Hannah, Sophie: The Carrier

A psychological thriller which comes with excellent reviews, this was reasonably interesting though the jump of viewpoint from chapter to chapter was a bit annoying at times.   Rather wordy and not entirely convincing, particularly the central element claiming the love of Gaby, the lead female, for the supposed killer.    This had to be accepted as something that had happened without any real attempt at explaining how and why it did.   The book kept my interest in finding out just how it would be resolved without it being really good.   I have another of this author's books, thanks to the Sunday Times/W H Smith promotion, but I shall wait before trying it.

Tracy, P.J.: Play to Kill

Another Minneapolis area thriller featuring Gino and Magozzi with help from Grace MacBride which
follows much the same pattern as previous books featuring them: a series of murders leaves them at
first baffled before computer work narrows down the field of possible suspects.   Cleverly plotted and
maintaining the character development and interaction of the earlier work, this one did feel a little tired
at times, almost as if either the mother or daughter of the writing duo was less than happy with the way
things were going.

Frightfest 2013: Monday 26 August

Banshee Chapter 3D
Secret CIA drug experiments in mind control form the basis of this muddled and useless film.  Why 3D?
Odd Thomas
Based on the first of the Dean Koontz novels about the eponymous hero,  this was a pleasant enough way to pass the afternoon without exciting the juices.   In its favour are the component playing of the
main characters and the clear cinematography.
We Are What We Are
A remake of the Mexican film of the same name, this has a bigger budget but is no more involving than the original
Big Bad Wolves
A nasty little film about a man who kidnaps someone he considers responsible for abducting and abusing his daughters.   He tortures him to get to the truth and is helped both by a rogue cop and by
his own father.   Not aat all enjoyable but well made.
Summary
The delayed writing of the five days' films is obvious from the shortness of the entries even though I
was able to refer to the programme.   However, I think it also points up an overall lower standard than
has been the case is earlier years.   The only film I would like to see again is 'The Last Days' though I
may possibly watch some of the others if, and when, shown on TV.

Frightfest: Sunday 25 August

Missionary
Not our first choice of the morning but this tale of a Mormon missionary's obsession with a wife and her son which she at first appreciates before his friendship becomes too intense.   Reasonable.
Hansel and Gretel Get Baked
Mildly amusing riff on the fairy tale with Lara Flynn Boyle going over the top as the witch who sells
drugs as a cover for killing to keep her looks.
Dark Tourist
A lonely security guard spends his time planning his annual holiday which traces the sites linked to
various serial killers.   Rubbish.
The Desert
Three survivors of an unspecified disaster are holed up with occasional forays to get supplies until one
of them brings back a zombie as well.   Also rubbish.
The Last Days
The only way to stay alive is to stay indoors or underground in this Spanish thriller set in Barcelona.
The hero needs to get to his pregnant girlfriend and sets off through passages with his boss, the two of
them being anything but friends.   For the most part, what happens is not unexpected apart from a bravura scene in a church involving a very large bear which has escaped from the zoo.   The two men
develop an understanding which lets the hero eventually find his girlfriend, the denouement being the
end of the plague and the start of a new life.   By far the best so far.

Frightfest 2013: Saturday 24 August

The Hypnotist
Investigating a triple murder, the detective in charge uses a disgraced hypnotist to unlock the memory of
the only witness.   Could have been much better.
Frankenstein's Army
As World War II is ending, a group of Russian soldiers find themselves cut off in enemy territory and
stumble on a secret Nazi laboratory where a mad scientist is creating a super-army from the bodies of
dead soldiers with weapons attached.   Gory, very unbelievable and an enjoyable romp.
No One Lives
A bungled heist leads a gang to grab a couple in a car without realising that the driver is wanted for a
multiple killing and his companion is actually his hostage.   Mayhem ensues and a gory time is had by
all.
R.I.P.D
The 3D effects were a little off-putting in this fantasy thriller where dead lawmen track down and arrest
criminal spirits who disguise themselves as 'normal' humans.   With nods to both 'Men in Black' and
'Ghostbusters', this was not as good as one expected from the cast les by Jeff Bridges with Kevin Bacon as the lead bad guy.

Frightfest 2013: Friday 23 August

The Dyatlov Pass Incident
A bunch of American college students travel to Russia to investigate an incident in 1959 when nine
Russian hikers disappeared in the Urals even though they were experienced climbers.   After a slowish
start they arrive at the area of the mystery with their numbers gradually being depleted until the remaining two get caught up in what was an ongoing military secret experiment.  Very so-so and what
was the delectable Gemma Atkinson doing in an American film wearing winter clothing?
Dementamania
An uptight office worker is stung by a wasp when leaving his morning shower (serves him right for
being over-clean!).   This distorts his sense of reality both in the office where gamesmanship seems to
be the primary activity and his mental state is further disrupted by a 'Dear John' e-mail.   There is an
impending sense of violence which reaches a climax at the local night club.   Overall, mildly interesting
but forgettable.
Sadik 2
New Year's Eve sees six friends partying in a rented house in the country but things go wrong: also in the house is a film crew making a snuff movie using the friends as the cast.   Pick up after a slow start
but mainly a compilation of the usual cliches.
Haunter
An excellent performance from Abigail Breslin who has grown up since her 'Little Miss Sunshine' days
made this the most enjoyable film to date.   A family are trapped in their house and its immediate surroundings without realising that they are repeating the same day over and over again.   Breslin does
work this out which leads to the family finally escaping from the limbo of death without closure to the
final freeing of their spirits.   Not bad with a nice cameo from Stephen McHattie.
Wither
I know I saw this film about friends at a holiday cottage but I must have slept through it as I do not
remember a thing.

