8 October 2012
Cast: Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Script: Rian Johnson
Genre: sff
Setting: 2040s, the future
8 Stars
4 Comments
Its 2044 and time travel hasn’t been invented yet. But in thirty years time it will be. And then promptly criminalised, which means of course that only the criminals use it, and mainly they use it to send people they … Continue reading
5 March 2012
Call no: 800
Genre: detective & mystery, thriller
Setting: contemporary, London
9 Stars
2 Comments
Joe Spork is mild mannered clockmaker. He wns and runs a shop fixing clockwork devices, from clocks to Victorian dirty toys. He doesn’t make a profit, in fact, he barely scrapes by. But he is determined to be sensible and … Continue reading
7 January 2012
Cast: Christopher Plummer, Daniel Craig, Goran Visnjic, Rooney Mara, Stellan Skarsgard
Script: Steig Larsson, Steven Zaillian
Genre: detective & mystery
Setting: Sweden
8 Stars
5 Comments
I haven’t read any of the book in the Millenium series, nor have I seen the Swedish version of this film. So I can’t comment on how well or not this adapts the source material. I will say that it … Continue reading
1 November 2010
Call no: 800
Genre: general fiction, Juv/YA
Setting: 1980s, London
6 Comments
This is the sort of book I don’t usually read. You know the ones, from the “sad story” section of the bookshop. The misery-books as I call them. But a few years ago I’d heard of Melvin Burgess as an author to look out for. I’ve read his Lady : My life as a Bitch and to be honest I wasn’t all that impressed, but I’ll always give an author a second go. So I tried this one.
In the 1980′s Nick Dane is growing up as an average, if bright kid. He comes from a single parent family, and his mother has a secret. She never got off the drugs, not completely. And in the course of having a “taste” she accidentally overdoses and Nick is left all alone in the world. Soon he finds himself carted off to a “home” for boys, and soon learns that the violence and random beatings are not the worse this place has to offer.
19 July 2010
Genre: general fiction
Setting: England
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Charlie Yost, the Chicago gunman, called on Horace Appleby one morning in June as he chatted with Basher Evans before going off to the Wellingford races.
Horace Appleby is a criminal, specialising in “inside jobs”, his modus operandi is to secure the position of butler in a respectably well-off establishment and then arrange the details whereby his companions carry out the actual burglary. But he is not too happy with the American, Mr. Yost, and Yost’s blatant disregard for Appleby’s most important rule, never carry a gun. So he refuses to pay Yost his cut, as you can imagine, Yost is not too happy about this. Not wanting to overly provoke a man who carries a gun Appleby things that maybe a job down the country might be just the thing.
8 July 2010
2 Comments
I’m still a busy little bee working away and retagging old posts. I’m now up to September 2006. That’s only another four years to go and I’ll be up to date! errr, that’s a lot of posts. Tis odd though, … Continue reading
11 April 2010
Script: Ronald Shusett
Genre: drama
Setting: New York, USA
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I’ve recently rewatched The Sopranos[1] well, some of the episodes I never caught in the first place, so in many ways it wasn’t a rewatch, although I knew where it was all headed. I had forgotten so much of what … Continue reading
18 March 2010
Genre: non-fiction, true crime
Setting: USA
7 Comments
I first heard about this book on Metafilter when Susan Klebold, mother of one of the killers, had an article in O Magazine. Before that I had never been interested in the shooting. Not beyond the evils of rubber-necking at some one else’s tragedy. But the discussion there seemed to suggest that this was a well-thought out and reasoned look at the community surrounding the school, as well as the killers themselves. And the author, Cullen, believed that the popular myths about the shootings shouldn’t stand unchallenged. Continue reading
10 June 2008
Cast: Amy Madigan, Amy Ryan, Casey Affleck, Ed Harris, John Ashton, Michelle Monaghan, Morgan Freeman, Titus Welliver
Script: Aaron Stockard, Ben Affleck
Genre: detective & mystery
9 Comments
This film’s release here and in Britain was delayed for a considerable time due to the supposed similarities between the plot and the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. I can see what it happened, but in reality there aren’t that many similarities. The film is about Patrick Kenzie and his “associate” Angie Gennaro who have been hired to track down a missing child, Amanda McCready. Almost at once they find out that the media story isn’t quite the truth.
18 May 2008
Genre: detective & mystery
Setting: Paris
2 Comments
Author: Fred Vargas
Trans: Sian Reynolds
As you may already know I’m a big fan of Fred Vargas’ work and while this one is a library copy I’ll be buying this when it comes out in the proper size. I can’t stand these trade publications versions. They make no sense to me. All the negatives of a hardback with none of the positives. But enough about that; on to the plot.
The most straight-forward way of describing this book is to say that it is a murder-mystery. But with characters like Adamsberg there is no such thing as a straight-forward case. So when he spots something a little “off” about the two bodies that have shown up he decides that this case his rather than giving them over to the Drugs Squad.