2011 – Page 2 – Pop Culture Nerd

Book Review: HELL & GONE by Duane Swierczynski

When I’m not blogging here, I’m A) goofing off, B) running with bears, or C) writing for Criminal Element and Shelf Awareness. If you’re not stalking me on the Internet, here are helpful links to recaps and commentary I did for CE of Whitechapel‘s season one—episode one, two, and three (there are only three eps per season). It’s a dark British crime drama starring Rupert Penry-Jones (MI-5) and Phil Davis about detectives trying to catch a Jack the Ripper copycat. Season two just started last night on BBC America, with the detectives chasing killers emulating the Krays.

I’m also posting, with permission, my following review that ran on Shelf Awareness for Readers last Friday. If you haven’t started this series, now’s the time to jump in.

Hell & Gone by Duane Swierczynski

Many people use “hell” as a simile, but Duane Swierczynski uses it almost literally to describe the place where most of the action takes place in Hell & Gone, the second installment in the trilogy that started with Fun & Games. Charlie Hardie is kidnapped by the nefarious Accident People—killers who make their hits look like accidents—and sent deep underground to run a prison that supposedly holds the world’s most dangerous criminals. Life is hell in a place with no windows or sunlight, but if anyone tries to escape, everybody dies. Things turn topsy-turvy when one of the prisoners, a gorgeous woman, says she didn’t do anything wrong, that she was looking for Charlie when she was abducted and ended up there. The guards had warned Charlie about how she can mess with people’s heads, so who—and what—should he believe?

Like the previous book, the pace here is unrelenting. The story takes many bizarre turns, but Swierczynski is inventive enough to keep readers from guessing where it’s headed. Poor Charlie can never get a moment’s respite from the craziness around him, a situation whose purpose he still doesn’t understand, much less his role in it. It’s difficult to see “Unkillable Chuck” weakened by injuries he sustained during his first encounter with the Accident People and the mysterious medical procedures they inflict on him at the beginning of this novel. He does get to strike back in the end, though his actions don’t achieve all the desired results. It’s okay, because Point & Shoot is yet to come next March. And if the cliffhanger is an indication, the finale promises to be out of this world.

Nerd verdict: Hell for Charlie; fun for readers

Buy it now from Amazon| Buy from IndieBound

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Movie Review: THE DESCENDANTS

Writer/director Alexander Payne has a thing for making films about people who aren’t readily likable, the type we laugh at, not with. Ruthlessly ambitious Tracy Flick from Election, pregnant junkie Ruth from Citizen Ruth, and depressed Miles and philandering Jack from Sideways aren’t the kind of company most of us would want to keep in real life. But while his latest protagonist from The Descendants—an adaptation of Kaui Hart Hemmings’s novel—is flawed in many ways, Matt King is someone audiences can root for. The fact that he’s portrayed by George Clooney has a lot to do with that, but not for the obvious reasons.

Matt is a lawyer living in Hawaii whose wife, Elizabeth, slips into a coma after incurring head trauma in a boating accident. He’s suddenly faced with raising his two daughters (Shailene Woodley and Amarie Miller), something he’s rather helpless about, having been the “back-up parent.” Worse, he finds out from his older girl, Alex, that his wife had been having an affair. He takes his kids and Alex’s doofus friend (Nick Krause) on a trip to track down Elizabeth’s lover. In the midst of all this, he also has to decide whether to sell to developers the acres of untouched land that have been in his family for generations, a deal that would make him and his cousins phenomenally rich but may not be best for the island.

Audiences have never seen Clooney like this—he’s an ineffective man. There is nothing slick or sly about him. Yes, he’s successful professionally but out of his depth in his personal life. He doesn’t know how to communicate with his daughters, he can’t seem to even get angry at his wife for cheating on him, he takes verbal abuse from his father-in-law (Robert Forster), who irrationally blames Matt for Elizabeth being in a coma (Matt wasn’t even there when the accident occurred), and when he does come face to face with her boyfriend, he doesn’t confront him in the way we’d expect, though the scene is much more affecting for it. Clooney internalizes Matt’s struggles, and there are times when I wanted him to explode, to express his anger and pain, but that would have been predictable and Clooney’s performance is anything but. Matt may suffer quietly, but he’s not a doormat, and in the end he shows that perhaps he has more backbone and dignity than anyone else.

