Pop Culture Nerd – Page 9 – Pop Culture Nerd

Nerdy Special List May 2016

Every month I think the list is the best one ever, and May is no different. We read lots and lots of books, and only our top faves make the cut.

Here are the new releases we recommend.

From Jen at Jen’s Book Thoughts:

Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman (Atria, May 3)

Fredrik Backman earns a hat trick with his third novel, Britt-Marie Was Here. This witty, heartwarming, all-around charming novel features sixtysomething, recently separated Britt-Marie. Those familiar with My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry will recognize the character from Elsa’s apartment complex, but that’s the only connection to Backman’s second book.

Britt-Marie takes place in a rundown town hit hard by the economic crash, and Britt-Marie is there to fill the position of recreation center caretaker. In the short time of her employment, the persnickety woman worms her way into the hearts of the town’s remaining citizens, especially a rag-tag bunch of kids making up the soccer team.

Like Backman’s two books before this, Britt-Marie Was Here induces laughter, tears, and enlightenment. His clever humor and profound yet simple insights about life will find their ways into readers’ hearts and souls. Britt-Marie has to learn to look at the world differently in this novel, and as Backman helps her to do that, he helps his audience to do the same. Stunningly brilliant! [Ed. note: Jen will be interviewing Backman at Anderson’s Bookshop Naperville on May 12!]

The Second Life of Nick Mason by Steve Hamilton (Putnam, May 17)

Steve Hamilton breaks from his Alex McKnight series and introduces Nick Mason. Mason was in prison for murdering a federal agent, but Darius Cole, a Chicago crime boss—and fellow inmate—makes Mason’s conviction go away. He’s free and clear, no probation, no record, nothing…except the deal he made with Cole to achieve his liberation.

Mason must work for Cole for the 20 years that were remaining on his prison sentence. Mason believes this deal is worth the trade in order to be able to see his daughter again. However, Mason may have been mistaken.

Hamilton kicks off his new series with an intense and exciting story. It’s a fresh concept in an increasingly crowded genre. Sharp dialogue, flashy cars, fascinating characters…and a dog! I’m looking forward to seeing where this series goes.

From Rory at Fourth Street Review:

The Atomic Weight of Love by Elizabeth J. Church (Algonquin, May 3)

Meridian Wallace is a brilliant student studying to be an ornithologist when she meets a physics professor and falls in love. Early in their relationship, he moves to the remote southwest to work on a top secret project.

Putting her dreams on hold, she follows him and takes on the traditional role of wife, not scientist. As she feels her dreams slipping away and finds herself fading into the background, she meets a young hippie Vietnam veteran who changes her life.

Spanning decades, The Atomic Weight of Love is the tale of one woman’s both ordinary and extraordinary life. From atomic bombs to a failing marriage to the lives of crows, Meridian’s story is a pleasure to read.

Comparable to Elizabeth Gilbert’s The Signature of All Things, Elizabeth J. Church’s debut novel is a moving, science-minded tale of the roles women were relegated to in midcentury America, yet it doesn’t get bogged down in it. It is an insightful, notable debut. I’m excited to see what the author does next.

From Erin at In Real Life:

Wilde Lake by Laura Lippman (William Morrow, May 3)

Secrets are powerful, perhaps never more so than when kept within a family. Truth is often a gray, fuzzy line. Sometimes we seek answers, but in the words of One of Those Songs from the 1980s, it’s the questions we have wrong.

Like her father before her, Lu Brandt is the state’s attorney of Howard County, Maryland. She lives in her childhood home and her roots in the community are deep. When she takes on the case of the murder of a waitress, she finds herself coming face to face with secrets from her own past that she had no idea existed.

I’ve long been a fan of Lippman’s stories. Her latest is quite different from her series books, and has rightfully been called out among her best work. It is being heralded as character driven, and it certainly is, but I also enjoyed the maze-like plot.

If you’ve never read Lippman, this is a fine book to start with. If you have, it will not disappoint.

From Lauren at Malcolm Avenue Review:

Don’t You Cry by Mary Kubica (MIRA, May 17)

Mary Kubica is quickly becoming one of my favorite multi-POV authors. This time, the reader is tossed between Quinn and Alex—Quinn an admittedly flawed twentysomething who wakes one morning in her Chicago apartment to find her beautiful, smart, church-going roommate Esther missing; Alex an 18-year-old living an hour away from Quinn in Michigan, working as a dishwasher and trying to keep his alcoholic father afloat.

When a mysterious stranger appears in the diner where Alex works, he falls hard and begins trying to find out who she is and what she’s doing in his small, seemingly boring town. Kubica uses Quinn and Alex to wind around both mysteries and ultimately bring them together in a satisfying conclusion.

Kubica has a great knack for leading readers’ judgment about her characters, only to turn those conclusions on their head. Despite knowing that, she gets me every time. Don’t You Cry isn’t perfect, but it’s a fun, twisty ride.

From PCN:

City of the Lost by Kelley Armstrong (Minotaur, May 3)

It’s been almost four years since I found a book that made me stand in the hall in the middle of the night to finish reading, and City of the Lost had me doing that again. It is addictively good, more so than potato chips and you know I love potato chips.

Detective Casey Duncan admits right in the first sentence that she killed a man, and is quick to add it was neither an accident nor job related. And she got away with it.

Her friend Diana, the only person who knows Casey’s secret, is not so tough. Diana is desperate to escape from a violent ex-husband who won’t let her go. She persuades Casey to move with her to a remote town called Rockton in the wilds of Canada where people live off the grid because most of them are hiding from something or something.

Turns out Rockton isn’t safe at all, because residents are being murdered. Cut off from resources and modern technology, Casey, aided only by the town’s sheriff and his deputy, must try to stop the killing before they are terminated. Hopefully you’ll get Lost in this book like I did.

Which May releases are you looking forward to?

