Month: September 2023

Little Hero

  By

★★½
“The calamari fights back…”

Although almost a decade earlier than Lin Hsiao Lan’s slew of fantasy kung-fu flicks, this shares a lot of the same elements – not least an approach to narrative coherence best described as “informal.” This starts at the beginning, where we don’t even get introduced to the participants, before the martial arts breaks out. As we learn a little later, it turns out this pits Chu-Kwok Su-Lan (Shang-Kuan) against three members of the Devil’s Gang, in defense of her two, largely useless sidekicks. This is just the first of numerous encounters between our hero – yes, it’s another unconvincing male impersonator out of Taiwan – against various members of the group, and eventually their leaders, Gold Mask (Lo) and Silver Mask (Wang).

There is a loose justification for all of these flying fisticuffs: literally flying, in the case of the Mask brothers. For they zoom about on their strap-on wings, accompanied by VTOL airplane sounds, more befitting a busy day on an aircraft carrier. Anyway, the excuse is the pursuit of a legendary artifact called the Phoenix Sword, which was being transported to Master Chen in Dragon City. Its couriers are ambushed, yet manage to hand off the case containing the weapon to a random orphan, conveniently bathing nearby.  The Devil’s Gang then kidnap Chen’s daughter, demanding another legendary item, the Dragon Sword in exchange for her safe return. Chen is having none of it, so recruits a bunch of his former students, including Su-Lan, to go after the kidnappers and rescue his daughter.

There is some other stuff. However, a) the above is all you need to know, and b) I’m not clear enough on much more, to be willing to commit fully to putting it on the Internet. In any case, this is definitely one of those films where, if you don’t like this fight sequence, just wait – because there will be another along in a few minutes. I suspect my rating might well be higher if there was a decent presentation of this film available. It only appears to be available in a severely cropped version, which half the time is zoomed in far too close to appreciate what’s going on, and in an English dub that leaves no molecule intact of the performances beneath it.

All that’s left after this scorched earth approach to the visual and audio elements, is to appreciate the berserk imagination on view. This reaches its peak at the end, where Su-Lan faced off on the beach against a pair of giant octopi. Their preferred method of attack is to squirt mini-octopi at him. While I can certainly appreciate the surprise value inherent in such an approach, it doesn’t seem very sustainable. As a finale, we then get Su-Lan against Gold Mask – who is no longer masked – on what looks like a children’s adventure playground. Again: none of this makes sense in the context of the story, something I felt tended to be aggravating rather than enjoyable. If you’re of a more relaxed attitude, you may well get more out of this than I did.

Dir: Hung-Min Chen
Star: Polly Shang-Kuan, Barry Chan, Lieh Lo, Hsieh Wang

Who Is Erin Carter?

  By

★★★★
“Discipline isn’t an issue in Ms. Carter’s class.”

Okay, I will admit that this strained credibility on a number of occasions, to the point that buttons were popping off its shirt. But I don’t think the makers were exactly going for gritty realism, and the bottom line is: I enjoyed this a lot. Certainly, more so than Special Ops: Lioness, another limited series which we were watching concurrently. To at least partially address the question posed by the title, Eric Carter (Ahmad) is a supply teacher working in a Spanish school. She lives with her partner, Jordi (Teale), and their somewhat disabled daughter, Harper (Watson). But at the supermarket, Erin foils a robbery in order to save Harper, and it becomes very clear that her skills are not limited to the arena of education.

Turns out, Erin has a past, and the publicity resulting from her impromptu heroism brings it to visit. She finds herself embroiled in murder, organized crime and police corruption, as well as more normal familial drama, such as neighbourhood jealousy and whiny pre-teen nonsense. One of the seven 45-minute episodes is entirely in flashback (unexpected Jamie Bamber!), explaining the reason she changed her identity and moved to Spain, as well as why those from her history are keen to catch up with her. Even the spectacularly unobservant Jordi begins to realize that his other half is not quite as claimed. Her original explanation of a relapse into alcoholism doesn’t exactly explain all the sudden absences, injuries and unusual behaviour Erin is now exhibiting, as she tries to manage the escalating situation.

