Too good to be true? Four new series for me to follow!
When the series I was following on Swedish tv (not the streaming ones I watch online) stopped just before Christmas, I was convinced it would be a long time before there was anything else I could watch (again, on Swedish tv, fortunately we do still have the streaming series, though most of them will be American and not the British and European ones that we would so much like to see as well).
However, I was wrong. On an ordinary week I now have four different series to watch, and that’s not counting the Sherlock Christmas special that is coming up this month. At least that was lucky.
First of all, there’s a German series, called Deutschland 83, which seems very interesting. It’s about an East German soldier who is forced to relocate to West Germany and work as a spy. It’s set in the 1980’s which is one of my favorite decades so much of the music will be great and it’s sort of ‘historic’ now, so that too, adds to my interest in the series.
Then there’s Shetland, season 3. I had forgotten how short the seasons were, so I was a little surprised to find that we were already on season 3, but clearly it’s correct. I love the scenery and I also really like the episodes, because they’re just old-fashioned ‘real’ cop series. These days you get all that ‘whydunnit’ instead of ‘whodunnit’ and I really prefer the latter. That’s also why I love the historic cop series, because they focus on ordinary plots, instead of all that new stuff.
Finally, tonight there were two new series for me to follow. I’m amazed.
The first one is a Norwegian historic series about a group of resistance fighters who attack the heavy water plant at Rjukan in Nazi-occupied Norway. It’s a very interesting historic series that I’m really looking forward to following. Of course, that attack on Rjukan is very famous in Nordic history so I knew about it before, but I’d forgotten many of the details and we’re also getting a lot of the background, which is great.
Then right after the Norwegian series, Swedish tv has decided to air London Spy. I never thought we’d get to see that this soon after it was released in the UK. It’s a very interesting series too, especially for a slash fan like me, since it’s about two gay guys, well, actually, there’s an older gay man as well.
As someone who’s also into angst, I found this first episode very interesting though a bit surprising. My impression of men, regardless of sexual preference, is that they’re usually not that emotionally fragile and self-desctructive and rarely prone to self harm. But since this series is apparently written by a gay man, I guess he should know. Clearly I was wrong, just as I was wrong about Bob and Rose (about a gay man who falls in love with a straight woman). I also didn’t think that men were quite as likely to just talk, talk, talk instead of getting down to some – erm – action right away. I hope I haven’t spoiled this first episode for anyone intending to watch the series who hasn’t done so already.
Saeculum by Ursula Poznanski
I just finished reading Saeculum by Ursula Poznanski. Unfortunately, I didn’t like this book at all. I found it boring and the characters unsympathetic and the plot rather pointless. Maybe I would have felt differently at another time, but as it was, I was really disappointed. Especially since this is a big, thick book that cost a lot to buy. I’d been looking forward to reading it for a long time. Oh, well, these things happen.
I’d already read another book by the same author, Erebos, and loved it so naturally I assumed I’d like other books by her.
For someone who might like this kind of book, I’ll just briefly go into the plot.
Bastian is a medical student who has trouble relating to his manipulative father. He meets a pretty girl who gets him interested in medieval reenactments, historic fairs, that sort of thing. She talks him into coming along on a live game playing thing somewhere far from civilisation. When they get there, things start to go wrong. Is it really possible that an old curse is causing all the troubles the group is experiencing?
Unfortunately, the story never gets very exciting, at least not to me. I read the book in a Swedish translation that I really didn’t like. It made me question the translator’s qualifications. Usually, it’s the other way around, a translation can actually make a book seem better than it is. So all in all, I’d say this book was a failure from beginning to end. I don’t usually even review under these circumstances, but after reading this long book, I felt I wanted to have my say about it.
For someone else, it might still be an interesting book, but personally, I just want to forget I wasted time and money on it.
Edit: I just checked out the reviews on Goodreads and now I really wish I’d done that before I bought the book… :/
The Land of the Blind by Barbara Nadel
Last night I finished reading The Land of the Blind by Barbara Nadel. It’s part of a series about a Turkish cop, Ikmen, and his colleagues. I find this series both brilliant and fascinating. It’s an opportunity for me to travel without leaving my house.
This particular book starts with a Greek archaeologist being found dead, presumed murdered, inside an ancient Byzantine building. She has recently given birth but the baby is missing.
Soon Ikmen is lead to an old Greek house with an old woman, her likewise old Turkish servant and a younger man who is supposedly her formerly lost son returned after forty years from abroad.