Frightfest 2013: Thursday 22 August

The previous entry should have been followed by this one around two weeks later but, on 31 August, Pat broke her ankle and looking after naturally became a priority.   This definitely disrupted my days
and did leave me with rather less 'free' time than usual.   By the time the cycling season had finished, it
was mid-October and the switch from 'must restart the blog tomorrow' to actually doing it has taken
rather more time than I expected.
The Dead 2: India
The first of the series was shown two years ago and featured as an analytical session last year though I
saw neither.   The plot is simple - our hero is trying to reach loved ones during a zombie outbreak so the
story line becomes a series of near misses for him while others are less fortunate.   Even had I written
this immediately afterwards it would still have been a rather indifferent reaction.
Curse of Chucky
Here we go again!   The malevolent killer doll returns for a number of imaginative killings with, almost
at the end, a cameo from the iconic Jennifer Tilley.
Having intended previously to stay for the late screenings by staying at an hotel - which was none too
successful - we reverted to missing deliberately the final show of the evening.

Kauffmann, Jean-Paul: A Journey to Nowhere

A French student does voluntary work in Quebec as his national service.   There he meets and falls in love with a local girl whose parents emigrated to Canada from Courland, an area of Latvia.   Although
they consumate their love he leaves her to return to France and they lose touch.   Many years later, he is
a successful writer/journalist and discovers that one of his cousins had a father killed in Courland during
World War II when he was forcibly enlisted into the German army as were many Alsatians, they being
known as the malgre-nous.   Presented with an open assignment by his editor, he persuades him that an
article on Courland would be worthwhile and this book is the result.   It is a mixture of personal narrative covering his time there with his wife, descriptive passages of a number of mansions which had
been built and owned by German descendants of the Teutonic Knights, subsequently dispossessed, some of the relics of the lengthy postwar occupation by the Russians and conversations with some of the present-day Latvians in the region.   There is an overlying melancholy to the book which seems to be a genuine reaction to the state of the area with many of the old buildings in disrepair and the remains of the Russian occupation in a similar condition for the most part.   This is in contrast to the earlier years, in particular the seventeenth century when the then Duke of Courland initiated attempts to found
colonies in Gambia and Tobago and the time in exile for a while of Louis XVIII.   The nineteenth century saw a gradual decline which the novelist Eduard von Keyserling portrays in his works, this despite Libau, the area's main port, being the Russian fleet's home base.   After World War 1 and the
Russian Revolution, the area was independent as part of Latvia until invaded by Russia again in 1939,
then occupied by German troops, many of whom died when encircled during the last years of the war.
Although I read the booking small doses over a period of time I enjoyed it and may well read  the author's earlier work about Napoleon in exile 'The Dark Room at Longwood' and'Desolation Island' about Kerguelen.

Leon, Donna: The Girl of His Dreams

This is the seventeenth Commissario Brunetti novel and something of a change from the earlier ones.
He and Ispettore Vianello respond to a call and pull a young girl from the water.   She is blonde and
has been dead for several hours.   She is a Rom to use the pc term but, possibly because she had been
thieving, her family neither report her missing nor seem interested in claiming her body.   The book opens at Brunetti's father's funeral, a scene which is very eloquently portrayed, which provides the
impetus for a side story as the priest, who had been a schoolboy bully acquaintance of Brunetti's, asks
him to investigate a preacher who appears to be obtaining money fraudulently.   This Brunetti does
and is able to put a stop to the fraud's activities without getting directly involved as his thoughts are
occupied by the girl's death.   it appears she has fallen from the roof of a house which she had been
burgling but his suspicions are roused by the reactions of the family involved.   At the end, he is left with a probable scenario for the girl's death which he is never going to prove, the book ending with
the burial of the dead girl with only Brunetti and Vianello in attendance, her family having since left
the area, apparently having been paid off - but for what?   In some ways the absence of a specific
crime investigation at the centre of the book is not missed as Brunetti's efforts to settle what had happened to the girl provides the thrust of the novel but the overall impression is one of loss - of
innocence especially and of human concern for others.   Well up to the very high standard Donna Leon has set herself.

