Dashiell Hammett’s “The Thin Man” is so thin you won’t see him.
Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man, published in 1933, four years after The Maltese Falcon, demonstrated Hammett’s expansion of and impact on the detective mystery genre. The author’s real-life experience as a Pinkerton Agency investigator provided him with a unique set of skills and experiences that provide gritty and true-to-life experiences of his characters. It’s not […]
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A Few Onions Short of French Soup: Rian Johnson Cooks up a New Batch of Characters for a Murder Mystery Dinner
Got Covid? The flu? RSV? Pharmacy all out of cough syrup? If you need to park on the couch with a funny movie, look no further than Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery! This sequel to writer and director Rian Johnson’s 2019 smash hit Knives Out is now streaming on Netflix after completing its one-week […]
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ANNIKA: Light and engaging British TV police procedural
Annika is a modern police procedural, written by Nick Walker in 2021. This lighthearted and funny series is well written and superbly performed in the best tradition of British mystery drama. DI Annika Strandhed and her Marine Homicide Unit investigate murders along the gorgeous Scottish shoreline. The private lives of Annika and her team are […]
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Book Review (SPOILERS): Tana French’s The Likeness
Tana French’s hard-to-believe murder mystery follows detective Cassie Maddox as she operates in an undercover capacity, slipping into the life of Lexie Madison, a murdered woman who was fraudulently living as detective Maddox’s undercover persona. Taking place in Glenskehy, a small town outside of Dublin, Ireland, the murder occurs near an abandoned, dilapidated cottage near […]
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The Batman, Movie Review
Opening statement: The Batman, 2022. Featuring Robert Pattinson as The Batman, director Matt Reeves. Also featuring Zoë Kravitz, Paul Dano, Jeffrey Wright, John Turturro, Peter Sarsgaard, Andy Serkis, and Colin Farrell. Brief Synopsis: The Batman is a reboot of the popular Batman series; a superhero movie based off of the DC comics Batman character. This […]
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Film Review of The Dry by Jane Harper, 2020
The Dry is a 2020 film adaptation of the Mystery Crime Thriller debut novel by Jane Harper published in 2016. Investigator Aaron Falk played by Eric Bana gets a note. It says, “Luke lied. You lied. You need to be here for the funeral.” The “funeral” is for Falk’s teenage friend, Luke Hadler, his wife […]
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And Then There Were None
And Then There Were None Agatha Christie Harper Collins Publishers, New York, NY, 2011 Mystery genre, one of Agatha Christie’s most popular books Brief Synopsis The main characters in the plot are ten people who are invited to a week long vacation on a private island. They don’t know each other and they all received […]
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Agatha Christies Personal Mystery
During her career, Agatha wrote and published her novels in a timely manner but when tasked with writing her autobiography it took 15 years to write and it was published after her death. Even in her autobiography, she maintained her privacy and withheld the details related to her disappearance. In her autobiography Agatha refused to […]
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Movie Review: Murder Mystery 2019
Police officer Nick Spitz and his wife Audrey take a trip to Italy for their 15th wedding anniversary. During their flight, they meet Charles Cavendish, who invites them to spend a weekend in Monaco on his family yacht. The guests on board the yacht include Tobey, Suzi Nakamara, Grace Ballard, Colonel Ulenga, Sergei Radjenko, Maharajah […]
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Dublin Murders: One at A Time, Please!
In her 1999 autobiographical diary, Time to Be in Earnest, mystery legend P.D. James describes a disagreement with Ecosse Films over the portrayal of P.I. Cordelia Gray, first introduced in James’ 1972 novel, An Unsuitable Job for a Woman. James writes of her experience: “The moral here is never let go of the rights to […]
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Berkeley Mystery Fiction 