a view to raising the finance to make the film.
Max Kinnings
So what’s it about? Ed Mallory is an expert negotiator. On what threatens to be the hottest day of the year in London so far, he’s called to the Underground. A train has unexpectedly stopped in a deep tunnel and the driver is not responding. Although it could just be the driver has fallen ill, no-one wants to take any chances. So the hostage negotiation team is moved into place and armed officers approach the rear of the train. As things warm up, we’re given this officer’s backstory which saw him blinded in only his second negotiation. With some thirteen years of experience since this tragic incident, he’s honed his listening skills. Consequently, he’s now rated as one of the best negotiators in the business. In this instance, however, the textbook approach is not going to work. The terrorists are led by Tommy Denning, a young ex-soldier who’s convinced himself he’s on a mission from God. Since he does not have the usual agenda of demands, Ed Mallory is forced into less than conventional tactics. The result is a fascinating set of relationships. The train driver, George Wakeham, has to deal with Tommy directly. The driver’s wife is on the same train to ensure the driver obeys the instructions given. Ed Mallory has to deal with both his own superior and MI5 while trying to engage Tommy in some discussion, any discussion. Then there are the passengers who slowly come to realise they may have to risk their own lives to escape the situation.
The result is a slightly gonzo thriller yet the fact there are elements which strain credibility all proves part of the fun. So assuming you don’t mind quite a high body count, Baptism proves to be excellent entertainment and well worth reading. I now find myself looking around for the second in the series, if only to see how Ed Mallory manages to keep his job.
For a review of the sequel, see Sacrifice. There’s also an interview with Max Kinnings here.
A copy of this book was sent to me for review.
Almost Human: Season 1, episode 6. Arrhythmia (2013)
As is my way, I’ve been musing about the dynamics of any relationship that might form between a “man” and a “machine”. When I bought my first car as a young man, I confess to giving it a name and talking to it as if it was alive. The fact it was highly unpredictable in whether it would actually get me where I wanted to go without anomalous noises or breakdowns punctuating the journeys reinforced the impression this was one cantankerous beast. So transposing this into a science fictional world in which human-shaped machines amble around and appear willing to interact with us, how should we react? We could just be indifferent. These are machines which have been designed to do the drudgery or the dangerous work. Apart from the need to issue instructions, we don’t need to be nice to them.
Indeed, we should really be querying why these machines were designed to replicate human body-shape when there are usually forms which could do the tasks more efficiently with multiple appendages, different forms of lifting capabilities, faster locomotion, and so on. The closer these machines come to human norms of physical perfection, the more creepy they might seem to mere humans — they become more obviously competitive. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t “like” the androids, but it might explain why the more obviously machine-like model is now the norm. Humans know how to relate to a servitor machine. They get confused when the machine looks like one of them and so might expect to be treated as if one of them.
In the past, there was a test to weed out the whacky DRNs (presumably administered by Rick Deckard). The government was supposed to fix the crazy ones but, when it realized the size of the potential bill, it just decommissioned them all. Or perhaps there was another reason. . . Suppose, for argument’s sake, a DRN got all emotional and shot a human to protect a defenceless boy. If he had waited for backup as protocol required, the man might have been subdued and the boy rescued. But he was not prepared to take the risk. That might make him seem more human or too unstable as a machine to be allowed to continue functioning in the field without direct and continuous supervision. Either way, he might end up depressed and welcome being decommissioned. It’s always disturbing to take a life. It might be a kindness to such a machine to let it forget the past trauma.
Karl Urban and two versions of Michael Ealy
Anyway, Almost Human: Season 1, episode 6. Arrhythmia (2013) decides to dig into the grey area between human, cyborg and android with a medical devices storyline. Let’s begin by reminding ourselves that Detective John Kennex (Karl Urban) has a prosthetic leg. That puts him on the slippery slope to cyborgdom and makes us wonder why he never seems to get any benefit out of this limb now he’s discovered the healing properties of olive oil. He should be leading the charge into buildings, kicking down doors like they were made out of cardboard. Yes, well. . . So here’s this picture of a hospital where people queue up to have their consultation with AI systems which project the image of a doctor on to public screens. When the image freezes up just as the system is explaining a potentially serious diagnosis, this is disconcerting for the patient and all those in the queue behind him. Is this what Obamacare is going to do to American hospitals? It’s a frightening thought. Anyway, the man with the gun demands access to a machine to keep him alive. He seems to know exactly when he will die and, yes, he’s got that right. It makes one wonder why he didn’t come in earlier to explain the problem.