6 Comments

CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR Movie Review

Marvel

Do you have superhero fatigue? Were you tempted to skip this post when you saw the title? What if I told you the movie is terrific?

Which is what I’m doing. Captain America: Civil War is one big bundle of entertainment, something that other recent superhero movie decidedly was not.

Also unlike that other superhero movie: the feud between Captain America and friends makes sense. After the heavy collateral damage that occurred in the Avengers movies, world governments want oversight of the heroes, to monitor and approve their involvements in combat. Some agree to the arrangement, others do not. Hence the discord.

The best conflicts are ones in which neither side is all wrong or all right, and that’s how it is here. Each hero has valid arguments for the side he/she chooses, because they’ve all come from different places—and time, in Cap’s case—and lived different lives. What makes it painful for them is that they really don’t want to fight. They plead and remind one another they’re friends, but ultimately feel they have no choice because each believes his/her position is just.

By now these seasoned actors know exactly what they’re doing in their respective roles, and the group is a well-oiled machine. There are many characters but each has moments to shine. Their chemistry and banter are tight.

But hey, here comes the new guy, joining the Avengers on screen for the first time.

As soon as he appeared, from behind—just his butt, really, walking down the hall—I yelled, “Spideyyy!” It was actually Peter Parker, but, you know, same difference.

I have liked Tom Holland since I saw him play Naomi Watts’s son in The Impossible, so when the announcement came about his being cast as the new Spider-Man, I thought it was a great choice, much better than Andrew Garfield.

And Holland delivers in Civil War. His Chatty-Cathy Spidey is endearing, especially during fight scenes, when all the other heroes are busy throwing punches and no one wants to converse with the young webslinger.

Let’s talk about the fight scenes. I’ve become inured to them in heavily CGI’d action flicks, and they’ve all started looking the same to me. Boom! Pow! Crash! What else is new?

But one pivotal fight scene in this movie—the one at an airport—made me say, “Whoa!” It caused my eyes to go big and gave me that sense of wonder I used to get at the movies as a kid, that feeling I wasn’t sure I’d ever experience again since I’m now old and jaded. As I was sitting there smiling, Civil War threw in a Star Wars reference. My poor nerdy brain could barely handle it.

Oh, and the Stan Lee cameo? Best one ever. He made me laugh out loud.

This movie is a great big bang-up, with very few hang-ups, and like a streak of light, these heroes arrive just in time.

Nerd verdict: America the wonderful

11 Comments

Book Review: I LET YOU GO by Clare Mackintosh

One minute, a five-year-old boy is walking home with his mother. The next, he’s dead, hit by a car after letting go of his mother’s hand to run ahead. As if the situation weren’t nightmarish enough, the driver takes off without stopping.

Detective Inspector Ray Stevens of the Bristol Criminal Investigations Division catches the case, along with his junior officer, Detective Constable Kate Evans. Though Stevens has developed coping mechanisms to deal with the heartrending situations he encounters at work—“If he thought too long about how it must feel to watch your child die in your arms, he would be no use to anyone”—Kate, new to CID, is upset by little Jacob’s death.

Jenna Gray is also shattered by the car accident. Mourning her son, she leaves her house one day and hops on a bus with no destination in mind, wanting only to get lost. She ends up in a remote Welsh seaside town called Penfach, rents a rundown cottage, and starts rebuilding her life where no one knows who she is or anything about her devastating past.

Months pass, and there’s still no arrest in the hit-and-run that killed Jacob, despite all the attention it receives, with the little boy’s picture splashed on the front pages of newspapers. Though long ordered by the chief constable to close the case, Kate keeps working on it on her own time, and eventually convinces Ray to review the old files, too.

Then, to mark the one-year anniversary of Jacob’s death, the police make a public appeal for any new information. The appeal results in a tenuous lead for the car, but Ray and Kate work it until they have a solid clue about the guilty driver’s identity.

What happens next upends Jenna’s life, for nothing is as it appears, and the cops find they’re far from closing the case.

It’s hard to believe I Let You Go is Mackintosh’s debut novel because it’s so assured. From plotting to characterizations, the author skillfully takes readers inside the frustrations of police officers trying to solve a high-profile case with very little information to go on, and on the flip side, what a mother’s grief looks like when she loses a child.

Jenna’s ordeal is raw, but she’s a riveting character, at once fragile and resilient, from whom it’s hard to look away. Readers will be fully invested in the emotional journey she goes on, keenly feeling her open wounds and tentative hope as she tries to forget her past and move on.

Ray and Kate are engaging characters, too, providing the yin and yang of the investigation–he the veteran rediscovering the hunger he used to have as a young detective (“I like to have [the victim’s photo] where I can see it…. Where I can’t forget what I’m doing, why I’m working these hours, who it’s all for”), and she the newbie whose idealism lights a fire in her senior partner.

She also sparks feelings in Ray that aren’t entirely platonic, which is problematic since he’s married with children. (How Kate handles the situation is refreshingly free of neuroses.) To add to Ray’s turmoil, it seems his son is being bullied at school. All this provides well-rounded pictures of the police behind the procedural and realistic rhythms in their dialogue, perhaps owing to the fact that Mackintosh spent 12 years as a police officer herself.

There is a third narrator who adds a whole other angle to the case, but saying any more would spoil the story.

The author doesn’t just conjure up memorable characters and gripping plots; her settings ring true. Penfach—with the cliff-strewn coastline—and its people are warm and hard, breathtaking for their beauty and harshness. It makes perfect sense for Jenna to choose it as a place to run away to, someplace that might allow her to heal but perhaps not let her forget the jagged edges of her pain.

Mackintosh is very good at keeping readers ensnared in suspense. The denouement includes one too many twists that is neither necessary nor surprising, but even then, the book refuses to let readers go.