As you can see, you will need to suspend your disbelief, not least in the reveal of the big bad, who turns out to be a remarkably coincidental person, already in Erin’s life. But there’s a lot to enjoy here, such as the sardonic comparison between “Mommy life” and Erin’s violent and deceptive past. She can go from swapping bitchy comments with a school colleague, to punching throats, in what feels like the blink of an eye. I was also impressed with the combat scenes, which tend to have Erin using anything she can find around her, and possess an impact considerably greater than most TV series. Ahmad, who was in Les Filles du Soleil, possesses a terse fighting style that’s effective.

I admit to largely hating Harper, who is almost a cliche of the bratty, narcissistic and somewhat precocious little girl – admittedly, that may be the point. There are hints she has violent tendencies of her own, albeit this angle is never developed in the first series. The show escalates nicely, until a final episode where Erin and an unexpected ally end up going on the offensive, and things are wrapped up in a reasonable manner. The show did well, topping Netflix’s English-language chart in its week of release, and is still #3 at the time of writing. I’d certainly like to see another series, with this unexpectedly having become my favourite new show of 2023 to date. Though I’m still not sure of the answer to the title’s question.

Creator: Jack Lothian
Star: Evin Ahmad, Sean Teale, Douglas Henshall, Indica Watson

The Wrath of Becky

  By

★★½
“Did we learn nothing from John Wick?”

Don’t mess with someone else’s dog. This is a good rule of thumb in most cases, but especially so when the owner is an unhinged teenage psychopath, with the both the talent and desire to inflict carnage in retribution. The last time we saw Becky (Wilson), she had disposed of a gang of neo-Nazis who had invaded her house in search of a key, and killed her father in the process. Now, a couple of years later, she is a waitress in a diner, and renting a room from Elena (Burse). Three more individuals with, um, alternative political opinions enter the diner. This is not going to end well.

In response to their rude behaviour, she pours coffee on the crotch of their leader. The response leaves Elena dead and, worse, they kidnap Becky’s dog. She tracks them to the home of their group’s leader, Darryl (Scott). You know that messy mayhem is going to follow, and will not be disappointed. The film does address the gloomy murkiness which plagued the first one, allowing its gory murders to unfold in the full light of the sun. However, in most ways it falls short of its predecessor: the sequel has seen a new writer-director pair come on board, and the results very much have an air of “second verse, same as the first – just not as good” air to them.

The differences are on both sides. Becky is harder to empathize with, being little more than a teenage psychopath now. Sure, she had issues in the original movie. Yet the trauma she went through meant her reactions were understandable. Here, from the outset she seems a bit of a dick, callously treating foster parents for her own benefit. On the villainous side, it’s a mixed bag. The film repeats the trick from the first film of putting an unexpected actor in the role of the lead villain (there Kevin James) and Scott does well. But the frequent idiocy of his underlings is too convenient. They’re not a credible threat, and Darryl’s failure to secure Becky at a key moment undoes much of the good work that has gone before.

However, don’t take the above criticism as an indication there’s no fun to be had here. You just need to be aware this is a considerably more mean-spirited affair, and it’s probably only the kills that will stick around in your mind. I did laugh out loud more than once, for example when one of the gang reveals his son’s name to Becky, sealing his own fate [though again: why not just lie, dude? It isn’t hard…] The ending sees the CIA recruit Becky, because they are now apparently responsible for domestic counter-terrorism. Wait, what? Oh, well. If they’re going the Nikita route for further sequels, I suspect the authorities have bitten off more than they can chew. Maybe next time Becky can go after Antifa.

Dir: Matt Angel, Suzanne Coote
Star: Lulu Wilson, Seann William Scott, Denise Burse, Jill Larson

The Watcher, by Matthew Hattersley

  By

Literary rating: ★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆½

Somebody really liked Killing Eve… If you’re going to write a story about an amoral female assassin, working for a shadowy group, who becomes involved with a woman she’s supposed to kill, then you are basically inviting such comparisons. These are unlikely to be favourable to your work. I’m just sayin’. This started off okay: however, a single sentence at the 46% mark was basically a large neon sign as to how this was going to end, and proved exactly the case, as this collapsed in a slew of implausibility. Now, I’m not a trained assassin, so can’t comment on those elements. However, I do work in IT, and it’s clear the author does not. For instance, if someone was to leave our company on bad terms, their access would be immediately removed, as a top priority, so they couldn’t… oh, waltz in thereafter and download all our highly sensitive data. Sheesh.