At the same time, a motley crew of gays, lesbians, trans people, Muslims against Capitalism and an assortment of others, have gathered in a park in Istanbul to protect it from developers. For a while it becomes almost like a carnival, but then the police gathers – and that’s not the educated Istanbul police, but what are referred to as young men coming from ‘some nameless hole’ on the Turkish/Anatolian mainland. Barely literate, they are loyal to the Islamic regime and are looking forward to clearing out the progressives.
Unfortunately for Ikmen he has a trans cousin and a son in the park and his new sergeant has a sister who as a nurse finds it hard to leave people at the protest, as long as they need her.
Many fascinating characters come to life in this book, and a number of old mysteries are dug up.
This is a well written, fascinating book which makes it clear that the author knows Turkey extremely well and has the ability to make it come alive for the reader. I’d definitely recommend it to someone who enjoys a good mystery with many historical facts.
Notorious Nineteen by Janet Evanovich
I just finished reading Notorious Nineteen by Janet Evanovich. As the name hints, it’s the nineteenth book in the series about Stephanie Plum, bounty hunter in New Jersey.
This book actually felt a little more serious than the others. No less humorous but still, it dealt with some really serious and creepy issues.
Stephanie is busy chasing a man who’s disappeared from the hospital, just after it was found out that he’d embezzled money from the home for the elderly where he worked. The old people weren’t happy so there was no shortage of potential killers. However, it turns out he’s at least the fourth person to disappear without a trace from the same hospital in the past couple of years.
That’s not all, though. Ranger wants Stephanie to be his ‘date’ for a dinner and later on to be matron of honor on a wedding between a former ‘brother-in-arms’ of his and his wife. In other words, Stephanie is to provide additionally security for the bride-to-be.
She’s forced to endure a horrible pink bridesmaid’s dress and on that first dinner she also gets poisoned. A psycho leaves threatening messages everywhere and it seems the psycho is targeting Ranger, his old buddy and their loved ones.
The book is still funny, as I mentioned above, and the creepiness never takes over, but it felt a little different from the other even more lighthearted books in the series.
And I’m still having fun, so I’m going to read the next book. If that too lives up to my expectations, I might continue with the whole series. Fun is important, especially in times like these.
The Chocolate Kiss-Off by Heather Haven
I just finished The Chocolate Kiss-Off by Heather Haven. Just like the two earlier books in the series, I found this one interesting and well written.
As usual, someone has been found murdered under slightly ‘odd’ circumstances, in this case drowned in a big pot for making chocolate – what a waste ;). The murder victim was the owner of the chocolate factory or shop. Apparently, she sold both wholesale and directly in her shop.
In this book New York has been hit by a blizzard and is very cold and it’s a bit hard to get around. Percy (the main character) is on her own, because her father, and only colleague in the private investigating business is away on a war-related case – trying to find a group of spies. She already has two cases when a really good friend of hers, who makes chocolate, is accused of murdering his boss. So she hires another friend, or in this case the father of her son’s friend, to take over the older cases.
I won’t mention more about the actual case, but in this book, her eight-year-old son wants to know more about his father, who Percy thinks of as Leo the Louse (which tells you something about him). She’s forced to take time out of her busy schedule to find out where he is and what he’s doing. Again, I won’t go into what she learns, but anything to do with her ex a sensitive topic for her.
I have probably said this before about this series, but if so I’ll say it again – I like that it’s historic. The dialect or jargon reminds me of old movies I’ve seen and that’s fun.
Maybe I should add a few things I don’t like quite as much. To begin with, as many of my followers know, I’m a vegan and Percy is exceptionally fond of meat in all forms. She basically hates anything else. I know this is part of the historic context, that people ate a lot more meat, so I’m trying to ignore it. The other thing is that Percy is a little bit full of herself. She feels superior to her mother and sister, for instance and tends to make snap decisions about people she meets and if they fail her high standards, she will think less of them.
To some extent, I can understand that, but I do feel she’s a little unfair to her mother. Of course it is a bit weird to cook such odd mixtures of candy and potatoes or fruit and vegetables. Some people like that sort of thing, so I suppose it’s not completely unheard of. I’d find it odd, but since Percy’s not about to start cooking for the whole family, maybe she should give her mom a break. Also, her sister Sera is only just 20. Percy is about 35. Of course she find Sera immature and tiresome at times. That doesn’t have to mean that Sera is a bad person. I think Percy should give her sister a break too, but that’s just me.
Finally, the cover art is a bit amateurish, I’m sorry to say, but maybe I pay more attention because I’m in the business, no matter how modestly.