The most impressive feat Mackintosh pulls off is the bombshell that’s on the level of the movie The Sixth Sense for its cleverness. Readers who say they saw it coming are most likely fibbing. The revelation is so good, readers might want to reread I Let You Go to see how it changes their perceptions—even the title takes on different interpretations—and whether or not the twist holds up. It does. This kind of sharp, cunning writing makes one eagerly look forward to Mackintosh’s next novel.

This review originally appeared in a Maximum Shelf Awareness issue and is reprinted here with permission.

5 Comments

Book Review: Suzanne Rindell’s THREE-MARTINI LUNCH

It’s 1958, New York City.

Cliff Nelson is a Hemingway wannabe who feels destined to be a famous writer, if only his editor father would help him—and if he could get some ideas for great stories.

Eden Katz, fresh from Indiana, wants desperately to be an editor, but encounters prejudices because of her gender and surname.

Miles is a poor Harlem kid who attended Columbia on a scholarship. He has raw writing talent and gripping stories to tell, but struggles with personal crises that threaten to destroy him.

These characters’ paths collide in Suzanne Rindell’s Three-Martini Lunch.

Rindell (The Other Typist) evocatively captures the city—and the publishing world—as the Beat Generation takes hold. Her descriptions and dialogue have realistic rhythms, and readers can almost hear jazz playing in the background.

The distinctively voiced narrators are engaging, although Cliff becomes barely tolerable after he starts complaining about his (lack of) career while not doing the work. He enjoys white male privileges and yet has the fewest accomplishments to show. But that’s Rindell’s point: stop whining and earn your success.

Eden is much more interesting, but unfortunately her chapters get shorter and shorter toward the end of the novel, as if her point of view becomes less valuable. Miles’s story is heartrending, though that’s expected because of the era’s intolerance.

Three-Martini Lunch is profoundly sad, while perhaps making readers glad society has changed since the 1950s. Or, considering the current political and social climate, maybe the melancholia comes from wondering, has much progress been made?

This review originally appeared in Shelf Awareness for Readers and is reprinted here with permission.

1 Comments

Binge TV Reviews: THE NIGHT GRANTCHESTER and HAPPY THORNE-y KIMMY SCHMIDT

For the last two months, I’ve been binge-watching several shows and they all happened to be British series…until Kimmy Schmidt returned for her second season last Friday on Netflix. Here are some overall thoughts on these shows’ entire seasons.

Des Willie, The Ink Factory/AMC

The Night Manager (starts April 19 on AMC)

Based on John le Carré’s novel of the same name, this 6-episode thriller stars Tom Hiddleston as the titular hotel manager and Hugh Laurie as arms dealer Richard Roper, whom the manager is determined to take down with the help of a spy played by Broadchurch‘s Olivia Coleman.

The pilot is very good, and sets up the reason for Jonathan Pine, the manager, wanting revenge. The second ep lags a bit when Angela the spy is convincing Jonathan to work with her, then he spends time creating his legend to go undercover and gain Roper’s trust. Once he’s in, the suspense ratchets back up.

As expected, the acting is top-notch. It’s entertaining to see Laurie play a full-on villain so effortlessly, but maybe Roper’s just an extreme version of Dr. House, who was not a nice guy, either. Coleman is always welcome on my TV screen, and here she’s as tough as ever despite her character being pregnant (the pregnancy was real).

Hiddleston deftly handles Jonathan’s arc from regular guy to hesitant spy to someone who shouldn’t be messed with. And his fans should have lots to discuss when they get an eyeful of him. I’ll just leave it at that.

One of the most commendable aspects of the series is that there are no bimbos, even when showcasing rich businessmen and their arm candy. The women are more substantial than how they first appear.

I’d never seen Elizabeth Debicki before her performance as Roper’s lover Jed, but standing at almost six foot three, she’s a towering presence. Jed and Jonathan were responsible for Mr. PCN and me screaming at the TV because they do some dumb things, but for the most part, the story and direction are solid.

Nerd verdict: Tense Night

ITV1

Grantchester season 2 (PBS, Sunday nights)

This series, based on the novels by James Runcie, is as cozy as a warm blanket on a rainy day. Most of its charm comes from James Norton’s portrayal of vicar Sidney Chambers, a charismatic do-gooder who reveals rougher edges this season. His friendship with DI Geordie (Robson Green) is strained due to a disagreement on a case that serves as the seasonal arc, though the two also solve standalone mysteries each episode.

Sidney becomes more interesting as more colors are shown, but I found some of Geordie’s actions troubling, especially in the second ep when he allows torture of a suspect. I thought the friendship should’ve been more strained, because I couldn’t imagine Sidney continuing to hang out with a man he saw being cruel.

Al Weaver as Leonard and Tessa Peake-Jones as the housekeeper, Mrs. Maguire, continue to delight as they get their own personal arcs. Morven Christie, however, has less to do this season as Sidney’s childhood friend Amanda.

Though now married, Amanda continues to visit Sidney but she isn’t well integrated into the storylines. It’s as if the producers were contractually obligated to include the actress in a minimum number of scenes per episode, but they weren’t required to give her anything to do. The season finale will probably make most fans cheer, but I didn’t think it was a good idea.

Nerd verdict: Bucolic Grantchester

Netflix

Happy Valley season 2 (Netflix)

As much as I adore James Norton in Grantchester, I loathe his character in Happy Valley, and that’s a testament to the actor’s talent. He sports a closed-shaved head this season as rapist/murderer Tommy Lee Royce, the polar opposite of Sidney Chambers. Tommy seduces/brainwashes a vulnerable woman to help him get back at police sergeant Catherine Cawood for what she did to him last season.

The woman, Frances, is played by Shirley Henderson, perhaps best known as Moaning Myrtle from the Harry Potter movies. She may look harmless but she insidiously causes emotional damage in Catherine’s relationship with her grandson.

What makes Catherine a riveting character is that she’s surprising. There were moments when I expected her to explode in anger—heck, I probably would have—but she instead proceeds with kindness or uses an approach that’s more effective with a suspect than intimidation tactics. She’s very good at her job, and so is Sarah Lancashire, who plays her.

