Scottish author Graeme Macrae Burnet loves playing meta-textual games. And that’s patently evident in his trilogy of crime novels featuring French police detective Geroges Gorski, of which A Case of Matricide is the third and last. The books are purportedly written over forty years ago by a little known French author Raymond Brunet and merely…
Sometimes an album comes along that is so likable that it begs to be listened to. Some albums are creative, experimental, different, and noteworthy. We can recognize those albums as being “great” but it doesn’t mean that we want to keep listening to them. The Fratellis haven’t done much here on their fourth album (Eyes…
Is there anything that Meryl Streep cannot do? At an age when most actresses find it hard to land meaty roles or substantial character parts, Streep is a chameleon who seems to still be going strong, playing a variety of diverse and challenging roles. A case in point is her new film in which she…
Friends and family gather for a weekend in the countryside in Michael Mayer’s version of Chekhov’s The Seagull. While everyone is caught up in passionately loving someone who loves somebody else, a tragicomedy unfolds about the eternal desire to live a purposeful life. Sorin (Brian Dennehy), a retired government employee, and his sister Irina (Annette…
After the arrest of the Golden State Killer/East Area Rapist in 2018, investigator and scientist Paul Holes retired from the Contra Costa County police force. He has hardly had an idle day since. The DNA of Murder is a ten part series of individual cold case investigations, following Paul Holes and an array of his…
Ride and Fourplay are two early works from Jane Bodie. Both are lengthy one act plays. The evening is three hours long. It didn’t feel like it on the night I attended. Ride (2001), is a two-handed journey as two ‘moderns’ wake up in a bed not remembering how they got there or what subsequently…
Love in the slaughterhouse? On Body and Soul is a quirky drama about an unlikely romance between two lonely employees in a Budapest abattoir. The film won the prestigious Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival; but it’s an art-house film that will have limited interest to a broader audience. Endre (Géza Morcsányi) is the…
Crooked Seeds by Booker-prize longlisted author Karen Jennings is a dark indictment of white South Africa and the legacy of apartheid. Centred around an irredeemably self-centred character, Jennings takes readers into a possible future South Africa while also interrogating the sins of the past. The opening of Crooked Seeds clearly draws on the recent South…
Cassie (Claire Sara) and Kurt (Timmy Knowles) are a mega-rich couple in their late thirties, who have more money that most people would know what to do with. You see they have just won $337 million in the lottery and how do they celebrate? They don’t quit their jobs, rather they hire an escort –…
Plenty was left up in the air at the end of CK McDonnell’s second Stranger Times book This Charming Man. So for fans if this urban fantasy meets comedy meets horror series, the third volume Love Will Tear Us Apart could not come soon enough. Being the third book in a series this review is…
