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.

Conrad, Patrick: No Sale

Set in Antwerp which is a first for me, the book is about an elderly professor of film history who is the naib suspect when his alcoholic wife is found drowned.   He is released as there is no firm evidence and he falls in love with a mysterious student who has a strong resemblance to Louise Brooks and Clara Bow.   They have a year long affair during which time other murders occur, all with a firm association with thrillers of the 40s with the method of death and the name of the victim
aping a particular film.   Then the girlfriend disappears but the professor keeps this to himself until a further killing puts him back in the police limelight as all the victims turn out to have been either his
student or have some other connection to him.   The lead investigator believes he is innocent though the professor is beginning to doubt his sanity because of the links.   With the return of the girlfriend
whose disappeance was completely innocent in fact if not in his mind, the killer is unmasked.   What
is so enjoyable about the book is the repeated references to classic films noirs in short chapters with
the references adding to the action and atmosphere even when they stray past film noir into the Dirty
Harry era.   Excellent.

Crumey, Andrew: Mobius Dick

A multi-layered novel which uses quantum physics as its basis with the 'now' story interspersed with
a chronicle from the mid 19th century and another from the early 1920s, both referring to real life people though the history of the latter seems distorted.   The current activity is set in a parallel world where Scotland is a separate country under totalitarian rule.   The main character is a physicist who has been invited to aresearch facility in the Highlands to continue his work while helping to build a
new device.   He is convinced this could spell the literal end of the world by multiplying the number
of possible worlds that might appear, all this based on quantum theory.   Despite the esoteric nature of the plot's basis, the work moved along briskly and held my interest.

Barclay, Linwood: No Time For Goodbye

This is the first book I have read by this author though I have two others (such is the pull of 3 for 2
and other offers).   A teacher with a young family has been orphaned for some 25 years; she woke up after getting drunk and rowing with her parents to find the house empty with no trace of either parent or her brother and has been raised by her aunt.   Receiving a mysterious message takes her back in time with a resolve to find out just what did happen.   Although far from straightforward, the plot does hang together with a slow unravelling and a number of red herrings along the way during which she discovers that trusted friends are not trustworthy and that this leads to murder.   Set in Connecticut and New York State, the book is reasonably well written and comes to asatisfactory
conclusion, part of which I for one worked out ahead of time.

Killen,Chris: The Bird Room

Rather an odd first novel which tells of a typically uncharismatic young man with a lovely girl friend who is surprisingly in love with him.   He has a friend who is on the way to becoming the new artistic sensation.   Not surprisingly, the girl friend takes up with the artist leaving the everyday chappie in a mess of mixed emotions.   Crossing the men's paths is an aspiring actress who makes her way in life by appearing in porn films.   Lightly written with some wit, it left me cold.

The Big Gundown: Sergio Sollima

The final viewing of the Festival for us was, for once, enhanced by the introduction by the aficionada of Spaghetti Westerns, Sir Christopher Frayling.   Considered the director's best film, it started the
Italian career of Tomas Milian as a Mexican wanted for rape and murder.   Chased by Lee Van Cleef at his steely-eyed laconic best, he avoids capture until late in the film by which time Van Cleef has been convinced of his innocence.   The final shoot out sees them kill the real perpetrator while managing to survive.   The scenery providing the stage for the film is spectacular and deserves a
credit of its own while the plot with evil land barons, a Prussian killer and the good guys is s little
hackneyed now but the overall result is one which provides a lot of pleasure.

The Boys From Syracuse: A Edward Sutherland

The film version of the Rogers and Hart musical based on 'A Comedy of Errors' with Allan Jones of
'Donkey Serenade' fame playing the identical twins.   One has come to expect more of musicals after
the major leap forward of 'Oklahoma' and 'Carousel' both on stage and on film so this black and white
effort, though highly thought of at the time and considered important enough for the Library of Congress to restore it, is a bit of a let-down.   The music is pleasant but not the duos best and not enough to overcome the wooden performances, somewhat unfunny comedic episodes and cardboard scenery but it is over 70 years old.

Blancanieves: Pablo Berger

Returning to the London Film Festival's offerings after an unnecessarily long pause, this film was a
definite high point.   Silent, virtually, and in black and white, the story is a retelling of the Snow White fairy tale set in a recent Spain where a celebrated bullfighter is gored when distracted by a camera flash, the incident triggering his wife's giving birth to the heroine but dying as she does so.   The now crippled father wants nothing to do with the child while allowing the nurse who looks after him to marry him (a scarily icy performance by Maribel Verdu).   When the child is in her late teens
she is attacked by her stepmother's lover but escapes though she loses her memory.   Saved by a troupe of dwarfs who have supporting roles at bullfights, she one day saves the life of one of them by
jumping into the ring and distracting a rampaging bull with some classic moves.   This leads to her
becoming the star of the troupe and finally she appears to great acclaim in the ring where her father
ended his career.   A successful performance ends with her sparing the bull (a tradition after a truly
great showing) but her stepmother, in disguise, gives her a poisioned apple which kills her (or perhaps leaves her catatonic) to become a freak sideshow attraction.   Excellent camera work which
enhances the Gothic nature of the story; a very good musical score and well considered performance
make this a film worth seeing again.