Also returning is Charlie Murphy as Ann Gallagher, now a rookie cop while still dealing with the aftermath of last season’s events. Ann is smart and more resilient than people expect, and Murphy is wonderful to watch, but when Ann develops an interest in a much older man with no clear redeeming qualities, my heart sank. Ann could do so much better.

Nerd verdict: Gripping Valley

Doctor Thorne

Downton Abbey‘s Julian Fellowes adapted Anthony Trollope’s novel into this series starring Tom Hollander as a 19th-century country doctor raising his niece Mary alone after her father—Thorne’s brother—dies. (Mary was conceived during an affair and her mother, married to a man other than Thorne’s brother, was forced to abandon her.)

Mary and her childhood friend Frank are in love, but Mary is destitute and Frank’s mother forbids him to marry her. His family desperately needs money to save their estate, so Frank’s mother wants him to hook up with an older American heiress instead. Complications ensue, but since there are only 3 episodes, plotlines are resolved quickly. The story is predictable, but the journey is entertaining and the ending is satisfying.

Just like how James Norton makes me adore him in one series and detest him in another, Tom Hollander is nasty in The Night Manager but sympathetic here as the wise doctor. You won’t find guys like Norton and Hollander (and Hiddleston) always playing the same character the way some actors do.

I was surprised to discover Stefani Martini has only one prior credit on IMDb before playing Mary. She has talent and a graceful screen presence; I bet she’ll rack up more credits soon.

It’s dismaying to see Alison Brie play American heiress Miss Dunstable, a woman considered a homely spinster. The actress is 33 but looks like someone in her late 20s and she’s attractive. At least Miss Dunstable is confident and sharp witted, and Brie seems to have enjoyed playing the character quite a bit.

Nerd verdict: Predictable but enjoyable Thorne

Netflix

Unbreakable Kimmy Shmidt season 2 (Netflix)

Instead of being all stressed about taxes last Friday, I was squealing with joy because new episodes of Kimmy Schmidt became available. Of course I watched all 13 eps in one day.

Season 2 is even quirkier, with non-sequitur jokes coming fast and furious. You might have to do much rewinding to catch them all. Not all the jokes landed, but when they did, I laughed loud and long.

The good things:

Kimmy is finally dealing with her bunker experience. The process is very funny, but her breakthroughs do have emotional truths.

Titus has a new boyfriend named Mikey and the two are really sweet together, despite Titus’s efforts to sabotage the relationship because he fears happiness.

Tina Fey has a prominent role as a drunk lady who meets Kimmy and ends up making a difference in Kimmy’s life. This role is much funnier than Fey’s Marcia Clark-like character from last season.

One episode features several songs that sound like popular songs but aren’t, so that producers can avoid pesky copyright issues. So we get Dusk Mountie singing “Brother Baptist” instead of Night Ranger’s “Sister Christian,” and “I’m Convinced I Can Swim” in place of “I Believe I Can Fly.”

Titus sings more this season, and his voice is astounding.

The bad:

Dong is back, and still not speaking in anything close to a Vietnamese accent. It just sounds like some generic Asian accent. Imagine someone using a vague European accent to play an Italian character. Hey, as long as the accent comes from somewhere on the continent, that’s good enough. Don’t bother getting specific or anything. And when Dong speaks Vietnamese? Forget about it. I couldn’t understand a word and had to read the subtitles. Why is it so hard to do some research and represent Vietnamese people accurately?

At one point, Titus does a one-man show in yellow face. I might have to write a whole other post to address that and Scarlett Johansson playing Japanese in Ghost in the Shell.

Carol Kane’s subplot involving Lilian fighting gentrification of her neighborhood is not funny. i can’t get behind her rejecting recycling and thinking graffiti is good. I guess that makes me one of the hipsters Lillian dislikes.

Nerd verdict: Still funny, still flawed

1 Comments

Movie Review: THE JUNGLE BOOK

Disney

The first question I asked when I went into a screening of Disney’s live-action remake of The Jungle Book was: Is this a musical? The answer: No.

Fine by me.

My second question was: Will “The Bare Necessities” be in it? Yes.

OK, good, I was ready to go.

Though the original was not one of my favorite Disney movies, this new version is both more fun and darker, which I welcomed. For those unfamiliar with the 1967 version and Rudyard Kipling’s stories, Jungle Book is about a little boy named Mowgli who’s orphaned and raised in the jungle by a family of wolves, and mentored by a panther named Bagheera.

Shere Khan, a tiger, wants to kill Mowgli before the boy can grow into a man who can hunt and kill animals. To escape the wrath of Khan, Mowgli must travel through the jungle to man’s village and rejoin his people. Along the way he meets several characters, both friend and foe.

In the friend camp is Baloo the bear, voiced by Bill Murray. Up until Baloo’s appearance (later here than in the animated version), the film is poignant (Mowgli saying goodbye to his wolf mom, Raksha) and intense, with a death and a stampede scene that recalls the one from The Lion King. Just as I was thinking, “Ohmygosh, Disney films are disturbing!” Baloo shows up, throwing out a quip a minute.

Initially I found this change in tone jarring, but then I realized director Jon Favreau probably knew what the audience would be thinking by that point and delivered the comic relief exactly when it’s needed. Murray’s performance quickly grew on me, and by the time he’s singing “Bare Necessities” with Neel Sethi, who plays Mowgli, Baloo was my best friend, too.

The other animals are also well voiced. In Zootopia, Idris Elba showed he could be disagreeable as Captain Bogo. Here, he kicks it up a notch as Shere Khan, and his low, resonant tones are as smooth as they’re menacing.

Another actor from a previous Disney hit is Lupita Nyong’o. Though she never appears on screen in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, her voice performance makes Maz Kanata a standout. Her voice work here as Raksha, Mowli’s adoptive mother, is also noteworthy.