Anyway, back on the amoral female assassin front, we have “Acid Vanilla”, the operational name of a killer working for private company Annihilation Pest Control. They’ve been contracted to tidy up after an executive of tech company Cerberix was seen  strangling a hooker. The employee who witnessed it, Spook Horowitz, and footage of the murder, both have to be disposed of. However, Acid is already teetering on the edge of burnout, and when her target informs her about the realities of the case, the hitwoman decides she is on the wrong side. She and Spook set out to take down Cerberix. This means her boss at APC will send a steady stream of other employees in their direction, in an effort to cover up the widening mess this contract is causing. It needs to be cleared up before Cerberix’s upcoming and much-ballyhoed announcement of their new venture, due to be live streamed across the globe in a few days.

Yeah, if you can’t tell the eventual direction, I don’t know what to say, and Horowitz has to be the least convincing depiction of a “hacker” I’ve ever read. Neither her, nor the relationship with Acid, are credible, and the further the book goes on, the more these elements take centre-stage. It’s a shame, since Vanilla herself is a decent character: the child of trauma, inevitably, yet not a pure psychopath either, and with significant mommy issues, let’s just say. Particularly as a first book, Hattersley should have stuck to establishing her, rather than bringing in the Jiminy Cricket-like character of Horowitz, who can also get whatever information is required by the plot with a couple of mouse-clicks. There’s no shortage of action, to be sure, although it felt almost like a running joke the way Acid inevitably took out the bad guys with head-shots (so many skulls exploding like ripe fruit…), while they only ever aimed at her and Spook’s bodies. Definitely one of the more baffling 4.25-star ratings on Goodreads.

Author: Matthew Hattersley
Publisher: Boom Boom Press, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 7 in the Acid Vanilla series.

Kung Fu Wonder Child

  By

★★
“So. Many. Questions…”

You may have noticed that I’ve been on a bit of a spree with these Taiwanese fantasy-fu flicks of late. However, I think I’m feeling a bit sated with them at this point, and the law of diminishing returns seems to be setting in. There are only so many unconvincing male impersonators, bad effects (both optical and practical) and almost illegible and/or illiterate subtitles a man can take, and I think I’ve reached my capacity in almost of these categories. Fortunately, my queue of such things seems to be nearing an end, with just a couple more to go. Still, after this delirious experience, I feel in need of a week or two’s break from the madness.

The villain here is the usual long-haired sorcerer (Li), who is collecting souls for the usual, megalomaniac purposes, and keeping them in large, ceramic jars in his yard. As you do. Among his collection are the father and sibling of Chiu Hsu (a rather under-used Oshima, albeit very early in her career), and she eventually links up with helpful unconvincing male impersonator, Hsiu Chuen (Lin, of course) and not one, but two, annoying comic sidekicks, Mi Fu and Tudor. Hsiu is a servant at a martial arts school, where her grandfather (Long) is the cook. Except Hsiu wants to learn the skills taught at the school, and Gramps is not just the mild-mannered chef he initially appears to be. Hilarity ensues. Well, if your idea of hilarity is a dog peeing on someone’s face, at least.

This is the kind of thing where it feels like the makers threw every idea they came up with onto the screen, regardless of a) relevance and b) whether or not it could be executed with any degree of competence. For example, the first would include the extended opening prologue about a Chinese hopping vampire, and his two kids. It serves no purpose and seems to have strayed in from a completely different movie. As for the second… well, outside of the willingness of Taiwanese stunt-people to fling themselves around and into things for our enjoyment, this rarely gets to passable, even allowing for it approaching forty years in age. I did laugh that one of the monsters Hsiu ends up fighting, is obviously a flying facehugger from Alien.

That said, there is a surprisingly decent stab at mixing animation with live-action, when the villain transforms into an animated dragon for the final battle. If it’s not exactly Who Framed Roger Rabbit, it’s not notably worse than the Disney efforts in this area. In general though, the execution trails far behind the imagination, and as a result, does the latter something of a disservice. The slabs of childish humor are no more of a help. In the film’s defense, the target audience is likely also childish, or at least, child-ish. On that basis perhaps some slack needs to be cut? Yet I couldn’t help thinking, “It was acceptable in the 80s, it was acceptable at the time…”

Dir: Tso Nam Lee
Star: Hsiao-Lao Lin, Yukari Oshima, Jack Long, Hai-Hsing Li

The Tale of a Heroine

  By

★★½
“That old bag wanted to damp my Spirit Knife with Virgin Sword.”