The supporting cast is superb, even Matthew Lillard, aka Shaggy from the Scooby-Doo movies, as Elizabeth’s lover. His pivotal scene with Clooney shows more depth than I’ve ever seen in his previous work. Judy Greer also has a memorable scene when her character—don’t want to spoil who she plays—behaves in a completely surprising way.

The big discovery, though, is nineteen-year-old Woodley (The Secret Life of the American Teenager). When we first meet Alex, I thought she’d be the kind of sullen, disrespectful teenager I have no patience for. But as the movie progresses, Alex slowly becomes not only someone who takes her father’s side, but a substitute mother to her ten-year-old sister. Woodley’s performance, combined with her striking looks and husky voice, signals a major star in the making.

Payne said something in the post-screening Q&A that best sums up what he did with this movie. He quoted Billy Wilder: “Say 2+2, never say 4.” (Clooney interjected, “Some [American films] say 5.”) Descendants is as striking for what Payne chose to omit as for what he included. When he said he didn’t show certain things because the audience already knows what happened, he’s absolutely right. I so appreciated his decision because obviousness is a pet peeve of mine in narrative fiction. How often does a director trust viewers to use their imagination to fill in the blanks?

What Payne didn’t leave out was humor, making us chuckle even while the characters squirm in uncomfortable situations. He also used entirely pre-existing Hawaiian music for the soundtrack because he wanted to “give a gift to Hawaii.” In the process, he also created one for the rest of us.

Nerd verdict: Transcendent Descendants

Photos: Fox Searchlight Pictures

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Movie Review: THE ARTIST

In the past five days I’ve seen eight movies, most of them considered Oscar contenders. I loathed a couple, liked a few, but there’s one that I’m passionate about, a film I can unequivocally get behind when the awards race heats up: Michel Hazanavicius’s The Artist (out 11/23).

When I told a friend I was going to see a silent, black and white French film set in 1920s Hollywood during the transition between silent movies and talkies, she joked that she’d fallen asleep while I was describing it. Normally, I might have been snoozing right alongside her, but this was the most buoyant, unique, and charming film I’ve seen in a long time. If that’s not enough, it features a really cool Jack Russell terrier who should get an award for best supporting dog.

The film opens in 1927, with silent movie star George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) at the height of his popularity. At one of his premieres, he literally bumps into one of his fans. They mug for the cameras and she ends up with her picture on the front page of Variety but remains a mystery woman. Turns out she’s an aspiring actress named Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo) and the two meet again when she gets a bit part in his next movie. The chemistry between them is potent, but the friendship stays platonic as George remains faithful to his wife despite their unhappy marriage.

As the story moves forward into the next few years, George’s fame starts to wane when he resists the advent of talkies, while Peppy becomes a sensation by embracing the new technology. But she never forgets the man who gave her valuable advice at the beginning of her career, watching over him even when he thinks he’s lost everything, and eventually helping him find his way back to what he loves most.

Now comes the part when I unleash a bunch of glowing adjectives to convince you to see the movie. Writer/director Hazanavicius has created a lovely valentine to the cinema, showing the heart and sometimes heartbreak behind the magic we see on screen. His cast is led by the exuberant Dujardin as Valentin—he deservedly won the best actor award at Cannes this year—and the captivating Bejo as Peppy. They spark together, managing to convey first attraction and then something much deeper, all with minimal physical contact and no dialogue.

The supporting players include John Goodman, James Cromwell, and Penelope Ann Miller, but the standout has to be Uggie, the dog who plays Valentin’s loyal companion on screen and off. He’s a combination of Asta and Lassie, accomplishing feats both clever and heroic.