Kaa the snake is female in this version, seductively voiced by Scarlett Johansson, who also sings the hypnotic “Trust in Me” over the end credits. Sir Ben Kingsley infuses Bagheera with the appropriate authority, and Christopher Walken has King Louie talking like someone from the Bronx. It was so odd I laughed throughout his scene, and I’m still not sure whether or not I was meant to.

Sethi, who apparently won the role of Mowgli over thousands of other kids, is making his film debut here. He has the confidence to carry the movie, but at times he comes off more contemporary than primitive. Some lines are laced with sarcasm and sass, which made me think, “Where did Mowgli learn that?” Not from the animals who raised him. It’s as if the jungle boy has been influenced by tweens at the mall.

One of the best things about the movie is Bill Pope’s sumptuous cinematography, which immersed me in Mowgli’s world, a place with equal parts wonder and danger. CGI often takes me out of a scene, but here it’s used so well that when the end credits rolled, I was startled to see where this movie was filmed.

So, have I given you a clue? I’ll tell you something true: Forget about your worries and let the pleasures of this movie come to you.

Nerd verdict: Delightful Jungle

1 Comments

Nerdy Special List April 2016

I’m so excited April is here, because not only is it my birthday month, about 93 people I know and love also have birthdays. There will be lots of celebrating ’round here! (With loads of cake and ice cream, of course.) On top of that, Kimmy Schmidt and Amy Schumer return this month to our TV screens and I’m ready for some serious laughs.

April is also a fab month for books. Below are the new releases my blogger friends and I recommend.

From Jen at Jen’s Book Thoughts:

King Maybe by Timothy Hallinan (Soho Crime, April 12)

Timothy Hallinan’s fifth Junior Bender mystery involves a lot of burglary and bad luck, with a few murders thrown in for good measure.

A Hollywood has-been producer has a bone to pick with Junior. He tells Junior they’ll be square if Junior breaks into the office of “King Maybe,” a studio exec who holds people’s lives—or at least their entertainment aspirations—in his hands.

The producer wants to know if King Maybe is planning to steal his movie idea. It’ll be 10 minutes in the office, the producer promises. But that isn’t quite how things work out for Junior.

Smart, funny, and captivating, this caper is exciting and insightful. The complex plot, the fascinating characters, and Hallinan’s astonishing gift with the English language make this an absolute must for mystery fans. No matter if you’ve read the first four books in this series or not, you can pick up King Maybe and enjoy it from start to finish.

From Rory at Fourth Street Review:

The Exiled by Christopher Charles (Mulholland Books, April 19)

Have you ever picked up a book outside your typical reading genre for quite a few unconnected reasons? I do not, typically, but one of my latest reads, The Exiled, was just such a case.

First, I recently took a road trip to West Texas (from Denver) by way of Alamogordo, NM (I’ll save you the trouble of looking; it’s in very, very southern New Mexico). Those of you familiar with your southwestern American geography know I drove almost the entire length of New Mexico, north to south. It’s barren, rural, and can be brutally hot, but I was quite taken with the countryside.

Second, two of my favorite authors recommended the book—Frank Bill and Patrick deWitt. And third, the author’s short bio said Charles, pseudonym for Chris Narozny, resides in Denver, meaning we are practically neighbors!

Although these reasons have very little actual reasoning behind them, they were enough to make me pick up the book. It’s a good thing, because it’s excellent.

The Exiled is set in rural New Mexico, the home of Wes Raney, a former homicide cop who made one too many bad choices while working undercover in New York. Choices that cost him his job and his family.

As punishment, he is exiled to a two-hundred-mile stretch of southwestern desert. Solitude suits him, but he’s thrown right back into his old mindset when a grisly murder scene is discovered in an underground bunker.

Although the novel works well as a mystery, Raney’s character is so well developed and gripping that Exiled could simply function as a character study, with strong hints of crime. Intense, spare, and gritty, it’s a first-rate page turner that I flew through in two days.

The Exiled is for anyone who loves a good detective novel where the detective isn’t so good, and for those who appreciate a strong story with strong writing—and a fair amount of blood.

From Erin at In Real Life:

Quiet Neighbors by Catriona McPherson (Midnight Ink, April 8)

Imagine your last trip to a bookstore you love—wouldn’t it be nice to have stayed there? Now imagine it’s a small, old store in a quaint Scottish village, and the proprietor offers you a job and a place to live when you’ve recently left your whole life behind. That’s what happens to Jude in Catriona McPherson’s latest standalone novel, Quiet Neighbors.

It turns out that the titular neighbors are anything but quiet. Everyone has secrets, even the young woman who arrives not long after Jude does and pronounces herself to be the bookshop owner’s daughter.

The town itself has secrets, too, and when Jude starts poking around into the darker corners of the past and present, she finds some of them are downright dangerous. And this is before we even get to the secrets Jude herself keeps.

There’s a lot to love about this book: an enchanting setting, a cast of characters with each more fascinating than the last, and a web of stories that will make you sad to reach the last page. McPherson has already proven she’s a masterful storyteller (if you haven’t read her previous books, you should!), and Quiet Neighbors is a classic mystery whose complexities are a joy to read.

From Lauren at Malcolm Avenue Review:

I Will Find You: A Reporter Investigates the Life of the Man Who Raped Her by Joanna Connors (Atlantic Monthly Press, April 5)

As you can guess from the title, this is neither a light read nor an easy one. It is a powerful and important one.

Author/journalist Connors was raped at age 30 while on assignment for her newspaper. She then lived for more than 20 years, mostly in silence, under the weight of all that was forced on her. With her daughter about to go off to college, Connors was moved to tell her children about her rape.

Her disclosure leads to a painful and emotional journey to find out more about the man who raped her, in the hopes of understanding a bit about the whys and hows and perhaps taming some of her demons along the way.