Yeah, if the above line of subtitled dialogue makes sense, this film then ups the ante, with white subs on a frequently white background, and which frequently appear to be making a bid to escape from the bottom of the picture. It’s safe to say that a decent presentation of this, perhaps with a print which doesn’t look like it was left in someone’s pocket when their suit went to the cleaners, might merit a half-star more. A few more fight sequences would help too: the ones there are, don’t lack in quality. There’s just a bit too much farcical comedy for my taste.

It begins with the evil Aoba swiping a book of martial arts skills, killing its owner and kidnapping his wife (Hui). Their daughter, Lunar (Wong, who was Jet Li’s first wife) grows up, clearly believing revenge is a dish best served cold. Eventually, along with her comic relief acolyte (Wan), Lunar enters Aoba’s castle, disguised as a man, seeking to recover the book, free her mother and take revenge for her father. However, complications ensue, largely down to Aoba’s sex-mad wife. To stop her from being unfaithful, Aoba has staffed the castle entirely with gay men. The acolyte is the only exception, and has repeatedly to fend off her demands. The always welcome Cynthia Khan also shows up, as another swordswoman who switches sides to join Lunar, after finding out the truth about Aoba.

At least, the above is my best guess. For the reasons explained in the first paragraph, I’m not prepared to stake my life on much beyond the film’s title. As usual, I do have to question the apparently literal gender-blindness of people here. The only person less convincing as a person of the opposite sex, than Wong trying to be a man, is likely Wan attempting to pass as a woman. That and him trying to keep his trousers on, occupy a significant chunk of the middle portion. While it’s not too painful, as comedy goes – at least, when compared to some entries I’ve endured – it’s not why we are here, and the decent opening fight only whets this unsatisfied appetite.

Although there are sporadic outbursts of activity, it’s not until Lunar discovers the key to tap into the power of Virgin Sword (let’s just say, it’s counter-intuitive to the name), that she’s able to take on Aoba and his many, many minions. This provides the acceptably rousing content for which we have been waiting, as she storms the castle and releases Mom. Not least, for a spectacular sequence involving some kind of outdoor scaffolding construct, and a significant quantity of pyrotechnics. Everyone ends up having to team up in order to destroy Aoba, and there’s an odd coda where the acolyte ends up with both Lunar and Khan’s character, while pretending his mother is one of the gay guys from the castle. I can only presume the phrase “lost in translation” applies here.

Dir: Chien-Hsun Huang
Star: Wong Chau-Yin, Deric Wan, Cynthia Khan, Kara Hui
a.k.a. Wu Tang Witch 

Special Ops: Lioness

  By

★★★
“Crossing the Lion…”

If 2023 has been underwhelming on the theatrical front (to put it mildly), the various streaming services have certainly had no shortage of entries to keep us occupied here. This one comes to us from Paramount+, and stars Saldaña – already known around these parts, most likely for Colombiana – as CIA operative Joe McNamara, who uses undercover operatives against terrorist groups around the world. Her most recent mission does not end well, and she needs a new operative. She finds one in Cruz Manuelos (De Oliveira), a young woman who finds herself literally falling into the Marines, as a means of escape from a tough life and an abusive relationship. After acing boot camp, she becomes part of McNamara’s team.

The mission involves adopting the identity of a young Muslim woman and befriending Aaliyah Amrohi (Nur), daughter of a very rich Arab. The CIA believe her father is a major source of terrorist funding, but he is very hard to find. Aaliyah is engaged to be married, and her father seems certain to turn up at the wedding. So it’s up to Cruz, in her new identity, to insert herself into Aaliyah’s circle and get invited to the nuptials, so that the target can be neutralized as appropriate. Of course, it’s not quite as simple as that. In addition, Joe has familial issues of her own, as well as having to handle political manoeuvres among the alphabet soup of federal organizations, all with a finger in the pie.

I feel the characters work better than the scenario, which leans too heavily on cliched elements, such as Cruz and Alliyah falling for each other. I rolled my eyes quite hard at that, though it does lean into the “men are bastards” narrative occasionally present here. Hey, it applies both to American and Arab males, so that’s balanced, right? The scene where Cruz got drink-drugged also provoked ocular rotation. Though I was amused when the would-be date-rapist realized he’d bitten off rather more than expected, when a bunch of pissed-off Special Ops people showed up to rescue their comrade. I also enjoyed Wagner, former ditzy co-host of game show Wipeout, playing someone who looks like she’d give Vasquez a tough fight.

