Drama, Mystery, Television
TV: Marcella (Seasons 1-3)
It’s not often I waste energy lamenting my obsessive completism, but during the sloggier stretches of Marcella — a…
November 20, 2021
Comedy, Film, MysteryFilm: 2 Days in the Valley
2 Days in the Valley (1996) didn’t make much of an impression on me when I saw it a…
November 9, 2021
Drama, Fantasy, Mystery, TelevisionTV: The Third Day
I’m not sure if it’s an omen that shows keep luring me to creepy islands lately, but here we…
October 24, 2021
Fiction, Mystery, SpiesNovel: Slow Horses by Mick Herron
It was time for some classic British spy fiction, and this time I stumbled randomly across Mick Herron’s Slow…
October 23, 2021
Comedy, Mystery, TelevisionTV: Only Murders in the Building (Season 1)
As a mystery, Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building is merely a middling success, but fortunately it’s got a…
October 23, 2021
History, Mystery, Television, World War IITV: The Defeated (Season 1)
I had rather a middling reaction to Netflix’s The Defeated, an attractive international production that lands somewhere between high…
October 5, 2021
Film, Mystery, Science FictionFilm: Reminiscence
About twenty-five years ago I wrote a story titled “The Nostalgia Jones” about a man who gets addicted to…
September 2, 2021
Film, Mystery, ThrillerFilm: Beckett
Conspiracy thrillers are tricky business in a post-truth world, but as these things go, Netflix’s Beckett (2021) is a…
August 30, 2021
Fiction, MysteryNovel: A Conspiracy of Tall Men by Noah Hawley
Given how whole-heartedly I’ve enjoyed Noah Hawley’s work in the past, I was expecting a similar reaction to his…
August 15, 2021
Fiction, Mystery, SpiesNovel: Northern Spy by Flynn Berry
Flynn Berry’s work is new to me, but based on Northern Spy (2021) I may well be back for…
July 30, 2021
Film, Mystery, ThrillerFilm: Les Diaboliques
Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Les Diaboliques (1955) is the follow-up to his superb suspense adventure The Wages of Fear, and while…
July 24, 2021
Film, Mystery, ThrillerFilm: I Care a Lot
I Care a Lot (2020) is a well produced, nicely performed, and thoroughly professional thriller with a smidgen of…
July 24, 2021
Drama, Film, MysteryFilm: The Little Things
There’s plenty to like about John Lee Hancock’s The Little Things (2021), a dark police procedural with a rock-solid…
July 12, 2021
Drama, Film, MysteryFilm: No Sudden Move
Steven Soderbergh’s latest is No Sudden Move (2021), and it’s an absorbing, convoluted crime tale set in Detroit in…
July 7, 2021
Mystery, TelevisionTV: Lupin (Parts 1 & 2)
One of Netflix’s latest international hits is Lupin, a classy, opulent French mystery about a modern-day “gentleman burglar.” Assane…
June 26, 2021