None of this is enough to spoil my enjoyment of the series as a whole. If you enjoy historic mysteries that aren’t too scary or gory, then I think you’d like this series too. I love this old-fashioned world where people are nice to each other most of the time, despite all the meat eating and smoking and so on.
My thoughts about the movie Gilda
One of the classic black and white movies that I really love is Gilda. I also like Spellbound and Casablanca, to name a few.
What people say about this movie is that it’s a covert way of depicting a (happy) gay relationship. At least that’s what seems to be carried over from the play or original script that the movie is based on.
You don’t get that many clues about what’s really going on. Johnny and Gilda just sort of show up out of the blue. I have tried to put two and two together over the years, when I’ve watched and re-watched the movie several times.
First of all, Johnny and Gilda come from New York. They’re probably quite poor. Their career is being professional dance partners. Maybe they also make a little extra on the side but Gilda insists that she’s never been unfaithful to Johnny and I believe that. So if someone’s cheating, it’s Johnny. He’s Irish (I think). Johnny Farrell, that’s Irish, right? He’s probably quite temperamental and jealous. They’ve come out to South America during the second world war to make more money. Why, I’m not sure. The US wasn’t involved in the war in the same way as the European countries, obviously. There should have been money to make right there.
After a while, Gilda can’t take Johnny’s jealousy and leaves him. While they’re apart, Johnny meets a rich man called Ballin Mundson who owns a gambling hall. He makes Johnny manager of the gambling hall. You get hints that the staff doesn’t like it. They only feel contempt for Johnny. For instance, Uncle Tio (which, if my high school Spanish isn’t too rusty, means Uncle Uncle) calls Johnny a ‘peasant’ which probably stands for something else, also derogatory) Ballin and Johnny also have a really weird conversation with a sort of double entendre. Johnny basically has to promise that there are no women for him, which Johnny loves to promise, since he’s angry with Gilda.
Now, I might have a dirty mind, but I interpret that as a sort of code for Ballin and Johnny getting involved in some sort of gay sexual entanglement, though not really an equal relationship. It’s more like a rich older man picking up a street kid to take advantage of him. For instance, later in the movie, Johnny is referred to as a boy, who will grow up unless you watch him closely.
That brings me to my next point: I’m thinking Johnny and Gilda are supposed to be a lot younger than the actors playing them. They are, if I’m not mistaken, about thirty, while the characters are probably about twenty.
One day, Ballin goes away on a trip. When he returns, he has married Gilda, which is a nasty surprise for Johnny, who probably feels as if he’s moved up in life and also taught Gilda a lesson. Gilda too, has a nasty surprise when she sees Johnny and probably puts two and two together.
There’s a lot of talk that’s supposed to mean something else. (About who taught what to whom and similar hints about certain activities that mean something other than the obvious – like swimming). You learn that Gilda’s superstitious, so when Ballin proposes a toast (“Death to the wench who hurt Johnny” or something along those lines), she’s forced to go along with it, even though it scares her.
Another thing about Gilda is that you never find out her real name. She’s always just Gilda then Mrs Mundson and later Mrs Farrell (which is a little spoiler).
The tension and the jealousy between Johnny and Gilda keeps growing and Ballin just loves it. It seems he gets off on fanning the flames of their conflict.
Gilda plays up to Johnny’s jealousy (he claims to be keeping an eye on her for Ballin’s sake, but it’s obvious he’s jealous on his own account). She goes out with other men, she puts on shows that are not just musical but rather provocative (at least I’m assuming they would be perceived as such back then). In one, she ‘strips’ though all she’s taking off is jewelry and gloves.
There are also other, exterior factors that increase the tension. Ballin does business with the Nazis and he is threatened, disappears, is believed dead….
I’m not going to go into every single part of the plot, but one day, Johnny wakes up and realizes that he’s been wrong about Gilda and for a second, he’s even prepared to grovel. If I’d been Gilda I would have let him grovel for just a moment longer, but she’s just so happy he’s prepared to make up, so she accepts his unspoken apology and that’s pretty much it. Everything works out. Even Johnny realizes she’s never been unfaithful. And Uncle Tio eventually agrees to stop calling him a ‘peasant’ and refers to him as a gentleman, which I interpret as a sign of Johnny’s having grown up and Ballin losing his influence over him.
The bottom line is this: I don’t see Gilda as the evil woman coming between two happy men involved in a happy gay relationship. In fact, she’s a victim, someone who ends up in the crossfire between two men fighting over her and probably other issues as well, that we don’t get to see too clearly, possibly their involvement. Johnny too, is in a way a victim, a victim of his own temper and his ambitions. He doesn’t seem to see why everyone’s contemptuous of him or that’s he’s being cruel to Gilda.