I Will Find You is an inseparable mix of reporter on assignment and woman on a mission. It provides insight not only into rape culture, but race, abuse, and power. It’s a story of survival and adaptation, written with the care of a journalist and the emotion of someone forever changed by violence. Connors not only discovers more about her rapist, but about herself.

From Patti at Patti’s Pen & Picks:

The Body in the Wardrobe by Katherine Hall Page (William Morrow, April 26)

This is the second good book I’ve read by Katherine Hall Page in as many months. The Body in the Birches introduces Sophie Maxwell as a second amateur sleuth to series heroine Faith Fairchild. I loved both of these books.

In Wardrobe, Sophie is adjusting to a new life in Savannah, Georgia, and Faith Fairchild is dealing with her daughter and school bullying, along with the possibility of moving to a new parish.

Because of Faith’s experience with dead bodies and mysteries, Sophie calls her when she finds a body in a wardrobe in the house where she’s staying. These books demonstrate a solid friendship between the two women, which I really enjoyed.

I had taken a break from reading this series [ed. note: this is book 23], and I’m either going to start at the beginning, or just go back and read what I’ve missed. Highly recommended!

From PCN:

Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld (Random House, April 19)

I took this book home last Christmas and devoured it in two days, despite the holidays being insanely hectic. And it’s 500+ pages. I just couldn’t get my nose unglued from it, a testament to Sittenfeld’s skill since I already knew how things end up for Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. Or, rather, Liz and Dr. Darcy, as they are in this modern interpretation of the Jane Austen classic.

Liz writes for a women’s magazine and Jane is a yoga instructor, both in New York City. The sisters return home to Cincinnati when Mr. Bennet has a health scare. There they meet Chip Bingley, a recently transplanted doctor. He’s also a minor celebrity after his stint as a bachelor on the dating show Eligible, though he failed to choose a “soul mate” on the season finale.

His romantic luck changes when he meets Jane, but the same can’t be said for Bingley’s neurosurgeon friend Fitzwilliam Darcy, whose snobbish behavior toward Cincinnati and its residents repels the feisty Liz. What follows is a story both familiar and fresh, contemporary and classic. It doesn’t matter whether or not you’ve read Austen or Sittenfeld or neither. Eligible is a thoroughly charming read for anyone who appreciates sharp, witty writing.

******

On a related note, Jen featured me at Jen’s Book Thoughts as part of her photo series showing where her readers are reading. In my picture, I’m reading another notable April book, Michael Robotham’s Close Your Eyes. As for where I am, you can go there and see.

Which April books are you looking forward to?

4 Comments

Book Review: THE WATCHER IN THE WALL by Owen Laukkanen

Adrian Miller, tired of being tormented at school, hangs himself while home alone. But there’s a witness to his act—someone watching via videocam on his computer. Not just watching but encouraging him to do it, apparently so she could muster the courage to do the same.

One of Adrian’s classmates is especially upset about his suicide, and she happens to be the daughter of Kirk Stevens, special agent with Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, whose partner on a joint FBI-BCA task force is FBI agent Carla Windermere. The girl pleads with her dad to investigate Adrian’s death and make someone pay.

Stevens and Windermere aren’t sure a crime has been committed—until they realize that they have an online predator on their hands, someone who targets vulnerable teens on suicide message boards and talks them right over the edge. And it looks like the perp has hooks in two more victims who are ready to jump. Can the agents find the kids in time to save them?

It’s clear early on in Owen Laukkanen’s The Watcher in the Wall that this fifth outing is a departure in the Stevens and Windermere series. Yes, it has the previous novels’ high-octane action and thriller-fast pace, but the descriptions of the teens’ inner lives feel raw and personal. As it turns out, it is—the author’s note at the end reveals intimate knowledge of the subject matter, and offers hope to those struggling with depression. Watcher is a moving reminder for sufferers that they have a different kind of watchers in their lives—loved ones who can provide support and let them know they’re not alone.

This review originally appeared in Shelf Awareness for Readers and is reprinted here with permission.

2 Comments

Headed for Hogwarts: Experiencing the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Hollywood

The new Wizarding World of Happy Potter isn’t officially open at Universal Studios Hollywood until April 7, but Mr. PCN and I received invitations to take an early peek this past weekend.

Let’s go there together!

This is the entrance to Hogsmeade.

Right after I entered, I encountered this, ready to whisk me away to Hogwarts. (Not really—it’s stationary.)

I’ve arrived at Hogwarts!

Time to get sorted into a house by the Sorting Hat. It actually moves and there’s a voice inside telling you which house you belong in. I got Ravenclaw, whose members are known for their wit, wisdom, and cleverness. Sure, I’ll take that. But everyone who put it on seemed to get the same result. I suspect the hat is rigged, or Ravenclaw will need a LOT of beds to house all its new members.

Next we went on a couple of rides—there are only 2 rides: Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, which is a 3-D experience, and Flight of the Hippogriff, a roller coaster.

The first one is fast paced, hurling you through the air, putting you in the middle of a Quidditch game, having you escape the Whomping Willow and giant spiders, making you come face to face with Dementors, etc. The Dementors are pretty scary, and I was like, “Uh-uh, don’t you dare kiss me.” I wouldn’t recommend the ride for kids under 6.

It’s odd how the visuals weren’t sharp, though, and as rides go, it wasn’t as good as the park’s old Back to the Future and E.T. rides.

Flight of the Hippogriff is the shortest roller coaster ever, not necessarily a bad thing since I don’t like roller coasters. I only went on this because it’s deemed “family friendly,” so I figured even a wimp like me could handle it. And it was an easy ride—over in what seemed like 60 seconds. I am not exaggerating.

After that, we visited some of the shops, starting with Ollivanders, “maker of fine wands since 382 BC.”

Inside, a shopkeeper picks a few kids from the group to participate in a demonstration of how wands choose their owners. There are a few small (underwhelming) special effects involved, and when it was over, the shopkeeper packs up the wands for the kids and reminds them to tell their parents that the wands have chosen them. My jaded self did an internal eye roll. How are parents supposed to say no to that?