The period costumes by Mark Bridges are gorgeous (Bejo’s nightgown is glamorous enough to wear to an awards show), composer Ludovic Bource hits all the right notes with the score, which is even more important in conveying the tone in the absence of dialogue, and DP Guillaume Schiffman makes everything look stunning in black and white photography. Every aspect of this movie is a delight, and not only did I not fall asleep, I left the theater feeling revived and, well, peppy.

Nerd verdict: A delightful, creative Artist

Photos: The Weinstein Company

Note: If you’re interested in hearing the stars speak about the movie, check out this video of the Q&A they did after the L.A. Times Envelope screening I attended. Bejo spoke fluent English but Dujardin brought an interpreter. He also claimed he didn’t speak “American dog” well enough to communicate with Uggie during filming but helped things along by carrying sausage in his pockets.

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Movie Review: J. EDGAR

The problem with biopics is, even if the subject is someone who led an extraordinary life, it rarely translates into riveting drama when the film compresses that whole life into two hours. It becomes a laundry list of “this happened, and then this happened, and then this…,” sucking all the significance out of each event.

Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar, in limited release Nov. 9 and opening wide Nov. 11, stars Leonardo DiCaprio in the titular role, playing the first director of the FBI from about twenty years old to his death at the age of 77. It encompasses his rise from being a fresh-faced Justice Department employee to being appointed the sixth director of the Bureau of Investigations (precursor to the FBI), trying to solve the Lindbergh baby kidnapping case, keeping secret files on high-profile public figures such as Eleanor Roosevelt and JFK, lobbying for a centralized database of fingerprints to be used for identifying criminals, etc. Yes, he accomplished a lot during his years in office, but the way Eastwood handles these proceedings isn’t that exciting cinematically. DiCaprio narrates over some of the scenes, which enhances the soporific effect.

The movie does wink at the rumors that Hoover was a cross-dresser, though the incident is given an emotional context and depicted in an unsensational way. J. Edgar also covers his relationships with the three most important people in his life—his mother (Judi Dench); his secretary, Ms. Gandy (Naomi Watts); and his right-hand man, Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer). DiCaprio, who did Q & A after the screening, says his extensive research unearthed no evidence the two men were ever lovers, but the script by Dustin Lance Black (Oscar winner for Milk) posits there was deep love between them.

DiCaprio does a commendable job, able to emote even through all the old-man makeup. He’s not content to let it do the heavy lifting for him—he changes his voice, posture, and gait as Hoover ages, slowly eliminating all traces of his own blue-eyed heartthrobness (he wears brown contacts).

Watts is wasted in an underdeveloped role that hardly requires her to use any of her considerable skills. Her scenes consist mostly of her taking dictation and carrying out other administrative duties. Ms. Gandy worked with Hoover for fifty-four years and was the one he trusted with his confidential files, but the movie reveals nothing about her personal life or emotional makeup to explain why she remained dedicated to the capricious Hoover for so long.

The heart of the movie is provided by Hammer, who confirmed for me, after his underrated work in The Social Network, that he’s an exciting young actor to watch. As the Winklevoss twins, he was macho and hotheaded; as Tolson, he’s a refined gentleman whose eyes visibly soften from the first moment he lays them on Hoover. Hammer doesn’t do anything overt to suggest Tolson’s sexuality; his performance is more affecting for the restraint, the little gestures that allow us to fill in the rest. It’s obvious Hammer has leading-man looks, but it’s his range that indicates he might have a career in movies almost as long as Hoover’s in the FBI.

Nerd verdict: J. Edgar ho-hum

Photos: Warner Bros.

