Very nice, very nice indeed. I liked a lot this book. Until the end I was not sure, I could not decide which of three people was the real murderer. I never even considered the fourth one because that was practically impossible.
I like the story, and I like the characters, and I like the psychological description Agatha makes of many of them.
The story: for a weekend, a group of people get together at The Hollow, Lady Lucy Angkatell and her husband Sir Henry's house. He's an ex governor, a serious and just man; she's a strange old lady, often forgets what she was doing and always speaks what her wandering mind thinks, and she's gifted with a special charm that everybody feels, specially the servants that love her very much.
Their guests are: Midge Hardcastle, an independent , warm and practical woman forever in love with Edward; John Christow, a brilliant doctor married to Gerda but in love with Henrietta: still, his greatest love is his work; Gerda, totally submissive to John, she has made him an idol, and totally adores him; Henrietta Savernake is a sculptor, in love with John; Edward Angkatell has always been in love with Henrietta, but she's always rejected him; David Angkatell, an 'intellectual' who seems to dislike everything and everyone, as always intellectuals do in Agatha's books, for some reason.
Poirot was also invited for lunch, and he arrives to see a strange scene: John dying near the pool, Gerda with a gun in her hand, Henrietta Lucy and Edward looking at the scene. He thinks of a bad joke, due to his reputation and line of work, but it's not, John has been shot.
He was coming back from Veronica Cray's home: he had left her 15 years ago for his work, they had spend the night before together (well, until 3am) and now he had just told here that she could not have him, that he would not divorce his wife because he did not love her. I never really suspected her because she could not have had access to sir Henry's weapons collection, and did not even know the house. It could have been Edward, because he saw John as the only obstacle to his marrying Henrietta, or strange ethereal Lucy because John was also an obstacle to her plans for Edward's estate (she wanted him to marry and have kids who could inherit it, and he loved Henrietta, so...) but also Henrietta herself and Gerda too, out of betrayed love. I did not really believed Henrietta did it, she was not the type, but both Gerda and Lucy seemed the type to me, and I feared for Edward because I did not like the idea of Edward being the guilty one as that would have spoiled the whole happy ending. I'm happy to say Agatha gave it to me, my happy ending, Midge and Edward finally in love and engaged :-)
Gerda did it, the idol falling into misery when she saw him with Veronica. Henrietta had tried to help her, because John wanted it: he loved her too, in his own way. I also like the ending: Gerda dying of the same poison she wanted to give Henrietta (only because she knew about Gerda. Gerda did not know of the affair), Poirot taking care of the dead while Henrietta went home and took all her pain out in her art, already imagining her new creation, because life goes on.
I want to point out that the idea of old Lucy killing John was not so crazy as it might seem; at some point towards the end she admits candidly to her husband that she had thought of that and was almost about to do it, when she considered that he was a guest, that they invited him, and being the Lady that she is she could not have that ! :-)
I know Agatha hated Poirot, but I always loved him and I love him in this book too. I can understand why she hated him, because I can imagine how she felt 'forced' to write about the same characters, forced to put Poirot everywhere because the readers loved it and wanted more books with him (and I'm one of them). Although I know all that, I still love every scene with Poirot in it, and I appreciate that she never mistreated him out of personal dislike :-)
ITA: Poirot e la salma
martedì 25 agosto 2015
The feathered serpent by Edgar Wallace
Not too bad but not very exciting either. The mystery was not very mysterious at all, since Edgar had already connected for us the name of a man that apparently had no other relations to the dead Joe Farmer. The characters of course didn't know about this connection, but I read it; the love story of the book was not very romantic this time. Protagonist is Peter Dewin, journalist, who falls for Daphne Olroyd, at first secretary of rich Leicester Crew than of richer Gregory Beale. Just outside Crew's house his sister Ella Creed's husband Joe Farmer is killed. They all receive strange notes saying 'remember the feathered serpent'. The fourth of them, Pauline Staines, the nicest of them all, leaves the city in time to avoid trouble. Crew is killed at Gregory's house. With Daphne's help, Peter puts together a big piece of the story, and the rest he hears from Ella when he frees her from the 'prison' she had been locked in after being abducted. Some time ago Beale was a philanthropist who used the name William Lane to do charity incognito. He fell in love with Ella. To take advantage of his money and his love, Crewe told Ella to give him hope, and Lane eventually told her the secret code of his deposit. Crewe and Farmer had Lane arrested for the counterfeit money business they were in themselves, and took all his good money in the deposit. In prison, Lane learned of how much he had been deceived: Ella had already been married, she had simply used him. Once free, he planned his revenge. The book goes on slowly, being an old one, since every time Peter wants to check something he takes a cab and goes to talk face to face. Nobody is very fond of the telephone, they haven't warmed to it yet, they use it only to say: come here, I need to talk to you. This causes major delays, as often the person called is not at home. With modern cell phones this book would have been long only a third of what it actually was :lol: At the end Beale escapes justice, leaving the country.
Not bad but kind of boring, is what it was.
Not bad but kind of boring, is what it was.
The graveyard book by Neil Gaiman
Who else but Neil Gaiman could write something like this! It has a happy ending, the inevitable goodbye, that is the right thing to do, full of hope and life, and yet feels so sad... this is a book that the library put in the kids-section, I opened it and it started with the cruel murder of a father, a mother and a little girl. All dead but the youngest of the Dorian family, a little child little more than 18 months old, who liked to walk and wander about, that that night went out of the house towards what turned out to be the nearest graveyard. There he found the dead Owens who took him in their family, after the ghosts of his parents begged them to protect him.
He was called Bod, as in Nobody , Owens. He grew up among the dead, calling the Owens his parents, playing with dead children, learning how to read with the tombstones, knowing every single soul, every rock or leaf in that graveyard that was his house. The mysterious figure of Silas was his tutor, his guardian: not alive and yet not dead, a Guardian I already miss with all my heart. Bod had a living friend, Scarlett, met when he was four or five before she moved to Scotland, and that he met again in the darkest hour, when he was 14 and Jack Frost, of the Jack fraternity, the murderer of his family, found him again. The Jacks want magic and power, and something like a prophecy said that one day a boy would cross the border between life and death, and that boy would have been the end of them. And so it happened, and as it often happens with prophesies, the same people that wanted to fight it were the ones that made it possible, because had Jack not killed his family, Bod would not have grown up in a graveyard..
Bod confronted them where he had the advantage: his home, the graveyard. One broke his ankle, three he sent down through the Door of the Ghouls, one he gave to the Sleer to 'keep safe' forever. Probably the end of them, the last of their fraternity; Silas, Miss Lupescu and others took care of other Jacks in the world. Miss Lupescu was a werewolf, a lycan, one of the Hounds of God, as she liked it best; she was Bod's teacher from time to time, and died during a mission.
Silas made Scarlett forget everything, because she didn't know how to cope with Bod's world. It was sad, but nothing as sad as when, at 15, now safe from Jack and all grown-up, Bod started to feel the change. He could not see his old friends as he used to , he could not see in the dark, that was not his home anymore. He said goodbye to his parents, to Liza the witch who had been his friend since he made her a tombstone, and of course to Silas, and went to meet the world, to live and meet people and visit places and make all kinds of experiences, with a passport and some money Silas gave him. Of course he had to go out in the world, he was alive, and he didn't need protection anymore, but knowing that he could never go back home was sad, very sad. I wanted to hug Silas and never let him go.
Sure, the town and the graveyard will stay there, but it wouldn't be home anymore because he won't see them.
I liked when Bod made the tombstone for poor Elizabeth, drowned and burned as a witch; when the dead and the living danced the Danse Macabre together; when Silas threw himself in front of the police car that was taking Bod away when a girl had a grudge against him, and Bod shouted 'my dad!' to make a scene for the policemen and once they were distracted he put his arms around Silas and they disappeared... every attempt to mix himself with the living had brought danger upon him. Fortunately he had Liza looking out for him, and Silas to protect him. Liza helped him when the pawnshop owner kept him prisoner, she told him to go back home when he went away, after a fight with Silas. When Bod was worried Silas would be mad at him, it was Liza that told him that if it was so it was because Silas cared about him, and again Liza hurried to call Silas when the young bully got him arrested. Silas immediately came.
I liked when he found his name, not the one he could have had in another life, but his own, Nobody Owens.
It's a bizarre book, it's a Neil Gaiman book, but even if some moments were too slow like the Jacks talking to one another, all in all this story got to me, and now I miss them all. All those souls that played with Bod, talked with him, taught him all kinds of things, that were his family. It's sad Bod won't see them ever again. I miss Silas more than anyone else, but at least he's still up and about, guarding us all :-) Yeah, I guess I must have a thing for very tall, gigantic men in black robes who go about protecting the world....
He was called Bod, as in Nobody , Owens. He grew up among the dead, calling the Owens his parents, playing with dead children, learning how to read with the tombstones, knowing every single soul, every rock or leaf in that graveyard that was his house. The mysterious figure of Silas was his tutor, his guardian: not alive and yet not dead, a Guardian I already miss with all my heart. Bod had a living friend, Scarlett, met when he was four or five before she moved to Scotland, and that he met again in the darkest hour, when he was 14 and Jack Frost, of the Jack fraternity, the murderer of his family, found him again. The Jacks want magic and power, and something like a prophecy said that one day a boy would cross the border between life and death, and that boy would have been the end of them. And so it happened, and as it often happens with prophesies, the same people that wanted to fight it were the ones that made it possible, because had Jack not killed his family, Bod would not have grown up in a graveyard..
Bod confronted them where he had the advantage: his home, the graveyard. One broke his ankle, three he sent down through the Door of the Ghouls, one he gave to the Sleer to 'keep safe' forever. Probably the end of them, the last of their fraternity; Silas, Miss Lupescu and others took care of other Jacks in the world. Miss Lupescu was a werewolf, a lycan, one of the Hounds of God, as she liked it best; she was Bod's teacher from time to time, and died during a mission.
Silas made Scarlett forget everything, because she didn't know how to cope with Bod's world. It was sad, but nothing as sad as when, at 15, now safe from Jack and all grown-up, Bod started to feel the change. He could not see his old friends as he used to , he could not see in the dark, that was not his home anymore. He said goodbye to his parents, to Liza the witch who had been his friend since he made her a tombstone, and of course to Silas, and went to meet the world, to live and meet people and visit places and make all kinds of experiences, with a passport and some money Silas gave him. Of course he had to go out in the world, he was alive, and he didn't need protection anymore, but knowing that he could never go back home was sad, very sad. I wanted to hug Silas and never let him go.
Sure, the town and the graveyard will stay there, but it wouldn't be home anymore because he won't see them.
I liked when Bod made the tombstone for poor Elizabeth, drowned and burned as a witch; when the dead and the living danced the Danse Macabre together; when Silas threw himself in front of the police car that was taking Bod away when a girl had a grudge against him, and Bod shouted 'my dad!' to make a scene for the policemen and once they were distracted he put his arms around Silas and they disappeared... every attempt to mix himself with the living had brought danger upon him. Fortunately he had Liza looking out for him, and Silas to protect him. Liza helped him when the pawnshop owner kept him prisoner, she told him to go back home when he went away, after a fight with Silas. When Bod was worried Silas would be mad at him, it was Liza that told him that if it was so it was because Silas cared about him, and again Liza hurried to call Silas when the young bully got him arrested. Silas immediately came.
I liked when he found his name, not the one he could have had in another life, but his own, Nobody Owens.
It's a bizarre book, it's a Neil Gaiman book, but even if some moments were too slow like the Jacks talking to one another, all in all this story got to me, and now I miss them all. All those souls that played with Bod, talked with him, taught him all kinds of things, that were his family. It's sad Bod won't see them ever again. I miss Silas more than anyone else, but at least he's still up and about, guarding us all :-) Yeah, I guess I must have a thing for very tall, gigantic men in black robes who go about protecting the world....
lunedì 17 agosto 2015
Pars vite et reviens tard by Fred Vargas
It's a 50/50 this time, parts I like and parts I don't. Pro: to see under the same roof Adamsberg, the old Vandoosler and the three evangelists :-D ; the way Vargas writes and her world of bizarre characters ; Danglard helping Camille when she wants to run away, leaving him with the stray cat that followed her home ; Danglard taking the little cat to work, and the cat sleeping on his feet :-)
Cons: too much tragedy, in a way; Adamsberg being a jerk, sleeping with a girl forgetting Camille was to go to him that night, and then sort-of-complaining that she disappeared and didn't call him... thinking: it was just a collision, there have been and there will be, but that's nothing to do with you... I say she should run away and never come back, and to hell with that man that seems to not are about anything, wanting what he wants but not caring about what the others want.
The story is a bit peculiar, with all that talking about the Great Plague, the Black Death, when five people are strangled and dirtied with coal. Another peculiar aspect is that this book is not great on justice: Decambrais years ago was a teacher charged with assault against a girl: six months in prison, which seems not enough if that was true, but actually too much since he was innocent, he protected her but the school saw him with her still in shock and believed the worst: understandable in a way, but it's not cleared why nobody asked the girl, or what she said. Damas was imprisoned for five years charged with the murder of his girlfriend: it is believed he pushed her out of the window. Again, Damas was not only innocent, but both he and his girlfriend had been victims of horrible tortures by seven people payed for it, and none of them was ever found by the police. Until now, that is, because five of them are now the five dead.
Joss Le Guern did indeed beat a man, but it was because he made Joss go at sea with a too-old-boat to save money, and there were deaths when it sank, and yet Joss got nine months in jail while those responsible for the boat sinking were protected by money and position.
Adamsberg says the three torturers still alive will pay for it, but we don't see it and I reserve to doubt about that!
A thing that puzzled me is that this is clearly the third Adamsberg book, okay, but it is said that he has just been transferred from the fifth to the 13th arrondissement, which makes me think: before any Kehlweiler book then, but no, because here Marc already works as a cleaning guy, so the timing is all wrong, because in 'un peu plus lion sur la droite' Marc had not yet started that work, he was helping Louis...
Anyway, back to the end of the book, Damas and his grandma really believed they had unleashed the black death upon those men, but someone else strangled them. His father, a violent bastard, had a son and a daughter with another woman but never gave them money, so now stepsister Marie-Belle wants it, so she plans to have Damas arrested and then inherit everything their father left. She convinced her younger brother to do it.