I will say the interactive wands are pretty cool. I didn’t get to try one, but I saw one girl using it to cast spells around Hogsmeade. These wands are programmed to work with predesignated windows in the area. You stand in front of the window, say the magic spell, and make things move inside.

See how it works in the video below, with James and Oliver Phelps (Fred and George Weasley) and Bonnie Wright (Ginny W.).

We walked around some more, I used the restroom, where you can hear Moaning Myrtle, and it was a beautiful day, but I couldn’t escape a feeling of…rather, a lack of…wonderment.

I’m a hardcore HP fan, so I thought I’d be like a kid in a Honeydukes candy store. And I did go into Honeydukes. But I was underwhelmed. By everything.

I think the reason is that in my head and in the movies, Hogsmeade (there’s no Diagon Alley here like at Universal Studios Orlando) is a place for wizards and full of magical things. Looking at the streets packed with Muggles pushing baby strollers and waving selfie sticks, I couldn’t find the magic. There are many more shops and restaurants, all with overpriced items, than there are rides and attractions.

I considered the possibility I’m too old to be the target audience for this, but then remembered how awed I was when I attended my friend Mari’s HP-themed Thanksgiving dinner a few years back. I felt more immersed in Harry’s world there than I did today in a place that cost more than a billion dollars to build. Mari’s version was reconstructed from pure love, while Universal is out to make money (ticket prices have been raised in anticipation of WWoHP’s opening). Which it’s allowed to do.

There’s just nothing magical about that.

4 Comments

Movie Review: BATMAN V. SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE

(Clay Enos/AP)

When I was a kid—heck, even now—nothing much could get me out of bed early on a Saturday morning. If something could, it was a BIG DEAL.

And so it was, the show Super Friends, which aired Saturdays at 8 a.m. While everyone in the house was asleep, I’d tiptoe down to the basement to watch Wonder Woman and Superman and the rest of Justice League vanquish bad guys.

In 1978, I was in line opening weekend of Superman with Christopher Reeve, my excitement barely contained, and left believing a man could fly. I’ve seen every single Batman movie, even the George Clooney one.

I could go on about my fandom of DC Comics’ greatest superheroes, but you get the idea—my nerdiness runs deep.

So imagine my dismay when I saw Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice last week and realized it’s a huge mess. It is not the movie I wanted, and I can’t imagine many other fans wanting it.

I won’t go too much into plot, both because I don’t want to reveal spoilers, and also because there isn’t really a coherent storyline. The gist of it is: Bruce Wayne/Batman (Ben Affleck) thinks Supes (Henry Cavill) is bad for mankind, being above human laws, so Batty sets out to take down the Man of Steel. (Gee, a billionaire who doesn’t like aliens—who does that remind us of?)

Lex Luthor also wants to destroy Supes because…he’s a controlling egomaniac. Or something. Jesse Eisenberg’s scenery chewing was too annoying for me to give much credence or attention to what Luthor says.

The disjointed script reaches for Big Ideas, but either hits them with a sledgehammer or doesn’t follow through. Hard to believe this was cowritten by an Oscar winner, Chris Terrio, who took home gold for Argo. (The other screenwriter is David Goyer, who worked on all of Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies, as well as director Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel.) Mostly the lead men brood a lot and then engage in loud, heavily CGI’d, too-long fight scenes that just wore me down. During the last forty minutes, I thought, “When will it end?” Everything is bleak and there’s no fun at all.

That’s not to say this should be a comedy or even as light as the Marvel movies. But even in Tim Burton’s and Nolan’s versions of Batman, there was a sense of glee among the darkness, whether it’s in Jack Nicholson’s The Joker or Michelle Pfeiffer’s and Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman.

Here, you have a rich pouty emo boy fighting a lost Boy Scout who hasn’t gotten over his daddy. Affleck and Cavill look good—salt & pepper temples work on Affleck—but they’re not required to do much acting.

Faring better is Amy Adams as Lois Lane. She’s the heart of the movie, and the scenes with her in them are probably the only ones containing anything resembling human emotions.

As Diana Prince, Gal Gadot has a stunning wardrobe. As Wonder Woman? The actress doesn’t have the requisite charisma or presence. WW isn’t just physically strong, she has a powerful aura. Gadot comes across like a mannequin.

And I hate her new costume. It’s supposed to be red, white, blue (and gold), with WW showing her allegiance to America. In this movie it’s grimy brown and gladiator-like. Yes, everyone wears muted colors, but you can still see the red and blue hues in Superman’s costume and the S on his chest. I felt no connection to Wonder Woman because my brain didn’t recognize her as such; she looked like an escapee from Snyder’s 300. The best I can say about WW is that she gets a strong entrance.

After having seen this, it’s hard to look forward to Snyder’s two Justice League movies, though I am curious about Patty Jenkins’s Wonder Woman, especially after seeing the just released photo below. Who knows—maybe Jenkins will give me a reason to wake up early one Saturday morning next year and sneak off to the movie theater.

Nerd verdict: Doesn’t do Justice to Justice League heroes

4 Comments

Nerdy Special List March 2016

So…it’s been an interesting month. For the past several weeks, I’ve been traveling a lot—all over California, into Nevada, and down under to Australia. Some of it was work-related, some not, but none of it was my idea or a trip I planned, and in each case I had little time to decide whether or not I wanted to go. I just jumped onto buses, trams, and planes, trusting I’d enjoy the experience on the other side. And I did.

The biggest lessons for me in all this? Embrace spontaneity more often, never turn down great opportunities even if they arise at the last minute, and not being in control can be exhilarating sometimes. (This could be my lazy self appreciating not having to plan things.)

But let’s get on with this month’s recommended reads. Here are the March releases we really liked.

From Jen at Jen’s Book Thoughts:

The Way of the Gun: A Bloody Journey into the World of Firearms by Iain Overton (Harper, March 22)

British journalist and former gun-club president Iain Overton examines the life cycle of firearms in the world today. He looks at aspects of the gun from suicides to hobbies—interviewing a vast array of users, visiting some of the world’s most dangerous countries, attending gun shows and studying research and data from a wide variety of sources—in order to understand man’s relationship with weapons.

His own experiences as a hobbyist and embedded war journalist come out anecdotally, but Overton relies on the accumulation of all his findings to draw his conclusions. The Way of the Gun focuses on the United States because it is the world’s largest manufacturer of guns, and as Overton illustrates, the US viewpoint on firearms has repercussions far outside the country’s borders.

Overton uses meticulous, scientific research, and his status as a non-US citizen removes the sensitive political issues that often taint American conversations. He takes a global view of this hot-button topic, using clear, concise, and persuasive writing to produce an eye-opening read.

From Rory at Fourth Street Review:

Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye (Putnam, March 22)

“Of all my many murders, committed for love and for better reasons, the first was the most important.”

So begins Lyndsay Faye’s brilliant Jane Steele. In this clever reimagining of Jane Eyre, the accidental vigilante Miss Steele’s life parallels that of the classic Gothic heroine. Where Eyre does not often reveal her strong opinions, Steele acts on them. She inadvertently sets out righting the wrongs she encounters, first for herself and then for those she cares about.

Finding herself a governess at her childhood home, she aims to unravel the mysterious new owner and finds herself falling in love with him. Yet who is he, and would he be able to accept her and her black murderous soul? This is a novel that runs the risk of being ridiculous, yet isn’t. It is, instead, a thrilling mystery and wonderful homage to a beloved classic.

Recommended for both lovers and haters of Jane Eyre. Those who love it will appreciate the original details sprinkled throughout. Those who hate it may feel this action-packed, satirical romance rights all of Brontë’s wrongs.

Reader, I loved it.

From Erin at In Real Life:

Between Black and White by Robert Bailey (Thomas & Mercer, March 15)

This is the second (after The Professor) in Robert Bailey’s series featuring law professor-turned-lawyer Tom McMurtrie. Between Black and White is both a classic legal thriller and a window to the soul of small-town southern culture. The combination is irresistible.

The story opens dramatically as a young boy, Bocephus Haynes, watches his father lynched in 1966. As a man, Bo still lives in the same town in Tennessee, and it’s there where the former KKK leader he blames for his father’s death is killed.

The investigation and court case that follow are gripping, and the portrayal of and insights into people and attitudes are insightful without being overbearing or preachy. This isn’t a novel-length judgment piece; it’s a story about people who are as complex as…well, as people are. Bailey’s prose is fast-paced and clever. I can see why he’s a successful lawyer himself, and can’t wait for Professor McMurtrie’s next case.

From Patti at Patti’s Pen & Picks:

The Bursar’s Wife by E.G. Rodford (Titan Books, March 1)

This is a PI novel that takes place in Cambridge, England. It hooked me pretty much from the beginning. George Kocharyan is recently divorced and has a low-key investigation business, mostly taking photos of cheating spouses.

In walks a beautiful woman who wants her daughter, a Cambridge student, followed. It leads George to places and situations he never would have imagined. It also connects him with his father’s history as a caretaker at Cambridge. This book is well written, ventures into unexpected places, and kept me very interested in the outcome. Highly recommended!

From PCN:

Several months ago, I was in a serious reading drought. Every book I picked up either put me to sleep or made me want to throw it across the room. What did I do? Request a copy of Lisa Lutz’s The Passenger, because she’s a reliable slump-buster for me. Boy, did Lisa deliver.

The novel begins with Tanya Dubois finding her husband dead at the bottom of the stairs. Instead of calling the cops, she changes her identity and hightails it out of town. She meets a woman named Blue, who could be an ally or foe, and together they go through more name changes and encounter more deaths. Tanya/whatever-her-name-is finally decides to stop running by going home and confronting the people who ruined her life in the first place.

Lisa’s writing had me in a vise from beginning to end—and I was happy for it. There was no sleep until I reached the resolution. The characters are complex, the plot mysterious, the pace neckbreaking, and I was grateful for the reminder that reading could be fun again.

Which March releases are you looking forward to?

2 Comments

Book Review: THE SHUT EYE by Belinda Bauer

Detective Chief Inspector John Marvel is obsessed with the disappearance of 12-year-old Edie Evans, who went missing more than a year earlier while riding her bike, but Marvel’s boss, the superintendent, wants the detective to look for a poodle belonging to the superintendent’s wife.

James and Anna Buck’s son, four-year-old Daniel, is also missing, and Anna’s grip on reality has been slipping in the months since he disappeared. She seeks out a so-called psychic named Richard Latham, but soon after, Anna thinks she’s having visions herself.

Though chapters in The Shut Eye (a term meaning psychic) are from different points of view and at first seem to be telling separate stories, Belinda Bauer eventually weaves the threads together while keeping readers guessing all the way. As with her previous US release, Rubbernecker, Bauer excels in developing her characters, giving each a distinct and believable voice, whether it’s a grieving mother with obsessive-compulsive disorder, a gruff detective, a black lesbian female police officer (the “Holy Grail of Equal Opportunities”), or a Hmong immigrant.

Bauer can also write from a child’s view as convincingly as an adult’s. Her prose is tight, conveying wonder and heart-gripping emotions without verbosity. In barely 300 pages, she manages to pack in social commentary, cultural insight, and dry humor, along with the suspense of a police procedural and perhaps even the supernatural, depending on how readers interpret certain revelations. Crime-fiction fans can expect little shut-eye after picking up this thriller.

This originally appeared as a starred review in Shelf Awareness for Readers and is reprinted here with permission.

4 Comments

Older Posts

Newer Posts