Did I mention Dorian (Michael Ealy) has seen another version of itself as it entered the hospital. Now there of two of it in the same car as Kennex and, as a neat piece of blackmail, Dorian demonstrates that, if it wanted to, it could drive the car. Sorry, should I stop using the third person impersonal to talk about Dorian? That’s a tricky authorial problem, isn’t it. Almost human doesn’t quite cut it for “him”, or does it? So Dorian gives his lookalike access to its old case files and, of course, Dorian forgets to update them. The lookalike therefore charges after and arrests a man not knowing he’s already served his time. Oops!
Now this is what real mortuary attendants look like!
So beyond this preamble, here comes the plot. The mortuary is extracting the artificial hearts and selling them on to the black market. Without a flicker of hesitation the guilty attendant justifies this resale as only a socialist can. The capitalist corporation requires the hearts destroyed to maintain its high price to future buyers. If a secondhand market began, the capitalists would lose their market dominance and shareholders would complain at lost dividends. The attendant is therefore redistributing the hearts to the poor and needy. Whoa! That sounds too good to be true. And it is. He’s actually selling to a criminal organisation running the ultimate extortion racket. They input the vital organ with an off-switch installed. If the patient then neglects to pay the monthly premium, they switch off the organ. We then get into the ultimate cruelty of a police procedural. Instead of waiting for the crooked surgeon to implant the heart with the off-switch installed, they arrest everyone and wake up the patient. “You’re safe now,” they tell the dying woman. But because this is a US-made series, it must all come right in the end. We can’t have the serve-and-protect brigade responsible for causing the deaths of several hundred people because they caught the bad guys.
The plot basically plodded through the expected steps and we arrived at the end — it got all fuzzy when asked to consider how the criminals recovered the bodies of those they’d offed for nonpayment and we should be wondering why there’s no talk of decommissioning Dorian for reactivating an old DRN, thereby being responsible for the destruction of property and a false arrest. Almost Human: Arrhythmia is an insulting failure to deal with the real issues raised. There was real meat here and we could have had a feast of an episode in which we really began to get to grips with the technology and the dynamics of the different relationships. Instead, we got a trivialised police procedural and a few pauses where we were supposed to imagine the intelligent discussions taking place. I’m seriously considering not bothering to watch any more of this series.
For reviews of other episodes, see
Almost Human. Season 1, episode 1 (2013)
Almost Human: Season 1, episode 2. Skin (2013)
Almost Human: Season 1, episode 3. Are You Receiving? (2013)
Almost Human: Season 1, episode 4. The Bends (2013)
Almost Human: Season 1, episode 5. Blood Brothers (2013)
Almost Human: Season 1, episode 7. Simon Says (2014)
Almost Human: Season 1, episode 8. You Are Here (2014)
Almost Human: Season 1, episode 9. Unbound (2014)
Almost Human: Season 1, episode 10. Perception (2014)
Almost Human: Season 1, episode 11. Disrupt (2014)
Almost Human: Season 1, episode 12. Beholder (2014)
Almost Human: Season 1, episode 13. Straw Man (2014).
The Strangling on the Stage by Simon Brett
The Strangling on the Stage by Simon Brett (Severn House, 2013) is one of the Fethering Mysteries and it contains one of “those” lines guaranteed to upset a moderate slice of the male population. As a man who, for many years, played cricket on a regular basis, I am doing my best not to be outraged by the suggestion cricketers are the most misogynist of sportsmen. Given the time commitment at weekends, when partners might expect joint activities like shopping, I might admit some degree of selfishness in treating standing solitary on the boundary of a field with a gale blowing and the prospect of rain imminent as preferable to standing in a queue at a checkout. But such solipsism does not inherently betoken hatred for the opposite sex. Indeed, how can one not value the fair sex even more when they cluster together to give us warmth when we come in from the rain, and supply restorative tea and limp sandwiches between innings?