I had the name right, but I had thought of the opposite motive: I thought she killed them because she knew his way would not work and she said she always took care of him so she helped him without telling him because he was delusional and after what he had been through she had to do something for him... basically the complete opposite. I thought for love but she did it for money and envy and hate (Damas would have given her the money if she had asked for it).
At the end she escapes.
Le Guern's job of reading messages at the public place was really 'colourful'.
I liked to see Marc consulted by Adamsberg, but this is not the book I'd like to re-read. Of the six I've read, this is n.5, with the former n.5 now down to n.6.
ITA: Parti in fretta e non tornare
Cons: too much tragedy, in a way; Adamsberg being a jerk, sleeping with a girl forgetting Camille was to go to him that night, and then sort-of-complaining that she disappeared and didn't call him... thinking: it was just a collision, there have been and there will be, but that's nothing to do with you... I say she should run away and never come back, and to hell with that man that seems to not are about anything, wanting what he wants but not caring about what the others want.
The story is a bit peculiar, with all that talking about the Great Plague, the Black Death, when five people are strangled and dirtied with coal. Another peculiar aspect is that this book is not great on justice: Decambrais years ago was a teacher charged with assault against a girl: six months in prison, which seems not enough if that was true, but actually too much since he was innocent, he protected her but the school saw him with her still in shock and believed the worst: understandable in a way, but it's not cleared why nobody asked the girl, or what she said. Damas was imprisoned for five years charged with the murder of his girlfriend: it is believed he pushed her out of the window. Again, Damas was not only innocent, but both he and his girlfriend had been victims of horrible tortures by seven people payed for it, and none of them was ever found by the police. Until now, that is, because five of them are now the five dead.
Joss Le Guern did indeed beat a man, but it was because he made Joss go at sea with a too-old-boat to save money, and there were deaths when it sank, and yet Joss got nine months in jail while those responsible for the boat sinking were protected by money and position.
Adamsberg says the three torturers still alive will pay for it, but we don't see it and I reserve to doubt about that!
A thing that puzzled me is that this is clearly the third Adamsberg book, okay, but it is said that he has just been transferred from the fifth to the 13th arrondissement, which makes me think: before any Kehlweiler book then, but no, because here Marc already works as a cleaning guy, so the timing is all wrong, because in 'un peu plus lion sur la droite' Marc had not yet started that work, he was helping Louis...
Anyway, back to the end of the book, Damas and his grandma really believed they had unleashed the black death upon those men, but someone else strangled them. His father, a violent bastard, had a son and a daughter with another woman but never gave them money, so now stepsister Marie-Belle wants it, so she plans to have Damas arrested and then inherit everything their father left. She convinced her younger brother to do it.
I had the name right, but I had thought of the opposite motive: I thought she killed them because she knew his way would not work and she said she always took care of him so she helped him without telling him because he was delusional and after what he had been through she had to do something for him... basically the complete opposite. I thought for love but she did it for money and envy and hate (Damas would have given her the money if she had asked for it).
At the end she escapes.
Le Guern's job of reading messages at the public place was really 'colourful'.
I liked to see Marc consulted by Adamsberg, but this is not the book I'd like to re-read. Of the six I've read, this is n.5, with the former n.5 now down to n.6.
ITA: Parti in fretta e non tornare
L'homme à l'envers by Fred Vargas
Two third boring, one third interesting. I've read only five books of Fred Vargas, and this definitely rates n. 5.
It all starts at Saint-Victor, a village made of farmers, sheep and mountains. At night sheep are being killed by a big wolf, apparently; one night Suzanne Rosselin is killed in the same way. A strong and peculiar woman, and Camille loved her. Her boyfriend-of-the-moment Lawrence, a Canadian here to work with the wolves, tells her that Suzanne had talked of a werewolf, he tells her that anyway there must be a man behind it, and he points to Massart, a local man, a loner, but they can't find him.
Suzanne was very much loved by her old sheperd (called 'Il Guarda' in Italian) and by Soliman Diawara, a young black man abandoned at the local church crying when he was a baby, until Suzanne took him with her and since nobody ever claimed him back he grew up as her son.
They want to track him down, Massart, the werewolf, and they ask for Camille's help, because she can drive and she loved Suzanne. She accepts and they leave, but after a few days they realize it is more difficult than they thought, that they don't really know how to find him now, and they would need some help, a policeman to give them the right information, and Camille knows a good one, but hesitates to call him.
Adamsberg is closing a case and also hiding from a girl that wants to kill him because he 'accidently' shot dead a guy she cared about. When Danglard receives a call from a girl asking where Adamsberg is , he believes it a trick of Sabrina Monge, but when he asks for her name and she says Camille Forestier, Danglard remembers Mathilde and tells her where to find him. She goes to him, asks for his help, and of course he goes with her. More sheep are killed, and also three men. Adamsberg has all the different 'gendarmerie' to work on this, and when his name appears on the papers Sabrina finds him and almost gets him, but warned in time he gets shot only in the arm. Going on in his investigation, he is sure the killings are not random but specific targets. He learns of the old story of a man, John Padwell, 18 years in prison after killing a man, Simon Hellouin, his wife's lover, in front of his son Stuart. The last victim of the 'wolf' was Paul Hellouin, the brother, and all three had been lovers of his wife, after the imprisonment. John died but his son Stuart was brought up with his mission of revenge. It's Lawrence and he almost kills Adamsberg but for Soliman's help. At the end, Camille goes back to Saint-Victor with her two friends, and he goes back to Paris.
It became interesting only when Adamsberg joined them in their road-trip; before it was a bit boring. If I remember right this happens five years after that time they 'met' on the train and had two hours together. What surprised me is that at the beginning, thinking of her, he states that he left her... this is news to me, it always seemed like it was her always going away, running away from a relationship too difficult. What is this story that he left her? Why on Earth did he do that? It's kind of absurd, makes no sense, since he's always complaining about the fact that she keeps running away.. well not exactly complaining maybe, anyway it was nice to see them together, and to see him in action, even with a gun! Slow Adamsberg!
ITA: L'uomo a rovescio
It all starts at Saint-Victor, a village made of farmers, sheep and mountains. At night sheep are being killed by a big wolf, apparently; one night Suzanne Rosselin is killed in the same way. A strong and peculiar woman, and Camille loved her. Her boyfriend-of-the-moment Lawrence, a Canadian here to work with the wolves, tells her that Suzanne had talked of a werewolf, he tells her that anyway there must be a man behind it, and he points to Massart, a local man, a loner, but they can't find him.
Suzanne was very much loved by her old sheperd (called 'Il Guarda' in Italian) and by Soliman Diawara, a young black man abandoned at the local church crying when he was a baby, until Suzanne took him with her and since nobody ever claimed him back he grew up as her son.
They want to track him down, Massart, the werewolf, and they ask for Camille's help, because she can drive and she loved Suzanne. She accepts and they leave, but after a few days they realize it is more difficult than they thought, that they don't really know how to find him now, and they would need some help, a policeman to give them the right information, and Camille knows a good one, but hesitates to call him.
Adamsberg is closing a case and also hiding from a girl that wants to kill him because he 'accidently' shot dead a guy she cared about. When Danglard receives a call from a girl asking where Adamsberg is , he believes it a trick of Sabrina Monge, but when he asks for her name and she says Camille Forestier, Danglard remembers Mathilde and tells her where to find him. She goes to him, asks for his help, and of course he goes with her. More sheep are killed, and also three men. Adamsberg has all the different 'gendarmerie' to work on this, and when his name appears on the papers Sabrina finds him and almost gets him, but warned in time he gets shot only in the arm. Going on in his investigation, he is sure the killings are not random but specific targets. He learns of the old story of a man, John Padwell, 18 years in prison after killing a man, Simon Hellouin, his wife's lover, in front of his son Stuart. The last victim of the 'wolf' was Paul Hellouin, the brother, and all three had been lovers of his wife, after the imprisonment. John died but his son Stuart was brought up with his mission of revenge. It's Lawrence and he almost kills Adamsberg but for Soliman's help. At the end, Camille goes back to Saint-Victor with her two friends, and he goes back to Paris.
It became interesting only when Adamsberg joined them in their road-trip; before it was a bit boring. If I remember right this happens five years after that time they 'met' on the train and had two hours together. What surprised me is that at the beginning, thinking of her, he states that he left her... this is news to me, it always seemed like it was her always going away, running away from a relationship too difficult. What is this story that he left her? Why on Earth did he do that? It's kind of absurd, makes no sense, since he's always complaining about the fact that she keeps running away.. well not exactly complaining maybe, anyway it was nice to see them together, and to see him in action, even with a gun! Slow Adamsberg!
ITA: L'uomo a rovescio
Sans feu ni lieu by Fred Vargas
The three evangelists! So happy to see them again! I don't care much for Louis Kehlweiler, but I like Marthe and I love the Evangelists, all three of them. :-)
The story: two women dead, murdered. A young man walks through Paris frantically looking for Marthe. When he was a little boy, she took care of him, the only person that showed him affection. He's a bit slow in the head and he needs her help. Finally he asks Marthe's "ex-collegues" Line and Giséle and he finds her. He tells her everything: he has watched those two girls for a few days because a man 'hired' him to do so, and now the police have his description and is looking for him. Marthe does the only thing she can: she calls for Kehlweiler's help. Everything is against this Clément Vauguer, but Marthe loves him so Louis helps her, and hides him in the evangelists' house. Marc, Lucien, Matthias and the old Vandoosler make turns to keep an eye on him. Louis investigates with the help of Marc, who in these days is working as a 'cleaning-lady'-guy.
He finds another victim of the same guy, and the first one who was assaulted and raped and then killed. Lucien finds a connection between the names of the streets in which the last two girls lived: a poem, so they start guarding three streets every night hoping to prevent the next murder, until Marc realizes who the murderer is and leaves his post to go and follow him, and succeeds in stopping him.
First time I 'saw' that man I thought of him as the murderer, but then I let Vargas take me to the wrong path and I followed Louis' suspicions on those other two disgusting individuals. This book was full of shit men. After the police arrest Merlin, Clément's position is cleared, and yet he's still at the evangelists' house, working with Matthias in the basement. It's not said how long he'll stay there, I really hope there will be more books with the evangelists, I love them :-) They're so adorable and good :-)
ITA: Io sono il tenebroso
The story: two women dead, murdered. A young man walks through Paris frantically looking for Marthe. When he was a little boy, she took care of him, the only person that showed him affection. He's a bit slow in the head and he needs her help. Finally he asks Marthe's "ex-collegues" Line and Giséle and he finds her. He tells her everything: he has watched those two girls for a few days because a man 'hired' him to do so, and now the police have his description and is looking for him. Marthe does the only thing she can: she calls for Kehlweiler's help. Everything is against this Clément Vauguer, but Marthe loves him so Louis helps her, and hides him in the evangelists' house. Marc, Lucien, Matthias and the old Vandoosler make turns to keep an eye on him. Louis investigates with the help of Marc, who in these days is working as a 'cleaning-lady'-guy.
He finds another victim of the same guy, and the first one who was assaulted and raped and then killed. Lucien finds a connection between the names of the streets in which the last two girls lived: a poem, so they start guarding three streets every night hoping to prevent the next murder, until Marc realizes who the murderer is and leaves his post to go and follow him, and succeeds in stopping him.
First time I 'saw' that man I thought of him as the murderer, but then I let Vargas take me to the wrong path and I followed Louis' suspicions on those other two disgusting individuals. This book was full of shit men. After the police arrest Merlin, Clément's position is cleared, and yet he's still at the evangelists' house, working with Matthias in the basement. It's not said how long he'll stay there, I really hope there will be more books with the evangelists, I love them :-) They're so adorable and good :-)
ITA: Io sono il tenebroso
martedì 11 agosto 2015
Dragons of Autumn Twilight by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
Where to begin to talk about this book..it’s the first one of the series, it made me know Raistlin and I never ever forgot him. Reading it again, I see I still feel for him as I always did. He touches my soul, it goes deep, he is the only reason I so much loved this book since I first read it. Without him, it would have been nice, sure, full of adventure and funny moments, but honestly nothing extraordinary. Raistlin is so important to me it’s embarassing. I can’t say “the most important” because I can’t forget Allanon, I’ve loved him so much, but they are different, and Raistlin speaks to my soul, I understand him, I feel for him, I feel his pain and I understand his actions. The other characters, being the stupid they are, think he’s rude and evil, but how would you like if someone always treated you like a little child? If someone your own age treated you like that, always ‘don’t go it’s dangerous’ and ‘I’ll carry you’ and ‘I’ll help you’ , and ‘if you don’t want to go I’ll stay with you’, all the time, every day of your entire life, that you ask for it or not, would you be pleased or would you shout ‘go where you want and leave me alone, I’m a man not a doll!’ ? So yes, he’s a character despised by all, loved by his twin brother although in the wrong way, trusted by nobody; he’s part of the companionship and yet he has relatively little space, compared to the others. Unfortunately, for I read only for him.
I always loved how it started, with this strange man coming at the inn and starting rearranging the furniture, for the group of people that would soon arrive, I specially like the fact that he wants another chair “a comfortable one, mind you” in the shadowy corner next to the firepit, and I think that was were Raistlin sat, since he was in shadows and his frail body could certainly use the comfort. These friends had gone their separate ways with the sacred oath to meet again in five years and report about the evil in the world. They all come but Kitiara, the brother's mercenary older half-sister. When the strange old man talks of the ancient God Paladine, and has Goldmoon sing a song (because she can’t “tell a story” , she sings it ) the local theocrat jumps up screaming of blasphemy, and he keeps going even after he’s healed with the blue staff! The man’s crazy :-/
I don’t like that staff, it heals ‘the pure’, but if injures Raistlin. To defend Goldmoon, all the companions escape with her from the back exit, which means a 40 feet drop. From now on, they travel together, fight together, trying to stay alive at first, then to understand what’s going on, and then to try and save their world. It’s like a D’n’D game, this book, with the knight always so boring, the warrior all action and no thinking, the mage that every morning must learn his spells, and must rest to be able to concentrate, and all that.
Raistlin notices that the constellations of the Queen of Darkness and of the Valiant Warrior are gone, they have come to Krynn. They meet some clerics who actually are reptile-men, and I like to see Raistlin fight side by side with Caramon, I love when he appears beside him “I am here, broher” *sigh* , then go to Darken Wood where they don’t listen to Raistlin, as always, and get into trouble, and he saves the situation, being the voice of the army of the dead. Centaurs bring them to the Forestmaster, a unicorn; she calls some pegasi to transport them to Xak Tsaroth, but the pegasi are afraid and leave them early and they walk the rest of the way. They find that Que-Shu, Goldmoon’s homeland, is burning and there is nobody. Taken prisoners by the draconians, they escape thanks to Tas, who enters a fake dragon and helps them. I liked that Goldmoon stayed with Raistlin when he was dying of a poisoned dart, and she stroked his white hair, but hated how she looked at him in disgust because he wasn’t all mushy and after he was healed with the staff he simply told Caramon that he needed to be alone and rest.
Finally at Xak Tsaroth, they are attacked by a dragon: Khisanth, or Onyx. Riverwind seems dead, but he’s not yet, and they don’t want to take him to Goldmoon, they wanted to finish him off, but Raist told them to take him to her and he took the blanket off him in front of her when the others didn’t want to ‘obey’ her, and so she cured him! Tanis here thinks how he hates Raistlin because he sees no emotions in him, as if losing it would serve any purpose!
In that Temple the Goddess of healing, Mishakal, spoke to her and told her to go to the dragon’s lair and take the Disks of Mishakal. When they attempt it, Raist says he knows the name of the stairs of the city, the Paths of the Dead, and they are all ‘how do you know?’ and ‘what else you haven’t told us?’ and he replies ‘when you played, I studied’ and nobody of them trusts him because he’s different from them, in other words he’s intelligent.
To discover the way to the lair, they think of asking the gully dwarves that once lived there and now work there as slaves for the draconians. Raistlin goes towards a group of them, does a few tricks with his hand to catch their attention, then casts a friendship-spell. I hated how idiot Sturm was alarmed, thinking he could have done that spell to them anytime, and yet he never did!! Is Raist alarmed that Sturm could cut him in two with that big sword? Tsk.
Those gully dwarves are now in adoration of Raist, more or less like me, and Bupu stands out and brings them to their leader the Highbulp, although he doesn’t really know the way and she does.
When Raist tells Caramon to look for a book in there, the book of the mage Fistandantilus, Caramon is all ‘did he wear the black robes?’ and Raist is angry “you are as bad as the others! How can any of you understand me?”
Bupu leads the way but the Highbulp has betrayed them so the dragon knows their plan and takes Raist prisoner, while all the idiots doubt his loyalty :-/
He’s ready to sacrifice his life attempting one last spell knowing the dragon would immediately kill him, but he would do it because nobody ever defeated him, not out of love for them, since he values his life more than theirs, but he won't admit a defeat without a fight. He hears a voice in his head calming him, but he doesn’t need to die because Goldmoon steps forward and kills the dragon with the staff, and then she disappears in light and they think she’s dead, but they’ll find her alive in the temple, of course. Before going away while everything’s falling down, Raistlin frantically looks for his book without success. While they escape through the pot-lift and scream to him to get in, he runs to get Bupu in his arms and carries her to safety with them. He helps them, killing a flying draconian with his magic, and they escape the city.
At night, he hears crying and he’s annoyed thinking it’s Goldmoon but when he realizes it’s Bupu he goes to her after checking that nobody can see him. “What is it , little one?”, he asks her gently, and they say he’s evil! She’s sad to leave her home and her people, so he looks at her with, and I quote, “infinite tenderness” , then Raist convinces her to go back, telling her he’ll be happy knowing she’s safe, stroking her dirty hair, “knowing what if felt like to be weak and miserable, an object of ridicule and pity”. She wants to give him a gift and what is that?!? Fistandantilus’ book! Before she goes away, he puts a hand on her head and prays to the Great One that she might go through her life in safety and happiness… awww.
Then he sees that Solace is on fire! They go there to find that only the Inn and a few other buildings are still up, although down on the ground, but the old trees are all burned. The inn is full of draconians, and Gilthanas is there. Tika saves him, but then they’re arrested. All their things are taken, but Goldmoon doesn’t want to give them the pack with the disks, and Raist tells her to do it, that it’ll be all right, and she screams “No! You’re a traitor” without any reason other than being a stupid whining princess. Of course she has to give it or they would all be killed , then Raist casts a fake spell of protection to impress the guards. They’re taken prisoner, they are to be taken to the mines as slaves. Goldmoon heals poor blacksmith Theros, almost dead because he has helped elves escape death, and Gilthanas wants to pull her away, moaning to let him die in peace saving him from her barbaric rituals, although he knows nothing of her!
On the road they meet the same old man, who says his name is Fizban. Taken prisoner with the others, he helps Raist (whispering “Fistandan… not the time…) who seems afraid to see him.
They are both magi, and Fizban talks of teaching him the fireball-spell :lol:
They are saved by the elves; Raist yells when Fizban casts the fireball to the lock, but then always keeps close to him. At the council, he runs to help him with his hat, fallen on his eyes :-)
They go to Qualinesti to learn that it’s about to be abandoned. They start a quest to stop or at least delay the attack on Qualinesti. Gilthanas goes with them. When they have to fight a gigantic slug, they discover Laurana has followed them (because in love with Tanis) .
Raist reasons that they have no choice but to take her along, and Tanis hates him for his “cold, unfeeling logic, and for being right”, as if that was reason for hate! He casts a spell of opening, the first from Fistandantilus book. Later he warns them not to open a certain door, and the usual idiot is like “why not? you want to alert someone before we find the way into Pax Tharkas?”, he really has the nerve to say that, when Raist has helped much more than him! I can’t wait for him to get out of the way..
Gilthanas opens it , Raist says “you will regret this” and sure enough inside there is the very dangerous spirit of a dark elf, and they can only run. To save them all, Raist casts a spell on the door to close it. Again that voice in his head, helping him..
Tax and Fizban are gone, but they’ll manage anyway; Tas will think Fizban dead with no proof, and wrongly, but I say that because I know it, they don’t reveal it yet.
They enter Pax Tharkas and plan to disguise themselves among the women to free all the prisoners, men, women and children. How unbearable is it that in such a dangerous situation they fight over a dress or a shave? Riverwind will never wear a dress, Sturm would rather die than shave his moustache… how immensely stupid is this. If he wants it so much let him die and be happy.
Goldmoon finds who she was looking for when she heals Elistan and he gets interested in the Goddess and her disks. Lord Verminaard’s dragon Ember, or Pyros, has a spy among the group. Will it be Raistlin the mage nobody trusts for no reason, Gilthanas the elven prince, or Eben the man they have known for like a couple of days and of which they know nothing about?? And Tanis the wise couldn’t work that out! He asks them about their actions: Eben has a reasonable explanation, Gilthanas says he came to check on Raist and Raist says “none of you trusts me, so why should you believe me? I refuse to answer”. sigh.
When they rescue the children and the dragons wakes up (beause of Tanis’ blade vibrating at its presence), it is Raist who stays back to help him escape, and still St-idiot yells ‘you trust this..’ and I just think: aren’t you hungry, poor dragon???
Raist makes it dark so they escape, than Verminaard appears yelling he will kill them all, he’ll destroy them all, and yells “I will destroy the children” and the poor old dragon that cared for them and still remembers when all her children died in the old war, hearing these words thinks her children at in danger and goes out to defend them. Matafleur attack Pyros, and after a great battle they die together. I must confess that aside from Raist praying for Bupu, Matafleur was the only thing that touched me, I almost had tears for her.
Verminaard has to fight against the four of them, but he is a cleric and the Queen of Darkness helps him, so he’s winning easily; can I just say how stupid it was on Sturm’s part to salute his opponent with his sword after he saw Verminaard put out of combat Raist, Tanis and Caramon?
Anyway, at last the Queen of Darkness sees a radiant God dressed in white and shining armor and she’s afraid, she didn’t know he was back, and retreats to think, leaving Verminaard alone, so that Tanis can kill him.
At the last day of Autumn, Goldmoon and Riverwind get married by Elistan, and they honor the tradition of not purchasing their gifts. Every “symbol of love must be made by the hand of the beloved” and yet Goldmoon gives Flint her jewels so that he can work them and use them to bond her hair together , so what, Riverwind’s beloved is actually Flint??? and isn’t a little macabre to give your hair as a present?
They leave us with the mystery of who it is the mysterious man that escaped Pax Tharkas and that has a green gem in his chest! Of which I have absolutely no idea, although I read the whole series, years ago.
Story of Krynn. in ages deep, dragons made war on this world, then a knight of Solamnia, Huma, Knight of truth and power, called the Gods, and Paladine, great God of Good helped him. He forged the mighty Dragonlance and the Queen of Darkness was banished: it was the end of the Age of Dreams and began the Age of Might. The great kingdom of Istar’s kingpriest wanted the same power and like Huma summoned the Gods to help him purge the world of sin, but they didn’t. A Cataclysm came over the city destroying it: it was now the Age of Despair. People felt the gods had abandoned them, and this led the way of new false clerics, like the seekers (we seek the new gods), who with time cared more about their gained power than about religion. Krynn has two moons, the red moon Lunitari and the silver moon Solitari.
Caramon the handsome giant strong and cheerful but thick as a piece of wood, who wears a dragon helm, ring-mail armor under the cape, a longsword and a battered shield, a short bow and a dagger, a warrior! :-/ When the are in Xak Tsaroth his plan would be ‘let’s fight the dragon and take the disks’ :-/ tsk.
and Raistlin the slim brother who was never suited for action but always had a powerful mind. They are 25 years old. Raistlin was the youngest mage ever to be chosen to take the test, but in the Towers of High Sorcery something happened to him and to Caramon as well, but they don’t say what yet.
“He’s changed” says Caramon: now his skin has a metallic golden color, glistening in the firelight; his eyes with the black pupils now the shape of hourglasses, his pale blue irises now glittering gold. He wears the red robes of neutrality and speaks in a soft, wheezing voice, barely above a whisper, often with a note of sarcasm. Everybody can see there’s a strong aura of power in him. He has long nervous hands and the victory at the Towers left his body broken, he often coughs blood. The damage to his body is permanent, his sacrifice for his magic. It gets better when he drinks his special herbal mixture, a recipe given to him by Par-Salian.
He starts with a ‘floating-spell’, to float 40 feet down, then a sleep spell.
Once he attempted to expose a charlatan cleric who was taking advantage of the people, but they were not thankful and instead of turning against the fraud they turned against him and almost burned him at the stake! He saw the Wonderful Waylan when he was 8, showed immediately great talent and his father brought him to learn magic.
Solace: built above ground, on the great vallenwood trees. The Inn of the Last Home, built in a living tree high in the branches, 40 feet off the ground, run by Otik and Tika, home for Tanis and many others.
Tika Waylan, 19, red curls and big curves. Her father was the Wonderful Waylan, the illusionist that started Raistlin’s interest in magic. He always admired Raistlin for his magic, but also always feared his anger.
Flint Fireforge, dwarf, retired metalsmith, 148 years old, uses a dagger and a battle-axe. He hates goblins and gully dwarves. He was their prisoner for three years and now wants to kill ALL the gully dwarves as if they were all responsible! And he’s supposed to be a good one!
Tanis wears a green hood a sword, a longbow, and shows a brownish-red beard, heritage of his human blood. His half-elf, since a human man raped an elven woman. Tanis is now 102 years old, although he looks like 30. He grew up with the elves of Qualinesti, and Laurana and her brother Gilthanas were his childhood friends, daughter and son of the Speaker of the Suns, the leader.
Tasslehoff Burrfoot, a kender, which means he is extremely curious, never afraid, and with an innocent, child-like expression.
Sturm wears a full plate armor and chain mail, with the symbol of the Order of the Rose on the breastplate. He is a Knight of Solamnia, and also the greatest idiot on Krynn, probably. He’s always
talking about honor and nothing else, his code says never run away, never hide… Tanis says there’s a difference between being cautions and being a coward; I add that there’s a difference between being honorable and being an idiot: Sturm is an idiot. I mean, he wanted to fight Riverwind because he said ‘I’ll stand guard with you’, saying the usual ‘honor is my life’ and ‘you insult me’ and stuff like that. He would like to fight the dragon instead of finding a way unseen.
He never trusted Raistlin, he distrusts all magic at that, surely because he can’t understand it and because magi’s are smarter than him, all of them. Not that it takes a lot with him.
Kitiara was wild, impetuous, hot-tempered, the opposite of Tanis, yet they had a relationship and Tanis still loves her.
Goldmoon is Chieftain’s Daughter of the Plain Tribe, and she carries the blue staff of healing. She’s in love with Riverwind..
Sometimes she’s okay, helding herself well without screaming like a stupid or without being rude like the others, but other times she’s just annoying, like when Riverwind tells Tanis she’s afraid of heights and she screams “How dare you tell him!” *rollingeyes*
Riverwind’s family believed in the ancient gods and for this they were outcast. When he fell in love with Goldmoon so above him, he was sent by the chieftain on a quest to find a sign of them. He travelled for years and came back ill with the blue staff, but the chieftain didn’t know what it was and didn’t believe him, so he condemned him to be stoned to death. Goldmoon ran to him and the staff saved them by transporting them away, on the road, and thus they came to Solace.
sabato 8 agosto 2015
Un peu plus lion sur la droite by Fred Vargas
I like her style, her books full of eccentric characters, in a way more real because so different, with all their strange ways, because like in real life everyone is strange in their own way. Here we have Louis 'the German' Kehlweiler, or Ludwig, as 70 years old former prostitute Marthe calls him, who had a office at the Ministry but now spends his days gaining informations. He has a number for all the most important benches in Paris, and a lot of people who give him information. He's single, Sonia left him, and as always he blames his ugly face (only according to him, Marthe thinks different) and his bad rigid leg. He goes to bench 102 where journalist Vincent keeps an eye on a certain apartment, and he finds something strange: a tiny bone, kind of ruined because it came out of dog's poo, now washed by the rain. He has it checked: part of a human toe. We learn that Adamsberg has left the fifth arrondissment with Danglard, and now there is Paquelin, despised enough by Louis to make him want to bust him. He takes the bone to him and is kicked out, so when the story will come out and will be all unravelled, Paquelin will be the one to have dismissed a homicide case uncaringly. Louis has some help in sorting out all the useful information found in all the newspapers, someone Vandoosler sent him: Marc :-D Louis involves him in his 'investigation', and Marc calls for Mathias' help. yayyy
First they look at all the people with dogs around that bench, they find one that comes from out of Paris because here nobody has been found after more than a week. It's like 9 months now since Marc went to live with Matthias and Lucien :-)
Louis then goes to Port-Nicolas, but only after having recently-homeless Marthe move to his apartment. At first Marc didn't want to be involved, but he's annoyed that Louis went there without him, and follows him. Louis talks to the major and at first it'd seem like a failure, but he keeps digging: Marie, an old woman, died recently, apparently an accident, and she's missing a part of her toe... knowing when the dog left it, and when the tide was high, he can convince the major that it was not an accident but a murder. The dog didn't remove the boot, nor did the tide, so someone else did, and the police are called. Louis talks to the dog's owner, Sevran the engineer with a passion for typewriters, and tells him what happened, the story of the dog and the bone, and his wife Lina takes a rifle and shoots the dog. Marie had been her nanny and they had loved each other. Louis also meets Pauline Darnas, the woman that left him eight years ago, and her husband, an ugly little man that loves her , with a nice voice and a nice character. Louis likes him and he finally starts doubting that Pauline left him because of his leg.
Louis learns that Marie's husband Diego disappeared five years ago, that Lina's first husband died falling down the balcony while Lina and Marie were in the kids' room, and that Sevran and Diego were both questioned before the case was closed as 'accident'.
After they call him, Matthias comes too, and one night he hears something. Primeval hunter's instinct, Marc calls it, anyway they are on time to call the doctors and help Gael, that someone almost killed. Matthias finds Lina nearby. It was an attempt to confuse the investigation, and sure enough the police searched for Jean, although it's not clear to me why he should have killed his lover, or the connection with Marie's murder (had it been him); honestly it seemed to me Jean was the last one they should have suspected. I like that Louis helped him, at the end, with a few right words :-)
Louis finds in local René Blanchet the same René Gillot he has been looking for all his life, the same guy that at 17 used to betray his people to the Germans; some of them were saved only thanks to the warnings of German guard Ulrich Kehlweiler before he escaped, helped by local schoolteacher's daughter. One or two years later, 1944, René had fun torturing and killing people of the Resistance, but once he didn't notice that, at the end, that same girl escaped, found again her soldier Ulrich and they forever loved each other. Louis' parents.
Louis wants the names of all his men, past and present.
Matthias realizes that a body, probably Diego's, is buried under a big useless machine. Thanks to Marc and Matthias, Louis can catch the real murderer, Sevran, before he 'suicides' his wife to throw on her all the guilt.
At the end Luois does not go to Pauline to say goodbye, good, instead he goes to the café de La Halle where he warmly meets Jean and Antoinette gives Jean a glass of wine, and they all help Marc when his precious history notes are drowning after a glass was knocked over, that is to say Antoinette Jean and Matthias helped, Louis simply looked at the scene, thinking of telling the whole story to his old man, and also thinking, and saying out loud, that he wants a beer :-) Same old same old then :-)
I liked it . I like how she writes, I like all her strange characters, but most of all I love the Evangelists!!!
First they look at all the people with dogs around that bench, they find one that comes from out of Paris because here nobody has been found after more than a week. It's like 9 months now since Marc went to live with Matthias and Lucien :-)
Louis then goes to Port-Nicolas, but only after having recently-homeless Marthe move to his apartment. At first Marc didn't want to be involved, but he's annoyed that Louis went there without him, and follows him. Louis talks to the major and at first it'd seem like a failure, but he keeps digging: Marie, an old woman, died recently, apparently an accident, and she's missing a part of her toe... knowing when the dog left it, and when the tide was high, he can convince the major that it was not an accident but a murder. The dog didn't remove the boot, nor did the tide, so someone else did, and the police are called. Louis talks to the dog's owner, Sevran the engineer with a passion for typewriters, and tells him what happened, the story of the dog and the bone, and his wife Lina takes a rifle and shoots the dog. Marie had been her nanny and they had loved each other. Louis also meets Pauline Darnas, the woman that left him eight years ago, and her husband, an ugly little man that loves her , with a nice voice and a nice character. Louis likes him and he finally starts doubting that Pauline left him because of his leg.
Louis learns that Marie's husband Diego disappeared five years ago, that Lina's first husband died falling down the balcony while Lina and Marie were in the kids' room, and that Sevran and Diego were both questioned before the case was closed as 'accident'.
After they call him, Matthias comes too, and one night he hears something. Primeval hunter's instinct, Marc calls it, anyway they are on time to call the doctors and help Gael, that someone almost killed. Matthias finds Lina nearby. It was an attempt to confuse the investigation, and sure enough the police searched for Jean, although it's not clear to me why he should have killed his lover, or the connection with Marie's murder (had it been him); honestly it seemed to me Jean was the last one they should have suspected. I like that Louis helped him, at the end, with a few right words :-)
Louis finds in local René Blanchet the same René Gillot he has been looking for all his life, the same guy that at 17 used to betray his people to the Germans; some of them were saved only thanks to the warnings of German guard Ulrich Kehlweiler before he escaped, helped by local schoolteacher's daughter. One or two years later, 1944, René had fun torturing and killing people of the Resistance, but once he didn't notice that, at the end, that same girl escaped, found again her soldier Ulrich and they forever loved each other. Louis' parents.
Louis wants the names of all his men, past and present.
Matthias realizes that a body, probably Diego's, is buried under a big useless machine. Thanks to Marc and Matthias, Louis can catch the real murderer, Sevran, before he 'suicides' his wife to throw on her all the guilt.
At the end Luois does not go to Pauline to say goodbye, good, instead he goes to the café de La Halle where he warmly meets Jean and Antoinette gives Jean a glass of wine, and they all help Marc when his precious history notes are drowning after a glass was knocked over, that is to say Antoinette Jean and Matthias helped, Louis simply looked at the scene, thinking of telling the whole story to his old man, and also thinking, and saying out loud, that he wants a beer :-) Same old same old then :-)
I liked it . I like how she writes, I like all her strange characters, but most of all I love the Evangelists!!!
Debout les morts by Fred Vargas
She describes such bizarre characters, but also kind of adorable, these three Evangelists. Marc Vandoosler, with his rings and black clothes, so nervous and stubborn; Mathias Delamarre who hates to wear clothes, the blonde giant always so quiet and slow and silent; Lucien Devernois, so loud, that always wears a tie and likes things clean and neat and can make a cake.
I like these three guys that being without a job and without money get together to be able to afford a house, with a very low rent because it's in ruins and they do all the work themselves to make it liveable. They're three historians who take their own periods of study very seriously: Mathias prehistory, Marc MiddleAges, Lucien the Great War. They live in this big house with Marc's uncle, Armand Vandoosler, once policeman, now sort-of retired, kicked-out might be more accurate.
The godfather, he calls him, the brother of his mother, who gave his own name because she was a single mom. Marc was married, but his wife left him and ran away with another man.
Their next-door neighbor is Sophia Relivaus, born Siméonidis, a soprano singer who retired six years ago and that only Mathias knew, the only one to go to the opera. One morning she wakes up and there's a tree in her garden, and that worries her. She pays them to dig under it, but there's nothing there. When Sophia disappears, her friend Juliette of the restaurant is worried, but her husband is not, he says she went away and she'll come back. When her niece Alexandra comes at the door at night with her five years old son it's more and more unbelievable that Sophia simply went away forgetting about her. Uncle Vandoosler informs the police who dig again, but again nothing there. When the burned body of a woman is found with things that belonged to Sophia, the investigations on her murder start officially. Marc likes Alexandra and wants to defend her, always angry at everything the police or his uncle do or say. On day Christophe Dompierre comes looking for answers, because years ago his father was murdered but the event was dismissed as a drug-related business, and nobody believed the wife and son's words against that theory. He's close to the truth now, but he's killed, stabbed. Suspicions are again on Alexandra who, more than proud and stubborn, is an idiot in my opinion. With all the troubles she's in she still goes wandering all night instead of flying low and keep quiet.
Suspicions eventually move from her to Juliette's brother Georges, who worked as an extra in her shows and one night attacked her. When the simple clue of the dying man writing his murderer's name is found, not in blood this time but with his hand of a dirty black car, they all read Sofia Siméonidis, but Marc thinks a lot and realizes that he wrote something else. It was Sophia's substitute, her double ( Sophie=sofie confused with sosie)=Juliette. Marc runs like hell because Mathias has gone alone with her and arrives just in time to save him. Everyone is shocked by her evil plan. She buried Sophie under the tree where nobody would have looked again, and burned a homeless woman. Mathias is shocked because he liked her, and had been really attracted to her. Case closed.
I really liked these three historians, didn't are too much for the uncle. I like Lucien, so lively and passionate about his work , and I like Mathias that thinks more than he talks but is very considerate and sweet. Marc was at times annoying, getting so easily angry, but all in all I like him too.
Nice book, well written, I'll look for others of her books, I really enjoyed these two. I hope she wrote again about them, it seems like they deserve more books, more space.
I like these three guys that being without a job and without money get together to be able to afford a house, with a very low rent because it's in ruins and they do all the work themselves to make it liveable. They're three historians who take their own periods of study very seriously: Mathias prehistory, Marc MiddleAges, Lucien the Great War. They live in this big house with Marc's uncle, Armand Vandoosler, once policeman, now sort-of retired, kicked-out might be more accurate.
The godfather, he calls him, the brother of his mother, who gave his own name because she was a single mom. Marc was married, but his wife left him and ran away with another man.
Their next-door neighbor is Sophia Relivaus, born Siméonidis, a soprano singer who retired six years ago and that only Mathias knew, the only one to go to the opera. One morning she wakes up and there's a tree in her garden, and that worries her. She pays them to dig under it, but there's nothing there. When Sophia disappears, her friend Juliette of the restaurant is worried, but her husband is not, he says she went away and she'll come back. When her niece Alexandra comes at the door at night with her five years old son it's more and more unbelievable that Sophia simply went away forgetting about her. Uncle Vandoosler informs the police who dig again, but again nothing there. When the burned body of a woman is found with things that belonged to Sophia, the investigations on her murder start officially. Marc likes Alexandra and wants to defend her, always angry at everything the police or his uncle do or say. On day Christophe Dompierre comes looking for answers, because years ago his father was murdered but the event was dismissed as a drug-related business, and nobody believed the wife and son's words against that theory. He's close to the truth now, but he's killed, stabbed. Suspicions are again on Alexandra who, more than proud and stubborn, is an idiot in my opinion. With all the troubles she's in she still goes wandering all night instead of flying low and keep quiet.
Suspicions eventually move from her to Juliette's brother Georges, who worked as an extra in her shows and one night attacked her. When the simple clue of the dying man writing his murderer's name is found, not in blood this time but with his hand of a dirty black car, they all read Sofia Siméonidis, but Marc thinks a lot and realizes that he wrote something else. It was Sophia's substitute, her double ( Sophie=sofie confused with sosie)=Juliette. Marc runs like hell because Mathias has gone alone with her and arrives just in time to save him. Everyone is shocked by her evil plan. She buried Sophie under the tree where nobody would have looked again, and burned a homeless woman. Mathias is shocked because he liked her, and had been really attracted to her. Case closed.
I really liked these three historians, didn't are too much for the uncle. I like Lucien, so lively and passionate about his work , and I like Mathias that thinks more than he talks but is very considerate and sweet. Marc was at times annoying, getting so easily angry, but all in all I like him too.
Nice book, well written, I'll look for others of her books, I really enjoyed these two. I hope she wrote again about them, it seems like they deserve more books, more space.
venerdì 7 agosto 2015
Switch - 2011
A French film. Sophie Malaterre (Karine Vanasse) is a Canadian unemployed girl and one day a woman suggests a change, a vacation: exchange your house with someone else in the world and have a cheap vacation! Sophie is all yayyy what a fantastic idea, to have a complete stranger stay in my house! and she goes on that site, switch.com and arranges it with a French girl: Bénédicte Serteaux (Karina Testa). They do all by mail and email, they never meet. Sophie goes to Paris all happy, she can see Tour Eiffel so near from this house! Next day she wakes up feeling sick, has a shower (first time we see her naked, but not the last. She's beautiful, yes, but the story didn't need either this or the other naked showers..) then the police barge in and arrest her, charging her with the murder of a guy: Thomas. She tries everything to convince them she's Sophie, not Benedicte, but it's all against her. The site has been cancelled, the blood type is the same... so she tries with: call a dentist, if it works for the dead it'll work for the living, but the stupid dentist cares only about his tennis match , nothing for her life, so she reacts and escapes. She takes Detective Damien Forgeat (ex football player Eric Cantona)'s gun and starts running away. She gets some money robbing a cute Japanese girl in a Fiat 500, uses them to buy new clothes at a shop own by what seems to be the only good man in Paris at the moment, and starts her search for anything that might prove her identity. She's quite good and smart, I was liking her a lot, but then she does something I would have never done: she calls her mother in Montreal telling her to go and take her documents at her house. Sure, she tells her to call the police, but didn't she know her mother? She calls nobody and goes there with a rifle, only to get her throat cut by Benedicte. Come on, to send your own mother to a murderer's house! Okay, she was in a terrible situation, but everyone's first concern should be to keep their family away from such danger, not send her right into it!
A couple of showers/baths and some more running, and Damien starts believing her. He finds out that Benedicte and dead Thomas were born with artificial insemination from the same donor: Sophie's father when he was out of money.
Benedicte wanted revenge, and she comes back to close it with Sophie. She gets her and takes her to a isolated place; this time it makes perfect sense that she doesn't simply shoot Sophie, because that's too simple and is not what she needs, but stupidly she doesn't take away Sophie's cell phone. Sophie calls Damien: she can't talk but they trace the call and get there in time to shoot Benedicte before she kills the hated sister who grew up with a loving father. It ends right there, with Sophie repeating: I'm not Benedicte!
A couple of showers/baths and some more running, and Damien starts believing her. He finds out that Benedicte and dead Thomas were born with artificial insemination from the same donor: Sophie's father when he was out of money.
Benedicte wanted revenge, and she comes back to close it with Sophie. She gets her and takes her to a isolated place; this time it makes perfect sense that she doesn't simply shoot Sophie, because that's too simple and is not what she needs, but stupidly she doesn't take away Sophie's cell phone. Sophie calls Damien: she can't talk but they trace the call and get there in time to shoot Benedicte before she kills the hated sister who grew up with a loving father. It ends right there, with Sophie repeating: I'm not Benedicte!
Bad boys - 1995
Not a great film, but not a bad one either, it's like a fun-action movie with some nonsense, a few funny scenes, a lot of shooting, a lot of shouting (mostly from the two loud protagonists) and an almost shirtless Will Smith running... I like to see him running :-p
The story is simple: a gang of criminals steals all the drugs in the police custody to cut it and sell it again for lots of money. Policemen Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) married with three kids, and Mike Lowry (Will Smith) rich guy with lots of girls, must find it back. They have no clue and Mike asks for Max's help and she tries to help him because she likes him but by doing so she gets killed. Her friend Julie Mott (Tea Leoni) sees everything but manages to escape. Knowing that a policeman was part of the gang (killed too) she only trusts Mike because she knows that Max trusted him deeply. She calls the police to talk to him but Mike is not there. Captain Howard (Joe Pantoliano) doesn't want to lose the only lead they have so he forces Marcus to go to her pretending to be Mike. He takes her into protected custody to Mike's apartment, and from now on they must pretend to be the other one. Marcus tells his wife he's going to Cleveland while he stays with Julie, and Mike stays at his home with his family. We have all the possible funny scenes, Marcus becoming jealous and Julie guessing the truth and playing with him. We're saved the usual love story between the witness and her protector/savior, maybe because it had nothing to do with the story or maybe because she's white, I'm not sure if people still care about this sort of things, coming to think about it they did when I was a kid and this film is twenty years old after all, so who knows. I have no doubt that with the scenario Julie-dead Max-under-protection a third of the movie would have been about the love story. Anyway, I'm glad there isn't one, it's always so boring and useless.
There is lots of action, and of course the usual nonsense when the bad guys surprise Marcus at the bathroom but instead of shooting him they go at him with a knife and a bag to suffocate him, thus allowing him to win and come out unharmed. A load of nonsense, of course, with all that loud music, people who had no trouble killing before should have shot him. It's also absurd that in that club full of people the bad guys immediately spot both Marcus and Julie (separately) as if they were the only people there. Another movie where our heroes win because they're lucky, more than good.
Also nonsense that Marcus keeps handcuffing Julie to the wheel of the car leaving her alone, as if that was protection enough! In case of danger she wouldn't have been able to escape.
It's also absurd that the bad guys didn't go straight to Marcus' home since he took Julie away driving his family car.
Good points of this movie were: Will Smith, which is always a good thing, and as a nice plus we also have Will Smith running :-) ; Tea Leoni so very pretty; Martin Lawrence funny although too loud; Pantoliano and Karyo perfectly in character, and no 'but'.
Conclusion: it's okay to watch it once, but not a film I'm eager to rewatch.
The story is simple: a gang of criminals steals all the drugs in the police custody to cut it and sell it again for lots of money. Policemen Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) married with three kids, and Mike Lowry (Will Smith) rich guy with lots of girls, must find it back. They have no clue and Mike asks for Max's help and she tries to help him because she likes him but by doing so she gets killed. Her friend Julie Mott (Tea Leoni) sees everything but manages to escape. Knowing that a policeman was part of the gang (killed too) she only trusts Mike because she knows that Max trusted him deeply. She calls the police to talk to him but Mike is not there. Captain Howard (Joe Pantoliano) doesn't want to lose the only lead they have so he forces Marcus to go to her pretending to be Mike. He takes her into protected custody to Mike's apartment, and from now on they must pretend to be the other one. Marcus tells his wife he's going to Cleveland while he stays with Julie, and Mike stays at his home with his family. We have all the possible funny scenes, Marcus becoming jealous and Julie guessing the truth and playing with him. We're saved the usual love story between the witness and her protector/savior, maybe because it had nothing to do with the story or maybe because she's white, I'm not sure if people still care about this sort of things, coming to think about it they did when I was a kid and this film is twenty years old after all, so who knows. I have no doubt that with the scenario Julie-dead Max-under-protection a third of the movie would have been about the love story. Anyway, I'm glad there isn't one, it's always so boring and useless.
There is lots of action, and of course the usual nonsense when the bad guys surprise Marcus at the bathroom but instead of shooting him they go at him with a knife and a bag to suffocate him, thus allowing him to win and come out unharmed. A load of nonsense, of course, with all that loud music, people who had no trouble killing before should have shot him. It's also absurd that in that club full of people the bad guys immediately spot both Marcus and Julie (separately) as if they were the only people there. Another movie where our heroes win because they're lucky, more than good.
Also nonsense that Marcus keeps handcuffing Julie to the wheel of the car leaving her alone, as if that was protection enough! In case of danger she wouldn't have been able to escape.
It's also absurd that the bad guys didn't go straight to Marcus' home since he took Julie away driving his family car.
Good points of this movie were: Will Smith, which is always a good thing, and as a nice plus we also have Will Smith running :-) ; Tea Leoni so very pretty; Martin Lawrence funny although too loud; Pantoliano and Karyo perfectly in character, and no 'but'.
Conclusion: it's okay to watch it once, but not a film I'm eager to rewatch.
The Englishman who went up a hill but came down a mountain - 1995
I liked it :lol: I love this story of these village people who wouldn't accept their mountain being reduced to a simple hill because this way their village wouldn't figure on any map :lol:
The period is during WW1, and two Englishmen come to this Welsh village (with a Welsh name I can't remember) to measure their mountain. If it is at least 1.000 feet then it'll be classified a mountain and it'll have a place in all the maps, and all the village cares a lot about it, and they're very disappointed when it comes out it's 20 feet short! Morgan the goat (Colm Meany) won't accept this (they all have nicknames, in this village) so he convinces everyone that they can change it, they can add the 20 feet themselves! Every man, woman or child is involved in bringing earth on the top. In the meantime the two Englishmen desperately wait to go on with their work, but they can't leave. They are all ally in keeping them stuck here, so they'll be present to measure it again! They sabotage their car, they tell them there are no trains, they try it all.
Btw, the man at the train station was too funny. They went to him again angry (well, the old man was angry, Anson was rather enjoying himself, I think) asking: why did you tell us there were no trains when I've learned there was one going to the North, and he replied simply: I thought you wanted to go East! and why is that? Because you're English, and England is to the East. I don't know you, but I loved this a lot, funny how he said it :like, go back to England, what are you doing in our Wales, you unwanted foreigners! but at the same time it was all done to keep them here :lol:
They work hard, but then it rains. They try to salvage the situation covering the top with the big cloth that was used to cover their car, so that it fills with water :lol: Still they won't give up: finally the rain stops but it's Sunday, and they don't work on God's day, but the reverend himself tells them to join him in that enterprise. They work even harder, using the grass from the school football field, all day they go up hill, and the reverend too, but he's old, he's like 82 or something, and all that work is too much for him. He dies there and wants to be buried on the top of the mountain! He really cared about it, huh!?!
The younger Englishman, Reginald Anson (Hugh Grant) is fascinated by it all, by them, specially by Betty (Tara Fitzgerald) who had a story with Morgan and came here because he called for her help to keep them here. She doesn't have to try all that hard, because the old one keeps drinking so much he's 'out' the whole time, and Anson is quite happy to have her company :-)
At the end, he goes with them up the hill, helping them, but when they finish it's too dark to take his measurements, and everybody thinks it's over beause Anson and his collegue really have to take the first train in the morning. He's sorry, he says he'll be back, but this time it's Betty who insists. She tells him that if he'll leave he'll never come back (I agree with her, if he leaves , he leaves the village with a simple hill and leaves her too...) and she tells him that after all that work, the least he could do would be to wait right there for the sun to rise, so he would be able to measure it in time to catch his train, and if he would, she would gladly keep him company... and indeed she would, wouldn't she? Smart girl got herself a fiancée :-p when they came back in the morning they were engaged :-)
And yes, he had measured it again, and the village officially had its mountain!
So you see the title was to be taken seriously: when he went up the day before it was but a hill, but when they came down in the morning it was a mountain!
Apparently they cared a lot, and kept caring about their mountain through the years and the generations :-) that's fantastic, that is simply fantastic :lol:
Psycho - 1998
Oh God why did they do such a thing? I just saw it on tv, and it was awful. There were even actors I like, which makes it worse. Always handsome Viggo Mortensen plays Sam, Marian's boyfriend. Julianne Moore is her sister Lila. Why did they accept to do this movie, I really don't know. Marion is played by Anne Heche. Only thing I kinda liked: Vince Vaughn. He plays Norman Bates, which of course is a problem because when you hear that name you know (you must know!) that 'the real one' is Anthony Perkins, and no one else. Still, if you think only of the role and not of the name, he's not bad at all, for what good there can be in such a movie as this :-/
They had to decide: a modern remake or simply a useless copy? and they made a mess.
Watching it you see the start of a modern movie, a normal one, then it falls into the copy rather quickly, with the long shots of Marion in her car, to the really horrible murder-in-the-shower scene. Ridiculously awful, the worst thing of it all: stabbed many times, then a close up on her face that looks more distressed than dying, then a modern shot of her butt when she falls forward.. supposedly she had to be covered in blood and yet she looked clean and immaculate, but no words can describe how badly it was done.
It was such an awful thing that when Norman took all her things into the car, I felt more strongly for the throwing-away of 400.000 dollars than of her body.
William H. Macy is private detective Arbogast, who is looking for a simple girl who stole some money, not for a crazy murderer, so he's not prepared and of course gets killed: a ridiculous scene of cuts on his face and a surreal fall down the stairs, and I guess Norman cleaned it all again: never seen anyone clean so well and so rapidly, without the tiniest trace left.
The murders scenes really sank this movie. I mean, in a way it did from the moment they decided to remake such a cult movie, but at the same time it could have been good to all those who didn't know the old one, but now that I've watched it I really doubt it, because if you don't know the old one the long shots in the car are boring, and the murders are even more awful and ridiculous, they look so stupid and badly done, I can't imagine why they chose this path, really. The only possible reason to remake such a movie should be for all the younger people who don't know it, but in that case it'd be stupid to copy (or try to copy) the old scenes! That knife in the air forever was ridiculous.
They had to decide: a modern remake or simply a useless copy? and they made a mess.
Watching it you see the start of a modern movie, a normal one, then it falls into the copy rather quickly, with the long shots of Marion in her car, to the really horrible murder-in-the-shower scene. Ridiculously awful, the worst thing of it all: stabbed many times, then a close up on her face that looks more distressed than dying, then a modern shot of her butt when she falls forward.. supposedly she had to be covered in blood and yet she looked clean and immaculate, but no words can describe how badly it was done.
It was such an awful thing that when Norman took all her things into the car, I felt more strongly for the throwing-away of 400.000 dollars than of her body.
William H. Macy is private detective Arbogast, who is looking for a simple girl who stole some money, not for a crazy murderer, so he's not prepared and of course gets killed: a ridiculous scene of cuts on his face and a surreal fall down the stairs, and I guess Norman cleaned it all again: never seen anyone clean so well and so rapidly, without the tiniest trace left.
The murders scenes really sank this movie. I mean, in a way it did from the moment they decided to remake such a cult movie, but at the same time it could have been good to all those who didn't know the old one, but now that I've watched it I really doubt it, because if you don't know the old one the long shots in the car are boring, and the murders are even more awful and ridiculous, they look so stupid and badly done, I can't imagine why they chose this path, really. The only possible reason to remake such a movie should be for all the younger people who don't know it, but in that case it'd be stupid to copy (or try to copy) the old scenes! That knife in the air forever was ridiculous.
The missing million by Edgar Wallace
Not too bad, but sort of boring, and with a disappointing ending. There's a mysterious figure who calls himself Kupie who sends letters to people to blackmail them: some pay and some commit suicide. Rich Rex Walton's first fiancée killed herself. Now he's about to marry Dora Coleman, and he receives letters threatening to take all his money. He takes it all out of the bank, but the day of his wedding he disappears. His best friend is Scotland Yard detective Jim Sepping, in love with Rex's sister Joan. Little criminal Nippy Knowles helps them. It turns out that Mr Coleman's butler is a criminal, and he gets mysteriously killed. Lawyer Lawford Collet and Mr Coleman are killed too, both Kupie's accomplices. It's not a great surprise when Edgar reveals that Dora is Julie, the same woman that caused Nippy his time in prison. Discovering their plan to take his money, Rex had gone away. Mr Coleman was not her father at all, he was working with Kupie to steal the money. Kupie's real name was Tod Haydn, and he was working in the Coleman's home under the name Bennet. At the end it is said that Kupie killed himself in prison, and Dora who really had fallen in love with Rex is forgiven. Nothing really exciting.
The clue of the twisted candle by Edgar Wallace
A clue that is now much easier to guess than it was in 1916 when it was written, I guess, because of the great number of crime fiction that we can find on screen or in books.
In a way this book is the famous case of the murders in the room locked from the inside :-)
Remington Kara is a very rich and very evil greek man, very powerful in Albania too. John Lexman is a crime novels writer married to Grace, who once refused Kara, and he hates her for this. Kara doesn't love her, he hates her because she dared refuse him, she was the only thing that he could not have when he wanted it. He plots to have John kill a man and have him arrested. John thought it was self-defence, but no proof is found so he's sent to prison. Only after some months policemen T.X. (Thomas Xavier) Meredith and Mansus finally find that proof indispensable to free John.
Knowing about this, vengeaful Kara prevents it arranging for John's escape, taking him and Grace to his place in Albania where he abandons the 'friend-mask' and reveals himself to Lexman for what he is. He keeps them prisoners (John and his wife), separated, torturing them psychologically even more than physically. Back to England, one night he's found dead, killed, in his own room locked-bolted from the inside. Only clue: two candles on the floor.
Obviously there is also a girl, brave and pretty: Belinda Mary Bartholomew, who worked for Kara under the name of Miss Holland to retrieve a precious object of her mother. Found out, she was locked in a cell by him. She managed to escape, but only after having killed with a pair of scissors a dog that was terrorizing Grace. John thought she was dead, but Kara wanted to torture them forever, so he lied.
T.X. and Belinda fall in love, of course.
At the end it's John himself to admit he killed Kara, disguised as another man , a man Kara was waiting for, to have access to his room, then used the candles to bolt the door after he was gone.
The man who knew by Edgar Wallace
I knew it! I feared for a moment, but Wallace didn't betray me :-D I could not accept that theory, but I was right and 'the man who knows' was wrong :lol:
The man everybody calls "the man who knows" is not a policeman, but a man who likes to investigate and collect facts, and knows lots of things, really a lot. He's called Saul Arthur Mann. When rich John Minute dies, he works to find out who did it. He already knows all the characters involved: Frank Merrill, Minute's nephew; May Nuttal, an orphan, daughter of Minute's best friend, heiress to a lot of money, but in good wealth all her life thanks to Minute's generosity and affection; Jasper Cole, Minute's trusted secretary. First man to be there when Minute is shot is local policeman P.C. Wiseman, who finds Frank there, and this confirms what opinion he already had of the man and of the tragedy: he's sure Frank did it. Frank had been accused of falsifying documents in order to steal John's money (mainly by Jasper, but John deeply trusted Jasper and believed him). After knowing about this, young May had decided to marry Frank, as if it was a crusade, since she was so fond of charity, but Jasper prevented it. Now Jasper too accuses Frank of John's murder. Frank's character is much more open and jovial, while Jasper is quite, mysterious in some way, and keeps his secrets.
Now for the big spoilers, just to warn future me who's reading this :-)
From the start I had my sympathies. I didn't care much for John Minute, but I certainly appreciated his honesty and generosity towards May; May was like a confused child, and in her best moments she knew it, but in the heat of her anger she could make hasty decisions, so sure to be right against the world; Frank and Jasper were the two men that confused her heart: Frank always so nice, open and cheerful, Jasper so serious and with a completely different charm. I had no doubt about my heart, I totally liked and believed Jasper, and was kind of annoyed that Mann, on the contrary, totally believed Merrill, to the end he defended him. I never liked Frank a bit, I kept disliking him even when he was so friends with Mann I started to think and hope that Wallace wouldn't betray me this time :lol: I wouldn't have liked it if Jasper had turned out to be the evil one. I liked Jasper a lot :-)
Anyway, as it often happens in EW's books, the end is full of revelations: John's wife, that had left him years ago, had a son and a daughter:Margaret. She was taken away by Crawley alias sergeant Smith, who then married her to Frank Merrill (!). The son is Jasper (!) who came to stay with John so to try together to find her. He also found his mother, believed dead, and cared for her, which was one of his secrets. Frank was an evil one, who used to beat his wife and who killed two of his chaffeurs, after having used them for his illegal deeds.
The title if this book is like a mocking laugh, because obviously everyone is brought to see "the man who knows" in that title, and the man so proud of knowing everything, at the end knew only facts, but could not make the right sense of it. Collecting facts it's not enough to make a detective :-p
He was not so smart either, since he believed Frank till the end, even believed that absurd story of another man resembling him so much , he even believed Frank when poor Mrs Merrill told him, face to face with Frank, 'he's my husband', he still continued to believe Frank and wanted to send her alone with him, saying 'you'll be safe with Frank'!! Luckily Jasper came to protect her and to reveal all the truth. May had already decided to marry Jasper, because now she felt more grown-up and no more confused, and had chosen him. Good for you, girl.
At the end Jasper chooses to let Frank go away, instead of having him arrested for the murders of the two chaffeurs, but now that Frank has been beaten he kills himself, not sure how but surely with some poison of some kind. When his guilt is known, officer Wiseman has only one comment: 'I knew it', and he did :lol: so at the end it looks like Officer Wiseman was the true "man who knew" of the book :lol:
Ita: L'uomo che sapeva
The man everybody calls "the man who knows" is not a policeman, but a man who likes to investigate and collect facts, and knows lots of things, really a lot. He's called Saul Arthur Mann. When rich John Minute dies, he works to find out who did it. He already knows all the characters involved: Frank Merrill, Minute's nephew; May Nuttal, an orphan, daughter of Minute's best friend, heiress to a lot of money, but in good wealth all her life thanks to Minute's generosity and affection; Jasper Cole, Minute's trusted secretary. First man to be there when Minute is shot is local policeman P.C. Wiseman, who finds Frank there, and this confirms what opinion he already had of the man and of the tragedy: he's sure Frank did it. Frank had been accused of falsifying documents in order to steal John's money (mainly by Jasper, but John deeply trusted Jasper and believed him). After knowing about this, young May had decided to marry Frank, as if it was a crusade, since she was so fond of charity, but Jasper prevented it. Now Jasper too accuses Frank of John's murder. Frank's character is much more open and jovial, while Jasper is quite, mysterious in some way, and keeps his secrets.
Now for the big spoilers, just to warn future me who's reading this :-)
From the start I had my sympathies. I didn't care much for John Minute, but I certainly appreciated his honesty and generosity towards May; May was like a confused child, and in her best moments she knew it, but in the heat of her anger she could make hasty decisions, so sure to be right against the world; Frank and Jasper were the two men that confused her heart: Frank always so nice, open and cheerful, Jasper so serious and with a completely different charm. I had no doubt about my heart, I totally liked and believed Jasper, and was kind of annoyed that Mann, on the contrary, totally believed Merrill, to the end he defended him. I never liked Frank a bit, I kept disliking him even when he was so friends with Mann I started to think and hope that Wallace wouldn't betray me this time :lol: I wouldn't have liked it if Jasper had turned out to be the evil one. I liked Jasper a lot :-)
Anyway, as it often happens in EW's books, the end is full of revelations: John's wife, that had left him years ago, had a son and a daughter:Margaret. She was taken away by Crawley alias sergeant Smith, who then married her to Frank Merrill (!). The son is Jasper (!) who came to stay with John so to try together to find her. He also found his mother, believed dead, and cared for her, which was one of his secrets. Frank was an evil one, who used to beat his wife and who killed two of his chaffeurs, after having used them for his illegal deeds.
The title if this book is like a mocking laugh, because obviously everyone is brought to see "the man who knows" in that title, and the man so proud of knowing everything, at the end knew only facts, but could not make the right sense of it. Collecting facts it's not enough to make a detective :-p
He was not so smart either, since he believed Frank till the end, even believed that absurd story of another man resembling him so much , he even believed Frank when poor Mrs Merrill told him, face to face with Frank, 'he's my husband', he still continued to believe Frank and wanted to send her alone with him, saying 'you'll be safe with Frank'!! Luckily Jasper came to protect her and to reveal all the truth. May had already decided to marry Jasper, because now she felt more grown-up and no more confused, and had chosen him. Good for you, girl.
At the end Jasper chooses to let Frank go away, instead of having him arrested for the murders of the two chaffeurs, but now that Frank has been beaten he kills himself, not sure how but surely with some poison of some kind. When his guilt is known, officer Wiseman has only one comment: 'I knew it', and he did :lol: so at the end it looks like Officer Wiseman was the true "man who knew" of the book :lol:
Ita: L'uomo che sapeva
Room 13 by Edgar Wallace
This one was boring. In theory the story should have been more adventurous then the other books of his I've read, but it was slow and boring, and the characters were too.
The story: Until something like 14 years ago Peter Kane was a thief, and he worked with Emmanuel Legge. When Emmanuel, stupid and drunk, was arrested and sentenced to 14 years in prison he blamed Peter for it, sure that he had told the police about him to keep all the money. Johnnie Gray is a young man, an innocent one sent to prison by Jeffrey Legge, Emmanuel's son. Johnnie is in love with Marney, Peter's daughter. Jeffrey is the head of a big business of counterfeit money, and Emmanuel, now free, wants to take revenge on Peter. Nobody knows Jeffrey's face, so they plot to have Jeffrey married to Marney, and they succeed. Johnnie recognizes Jeffrey when he sees him, and takes his precautions to help Marney. Jeff and his father don't give up. They want revenge on Peter, but now they also hate Johnnie and Marnie. Peter never told on anybody, but Emmanuel himself does it from time to time, like when he sets a man named Fenner up and have him arrested .
When Peter learned the truth , that he had married his precious daughter to Jeffrey, he was furious and planned things to have Emmanuel kill his own son, believing he was killing Johnnie. Indeed Emmanuel shoots him, but Jeff survives never knowing that detail. The two of them now plan to have Peter and Johnnie arrested for Jeffrey's crime, and they drug them, and Jeff abducts Marney too. Peter escapes, and is helped by Reeder, a sort of detective. At the end, Emmanuel is killed by Stevens, Fenner's brother (both fake names), and Johnnie saves Marnie, and Mr Reeder stops Jeffrey, and Peter tells Johnnie he'll marry Marnie with his blessings, and Reeder reveals his name is actually Golden, and the head of that investigation is John Gray Reeder. Surprise: Johnnie is a policeman. I had not thought of this, but now it is explained why he was so much believed , a few things like that, and also his butler, so respectable and loyal, he didn't seem the kind of butler who'd work for a criminal (you might say: maybe he didn't know: well, he certainly knew all about the time in prison and when he brought guns with him.).
Still, I can't really explain why in details, just that I found it very boring, maybe it was mostly because there were no characters that really appealed to me. My favs were Reeder/Golden and Parker the butler. Two little roles, I'm afraid.
The story: Until something like 14 years ago Peter Kane was a thief, and he worked with Emmanuel Legge. When Emmanuel, stupid and drunk, was arrested and sentenced to 14 years in prison he blamed Peter for it, sure that he had told the police about him to keep all the money. Johnnie Gray is a young man, an innocent one sent to prison by Jeffrey Legge, Emmanuel's son. Johnnie is in love with Marney, Peter's daughter. Jeffrey is the head of a big business of counterfeit money, and Emmanuel, now free, wants to take revenge on Peter. Nobody knows Jeffrey's face, so they plot to have Jeffrey married to Marney, and they succeed. Johnnie recognizes Jeffrey when he sees him, and takes his precautions to help Marney. Jeff and his father don't give up. They want revenge on Peter, but now they also hate Johnnie and Marnie. Peter never told on anybody, but Emmanuel himself does it from time to time, like when he sets a man named Fenner up and have him arrested .
When Peter learned the truth , that he had married his precious daughter to Jeffrey, he was furious and planned things to have Emmanuel kill his own son, believing he was killing Johnnie. Indeed Emmanuel shoots him, but Jeff survives never knowing that detail. The two of them now plan to have Peter and Johnnie arrested for Jeffrey's crime, and they drug them, and Jeff abducts Marney too. Peter escapes, and is helped by Reeder, a sort of detective. At the end, Emmanuel is killed by Stevens, Fenner's brother (both fake names), and Johnnie saves Marnie, and Mr Reeder stops Jeffrey, and Peter tells Johnnie he'll marry Marnie with his blessings, and Reeder reveals his name is actually Golden, and the head of that investigation is John Gray Reeder. Surprise: Johnnie is a policeman. I had not thought of this, but now it is explained why he was so much believed , a few things like that, and also his butler, so respectable and loyal, he didn't seem the kind of butler who'd work for a criminal (you might say: maybe he didn't know: well, he certainly knew all about the time in prison and when he brought guns with him.).
Still, I can't really explain why in details, just that I found it very boring, maybe it was mostly because there were no characters that really appealed to me. My favs were Reeder/Golden and Parker the butler. Two little roles, I'm afraid.
Four square Jane by Edgar Wallace
A mysterious thief leaves a card with four squares and a J, so the papers call her Four Square Jane. Peter Dawes is the Scotland Yard inspector trying to track her down. Lord Claythorpe is at the center of all her work. He's in charge of Miss Joyce Wilberforce' s finances, although not related in any way, and wanted to marry her to his son Francis, but Joyce is in love with Jamieson Steele, an engineer with no title or fortune, but equally in love with her. I like how this Jane is very intelligent and daring, but in her own way kind of honest. Her real identity is not too difficult to guess, because as soon as you see how she targets Claythorpe in particular you focus your attention on that and realize how his disastrous financial situation might have brought him to abuse of his position to get hold of Joyce's money. When his secretary is killed, it's very clear that she's not the one responsible, and that he's a much more likely suspect. When arrested, he confesses both to the murder and the theft before killing himself, so now Peter is sure and prepares to arrest Joyce and her now husband Steele, but they manage to escape, but only after stopping at Claythorpe's house to get her money back. Sure it seems pretty strange that Claythorpe acquaintances who had been victim of the thief and had saw her, would not recognize in her Joyce , and still it's possible..
At first she seemed a female Robin Hood, with all her donations to hospitals and other charity establishments , but Joyce cared about getting back what was rightly hers, keeping the cash to herself and sending the jewels to charity, instead of going through the trouble of selling them.
Joyce's mother of course was the classic silly woman who believed in Lord Claythorpe and wanted her daughter to marry Francis, not caring about her feelings at all, but Joyce was very intelligent and decent :-)
Ita: L' inafferrabile
At first she seemed a female Robin Hood, with all her donations to hospitals and other charity establishments , but Joyce cared about getting back what was rightly hers, keeping the cash to herself and sending the jewels to charity, instead of going through the trouble of selling them.
Joyce's mother of course was the classic silly woman who believed in Lord Claythorpe and wanted her daughter to marry Francis, not caring about her feelings at all, but Joyce was very intelligent and decent :-)
Ita: L' inafferrabile
giovedì 6 agosto 2015
Midnight in the garden of good and evil - 1997
Apparently it's a true story taken from a book, but I never read it, and honestly I watched this movie for two simple reasons: Clint Eastwood and Kevin Spacey, and if I'll ever watch it again it will be because Kevin Spacey is fantastic, well, as he always is :-)
John Cusack is not bad at all, but he kinda looks always the same, he's a bit expressionless in my opinion. At some point I bestowed on him the feelings he ought to be feeling, because his face didn't give out any clue. He had the same look when he talked to Lady Chablis and when he attended the trial and, long story short, always.
Still Cusack was okay, I sort of thought it was ok for his character.. but nothing more than ok.
Spacey, on the other hand, was great, amazing as always.
The story:
New York writer John Kelso (Cusack) comes to Georgia to attend one of rich James Williams (Spacey) famous parties and then write about it. Maybe it was because his wife had left him, I don't know, but he looked rather low, and watching him at the Christmas party I felt as if he didn't even want to be there.
When he's alone with Jim suddenly a crazy boy enters: Billy Hanson (Jude Law) is already drunk and demands money from Jim, who refuses, and threatens him with a broken glass bottle before going away. After the party ends and all the guests have left the house, John notices many police cars in front of the house and hears they have come because Jim has shot Billy dead. He's curious, I guess he had been fascinated by Jim enough to care about this, or maybe he was already thinking only of the great story he could get out of it, it's not clear, anyway he easily walks in, no policeman stops him, and he hears Jim's story to the police: Billy came back even more stoned and drunk, they had a loud quarrel then Billy tried to kill him shooting twice at him, so Jim took his gun and shot him repeatedly until he was dead.
John believes it, and works the case to gain material for his book, giving Jim's lawyer all the information he manages to find. It's a difficult trial, Jim seems in a very bad position after the police and the doctor's testimony, but the combined efforts of John and the lawyer bring down all those proofs. At first it looks like he might be convicted only because he had a homosexual relationship with Billy, but honestly in the end that detail was not so important; a thing that didn't make sense to me is the scene when Jim tells John 'the truth', that Billy tried to shoot him but didn't because the gun was blocked ( or however you say that) so he prevented him from trying again by shooting him in the chest, then after Billy fell on the floor he shot him again twice until he was sure he was dead. John is shocked, and notices how this means that Jim lied to the police and to everybody else saying Billy shot at him twice, and now the absurd part: Jim says he prefers to be accused of false testimony than of murder, which is an obvious thing, yes, but quite stupid in this case, because if he reveals that story, he will be concicted of murder, of course he would be since he just described a cold blooded murder, and to hell with the pretty self-defence "I was afraid for my own life" story. He just declared that he stood over Billy's wounded body and shot him twice with the intent to kill! So what the hell did he mean saying "better false testimony than murder", as if that would assolve him from the murder charge?? That was absurd, but at the same time the following scene was great, when his lawyer came in telling him they are about to win because he has proof of how the police lied and messed up and Jim looks at John, and in Jim's eyes there's everything, the whole 'you know now I can't tell that truth anymore' is in one single look and John will ever remain the only one to hear that story. Kevin Spacey is a truly amazing actor, honestly I think that if someone else had played Williams I wouldn't have liked it at all, because many things felt wrong to me. The absurd scene above; the amount of time Lady Chablis had: it was entertaining, yes, but the scene at the debutant's dance was too long it stopped to be and became boring instead. She was funny and looked stunning in those dresses, but her character was not so important to justify so much time screen; the love story between John and Mandy looked rather plain and useless. I would have done without it with pleasure. What purpose did it serve? To show at the end that he was loved after all? Well, the other side of the coin then is that he was right before feeling that nobody loved him if it's necessary her role.. no, I think they put the love story because apparently it's some kind of unwritten rule that there must always be one, the public demands it, blah blah blah, but I'm of a different opinion: if something is useless, cut it: even more so since internet comments say it was invented, not part of the original story.
The voodoo woman was excessive... but maybe this is a cultural thing I can't understand.
The ending is very biblical, with justice coming for Jim. He has a heart attack in the same room where Billy died, and Jim sees Billy's corpse look at him and smile an evil smile of satisfaction. This scene was good, that smile was really chilling.
There is also Michael Rosenbaum in the movie, in the role of Billy's friend George Tucker, and I almost didn't recognize him with so much hair :lol:
I like Rosenbaum a lot, he's a good actor and I love his voice.
Definitely not my favourite Eastwood film, but I'll probably watch it again exclusively for Kevin Spacey, my favourite actor, always amazing, his face, his hands, his acting, his voice, all perfectly combined. Fantastic.
John Cusack is not bad at all, but he kinda looks always the same, he's a bit expressionless in my opinion. At some point I bestowed on him the feelings he ought to be feeling, because his face didn't give out any clue. He had the same look when he talked to Lady Chablis and when he attended the trial and, long story short, always.
Still Cusack was okay, I sort of thought it was ok for his character.. but nothing more than ok.
Spacey, on the other hand, was great, amazing as always.
The story:
New York writer John Kelso (Cusack) comes to Georgia to attend one of rich James Williams (Spacey) famous parties and then write about it. Maybe it was because his wife had left him, I don't know, but he looked rather low, and watching him at the Christmas party I felt as if he didn't even want to be there.
When he's alone with Jim suddenly a crazy boy enters: Billy Hanson (Jude Law) is already drunk and demands money from Jim, who refuses, and threatens him with a broken glass bottle before going away. After the party ends and all the guests have left the house, John notices many police cars in front of the house and hears they have come because Jim has shot Billy dead. He's curious, I guess he had been fascinated by Jim enough to care about this, or maybe he was already thinking only of the great story he could get out of it, it's not clear, anyway he easily walks in, no policeman stops him, and he hears Jim's story to the police: Billy came back even more stoned and drunk, they had a loud quarrel then Billy tried to kill him shooting twice at him, so Jim took his gun and shot him repeatedly until he was dead.
John believes it, and works the case to gain material for his book, giving Jim's lawyer all the information he manages to find. It's a difficult trial, Jim seems in a very bad position after the police and the doctor's testimony, but the combined efforts of John and the lawyer bring down all those proofs. At first it looks like he might be convicted only because he had a homosexual relationship with Billy, but honestly in the end that detail was not so important; a thing that didn't make sense to me is the scene when Jim tells John 'the truth', that Billy tried to shoot him but didn't because the gun was blocked ( or however you say that) so he prevented him from trying again by shooting him in the chest, then after Billy fell on the floor he shot him again twice until he was sure he was dead. John is shocked, and notices how this means that Jim lied to the police and to everybody else saying Billy shot at him twice, and now the absurd part: Jim says he prefers to be accused of false testimony than of murder, which is an obvious thing, yes, but quite stupid in this case, because if he reveals that story, he will be concicted of murder, of course he would be since he just described a cold blooded murder, and to hell with the pretty self-defence "I was afraid for my own life" story. He just declared that he stood over Billy's wounded body and shot him twice with the intent to kill! So what the hell did he mean saying "better false testimony than murder", as if that would assolve him from the murder charge?? That was absurd, but at the same time the following scene was great, when his lawyer came in telling him they are about to win because he has proof of how the police lied and messed up and Jim looks at John, and in Jim's eyes there's everything, the whole 'you know now I can't tell that truth anymore' is in one single look and John will ever remain the only one to hear that story. Kevin Spacey is a truly amazing actor, honestly I think that if someone else had played Williams I wouldn't have liked it at all, because many things felt wrong to me. The absurd scene above; the amount of time Lady Chablis had: it was entertaining, yes, but the scene at the debutant's dance was too long it stopped to be and became boring instead. She was funny and looked stunning in those dresses, but her character was not so important to justify so much time screen; the love story between John and Mandy looked rather plain and useless. I would have done without it with pleasure. What purpose did it serve? To show at the end that he was loved after all? Well, the other side of the coin then is that he was right before feeling that nobody loved him if it's necessary her role.. no, I think they put the love story because apparently it's some kind of unwritten rule that there must always be one, the public demands it, blah blah blah, but I'm of a different opinion: if something is useless, cut it: even more so since internet comments say it was invented, not part of the original story.
The voodoo woman was excessive... but maybe this is a cultural thing I can't understand.
The ending is very biblical, with justice coming for Jim. He has a heart attack in the same room where Billy died, and Jim sees Billy's corpse look at him and smile an evil smile of satisfaction. This scene was good, that smile was really chilling.
There is also Michael Rosenbaum in the movie, in the role of Billy's friend George Tucker, and I almost didn't recognize him with so much hair :lol:
I like Rosenbaum a lot, he's a good actor and I love his voice.
Definitely not my favourite Eastwood film, but I'll probably watch it again exclusively for Kevin Spacey, my favourite actor, always amazing, his face, his hands, his acting, his voice, all perfectly combined. Fantastic.
Love is all you need - 2012
I liked it. I guessed it all after only a few minutes in, but that's ok, in a film like this it's not surprise that I want, but feelings. Besides, the fact that I already expected everything that happened means that it was well played, because I saw it hinted in their performances.
It's like two stories in one. Young Patrick and Astrid are about to get married in Italy, but seeing them together I thought 'I see him better with Alessandro than with Astrid..' so it was clear what was going to happen, and when later Alessandro kissed him and he kissed him back I was not surprised, I simply thought 'good, he had to understand and face it before the wedding'. I was always sure they would have called it off. Unfortunately, I was not saved from the various speeches, I really dislike public speeches.
The main story follows Ida (Trine Dyrholm) who is coming out of a very difficult period; she had cancer, has lost all her hair and is still afraid she might not be cured after all. She finds out that her husband is having an affair with a very young woman, and leaves alone for Italy, where her daughter Astrid is to get married (or not). She meets Philip, Patrick's father, by bumping into his car first, and then making the trip together. At first they don't like each other because she's a disaster and he's a jerk, but in Italy they have the chance to spend time together and talk, and Philip is more and omre charmed by her. No surprise there, of course they end up together, that was no mystery, but in this kind of films it's all about how it happens. He fakes indifference but he was angry at the world from the day his beloved wife Elizabeth died in an accident, and now he's stalked by her sister Benedikte, a horrible woman and a disgusting mother who thinks only of herself and is sure that Philip must be hers. Of course her daughter drinks too much, with such a mother!! Poor girl, I was glad when Philip told Benedikte clearly what he thought of her.
Ida's husband came to Italy with his girlfriend and was cause of his daughter and son's anger. I liked the son Kenneth a lot.
Back home, after the wedding was called off and everybody had left, Ida found her husband was back, begging her for forgiveness, and she took him back. I guess everyone watching it thought like I did: "kick him out!" but it was a right and human step. She was confused, after all that had happened in such a short period of time, but now with him back and Philip that comes to tell her he has thought only of her all the time and wants her to go to Italy with him, although she tells him to go away all this makes her realize that she can't go back to the life she had with her husband, that that's over now, so she leaves him and goes to Italy.
She has made other tests at the hospital, but at home she has not found the courage to look at the results, so she wants to do it, with Philip next to her. Before checking the results Philip tells her beautiful words of how he wants her, how he'll be happy for whatever time he can have with her, ten minutes or thirty years he wants her anyway.
When they watch it they say nothing, but it looks to me like for now at least the results are encouraging, and they'll stay together and face together whatever will come.
They call these films "comedies" but there were more tears than smiles, still I suppose there's no better word for it.
I like how he saw all the beauty in her, how she couldn't, how she found that she can let herself have happiness again. A different kind, yes, because she'll probably always have that same fear, but with the right person at your side it can be less difficult to bear and she can enjoy the time she has with a man that appreciates her.
I would have gladly done without Benedikte's horrible speech, and also Astrid's speech when she said she didn't want to become old and see that she's a sad fat person, unhappy with her life, but luckily she's still in time to change it. It was nasty.
There's really no need for all these public speeches, boring or embarassing.
Ida was really beautiful in her red dress, and even more at the end with the short hair and that different look in her eyes, of a quiet new hope for something better to come, for a new life that she never imagined she could have.
It's like two stories in one. Young Patrick and Astrid are about to get married in Italy, but seeing them together I thought 'I see him better with Alessandro than with Astrid..' so it was clear what was going to happen, and when later Alessandro kissed him and he kissed him back I was not surprised, I simply thought 'good, he had to understand and face it before the wedding'. I was always sure they would have called it off. Unfortunately, I was not saved from the various speeches, I really dislike public speeches.
The main story follows Ida (Trine Dyrholm) who is coming out of a very difficult period; she had cancer, has lost all her hair and is still afraid she might not be cured after all. She finds out that her husband is having an affair with a very young woman, and leaves alone for Italy, where her daughter Astrid is to get married (or not). She meets Philip, Patrick's father, by bumping into his car first, and then making the trip together. At first they don't like each other because she's a disaster and he's a jerk, but in Italy they have the chance to spend time together and talk, and Philip is more and omre charmed by her. No surprise there, of course they end up together, that was no mystery, but in this kind of films it's all about how it happens. He fakes indifference but he was angry at the world from the day his beloved wife Elizabeth died in an accident, and now he's stalked by her sister Benedikte, a horrible woman and a disgusting mother who thinks only of herself and is sure that Philip must be hers. Of course her daughter drinks too much, with such a mother!! Poor girl, I was glad when Philip told Benedikte clearly what he thought of her.
Ida's husband came to Italy with his girlfriend and was cause of his daughter and son's anger. I liked the son Kenneth a lot.
Back home, after the wedding was called off and everybody had left, Ida found her husband was back, begging her for forgiveness, and she took him back. I guess everyone watching it thought like I did: "kick him out!" but it was a right and human step. She was confused, after all that had happened in such a short period of time, but now with him back and Philip that comes to tell her he has thought only of her all the time and wants her to go to Italy with him, although she tells him to go away all this makes her realize that she can't go back to the life she had with her husband, that that's over now, so she leaves him and goes to Italy.
She has made other tests at the hospital, but at home she has not found the courage to look at the results, so she wants to do it, with Philip next to her. Before checking the results Philip tells her beautiful words of how he wants her, how he'll be happy for whatever time he can have with her, ten minutes or thirty years he wants her anyway.
When they watch it they say nothing, but it looks to me like for now at least the results are encouraging, and they'll stay together and face together whatever will come.
They call these films "comedies" but there were more tears than smiles, still I suppose there's no better word for it.
I like how he saw all the beauty in her, how she couldn't, how she found that she can let herself have happiness again. A different kind, yes, because she'll probably always have that same fear, but with the right person at your side it can be less difficult to bear and she can enjoy the time she has with a man that appreciates her.
I would have gladly done without Benedikte's horrible speech, and also Astrid's speech when she said she didn't want to become old and see that she's a sad fat person, unhappy with her life, but luckily she's still in time to change it. It was nasty.
There's really no need for all these public speeches, boring or embarassing.
Ida was really beautiful in her red dress, and even more at the end with the short hair and that different look in her eyes, of a quiet new hope for something better to come, for a new life that she never imagined she could have.
domenica 2 agosto 2015
Jack O'Judgement by Edgar Wallace
Dan Boundary, who likes to be called colonel, is the leader of a band of criminals who has ruined a lot of people. Gregory was a young man that lost a lot of money at gambling, rigged by the same Boundary, and that became a cocaine addict and started working for him until he was killed.. the police could never prove anything against that band, although Scotland Yard pays Dan Boundary a lot of attention. In his band there are Pinto Silva, a Portuguese that dresses like a gentleman without being one, Crewe, Lollie Marsh, Solomon "Solly" White and many others less close to the boss.
Solomon is Maisie's father, and Maisie is going out with Stafford King, a very honest and determined officer of the Criminal Intelligence Department. Sir Stanley Belcom is his boss.
Boundary is arrested for blackmail, but Hanson, the key witness who worked for him, is killed while in the courtroom, with poison is a glass of water, so Boundary is free. When he learns about Maisie and Stafford, he starts questioning Solly's loyalty. When Solly disappears, he has her abducted to lure Solly in the open and have him killed. Three months after Gregory's murder a mysterious character appears: a white mask covers his identity and he calls himself Jack O'Judgement. Jack starts interfering with the band's 'business': he creates proof to have Paul Phillopolis arrested for robbery (a shit of a man who has made money selling girls), he hangs Raoul (Solly's killer), rescues Maisie, destroys a big part of Boundary's money, helps not-so-bad Lollie to escape with her Crewe, he has Selby and Pinto arrested after planting break-in tools on one and counterfeit money on the other, plus all the tools to print it in his house.
Early in the book I had suspected Maisie but it lasted only a couple of pages, and after that I saw there was only another person who could be Jack, so it was not a surprise at the end when it was revealed that it was Sir Stanley. He tracked down Boundary and they killed each other. Sir Stanley was Gregory's father.
I liked a lot the simplicity of Maisie putting her hand over Jack's hand, and Jack's simple 'thank you', when he was driving her home after rescuing her, and Maisie's regret of not-even-thanking-him when she learns that Jack killed her father's murderer. I liked that Lollie and Maisie met before Lollie's escape. Lollie had helped Maisie, standing against Pinto to prevent him from abusing the girl, and this created a strange bond between them.
Maisie hopes she can escape and have a second chance, and Lollie trusts her with all the details of her escape. I like that here Wallace, like he did in "The Joker", writes of a girl who can keep secrets.
It was 1920 and yes his female characters are better than many modern ones, so superficial and unworthy of trust. Lollie stands to protect the girl, even after she herself helped in her abduction: she was part of the band, but nonetheless would not let the girl be abused, and Maisie always remembered that and was glad she made it, escaped and married Crewe and had a beautiful baby.
We know it because of the lovely ending scene: a year later, sir Stafford has taken sir Stanley's job and receives a letter: inside only the picture of the family, and we're left with the notion that sir Stanley - aka Jack - was present when they escaped, and let them go..
Ita: Il fante di fiori
Solomon is Maisie's father, and Maisie is going out with Stafford King, a very honest and determined officer of the Criminal Intelligence Department. Sir Stanley Belcom is his boss.
Boundary is arrested for blackmail, but Hanson, the key witness who worked for him, is killed while in the courtroom, with poison is a glass of water, so Boundary is free. When he learns about Maisie and Stafford, he starts questioning Solly's loyalty. When Solly disappears, he has her abducted to lure Solly in the open and have him killed. Three months after Gregory's murder a mysterious character appears: a white mask covers his identity and he calls himself Jack O'Judgement. Jack starts interfering with the band's 'business': he creates proof to have Paul Phillopolis arrested for robbery (a shit of a man who has made money selling girls), he hangs Raoul (Solly's killer), rescues Maisie, destroys a big part of Boundary's money, helps not-so-bad Lollie to escape with her Crewe, he has Selby and Pinto arrested after planting break-in tools on one and counterfeit money on the other, plus all the tools to print it in his house.
Early in the book I had suspected Maisie but it lasted only a couple of pages, and after that I saw there was only another person who could be Jack, so it was not a surprise at the end when it was revealed that it was Sir Stanley. He tracked down Boundary and they killed each other. Sir Stanley was Gregory's father.
I liked a lot the simplicity of Maisie putting her hand over Jack's hand, and Jack's simple 'thank you', when he was driving her home after rescuing her, and Maisie's regret of not-even-thanking-him when she learns that Jack killed her father's murderer. I liked that Lollie and Maisie met before Lollie's escape. Lollie had helped Maisie, standing against Pinto to prevent him from abusing the girl, and this created a strange bond between them.
Maisie hopes she can escape and have a second chance, and Lollie trusts her with all the details of her escape. I like that here Wallace, like he did in "The Joker", writes of a girl who can keep secrets.
It was 1920 and yes his female characters are better than many modern ones, so superficial and unworthy of trust. Lollie stands to protect the girl, even after she herself helped in her abduction: she was part of the band, but nonetheless would not let the girl be abused, and Maisie always remembered that and was glad she made it, escaped and married Crewe and had a beautiful baby.
We know it because of the lovely ending scene: a year later, sir Stafford has taken sir Stanley's job and receives a letter: inside only the picture of the family, and we're left with the notion that sir Stanley - aka Jack - was present when they escaped, and let them go..
Ita: Il fante di fiori
The diamond pin by Carolyn Wells
A nice mystery novel, although very slow. It dates 1919, and starts with a funny tone, describing rich old Ursula Pell's character, which was a rather peculiar one. She had a thing for nasty pranks, she enjoyed so much her jokes she could not resist the temptation and everybody around her, from the servants to her lawyer, were victims, although nobody suffered from it as much as her niece.
Her nephew Winston Bannard had lived with her for a few years before he could not stand it anymore and decided to live on his own, so now her niece Iris Clyde was her favourite victim.
Iris was at her limit, and would have left home like Winston did, if a tragic circumstance had not prevented it. One night, Aunt Ursula was found dead, assaulted in her room, locked from the inside, with no other possible way in or out. Ursula's great fortune was mostly in jewels, and Iris had been promised a diamond pin in her will, and when she saw that it was in fact "a dime and a pin" she thought of another trick and threw it away. It looked like a very common pin, but soon a man asked her for it, then a masked man entered her room to demand it, then she was abducted in order to get it... she couldn't imagine why, but it was all too much for her, so Miss Lucille Darrell, Ursula's cousin who inherited the house, called for a private detective to solve the mystery: she had no faith in the local police since they arrested Winston for the murder and even suspected Iris for a moment.
Of course Iris and Winston are in love, but one could say: why they never tried to meet each other?
Famous detective Fleming Stone comes with his assistant, a boy whose name is Terence Maguire, but people call him Fibsy, a nice and smart kid, humble and good. This is not a book filled with clues to follow, not at all, just a story to read.
It turns out in the end that Winston had gone to his aunt in the morning, then after he went away Charlie Young, the man that tried in every way to get the pin from Iris, had gone to Ursula to get from her the pin and the receipt, the two important clues to where the treasure is hidden. He tied her up, but left her alive. Despite being shocked and bruised, Ursula said nothing at lunch (which they call dinner, who knows why), then she went to her room alone, locked the door, then had an accident and fell backwards bringing table and lamp down with her, and died. The mystery of the room-locked-from-the-inside this time is unraveled like this: both Stone and Fibs thought of it, because if it was really impossible for anyone to get out, therefore nobody did! :-)
The pin's importance was in the letters engraved in it, a crittograph that needed a word in the receipt to be solved; another little help from Fibs and they find the treasure to be buried between her parents' graves.
The criminal part of the story is a bit ridiculous, actually very much so, always so polite... but nice to read, and all in all this book was a pleasant enough read.
Her nephew Winston Bannard had lived with her for a few years before he could not stand it anymore and decided to live on his own, so now her niece Iris Clyde was her favourite victim.
Iris was at her limit, and would have left home like Winston did, if a tragic circumstance had not prevented it. One night, Aunt Ursula was found dead, assaulted in her room, locked from the inside, with no other possible way in or out. Ursula's great fortune was mostly in jewels, and Iris had been promised a diamond pin in her will, and when she saw that it was in fact "a dime and a pin" she thought of another trick and threw it away. It looked like a very common pin, but soon a man asked her for it, then a masked man entered her room to demand it, then she was abducted in order to get it... she couldn't imagine why, but it was all too much for her, so Miss Lucille Darrell, Ursula's cousin who inherited the house, called for a private detective to solve the mystery: she had no faith in the local police since they arrested Winston for the murder and even suspected Iris for a moment.
Of course Iris and Winston are in love, but one could say: why they never tried to meet each other?
Famous detective Fleming Stone comes with his assistant, a boy whose name is Terence Maguire, but people call him Fibsy, a nice and smart kid, humble and good. This is not a book filled with clues to follow, not at all, just a story to read.
It turns out in the end that Winston had gone to his aunt in the morning, then after he went away Charlie Young, the man that tried in every way to get the pin from Iris, had gone to Ursula to get from her the pin and the receipt, the two important clues to where the treasure is hidden. He tied her up, but left her alive. Despite being shocked and bruised, Ursula said nothing at lunch (which they call dinner, who knows why), then she went to her room alone, locked the door, then had an accident and fell backwards bringing table and lamp down with her, and died. The mystery of the room-locked-from-the-inside this time is unraveled like this: both Stone and Fibs thought of it, because if it was really impossible for anyone to get out, therefore nobody did! :-)
The pin's importance was in the letters engraved in it, a crittograph that needed a word in the receipt to be solved; another little help from Fibs and they find the treasure to be buried between her parents' graves.
The criminal part of the story is a bit ridiculous, actually very much so, always so polite... but nice to read, and all in all this book was a pleasant enough read.
Cat among the pidgeons by Agatha Christie
The title this time has a lot to do with the book, and refers to something a teacher says. When asked, during the investigation, if she noted anything strange or wrong, she says she only has the impression that someone's not right, but can't explain better what she means, it's just an impression, which is: it's like we're all pidgeons and there's a cat among us. A perfect explanation of this book, where an iinternational intrigue is at its center, and many people are not who they said they were. The story starts in the middle-east, in the rich country of Ramat where Prince Ali Yusuf must escape the imminent revolution, with the help of true friend Bob Rawlingson, a character I fell in love in a moment, so rare a thing in Christie's books, so of course the poor soul died after a few pages, his plane sabotaged for money, and Ali died with him. I loved Bob, so honest, loyal, brave, and I agree with him that this world really needs some good old common sense, so rare instead.
Ali gave Bob a little sack full of precious jewels, for him to find a way to bring them out of Ramat. Bob hides them in his sister's daughter's things, but then dies and can no more say it to anyone.
Back in England, young Jennifer Sutcliffe enters the famous Meadowbank college not knowing anything about her precious package and make friends with Julia Upjohn.
Princess Shaista is also there. Miss Honoria Bulstrode is the head of the school, Miss Chadwick its cofounder; Eileen Rich , Eleanor Vansittart, Grace Springer, Miss Rowan, Miss Blake, Angele Blanche are the teachers, Ann Shapland is Miss Bulstrode's secretary, Miss Johnson is the housekeeper;
someone that saw Bob hiding the jewels is now trying to steal them, but it's not so easy. First Miss Springer is killed, then Miss Vansittart too, both in the gym. Jennifer is approached by a strange woman giving her a new tennis racket, and at this point her friend Julia, more intelligent and less vain, suspects something. Since the two girls had previously exchanged their rackets, Julia now has Jennifer's old one. Julia examines it very carefully and finds the jewels cleverly hidden inside. She's charmed by such precious beauty, but also scared someone might kill her too, now, so she does a clever thing: a family friend, Mrs Summerhayes (curious huh? I choose the book at random, and yet here she is, the woman in the last book I read, who apparently has learned well when Poirot taught her how to cook an omelette :lol: ) told her of how Poirot saved a man from being hanged for murder, so she leaves Meadowbank with a note saying she's not been kidnapped (like apparently has happened to Shaista) and she's not running away either, and she'll be back, then she heads to London and gives Poirot the jewels. At this point Poirot comes to Meadowbank and solves the case.
We knew from the start that gardener Adam Goodwin was actually special agent Ronnie something. At the end we find out that Shaista was actually an actress and that the real Shaista had been kidnapped three weeks before. Miss Blanche (who tried blackmail and was killed for it) is actually the sister of the real teacher. Miss Rich was at Ramat because pregnant without a husband, Miss Chadwick killed Miss Vansittart because jealous she could take over "her" school, and Ann Shapland is both an old spy and assassin as well as the fake dancer that saw Bob that day from the next room. When found out, Ann uses her gun, but Miss Chadwick throws herself to protect her old friend Miss Bulstrode and dies. Agatha had pity of her and gave her a good death.
Poirot gives the jewels to misterious Mr Robinson, who will sell them and provide the money to Alice Calden and her son Allen, English wife and son of Prince Ali.
It's a bit slow, this book, and there's little investigation, but the college was nice and Julia appearing at Poirot's door, introduced by George the butler, was the best part of it.
About the rest, I don't like the secret-identities-mysteries.
Ita: Macabro quiz
Ali gave Bob a little sack full of precious jewels, for him to find a way to bring them out of Ramat. Bob hides them in his sister's daughter's things, but then dies and can no more say it to anyone.
Back in England, young Jennifer Sutcliffe enters the famous Meadowbank college not knowing anything about her precious package and make friends with Julia Upjohn.
Princess Shaista is also there. Miss Honoria Bulstrode is the head of the school, Miss Chadwick its cofounder; Eileen Rich , Eleanor Vansittart, Grace Springer, Miss Rowan, Miss Blake, Angele Blanche are the teachers, Ann Shapland is Miss Bulstrode's secretary, Miss Johnson is the housekeeper;
someone that saw Bob hiding the jewels is now trying to steal them, but it's not so easy. First Miss Springer is killed, then Miss Vansittart too, both in the gym. Jennifer is approached by a strange woman giving her a new tennis racket, and at this point her friend Julia, more intelligent and less vain, suspects something. Since the two girls had previously exchanged their rackets, Julia now has Jennifer's old one. Julia examines it very carefully and finds the jewels cleverly hidden inside. She's charmed by such precious beauty, but also scared someone might kill her too, now, so she does a clever thing: a family friend, Mrs Summerhayes (curious huh? I choose the book at random, and yet here she is, the woman in the last book I read, who apparently has learned well when Poirot taught her how to cook an omelette :lol: ) told her of how Poirot saved a man from being hanged for murder, so she leaves Meadowbank with a note saying she's not been kidnapped (like apparently has happened to Shaista) and she's not running away either, and she'll be back, then she heads to London and gives Poirot the jewels. At this point Poirot comes to Meadowbank and solves the case.
We knew from the start that gardener Adam Goodwin was actually special agent Ronnie something. At the end we find out that Shaista was actually an actress and that the real Shaista had been kidnapped three weeks before. Miss Blanche (who tried blackmail and was killed for it) is actually the sister of the real teacher. Miss Rich was at Ramat because pregnant without a husband, Miss Chadwick killed Miss Vansittart because jealous she could take over "her" school, and Ann Shapland is both an old spy and assassin as well as the fake dancer that saw Bob that day from the next room. When found out, Ann uses her gun, but Miss Chadwick throws herself to protect her old friend Miss Bulstrode and dies. Agatha had pity of her and gave her a good death.
Poirot gives the jewels to misterious Mr Robinson, who will sell them and provide the money to Alice Calden and her son Allen, English wife and son of Prince Ali.
It's a bit slow, this book, and there's little investigation, but the college was nice and Julia appearing at Poirot's door, introduced by George the butler, was the best part of it.
About the rest, I don't like the secret-identities-mysteries.
Ita: Macabro quiz
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