McGuire, Seanan: Discount Armageddon

Set in the USA where, as elsewhere, there are cryptids, non-human beings such as basilisks, bogeymen, dragon princesses and so on who are hunted by the Covenant, an age-old organisation devoted to wiping them out.   The Price family were renegade members of the Covenant who now try to protect the cryptids while being willing to kill those which endanger human life.   The heroine of the book is Verity who, though fully trained while growing up, has always wanted to be a ballroom dancer and is
now doing this in New York while her family carry on in the Northwest.   To support herself she works in a strip bar as a waitress, the bar being owned by a bogeyman who employs several crypts who can pass as human.   The book tells of a rumour that there is still a live dragon dormant under Manhattan which someone is trying to wake up by sacrificing virgins to it.   Her investigations cross pass with a
young Covenanter who is persuaded to modify the extreme views he has been taught while aiding her in the quest.   The tale moves along at a reasonable pace though the fighting skills that Verity has are a
little hard to accept.  Not bad though I wonder why I bought the book.

Fowler, Christopher: Bryant & May and the Memory of Blood

In new offices and with a slightly changed staff, the Peculiar Crimes Unit takes over the investigation of  a defenestrated baby from a locked room when the culprit appears to be a Mr Punch doll.   The doll is one of a number of Punch and Judy characters collected by the child's father, a rich businessman who has re-opened a theatre which had a reputation for grand guignol.   The child's murder takes place in his apartment on Northumberland Avenue at a post opening night party at which cast, crew and a critic are
present so one of them must be the murderer.   Pressure to solve the case is increased because the new
assistant stage manager is the wayward daughter of a leading cabinet minister.   On the way to solving the case we are given an introduction to the history of Punch and Judy, reflections on changing London townscape and other diversions.   There is a subplot involving the woman who was transcribing Arthur Bryant's memoirs whose death at first appears accidental but turns out to be murder; this sets up the possible theme for the next book as there is a prima facie link with the Hom Office civil servant who has been trying without success to close the unit down.   The book unfolds with the usual switching of
interest between the more straightforward investigative work, the scholarly digressions, the intuitive flights of Bryant, especially, until the denouement which occurs at the end but only after more killing.
Not as elegiac as the previous book, the variations hold the interest admirably producing a further chapter in the pair's life story which is well up to standard - and a very high standard at that.

Stross, Charles: The Apocalypse Codex

Another book about the adventures of Bob Howard who has been promoted in the Laundry, the branch of the Secret Service dealing with the paranormal and other worlds.   As with the earlier books, one has to accept that there are monsters and that magic can defeat them while the normal everyday activities go on with the standard risks from guns and other hazards.   Howard uses an outward appearance of a bungler as a weapon as it makes people underestimate him.   Here, he is teamed up with two agents with greater powers who are decidedly superior in rank (not that he knows this) to deal with an evangelical cult based in Colorado whose leader is about to summon the Sleeper who feeds on human souls by the thousand and whose re-awakening will lead to the end of the world.   What transpires is definitely logical with none of the 'with one leap he was free' elisions that spoil lesser thrillers.   The path to final success is anything but straightforward but Stross keeps things moving and holds the attention effortlessly.   Well up to the earlier books in the series showing a development in Howard's career.

Fables du paysage Flamand

Rather a change as this is a review of an exhibition held at the Palais des Beaux Arts in Lille.   We went there by Eurostar which took around 1 1/2 hours there and near 2 hours back as there was a delay on the way.   The exhibition covered the period of such well-known artists as Bosch and Bruegel as well as others less well know such as Mandyn and Brel which extended our visual knowledge of the period.
The exhibition was set out in a series of themed sections which did allow for comparing the work of the
artists with their contemporaries with a number of them using the Temptation of Saint Anthony as the
theme with one section almost completely devoted to depictions of the Tower of Babel.   The wealth of the pictures did leave me wishing it were nearer at home as it would have taken more than one visit to
appreciate all the works fully.   However, the overall impression was one of delight that the journey had been more than worthwhile in providing an excellent cross-section of the period of Flemish art after that of the great originators Van Eyck, Campin et al.   The catalogue provides a first-rate coverage of the exhibition though, perhaps unfortunately, only in French.

Twelve Trees, John: The Traveller

There are ordinary people, Travellers who are able to enter another dimension and Harlequins whose function is to protect Travellers beyond anything else.   Travellers and thus Harlequins are looked on as destroyers of the status quo, the situation in which governments control and manipulate people.   The increasing use of computers, computer-linked items such as credit cards, cctv systems etc make it much easier to control and to trace the unwanted elements.   This book tells how a girl called Maya tries to deny her training as a Harlequin until her father, recently crippled, is murdered in Prague.   She has to trace two brothers, both of whom may well be Travellers.   To do this, she goes to the USA to find that her primary connection has turned against the basic code of Harlequins to assist a major corporation to extend its power by tracking down and using a Traveller.   One of the brothers succumbs to them while the other does not and much of the book relates his adventures with Maya in evading capture and in trying to find and rescue his brother - not that the brother wants that.   Absolute hokum with a strong undercurrent of paranoia at the way people in general are nowadays caught in the system.