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Movie Discussion: Steven Soderbergh’s HAYWIRE

As part of the AFI Fest presented by Audi going on here in Los Angeles, there’s a secret screening that’s announced on the day of the screening. Organizers revealed hours before the Sunday night event that the secret movie was Steven Soderbergh’s Haywire (to be released January 20, 2012), an action-thriller starring Ewan McGregor, Michael Fassbender, Channing Tatum, Bill Paxton, Michael Angarano, Antonio Banderas, and Michael Douglas. But the anchor of the movie is mixed martial arts star Gina Carano as Mallory Kane, an operative with a private contractor who does dangerous work for the government. A journalist she successfully rescues in Barcelona ends up dead and she’s framed for his murder, becoming the target of assassins almost as lethal as she is.

I was at the 9:30 screening with my trustworthy contributor Eric Edwards, so we decided to discuss it afterward in lieu of a regular movie review.

Pop Culture Nerd: Carano is badass for sure, completely convincing as a tough chick who beats the crap out of everyone. I didn’t think the movie was entirely successful, though. The fights were amazing, but some of the non-physical scenes were clunky.

Eric Edwards: I really enjoyed it. The story was very much a low-rent spy thriller but the cast makes it work. Usually producers hire a star or two and fill out the rest of the cast with lesser stars. What Soderbergh did was hire a non-actress and fill even small supporting roles with stars and well-known actors so she wouldn’t have to carry the movie by herself.

PCN: But it’s obviously a showcase for her, and everyone else just came along for the ride. She’s kinetic to watch in the fight scenes, but you can tell she’s less comfortable in the ones when she’s just talking (Carano admits that in the post-screening Q & A). Some of her line readings sounded like just that—someone reading from a page. But she’s beautiful, and I like her, and that’s why I wanted her to be a better actress. I suppose that will come with time and more experience if she does more movies.

EE: For me it was simpler than that. She’s sympathetic because her character is being screwed over. In every fight scene, she’s going up against a guy who’s bigger than her—

PCN: Except for Ewan McGregor.

EE: Hey now, don’t pick on Obi-Wan.

PCN: Just sayin’. Now, Michael Fassbender is a formidable opponent. He’s ripped, and their fight scene is the best.

EE: Yup. Hands down. I still don’t know how either one of them survived that.

PCN: Fassbender said he puked after two days of filming it!

EE: I’m surprised he didn’t puke while shooting. Did you see how many times her knee went into his gut?

PCN: And elsewhere. You know, for a brutal fight flick, there was very minimal blood, and I appreciated that. It wasn’t injury porn.

EE: Yeah, surprisingly little blood, but I felt every one of those hits, didn’t you?

PCN: Not really, ’cause I’m not a man and I don’t have balls. I was exhausted after each fight.

EE: Yeah, her style of fighting was breathtaking.

PCN: I liked that they didn’t try to make it pretty. It was raw and dirty. She fought to survive.

EE: And you were always rooting for her.

PCN: I thought the pacing lagged whenever the action stopped. There were weird pauses and drawn-out moments that I felt could have been more tightly edited.

EE: I disagree. The flashbacks worked well as a device to explain what was going on. Soderbergh showed us the backstory without making Carano fill us in. I think it was a smart move to give her fewer lines and let her shine elsewhere.

PCN: I got a little bored when it was just dudes explaining stuff.

EE: It was necessary!

PCN: Let’s talk about the music. Did it sound to you like it was from a cheesy ’70s action film?

EE: Yes, but I think Soderbergh did that because the story felt that way in general. It was a wink to the audience.

PCN: Why do you think Soderbergh was trying to evoke cheesy ’70s movies?

EE: Because it’s kind of retro cool. Maybe he’s trying to reinvent the B-movie by making one with an A-list cast.

PCN: He said in the Q & A he was going for a kind of early Bond movie so I guess the score needed to go back at least another decade.

EE: Well, it worked for me, and I don’t think there’s anything like this movie out there.

Nerd verdicts: PCN—Haywire but enjoyable. EE—Haywire is a cinematic haymaker.