The action stuff is certainly well-staged, with De Oliveira giving a good account of herself through the selection process. And, when necessary, as part of her mission – leaving her with some injuries that required a bit of explanation to her new friend. The finale severely ramped up the stakes, especially when the groom-to-be ran Cruz’s face through facial recognition software. It all got… a bit messy thereafter, shall we say. Though it escapes me quite why he never alerted the large security contingent present about the Marine in their midst. If a lot of this doesn’t stand up to close scrutiny, the cast – also including Nicole Kidman and Morgan Freeman – give it their all, and if there turns out to be a second season, we’ll be down for it.

Creator: Taylor Sheridan
Star: Laysla De Oliveira, Zoe Saldaña, Stephanie Nur, Jill Wagner

The Vigilante

  By

★★★
“The Noise of Freedom”

Not to be confused with A Vigilante, this is rather more downmarket and straightforward. It’s likely less thought-provoking, yet probably works a bit better as entertainment, albeit being so basic as to border on the simplistic. Marine Jessica (Jandreau) comes back from a tour of duty in the Middle East with PTSD, following an encounter with a kid wearing a suicide vest. Almost immediately on her arrival, however, her 13-year-old sister, Aimee (Timmons) is kidnapped by sex-trafficker Frank (Cesario), who plans to sell her off in the vilest of ways. It’s a race against time for Jessica and her army buddy and tech wizard Dan (Pierce) to track down those responsible before… [/gestures vaguely] y’know…

If this feels like it has a certain similarity to an unexpected hit in cinemas this summer, you’re probably right. In the movie’s defense, this has been in the pipeline for five years or more, so it can’t be called a quick cash-in – though The Sound of Freedom goes back even longer. Interestingly, director Whittaker worked on Freedom as a stunt co-ordinator, part of a career in that field which goes back to the early nineties. He brings that experience to The Vigilante and it shows, with the action probably the film’s best element. There are a couple of undeniably impressive fights for Jandreau, in particular the final one after she has located the house in which Aimee is being held by her kidnappers.

The other elements are a bit more variable. It begins with an earnest recitation of facts about sex trafficking, with voice-over from (real?) victims detailing where and at what age they were ensnared. But the concept of Frank literally ploughing into the car in which Aimee is a passenger, in order to kidnap her to order out of the wreckage, is hugely, almost ludicrously, implausible. The reality of sex-trafficking is considerably less dramatic: like murder, it’s far more likely the perpetrator is someone known to the victim, rather than a complete stranger. Some of the other elements also don’t feel like they ring true, and the sheer number of shots of underage girls in white underwear had me expecting Chris Hansen to pop out of my closet.

Another weak spot if quite what Dan is doing to locate the trafficking houses which Jessica and he then hit. It’s only vaguely explained, in tech-speak of the least convincing kind. However, there are times where the film does still hit the mark, such as the line said by one of the girls with almost chilling off-handedness: “The first time is the worst. Then you simply go numb.” You sense any creepiness is entirely deliberate, although it is undeniably playing up the more sensational aspects for the viewer. Nothing new there, of course. In many ways, The Vigilante is simply a spiritual successor to the white slavery movies which date back well over a century to the silent era, and titles like Traffic in Souls. As such, this is no better or worse; it succeeds well enough, despite low ambitions.

Dir: Lee Whittaker
Star: Jet Jandreau, Eric Pierce, Jamie M. Timmons, Julien Cesario
a.k.a. Aimee

Vesper

  By

★★★½
“Battle Angel Nausicaa”

As the above suggests, I was getting a strong manga influence, in particular from the works of Hayao Miyazaki: it feels like the script could have been something he’d have written on a gloomy Wednesday in January. Feisty teenage heroine? Check? Ecological message? Check. For this takes place after some kind of change in the world, which has left the bulk of the population clinging on to existence by their grubby fingernails, in a world now owned by bizarre flora. Vesper (Chapman) is one such, tending to her paralyzed father (Brake) whose consciousness has been transferred into a drone. She trades with her uncle, Jonas (Marsan), swapping blood for the seeds they need to survive.