Explosive Eighteen by Janet Evanovich
I just finished Explosive Eighteen by Janet Evanovich and all I can say is that this was just as funny as most of the other books. The book starts out with a ilttle mystery. Stephanie has just returned from Hawaii where she had a little trouble – guy trouble. You don’t know exactly what’s happened until later in the book, but I’ll just say it’s not that surprising when you do find out. Just funny.
A case sort of follows her from Hawaii and from then on Stephanie is tailed by a multitude of real and not so real FBI agents. That too, gets a bit funny.
But those men are not the only ones stalking Stephanie. She has to put up with unwanted company from a number of other people, but that too, of course, leads to funny situations.
Which is basically what this series is all about. There is of course a case and some bounties to collect, but to me this series is all about the humor and it works. It’s about the only thing that can make me laugh these days and I’m really grateful for that.
So, like I usually say, this isn’t primarily a series of books for the mystery or thriller lover but for those who like the idea of a sort of mystery that is really, really funny. Or I guess, for anyone wanting to laugh.
It is quite a bit about sex too, but there’s nothing explicit so I think most people won’t have a problem with it.
Smoking Seventeen by Janet Evanovich
I just finished reading Smoking Seventeen, by Janet Evanovich, which as you can probably guess is the seventeenth book in the series about Stephanie Plum, bounty hunter.
In this book, Stephanie is helping her boss Vinnie to find out who is burying dead bodies where his bounty hunter business used to lie – it is now being rebuilt, or at least that’s the assumption.
Stephanie has a new or almost new problem to deal with too – her off and on boyfriend Joe Morelli’s grandmother has put the evil eye on her. In this case it means Stephanie is going to start smelling like cabbage, get boils all over her face and get ‘vordo’ which apparenty means becoming sexually insatiable. Unfortunately, it looks as if grandma Bella is actually successful. Stephanie does get sauerkraut in her hair when she’s with Lula getting lunch and a huge zit appears on her forehead looking a lot like a boil waiting to happen and – for whatever reason – she does experience a change in her libido.
There isn’t all that much more to add to my earlier reviews of these books. The book was funny. I love that, because I really, really need to laugh right now.
The only downside was that this one was a bit predictable. It was really easy to guess who the killer was, but since the actual criminal case isn’t all there is to a book like this, it doesn’t matter too much.
Dark Fire by C J Sansom
I just finished reading Dark Fire by C J Sansom. Since I love historic books, I really liked this one. It was well written and well researched (at least it seems that way, I can’t say I have enough knowledge to be absolutely sure).
The main characters are likeable enough (at least Matthew Shardlake, the ‘main’ main character). There’s a new guy working as his assistant, and he’s a bit brusque and rude at times, but after a while I got more used to him. It turns out he had good personality traits too.
Matthew Shardlake is once again (like in book 1) forced to help Cromwell with an important matter, but he also investigates another case. The latter is a very dark and serious case, and I must admit that I found it hard to read about, since it involves something I have a lot of trouble handling. To avoid any spoilers I won’t say more about that or for that matter the Cromwell case either.
It’s just a very interesting book from a turbulent time that I haven’t read all that much about in the past so it was fun to learn more about it.
I read the first book several years ago, in Swedish translation and I found it rather dull then (despite being a historic book), but maybe that was due to the translation or – I don’t know. This just seemed a lot more interesting, despite the upsetting subject matter.
Iced Diamonds by Heather Haven
I found this series last year, I think and I liked it. It’s historic which is always something I appreciate. The main characters are more or less sympathetic which is another plus as far as I’m concerned. Finally, the cases aren’t too predictable which is a big problem to me. Some Swedish bestselling books, particularly mysteries are extremely predictable, but after I was told that if I criticize them, I’m ‘envious’ of these bestselling authors (which for the record I am not), I’m not going to mention their titles or the name of the authors.
So, anyway, this book is set just before Christmas in New York in the 1940’s (during WWII). Percy Cole, the private investigator, gets a case that promises some much needed money for herself and her family. An elf has been found murdered, not in the store where he was working, but in another. The daughter of the man who owns the store (where the body was found) is accused of the murder. The store owner hires Percy to keeph is daughter out of jail. So far everything’s very simple. Of course there’s a bit more to the case than that, but after putting some effort into it, Percy manages to solve it.
This book could have done with a bit more proofreading, because I found almost as many errors as I would in an ebook, but other than that I don’t really have anything negative to say about it.
I can recommend this series to anyone who likes historic straightforward old-fashioned mysteries.