Soderbergh, McGregor, Fassbender, and Carano participated in a hilarious Q & A afterward moderated by Joel McHale. I’ll post a recap of that, as well as reviews of other festival films, within the next week. AFI Fest continues through November 10.

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Book Review: THE BOY IN THE SUITCASE by Lene Kaaberbol & Agnete Friis

Originally reviewed for Shelf Awareness, printed here with permission.

When Nina Borg agreed to do a favor for her friend Karin and pick up a suitcase from a train-station locker in Copenhagen, she never imagined she’d find a naked and drugged three-year-old boy inside. Who is he? Why was he stuffed in the suitcase? Was he being removed from an abusive household? Instinctively deciding she can’t go to the police, Nina tracks down Karin, who has fled from her home. But before Nina can get answers, Karin is murdered and Nina goes on the run, pursued by Karin’s killer, who will kill again to get his hands on the boy.

The Boy in the Suitcase (Soho Crime, out Nov. 8), first in a bestselling Scandinavian series, is told from alternating POVs but the central figure is Nina, a Red Cross nurse who goes to considerable lengths to help strangers but sometimes neglects her husband and children. This makes her more a relatable everywoman than a superhero, and she does have a compelling reason for her behavior. The story actually encompasses several different types of mothers, all struggling to do the right thing but sometimes at great personal cost.

Authors Kaaberbol and Friis imbue the characters with a duality that elevates them from being crime-fiction stereotypes. A prostitute can bond easily with the boy, a nasty aunt can be sympathetic, and the villain’s motive for violence is more idealistic than evil. It makes the novel as much a character study and social commentary as a heart-in-throat thriller that should resound with readers long after Suitcase is tucked away.

Nerd verdict: Crack open Suitcase

Buy it from Amazon| Buy from IndieBound

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Movie Madness

Hammer, DiCaprio, Judi Dench in J. EDGAR

The next couple of weeks are going to be craaazy but it’s all good. Awards season is here and I’ll be attending loads of screenings of some of the most anticipated fall and winter movies with key talent doing Q & A afterward. I’ve already seen Alexander Payne’s The Descendants with George Clooney (review coming soon), and tonight I’ll be viewing Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar plus discussion with Leonardo DiCaprio, Naomi Watts, and Armie Hammer. Tomorrow I’ll be seeing—wait for it—The Adventures of Tintin!

Thursday is also the start of the AFI Fest, with J. Edgar as the opening night gala presentation and Tintin closing the festival on November 10. In case you didn’t know this already, all tickets are FREE.

Jean Dujardin & Missi Pyle in THE ARTIST

The lineup is quite impressive with many high-profile films, including The Artist, Michel Haznavicius’s black and white silent film about 1920s Hollywood; Roman Polanski’s Carnage, featuring an all-star cast including Kate Winslet and Jodie Foster; Steve McQueen’s Shame, the NC-17 film starring Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan as siblings; Jim Field Smith’s Butter, set in the world of competitive butter-carving; Lynn Ramsay’s We Need to Talk About Kevin, starring Tilda Swinton and based on Lionel Shriver’s novel about a mother trying to understand why her son committed an atrocity; and Oren Moverman’s Rampart, which reunites the writer/director with his stars from The Messenger, Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster, in a drama about the LAPD’s Rampart corruption scandal. Crime fiction fans, take note: the script was co-written by James Ellroy.

I plan to see all these movies, either at AFI Fest or through the Los Angeles Times Envelope screening series, so check back for reviews and recaps of conversations with the filmmakers. That way, when nominees are announced for the bazillion awards that will be given out in the next few months, you can act snooty and say you already know all about them! If I don’t get around to writing full reports on everything, I’ll at least post interesting tidbits on Facebook or Twitter.

Any of these sound good to you? Which fall/winter movies are you most looking forward to?