Perhaps I should explain that this “throwaway” dismissal of a sporting fraternity is germane to the resolution of the plot. Indeed, the entire book is a kind of excoriation of the pretentiousness of the English middle class (although one Scottish engineer does come in for a real bashing as well — unfortunately, there’s no-one to complete the joke, “An Englishman, a Scotsman and an Irishman walked into The Cricketers and. . .”). So we’re deep into the world of amateur dramatics which, for better or worse, is the preserve of young aspirants and ageing performers with invincible egos. This time Jude and Carole, our pair of lady sleuths, get caught up in the investigation of a death by stage prop.
Simon Brett
The retired Scottish engineer passes the time by “inventing” interesting devices for stage productions. For The Devil’s Disciple by George Bernard Shaw, he builds a gallows which, to the surprise of the leading man, proves unexpectedly effective. Indeed, everyone seems completely amazed. There was supposed to be a trick to it all. The engineer had produced a noose that was held together only by a sliver of velcro. The moment any weight was applied to the noose, it should have sprung apart, releasing the victim before even the slightest physical inconvenience could be caused. But someone seems to have substituted a real noose for the “stage” version. Hence the dead man hanging centre stage.
So our dedicated team in their fifteenth outing take up new roles. Jude is recruited into the cast while Carole finds her true vocation as the prompter who notices every mistake and is not afraid to call out corrections during rehearsals. Between them they contrive to talk to everyone who might be able to shed light on the sad loss of such an acting talent. The most unusual conversation is with the deceased’s wife who registers strongly on the weirdometer (as do all collectors, of course — did I mention I also collect books, but not on cricket which would be obsessional?). But, not to put too fine a point on it, none of the actors or the stage crew come over as entirely normal. Or perhaps the other way of viewing the book is that when an author launches into an examination of stereotypical middle class behaviour, he’s not short of likely targets from which to choose his victims. This is not to characterise the book as a satire on south coast village lifestyles. Although there are some pleasingly sharp observations and smile-inducing moments, the book lacks the savagery required to make it genuinely satirical. For better or worse, Simon Brett likes his cast of characters too much to completely dismantle them. This leaves the book in a slightly uncomfortable hinterland. It’s not even remotely a “cozy mystery” in the emerging American style, but it’s equally not a tough-minded, take-no-prisoners book that skewers all-comers. This leaves me placing the tone as probably adjacent to Alan Ayckbourn in some of his studies of the existential despair that afflicts many in apparently normal relationships and roles.
Truth-be-told, The Strangling on the Stage is just another highly enjoyable read from Simon Brett. The puzzle for us to solve depends on who had access to the prop at the relevant time, and who would have had the motive to execute the leading man. As is required, we have a limited cast of suspects, and more or less everyone would have had a motive to execute this Lothario whether it’s the women spurned or their “cuckolded” husbands. In fact, the theme of the solution turns out to be inherently historical and subsequently theatrical, as one might expect in a book such as this. The combination of interesting murder and social commentary provides good value for those who have the proverbial eyes to see and then look away when it comes to holding the guilty to account.
For reviews of other books by Simon Brett, see:
Blotto, Twinks and the Dead Dowager Duchess
The Cinderella Killer
A Decent Interval.
A copy of this book was sent to me for review.
The Black Stiletto: Secrets & Lies by Raymond Benson
As with most reviews, I’m setting the hare running with a new question to mull over before getting to the meat of the discussion. The Black Stiletto: Secrets & Lies by Raymond Benson (Oceanview Publishing, 2014) is a book in which the point of view keeps switching from contemporary America to the America of 1961. Albeit I was in England at this time, I was emerging into a greater awareness of the world around me. By modern standards, I was still remarkably naive but that was the norm “back then”. And this prompts the question. Is this fascination with my own past a symptom of a mental disorder? In countries which experienced significant immigration, there were many cases in which homesickness advanced into what was then diagnosed as melancholia. Today, we would think of it as being a depressive disorder as loneliness becomes an increasingly negative emotion.
The Britain of 1961 still boasted a cold and fairly miserable climate — the Gulf Stream continued to produce bad winters and luke-warm summers. We lacked many of the amenities we now take for granted. But I’m nostalgic. This is not to say I’m depressed. The fact I would prefer to live in the past if it was possible (Dr Who fans can explain how it’s done in the comments section) is not a psychological disorder in my vocabulary — the Greek origin of the word is interesting: nostos means “home” and algos is “pain”. In the real world it means an extreme form of unhappiness that one cannot physically return home. In my own case, I am still living my life going forward into the future without any associated symptoms of pain. But it’s sometimes pleasant to revisit my roots even when some of the memories that surface are unhappy. It gives me a sense of continuity. This is not to deny the often bittersweet quality of the emotions associated with looking backwards. But as I grow ever older and so closer to death, I find many benefits from an increasingly long perspective.
Raymond Benson
The Black Stiletto: Secrets & Lies has a young woman in 1961 and the same woman now descending in Alzheimer’s in modern times. She only intermittently interacts with her son and granddaughter. This leaves the only form of communication through her five diaries. We’ve now been granted access to the first four. The fifth and final episode is due in November, 2014. Back in 1961, Judy Talbot was Judy Cooper, aka The Black Stiletto, a one-woman vigilante who had been boldly policing the streets of New York. Unfortunately, her best efforts have not been appreciated by the law enforcement community. The first third of the book therefore deals with the law of unintended consequences. NYPD has sworn to drive this dangerous woman off the streets. Every time she goes out, she almost immediately gets into trouble. If she did not go out, the police would not chase her. If no-one was chasing her, she would not run out into the road and cause accidents. Police officers and civilians would not be hurt. When a police officer is seriously hurt despite her efforts to save him, she decides it’s time to leave New York.
She has met a fascinating man who may be “Mr Right”. He has left a standing invitation for her to join him in Los Angeles. It’s therefore convenient to go investigate whether this is the start of a new life in a permanent relationship. Needless to say, the vigilante in her cannot stay hidden for long. However, this new city proves rather more welcoming than New York. Indeed, she’s so comfortable, she even drops into a bar for a drink while in costume. This is very much in the tradition of Adam West’s Batman who would sit masked in the back of restaurants with no-one taking any notice. As is required to move the plot forward, this leads to a chance meeting with an agent for the local DA who’s looking for a shortcut through the red tape to investigate the local gangs.
The Black Stiletto therefore becomes a stalking horse, breaking into properties with gang connections and provoking situations in which the police can enter without a warrant or can justify getting a warrant. Needless to say, she proves very effective and soon has local gang bosses deeply angry at their losses. It should come as no surprise that Leo Kelly, her man, is also rapidly moving up the regional ranks of criminality. He and his sister have a counterfeit operation and are known to rob banks when they need the money or other baubles. The relationship is doomed, of course, but it has set up the major plot lever to explain why The Black Stiletto had to retire and is still in physical danger. All this will be resolved in November and, from the current position, everything is very nicely poised.
As a character, I find the young Judy Cooper somewhat endearing. Although the early 1960s were less sophisticated, she takes innocent recklessness to new levels. But if we’re prepared to suspend disbelief on her ability to walk the streets in costume and not be arrested or shot down in a hail of bullets, this is very much a series to savour. In spirit, it edges towards the superhero vernacular with a masked vigilante taking on the mob and organised crime. But our hero has no superpowers. She’s merely very fit and a highly-skilled martial artist with knife-throwing skills. The result is a very vulnerable woman overcoming her weaknesses and making her own way in an America that was still intensely patriarchal. The Black Stiletto: Secrets & Lies is all very enjoyable even if you’re not into the nostalgia side of the reading exercise.
For a review of two other books in the series, see:
The Black Stiletto: Endings and Beginnings
The Black Stiletto: Stars & Stripes.
A copy of this book was sent to me for review.
Top five posts — end of 2013 report
Well another year older and deeper in debt — actually that’s not quite right because I’ve been paying down the mortgage so I’m less indebted than I was twelve months ago. There are now 1,175 reviews or opinion pieces, and we move even further past one-million words in content. I’ve kept to my New Year’s Resolution of making at least one post every day with 375 new posts in the last twelve months. Thinking about books continues to grow but, thanks to Lionsgate, traffic numbers are still down. In January, I was getting 1,245 hits a day. When the DMCA notices hit, I dropped down to 571 hits per day. At the end of six months, I was slowly recovering, having reached a six-month average of 775 hits per day. This was the “good” news: Lionsgate’s malicious campaign now apparently defeated. I hoped the traffic numbers would continue to build and I could get back up to where I was at the beginning of this year. Sadly that has not happened. I can look back to January to see 4,322 views in one day. Since then, my overall daily average has dropped to 729 with only 266,000 page views in total. It seems the damage to the site actually continues even though the DMCA notices have all been dismissed.
The Dong Yi pages continue to dominate, being eight of the ten most read pages on the site. I’ve become very popular in the Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Malaysia with visitors from 210 countries as counted by WordPress. It seems somewhat redundant to list the top five Dong Yi pages. Suffice it to say that the average number of hits for that top five is 16,951 hits per page (up from 13,462). In both the following lists, the numbers in brackets are the placement in the last top five lists (excluding Dong Yi pages). So the top five of the other film/anime pages is:
Gone Baby Gone (2)
Hellsing or Herushingu (1)
Sucker Punch (3)
Space Battleship Yamato or Uchū Senkan Yamato (4)
Secret or The Secret That Cannot Be Told or Bu Neng Shuo De Mi Mi (5)
These five pages have an average of 7,039 hits per page (up from 5,921). Obviously, I’m going to have to be more careful about selecting the content to comment on if I want traffic numbers to rise. It’s fascinating that only three of the top twenty pages relate to Western content. I suppose I must be one of a more limited number of people writing about “foreign” material in English. As to books, the top five has been unchanged for twelve months:
The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
Wise Man’s Fear (The Kingkiller Chronicle, Day 2) by Patrick Rothfuss
Troika by Alastair Reynolds
Songs of Love and Death edited by George R R Martin and Gardner Dozois
The Secret of Crickley Hall by James Herbert
It’s good to report the average for the top five books is now edging higher into four figures at 1,319 hits per page (up from 1,207 hits per page). It’s still depressingly low but there has been slow upward movement. If you divide the total number of hits over the lifetime of the site by the number of pages, you produce an average of 612 hits per page (up by 12 since the last report). In a cautious voice, I’m going to say that’s not bad since I’m very passive about promoting the site. At my peak as the year ended, Technorati ranked the site in the top 100 for books. As of today, I see I’m ranked in the also-rans although I did feature in the Top 100 for television sites for a month or so. Not quite the market I was aiming for when I started a book site.
Anyway, I announce a temporary change of direction. Those who have read the About page will know I ran a small press in the past. A friend of the family has written a book and my services have been volunteered to edit and publish it. This is going to take up some of my time over the next two months or so. Hence you will not see daily posts until I get on top of the work. Perhaps I might get the bug again. If there are any agents who would be interested in submitting a work from an established author, let me know. I might be tempted into a three or four title schedule a year.
Top five posts — end of 2012 report
Almost Human: Season 1, episode 5. Blood Brothers (2013)
Almost Human: Season 1, episode 5. Blood Brothers (2013) brings us to a potentially interesting plot point. Here’s Detective John Kennex (Karl Urban), a human who’s upset his partner’s late for starting his shift. As you would expect, said intemperate one goes down to roust out the tardy one only to find himself surrounded by the latest model androids. They’re the emotionless ones and, frankly, the not very bright support androids who now dominate the subservient niche. When he gets to his partner’s recharging slot, he finds it empty. The thoughtless machine has wandered off somewhere without so much as an SMS or Skype message to say where he was going. These older model androids have no manners. But, in the end, there he is pulling on his T-shirt and looking sad. How would you feel having to get dressed surrounded by all those androids with brain-dead eyes? Yes, it’s interspecies android time. The DRN can’t stand the newbies on the block and I can’t say I blame him (or should that be it?). They’re creepy and not just in a subservient way. And then we get into the personal comparison side of this mismatched partnership. Yes, I’ll show you mine if you show me yours and, boy (sorry android!) does Dorian (Michael Ealy) have a big package for a machine. It makes you wonder what he does with it and why the designers thought they would go for additional physical equipment when they were creating a machine? Assuming the DRNs really are machines, of course.
So now into the plot: Captain Sandra Maldonado (Lili Taylor) comes over all ballsy in a trial where there’s no physical evidence to link an upstanding member of the community to a murder, but there are two eyewitnesses. We now descend into plot 101. In a safe house, we have one of the witnesses talking with Maya Vaughn (Megan Ferguson) a psychic or medium. Wait. . . there’s a psychic in a safe house. Does she know something exciting is going to happen? Yes, well, the first witness is blown away in a hail of bullets and the second witness, the psychic, who saw it coming, jumps out of the bathroom window and makes a run for it. Fortunately, Dorian can track her down. Perhaps he’s a psychic on the quiet.
Minka Kelly with two out of four versions of Graham Miller
Maldonado is going head-to-head with Ethan Avery (Graham Miller), the sociopathic accused. He’s out to ruin her self-confidence. Meanwhile it turns out the psychic has been through a new scientific brain enhancement procedure. It enables her to use more of her brain to think and, as a side effect, one or two human lab rats have shown paranormal abilities. Anyway, now she’s been rescued, she claims to be able to talk to the dead witness who saw the shooter. The deceased is insisting she was gunned down by the defendant Ethan Avery. Yes, it’s a bilocation event with a doppelgänger in court while the other does the shooting. Of course, the human detective thinks the medium would be better off in a funny farm while Dorian reserves his position. Then here comes a message from Rudy Lom (Mackenzie Crook) (almost a song in there somewhere). He’s pulled a voice recording from one of the useless new androids who was guarding the safe house. An analysis confirms it’s the voice of the defendant who was actually in the house when he said it (if you see what I mean). Gosh this is just so exciting. A mystery! So if it’s not an identical twin, did the accused clone himself? After all, the murder victim was an expert in reproductive technology. Did the accused give birth to himself. . . no that’s not quite right. Did the accused give his DNA to the good doctor who created the superbaby? Then we get the message. It was quads! Whoa, the four supertroopers fire a hail of bullets into the car being driven by our heroes. They all miss except the psychic in the back is hit in the shoulder. If nothing else, it proves she didn’t see it coming. Let’s face it, to be happy, all this girl needs is a door knob. All our android needs is a little privacy and John Kennex? Well, he just needs to get inside a bottle of bourbon or whoever’s carrying it.
As it’s her turn to get extra air time, Detective Valerie Stahl (Minka Kelly) gets to line herself up as the chaste love interest for Kennex. Fortunately, the human can overcome the red shift and accommodate novelty, even if over a football game. It’s now time to put my finger on the real problem with this series. Everyone apart from Dorian speaks with a highly artificial, mannered style (except for the Brit who really should be given subtitles so we can understand what are the words coming out of his mouth). It’s as if everyone apart from Dorian is speaking slowly so they are indistinguishable from androids. Call it adaptive behaviour. They’re all just trying to blend in. And talking about blending in, there’s some weird technology involved here. To allow our witnesses to give evidence from a safe house, there’s a projection device set up in the court room to show her holographic presence. But exactly the same effect can be achieved in a wood for a prisoner exchange. There’s no need for any projectors to be preinstalled. All that’s required is Rudy to say the magic words and there are the images. Given we had robbers wearing cloaking masks to pretend being terrorists, I see no reason why the same device could not be used here. This holographic projection system is completely incredible. Then there are more bullets fired, some by a clone with a sniper rifle and a state-of-the-art targeting device and still none of the good guys are hit. And Dorian. . . well, can he run fast or what? This means Almost Human: Blood Brothers is another embarrassing failure.
For reviews of other episodes, see
Almost Human. Season 1, episode 1 (2013)
Almost Human: Season 1, episode 2. Skin (2013)
Almost Human: Season 1, episode 3. Are You Receiving? (2013)
Almost Human: Season 1, episode 4. The Bends (2013)
Almost Human: Season 1, episode 6. Arrhythmia (2013)
Almost Human: Season 1, episode 7. Simon Says (2014)
Almost Human: Season 1, episode 8. You Are Here (2014)
Almost Human: Season 1, episode 9. Unbound (2014)
Almost Human: Season 1, episode 10. Perception (2014)
Almost Human: Season 1, episode 11. Disrupt (2014)
Almost Human: Season 1, episode 12. Beholder (2014)
Almost Human: Season 1, episode 13. Straw Man (2014).
Thinking about books 