Museum Hours: Jem Cohen

Something of an oddity, the film tells of an attendant at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna who befriends a Canadian woman who has come to Vienna  because she is the only relative of a cousin who is in a coma.   A leisurely piece which shows a number of the paintings in the Museum without comment as well as a series of disconnected shots of various parts of Vienna (very few of these of tourist sights) coupled with a measured commentary by the attendant about the visitors to the Museum, the film is, to quote the director, a sort of conversation with reference to the philosophy of Chris Marker and John Berger in particular.   The attendant is especially fond of the works of Brueghel and there is a quite extended sequence with a youngish art historian talking about some of the paintings in the room dedicated to his work.   A quiet, unassuming work with well rounded performances from the two leads though some sequences left me puzzled - after a boat trip though some underground caves, they learn that the cousin has died but the scene then moves to a party for immigrants in the attendant's local cafe which is followed by a brief discourse on a short of an old woman walking up a slope with a tall office or apartment building off to the left.   I went to this as I had hoped there would be more on the paintings than there was but, overall, an acceptable film.

Gipsy Anne: Rasmus Breistien

A complete change of pace a few days later in this silent restoration of what is considered the first
authentic Norwegian feature.   Starring Aasta Nielsen in the title role of a foundling tomboy who has
always thought she would marry her childhood friend, the early scenes show her getting into mischief with a local farmeralways being there to protect her.   As an adult, she sets fire to the house her erstwhile boyfriend has built but  her farmer friend takes responsibility for it even though Anne has turneddown his proposal of marriage.   When he leaves prison, Annewho has moved to the town to start afresh, is there to greet him and the film ends with them both leaving for the USA with his mother.   A relatively static camera setting with but a few moving shots though one of the farmer being taken to jail ( a shot of passing scenery with the camera behind the driver) is effective; the film stock switched from sepia to black and white without reason though this may be a function of the material available for restoration.   The main drawback for me was the apparent age of the main characters, all of whom looked to be in their thirties or more though Nielsen was only 23 when the film was made.   A curiosity but no more.

Helter Skelter: Mika Nagakawa

The fourth film from the Far East we have seen, this Japanese feature stars Erika Sawajira, apparently
the Japanese Kate Moss, in an excellently played role as the current darling of the teens of Japan.   She is almost completely artificially beautiful and requires regular treatment from a clinic whose procedures are being investigated by the police.   Sawajira's beauty hides a spoilt and vicious person who corrupts her assistant sexually as well as persuading the latter's boyfriend to disfigure a girl who has become engaged to her current lover.   She is gradually supplanted in the public affection by a younger, fresher beauty and, finally, breaks down completely in front of TV cameras.  A short end sequence shows the new beauty going to a risque nightclub where she sees and follows the assistant to see the earlier teen queen still beautiful but no longer famous.   A very energetic and flashy film with comparatively explicit (for Japan) sex scenes and fine support from the other main actors though the lasting memory will be of Sawajira's central performance in this attack on celebrity and the corruption behind it.

For Love's Sake: Takashi Miike

What a versatile director Miike is. Having made his name with Yakuza style films, he has tried other genres to greater or lesser success. This is a part musical reworking of what is called Romeo and Juliet but this is misleading. The central story is of a rich senior schoolgirl's love for a punk. She sees him in the middle of a street brawl which she unsuccessfully tries to stop but recognises him as the boy who saved her years earlier from a skiing accident which left him with a scarred forehead. This incident opens the film in anime style and also features at the end. She persuades her father to get him into her very exclusive school and to pay for his being there but this does not work and he ends up in a downbeat vocational school in which she enrols even though she was head girl of her former school. Out of her depth she is followed by one of the senior boys who ineffectually tries to protect her. The action is interspersed with songs, the one featuring her parents being delightfully funny and the other blending in with the action for the most part. The girls in the second school seem to be led by a rather large bully, this being the comedic relief role, though the real leader is another girl who takes up with the hero. She has a number of the boys under her thumb including one who is bigger and stronger than the rest. The finale sees this boy fight the hero for the second time with the female gang leader intervening by throwing knives. Although good prevails, the heroine is badly hurt and taken to hospital. In the closing scene, our hero is knifed in the back by a teacher he had humiliated but continues to the hospital to die in her arms. Miike has an excellent eye for scene composition and, although I thought the middle section would have benefitted from either being tighter or possible had more music in it, my overall reaction is that this is a very welcome return to top form.