Photos: J. Edgar/Warner Bros; The Artist/The Weinstein Company

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Q & A with ALLEN GREGORY’s Joy Osmanski

This weekend is a big one for my friend Joy Osmanski. Saturday was her birthday and tonight, as in Sunday, her new show Allen Gregory premieres at 8:30 on Fox right after The Simpsons‘ “Treehouse of Horror” episode.

Joy, an incredibly talented, funny, all-around amazing person, is the voice of Julie De Longpre, the adopted sister of the title character, an impossibly precocious seven-year-old boy (voiced by Jonah Hill). Allen’s two gay dads buy Julie off the Internet as if she’s an accessory and you can tell by the way she’s drawn that she’s thrilled.

You can get to know Julie and Joy a little better in this video:

Being the in-depth investigative journalist that I am, I had additional burning questions for Joy.

Pop Culture Nerd: If the De Longpres hadn’t bought Julie online, how much do you think she would’ve gone for on eBay?

Joy Osmanski: I have no doubt that Julie would have inspired a serious bidding war. Maybe for all the wrong reasons, but nonetheless.

PCN: How does she feel about fellow Cambodian baby Maddox getting adopted by Angelina and Brad while she got the De Longpres?

JO: Maddox got totally shafted.

PCN: If she rented out her forehead as a billboard, what product(s) would she advertise?

JO: She probably wouldn’t have an ethical dilemma with, say, Halliburton ad space, but if Apple came knocking, Julie would get a tattoo of Steve Jobs on her forehead.

PCN: Since this is a voiceover gig, what do you wear while working, if anything?

JO: I’ve found that I work best in a filmy negligee worn over a hair shirt. It’s not a formula, per se, but it unleashes my creative genius in a way that no one dares question. Probably because they fear me.

PCN: Oh, man, I’m going online and buying a hair shirt right now.

Thanks so much to Joy for stopping by! Check out Allen Gregory tonight and we’ll be like this:

If not, we’ll give you these faces:

Which would you prefer?

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Book Review: ALREADY GONE by John Rector

This review is by contributor Eric Edwards.—PCN

While leaving a bar one night, newly married university teacher Jake Reese is jumped from behind, but instead of taking his wallet, his attackers cut off his ring finger along with his wedding band. He wakes up in the hospital with his wife and his best friend by his side, along with the cops. Jake tries to write it off as a simple assault and robbery, but the detective in charge isn’t buying it, and Jake’s straight-laced new bride suddenly needs time to think a few things over. It seems Jake has a criminal past which may have come back to haunt him. With one phone call, he knows he can make all his troubles disappear, as well as get the answers he needs, but it will surely cost him the life he has struggled so hard to rebuild.

Rector knows how to keep the action moving and the tension building to keep the reader guessing what will happen next, but he falters whenever it comes to giving Jake any kind of street savvy. This would be fine if Jake’s crimes from his youth don’t get mentioned so often. So limited are his basic survival instincts, and so few specifics are given about what Jake did that landed him in juvenile detention, one can almost conclude he simply got caught passing notes during class at a very strict private school. Luckily, this doesn’t completely derail the story because the author keeps throwing in twists. Jake’s bewilderment about his situation is shared by the reader, resulting in a quick read that will keep you guessing right up to the end.

Buy it now from Amazon| Buy from IndieBound

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Winners of Erin Morgenstern’s THE NIGHT CIRCUS

Random.org selected the following names:

Nicki
Michael

Congrats! You both get a copy of the book, courtesy of Doubleday. Please use this contact form to let me know where the publisher should ship it. No P.O. boxes. If I don’t hear from you before Friday, Oct. 28 at noon PST, alternate name(s) will be chosen.

Thank you all for entering, and for sharing the amazing feats of magic you’ve encountered.

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VENGEANCE Blog Tour: U IS FOR UNDERTOW Review + Excerpt of V

We’re now in the final week of Sue Grafton’s Vengeance Blog Tour, leading up to the November 14 release of her latest, V is for Vengeance. Ten bloggers are reviewing the last five titles in the Kinsey Millhone series, and I’m happy to reintroduce U is for Undertow to you by re-posting my review from two years ago when the book first came out.