Yet there’s also elements of Battle Angel Alita, with a sharp delineation between the haves and the have-nots. The latter live privileged lives in Citadels, served by artificial lifeforms called “jugs”, and as suppliers of the seeds, hold everyone else in their control. One day, a Citadel craft crashes near Vesper’s home, and she rescues Camelia (McEwen) from the wreckage. She promises to take Vesper and her father back to her home. Yet it eventually becomes clear that Camelia is not being 100% honest about her own situation either. On the other hand, she is potentially the key to liberating everyone from under the thumb of the Citadels, and ending their monopoly on the resources necessary for survival. It’s not something the rulers will give up easily, however.

This is rather ponderous in its progress, running close to two hours, and is clearly content to take its time getting to any of its points. If you’re willing to accept that, there’s a lot to appreciate here, not least some great visual style and world-building. This has to be one of the most fully convincing post-apocalyptic landscapes I’ve seen, a remarkable achievement considering its budget was a mere five million Euros. Vesper is a heroine right out of the Nausicaa playbook: someone who is smart and brave, rather than physically strong, devoted to her family, and who has an inherent affinity for the natural world. Her mother left the family, under circumstances best described as murky, and Camelia is a surrogate, to some extent.

It does feel as if the makers fell in love with their creation a little more than I did, and wanted to wallow in the imagination, at the expense of developing the plot. No-one seems in a particular hurry here, and for every scene which moves the story forward, there’s another that seems to exist purely as a visual showcase. I think it might work better at 90 minutes than 120 – or alternatively, expanded beyond the confines of a feature film. This is the kind of thing I could certainly imagine HBO developing into a series. The ending came close to toppling into “Eh?” territory, before a final shot where it made sense, and wrapped things up on easily the most optimistic note we’d heard. Miyazaki would likely approve.

Dir: Kristina Buozyte, Bruno Samper
Star: Raffiella Chapman, Rosy McEwen, Eddie Marsan, Richard Brake

Assassin’s Vow, by David Bruns and J. R. Olson

  By

Literary rating: ★★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆☆

Bruns and Olson are retired U.S. Navy officers, Olson in particular with a background in naval intelligence –and that background is drawn on heavily in the various self-published series that he and Bruns co-write. This particular 117-page novella exists only in an electronic edition; in keeping with my usual practice, I’d never have read it, but for the fact that it’s a freebie. Supposedly, it’s the fourth in a succession of “Standalone Suspenseful Short Reads.” In fact, although I read it as a standalone, it actually ties directly into The Pandora Deception, the fourth novel in the authors’ WMD Files series. (The first novel of that series is premised on the conceit that former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein really did have his infamous “weapons of mass destruction,” but cleverly smuggled them out of Iraq before the Americans closed in – okay, this IS fiction.) Our protagonist in this novella, Mossad agent and top-notch assassin Rachel Jaeger, is an important character in the afore-mentioned fourth novel of that series (and possibly others); and indeed, we can surmise that the reason this work is given away for free is so that it can serve as a teaser to draw readers to the series.

Actually, our heroine’s real name is Makda Moretti; “Rachel Jaeger” is her Mossad code name (jaeger means “hunter” in German, and probably also in Yiddish, which is a Germanic language; and Rachel is a name with definite Old Testament associations). Historically, going back to at least New Testament times and possibly back as far as the reign of Solomon, a certain number of blacks in East Africa have identified with the Jewish faith. Rachel was born in Ethiopia, and her mother was one of these (although her mixed race father was half Italian). But though this subculture is mentioned. the authors don’t develop it at all. Their concentration is very much on providing the character’s “origin story.”

We begin en media res, on her first mission as a fledgling operative in a town on the Egyptian Sinai penninsula, where she’s supposed to provide scouting and lookout functions for a team tasked with taking out a terrorist. (But circumstances will cause her role to morph into something more demanding….) Well positioned flashbacks show us how, as a smart, physically fit and observant Tel Aviv Univ. student with a double major in economics and foreign languages, a solid background of martial arts training, and no close family (her mother had recently died, and her brother had emigrated to the U.S.) she was recruited into Mossad. (Later flashbacks show her family’s harrowing trek to Israel from danger in an unraveling Ethiopia, on which her father was killed, when she was a very small child, and a later formative experience of standing up to two bullies in order to defend another child, which shaped her penchant for defending innocents.)