After the review, you’ll get the ninth excerpt from V as part of the sneak peek revealed on the tour, plus links to where you can read the other excerpts and to a contest with a generous prize package from Penguin.

Enjoy!

****

U is for Undertow Review

I’ve been reading Sue Grafton for a quarter century now, starting in high school when I found her books in the school library (I spent a lot of time there). I devoured the A through C Kinsey Millhone adventures like an ex-con having his first meal on the outside. Over the years the books were uneven, which is understandable with a long series, but I kept reading out of obligation, as if Kinsey had become an old friend whose imperfections I accepted. I listened to her tales even if she rambled a little.

I was thrilled, then, to find her latest adventure, U is for Undertow, utterly captivating. After only a few pages, I knew Kinsey was back on track and I could dive in out of pure pleasure.

The case begins when Kinsey is approached by a young man named Michael Sutton who suddenly remembers something that happened when he was six years old. At the time, Sutton attached no significance to the incident but, after reading a newspaper article about an unsolved 21-year-old kidnapping of a little girl, he believes what he saw were two people burying the child.

After Sutton hires Kinsey to investigate, the story moves back and forth between 1988 (Kinsey’s present) and 1967, when the kidnapping occurred. Grafton deftly juggles multiple POVs; besides Kinsey’s, the author doles out pieces of the puzzle from the perspectives of several characters who are directly and tangentially involved in the crime, painting a full-bodied portrait of each. The plot turns in unpredictable directions and though it might be obvious early on who did it, Grafton keeps you guessing about the why.

The case is complex enough to keep Kinsey busy, but she’s also grappling with personal issues after making startling discoveries about her past which destroy her long-held perceptions of certain family members. Because the books are told in first person and I’ve sided with Kinsey for years against the relatives who abandoned her as a child, these new revelations threw me for a loop as well. Kinsey won’t be able to change overnight but at the end of this book, she takes brave, hopeful steps towards what could be an extreme life makeover.

Nerd verdict: Strong Undertow will pull you in

Continuing down the alphabet, below is the ninth excerpt from V is for Vengeance. You might first want to read part 1 at Lesa’s Book Critiques, pt. 2 at Jen’s Book Thoughts, pt. 3 at Book Reviews by Elizabeth A. White, pt. 4 at Linus’s Blanket, pt. 5 at Devourer of Books, pt. 6 at Kittling: Books, pt. 7 at BermudaOnion’s Weblog, and pt. 8 at Jenn’s Bookshelves. Reviews of books Q through T can also be found there. On Thursday, drop by Booking Mama, who will wrap up the blog tour with another review of U and the final V excerpt.

If you leave a comment on all ten participating blogs, you’ll be eligible to win one of three sets of the Q through U books, plus a copy of V is for Vengeance, courtesy of Penguin. US/Canada residents only.

V: Excerpt #9

The younger woman pressed the down button repeatedly as though to speed the arrival of the car. The elevator doors opened and two pregnant mothers emerged side by side, pushing strollers ahead of them. The younger woman pushed her way past them, and one turned to look at her with annoyance. Another shopper approached in haste and called out, not wanting the doors to close before she had a chance to get on. One of the pregnant women reached back and put a hand against the doors to stall their closure. The shopper smiled gratefully as she stepped in, murmuring her thanks. The elevator doors closed as the two pregnant women ambled off toward infant and children’s wear.

I made a beeline for the ﬁre exit, laid one hip against the push-bar, and entered the stairwell. I went down as rapidly as possible, dropping two steps at a time while I calculated the younger woman’s escape alternatives. She could take the elevator as far as the second ﬂoor or the ﬁrst, or proceed all the way down to the basement level, where the parking garage was located. If she realized I was on her tail, she might leave the elevator on 2 and take the escalator up to 3 again, in hopes of throwing me off course. On the other hand, she probably wanted to get out of the store as quickly as possible, which made the ﬁrst ﬂoor the obvious choice. Once she slipped into the busy mall, she could doff the white linen jacket and the red beret and hurry away, knowing there was no chance I’d reach the exit doors before she’d been swallowed into the crowd. I reached the second-ﬂoor landing and used the railing as a pivot as I took the next ﬂight down, mufﬂed footsteps echoing as I ran. Another possibility occurred to me as I galloped down the stairs. If she’d arrived at the store with an eye to a leisurely day of thieving, she might have wanted her car handy, with a trunk capacious enough to accommodate multiple shopping bags stuffed with stolen goods. How many times had I seen shoppers dropping bags off at the car before returning to the mall?

I rounded the landing at the ﬁrst ﬂoor and bypassed the exit as I sped toward the parking garage. I took the ﬁnal short ﬂight of stairs in two leaps. The door at the bottom opened into a small carpeted lobby with ofﬁces visible behind a set of glass doors. The exit doors slid open as I reached them and then politely closed behind me. I paused to take in the vast underground garage. I was standing in a dead-end bay, circumscribed by a short loop of parking spaces coveted because of their proximity to the store’s entrance. I’ve watched cars circle endlessly, hoping to snag one of these treasured slots. Now all of them were taken and there was no sign of backing-out taillights to suggest a vacancy coming due.

V may stand for vengeance in Kinsey’s world, but what does the letter represent in your life right now? Leave a comment and you might win a set of books!

For more information on Sue and her upcoming in-person tour, visit her Facebook page.

Pre-order V from Amazon| Pre-order from IndieBound

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Movie Review: MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE

I’ll admit it: If I’d known ahead of time this movie (limited release, Oct. 21) is about a young woman struggling to survive her cult experience, I probably wouldn’t have rushed out to the screening sponsored by the L.A. Times. Elizabeth Olsen (the famous twins’ younger sister) stars as the titular character, who escapes from a cult in the Catskills at the beginning of the movie and goes to live with her sister, Lucy (Sarah Paulson) and brother-in-law, Ted (Hugh Dancy). Martha doesn’t want to talk about the years she fell out of touch with Lucy and insists she’s fine, that she was simply living with a boyfriend who lied to her and now it’s over. But of course it’s not, as we see the damage gradually emerging and threatening her ability to move on.

Olsen has received lots of buzz since the movie premiered at Sundance and she deserves it. She seems effortless and completely guileless in a role that’s difficult to pull off due to Martha’s capriciousness. The movie incorporates flashbacks to show what happened to her (writer/director Sean Durkin, who did Q & A afterward, said they’re not really flashbacks since Martha’s past and present are all jumbled together in her mind) but it’s always clear when each scene took place because there was much more innocence in Martha’s face before she was ruined by Patrick (John Hawkes), the cult leader. The performance is more striking considering that when Olsen came out (more like she bounced/skipped out) to do the Q &A, she was bubbly and smart and confident, not the first person you’d think of to play a mousy girl in search of herself.

Paulson is also impressive as the sister who desperately wants to know Martha’s secrets but is scared of driving her away again. Lucy’s benign smiles can’t cover up the frustration she feels from being unable to communicate with Martha. Hawkes, after Winter’s Bone, risks being Hollywood’s go-to creepy dude, but he’s so good and oddly charismatic that it’s hard to imagine someone else being more effective.

Durkin can be commended for eliciting strong performances from the cast and for using restraint, allowing the audience to fill in the more disturbing aspects. But his pacing is contemplative since most of the conflicts are internal. Sometimes the score is a little too heavy-handed, as if it were shouting, “Creepy scene alert!” through a bullhorn. And the ambiguous ending…well, it’s hardly satisfying but it’ll certainly stimulate discussions afterward.

Nerd verdict: Finely acted film that May anger and/or disturb you

Photo: Jody Lee Lipes/Twentieth Century Fox

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