Levi, the slightly older agent who recruited her, initially used the cover of a dating relationship as a medium to get close to her and check her out; this probably began as a ploy on his part, but quickly became much more serious, and the Makda-Levi relationship plays a very crucial role in the plot here. I don’t recommend reading the Amazon book description (the Goodreads database entry doesn’t have any description) because it divulges a lot of the plot, not just the premise. But suffice it to say that personal tragedy will be a shaping force in Rachel’s career. The time frame of the main tale is apparently about two years.

This is not a deep novel wrestling with moral, psychological, spiritual or political issues. There’s no real exploration of the complex roots and merits of the current Israeli vs. Arab hostility. Both Rachel’s and Levi’s role in Mossad is strictly counter-terrorism, combating and forestalling bad actors who would target and murder innocent civilians for political ends. That these people need to be stopped is a moral no-brainer, regardless of your attitudes towards Zionism or Palestinian statehood. Religion plays no role in the tale; Rachel and Levi are strictly secular and identify with Israel on the basis of peoplehood (which in her case is not exactly ethnic either, but more cultural, in a broad sense). The first time that she has to take a life (in self-defense), Rachel experiences some believable psychological distress at the enormity and finality of it, but is able to work through it and come to terms with it fairly quickly, as an action in successful and needed defense of her people; that kind of issue doesn’t arise elsewhere in the book. Despite the Amazon blurb’s overwrought reference to her “inner demons,” we don’t really meet any of the latter, our authors don’t really psycho-analyze her in depth, beyond the obvious feelings.

What it is instead is a straightforward tale of espionage action-adventure, with no real pretensions beyond offering exciting entertainment for readers who appreciate danger, suspense, physical challenges, and the satisfaction of seeing a good gal kick some bad-guy butt. :-) That’s exactly what the authors set out to deliver, and they make good on their promise admirably. This is a very well-written, fast flowing novel, with believable characters, all of them presented in life-like fashion. The prose is thoroughly serviceable, and free of bad language, with the exception of a couple of s-words in one place. (I appreciated that restraint, which I regard as a hallmark of good, tasteful writing.) There are a variety of locales here –Rome, France and Tunisia, in addition to Israel, the Sinai and East Africa, as already mentioned– and while they’re not necessarily realized with a deep sense of place (remember, this is a 117-page novella!), all of the physical settings are described vividly enough that we can easily visualize them.

Inside knowledge of espionage trade-craft and the inner workings of an intelligence agency is incorporated seamlessly into the narrative, giving it a solid feeling of verisimilitude. Our authors refrain from depicting explicit sex, and they treat sexual matters in general with restraint. It’s mentioned that Makda and Levi began sharing her bed after they’d been dating two weeks, but it’s left at that, and the feelings between the two, in fairness, are much more intense than the short time span suggests. (Normally I’m skeptical of insta-love scenarios in fiction, especially in a modern setting, but it carried complete credibility here.)

One scene had both Rachel and the target of one of her hits naked at one point, because she was posing as a prostitute in order to carry out her mission, but there’s no gratuitous physical description and no sexual activity takes place. (It’s a disgusting scene only because of the repugnant nature of the target’s exploitative and misogynistic attitudes, but he’s meant to be disgusting.) As an action adventure yarn with a government-sanctioned assassin for a main character, it’s going to feature lethal violence directly described, but there’s restraint here too; there’s no wallowing in gore for its own sake, and neither the authors nor Rachel are sadistic. (She’ll deliver certain death to her marks –who inspire no particular pity!– with consummate efficiency, but she”ll deliver it quickly and cleanly.)

My high rating reflects the degree of skill with which the authors deliver on the conventions of their genre, as well as my enjoyment of the tale (I’d easily have read it in one sitting if my time had allowed!). The only negative I felt is that Rachel’s character arc here doesn’t leave her, emotionally, in as good a place at the end as her friends would want her to be. (And by the time you finish the book, if you read it, you’ll probably also count yourself among her friends. :-) ) To be fair, however, that’s because it’s not a complete arc; the authors have at least one more adventure for her, in a full-length novel that will probably allow for much more progress in her personal life journey. Sadly, I don’t plan to witness it; at the age of 70 and with a gargantuan TBR, I don’t choose to get sucked into the welter of Bruns’ and Olsen’s various series, so I read this as a stand-alone. But I wish our heroine well; and can unhesitatingly recommend at least this start of her saga to all fans of espionage thrillers and action heroines!

Author: David Bruns and J. R. Olson
Publisher: Reef Points Media; available through Amazon, currently only as an electronic book.
A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads.