Month: November 2024

The Final Heist

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★★
“Interesting premise, incredibly bland execution.”

I liked the idea of this. A gang of five thieves, four women and Liev, give up the game after a robbery goes wrong and Liev gets arrested. He doesn’t give up his accomplices, who include his pregnant girlfriend Willa (Banus), and goes to jail. Six years later their daughter falls ill, and desperately needs matching tissue to repair her heart valve. The bad news: it has to be her father, who’s still in prison. Worse news: he’s in a coma, having been beaten up on the orders of the governor. Willa decides to put the band back together, along with an unlicensed surgeon, to break into prison, and extract the necessary tissue to save her daughter. 

That’s not something I’ve seen in a film before. It’s certainly a twist on the usual “women in prison” subgenre, and the scope for a tense thriller, as the reverse heist unfolds, is obvious. Unfortunately, it’s the best part of an hour before we get to the execution, and there’s not enough to retain interest. It doesn’t help that the plot has so many holes through which you could drive an oil tanker. For example, Flynn (Ma) gets a job in the prison library, becoming the gang’s inside woman. She’s gaily snapping cellphone photos inside the jail, when two minutes of Googling confirms exactly what I suspected – that every prison I could find, has an almost zero tolerance policy for mobile devices.

Though in general, this correctional facility has security roughly comparable to your local electronics store, and you will be left with little confidence in just about anyone involved in the penal industry. Not that Willa and her team can really claim the moral high ground here, if you think about it. They are the “good girls” only because the film tells us they are. Given the first thing we see them do is robbing an armoured truck by threatening the driver with an explosive device, I’m not sure that’s truly the case in any court of morality. I’d rather have seen them embrace this ambiguity in some way, rather than dropping in a cliche straight from a Lifetime movie, a desperately ill child. Who can possibly root against Willa now?

Indeed, in tone, a lot of this feels like it could have straight in from a TV movie. Things do pick up somewhat down the stretch, not least with some unexpectedly graphic open-heart surgery, and when Willa is forced to make an unexpectedly difficult choice. However, it likely counts as a minimal spoiler to say that all ends well – at least, for the majority of the cast – with justice served on the bad people. [Robbery, it appears, does not count…] From a technical point of view, it’s reasonably well-assembled: “competent” would be the word, though it’s equally lacking in flair. The highest praise I can give this, is to say that I did not fall asleep. Might have been close in the first hour.

Dir: Ted Campbell
Star: Camila Banus, Jasmine Shanise, Virginia Ma, Shonte Akognon

First Target

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★★★
“Mostly hit, and several misses.”

Well, after taking ten years to get from the third film to the first, the gap between first and second is considerably shorter. I think this probably works the best of the trilogy, not least because there are a few good GWG to be found here, not just Secret Service Agent Alex McGregor. This time, she’s played by Hannah – allegedly, seeing her here got Tarantino to cast her in Kill Bill – rather than Hemingway. The latter supposedly declined due to a combination of scheduling conflicts and script concerns. Frankly, I think this is a bit more solid than the original film. It begins with a nice nod back to First Daughter, opening again with an attack on President Jonathan Hayes (Harrison) – except, this time it’s just a training exercise.

McGregor is now the head of the Secret Service, and is coming down hard on new agent Kelsey Innes, for much the same reason McGregor suffered the same treatment. But more pressing matters are at hand, because the Vice President has a plot to kill his boss and take over. To that end, he has hired international assassin Nina Stahl (Grauer) and her hacker brother, who plan to assassinate Harrison during a ceremony in Seattle, with the help of a mole inside the local Secret Service office. Returning from the first picture is wilderness guide Grant Coleman (Savant), whose attempts to propose to Alex keep getting interrupted, and who is impressively unfazed by the fact his girlfriend now looks radically different from last movie.

The concept here is still a little silly, but at least the threat here is genuine, with Stahl a decent adversary who poses a real threat to McGregor, Innes, etc. She additionally brings a nice line in femme fatale to her line of work, and I was surprised to see a not-exactly subtly incestuous vibe with her brother. It feels like Stahl has wandered in from a different franchise entirely. Again, it is a little disappointing that Grant ends up doing so much, in this case going toe-to-toe with Nina, while Alex is making her way up the mountain towards the assassin. However, the heroine still gets her licks in, and puts the pieces of the puzzle together before anyone else.

Unlike First Daughter, there’s a sense that most of the people involved here are relatively smart; or, at least, behave as if they are. The absence of the annoying teenage Presidential daughter – never seen or heard, but apparently now getting tattoos – feels like a positive development too. It still remains limited by being a TV movie, and the pauses for advert breaks are often painfully obvious (not helped by them not lining up with the Tubi advert breaks). However, I was definitely entertained, and if I had seen this when it came out in TBS at the turn of the millennium, I would likely not have changed the channel. It almost makes me want to re-review First Shot, and see if I was unnecessarily harsh to it. Almost…

Dir: Armand Mastroianni
Star: Daryl Hannah, Doug Savant, Gregory Harrison, Ona Grauer 

First Daughter

  By

★★½
“Secret Service with a smile.”

El Jardinero isn’t the only long-delayed review of a franchise opener. I saw First Shot, the third movie in this series about Secret Service Agent Alex McGregor (Hemingway), back in 2014, and at the time it was the only entry present on Netflix. A decade later, I now get the chance to catch up with the first entry and… it is pretty much what you’d expect. Competent enough for a TV movie, but the limitations of that medium are always going to knee-cap the material. This does begin well enough, with an energetic terrorist attack on a fundraiser for President Jonathan Hayes (Harrison) by members of the American Freedom Fighters – this clearly dates outside the 2001-16 window when domestic terrorism was ignored. 

His life is saved by Alex, but only after she disobeys orders from her boss, which gets her into hot water. Still, a few months later, she is selected to accompany Hayes’s teenage daughter, Jess (Keena), on a wilderness adventure trip. Unfortunately, this drops them right into the Colorado terrain (actually Australia, but who can tell the difference?) where the AFF militia are hiding out. They get the bright idea of kidnapping Jess, so they can exchange her for their leader, captured during the attack mentioned above. Jess is the only agent to survive the initial assault, and so it’s up to her and tour guide Grant Coleman (Savant) to track the terrorists through the forest, and free Jess from their clutches

This is spottily entertaining, and you can probably tell most of the story beats in advance. Jess resents Alex’s presence on the trip, while Alex and Grant get off on the wrong foot – but you just know everyone is going to grow to respect each other by the end of the film. However, it holds together well enough, with decent performances from Hemingway and Savant, who make for a likeable pair. It is front-loaded, with the original attack a nifty piece of bullet-ridden carnage, before the film then goes to sleep on that front. It’s instead busy introducing characters, establishing relationships and making Alex do rock-climbing to prove she’s not a lesbian. Or something like that. My notes are a bit unclear on the point.

It has to be said, despite the presence of WWE’s Diamond Dallas Page among them, the AFF members are very much low-grade terrorists. There’s only three of the left, and I would not say smarts are their strong suit. As threats go, they’re lightweights. It was also a little disappointing how McGregor ends up needing to be rescued in the climax. While it’s an acceptable conclusion, tying up a dangling loose end, it does weaken her as a protagonist. There is some impressive bits of white-water action, and in generally, it feels more like a low-budget theatrical feature than a made for television one: its budget of $5 million certainly feels more than the typical nineties TVM. If my review of the third entry was scathing, I suspect it won’t take another ten years before I review the second.

Dir: Armand Mastroianni
Star: Mariel Hemingway, Doug Savant, Monica Keena, Gregory Harrison

Outcast, by Vanessa Nelson

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

This is a solid slice of urban fantasy, taking place in a city surrounded on all sides by The Wild. This is more or less what it sounds like, a wilderness inhabited by a variety of monstrous creatures, most of which pose a significant threat to human life. They’re kept out of the city by magical barriers, but these are imperfect. When they fail, and the creatures enter the city, it’s up to the Marshals to hunt them down and contain the threat. One such is Max Ortis, though she only joined them after being kicked out of the Order, eight years previously.

The Order are the magic users and their bodyguards, and at that point, Max was the sole survivor of a mission to seal the Grey Gates. These keep the demon Arkus in the underworld, but Max’s role led to her becoming persona non grata with the Order, and her subsequent dismissal. Her role in the matter has remained known to very few since then. Now, a series of murders are taking place around the city, which have all the hallmarks of being ritual sacrifices, intended to re-open the Grey Gates. Though not technically within her jurisdiction, Max is brought in to assist with the investigation, due to her unique position between the secular and spiritual groups. Turns out the case strikes a lot closer to home than is comfortable for her.

There is quite a lot going on here, not least because Max has to keep up with her regular work, in addition to assisting in the murder investigations. It becomes something of a running joke that she is always being pulled back in, just when she’s looking forward to some down time. There’s a failure of the barrier to handle, with the subsequent intrusions to be tidied up. In addition, she also uncovers some severely questionable entertainment at a local drinking establishment, which poses a threat to the city, in addition to its dubious nature. Oh, yeah: and a demon who whispered out of the shadows to Max as a young child, shows up in her life again. Gratifyingly, this leaves absolutely zero room for romance  (at least in this volume).

Instead, there is quite a lot of Max getting all manner of snot kicked out of her. Even though there are various healing and cleaning spells available to her, she seems to spend a lot of time getting patched up, in order to go back on duty. There’s no doubt the creatures she faces are a real threat, though Nelson does seem to skip describing them in much detail. I’m not certain what a “Keliotrope” looks like, beyond being a) big, and b) unpleasant. Another issue was Max’s apparent ability to think her way out of paralysis at the end. These didn’t impact my overall enjoyment too much; it’s a good start, self-contained yet laying the groundwork for future installments to go in some interesting directions. 

Author: Vanessa Nelson
Publisher: Self-published, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 5 in the Grey Gates series.

Bang Bang Betty: Valerie’s Revenge

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★★½
“To lose one partner may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness.”

This one ends by informing us definitively that “Bang Bang Betty will return.” The statement may cause some confusion to viewers in this installment, because Bang Bang Betty is not present to begin with. No, this sequel to Bang Bang Betty is entirely Betty-free, without any real explanation as to why. I can only presume the actress involved was otherwise engaged. Instead, it focuses on Valerie Mendez (Hernandez), who was a prosecuting attorney in the first one, but now seems to be an undercover detective. She is investigating the drug trafficking activities of Sanchez (Soria), when her partner and fiancee, Beatriz, is killed in a gun-battle with Sanchez and his men.

This forms the dramatic impetus for the rest of the film, in which Valerie goes after Sanchez. Though since in this installment, we go from cold open to lesbian canoodling in under two minutes, then Beatriz getting fridged before the ten-minute mark, the emotional impact on the audience is limited. It does solve the purpose of justifying the title. Valerie then seeks vengeance in ways which don’t exactly stand up to scrutiny in terms of police procedure, to the point where “international incident” might be closer to the truth. Her motto appears to be ,”You can’t spell jurisdiction without I and N-O”, charging across the border into Mexico with help from her replacement partner, and DEA agent Richard Cross (Caliber), whose partner also fell victim to Sanchez. What are the odds?

I’ve a feeling this might have been filmed back-to-back or close to with its predecessor, and has many of the same strengths and weaknesses. The performances are decent, with a special shout-out to Padilla as Sanchez’s brutal henchwoman, Lola. The action is a bit up-and-down, and we never get to see the brawl between Valerie and Lola that I was expecting – and, to be honest, anticipating. It’s Cross who ends up getting that, and the film does nothing to defray the usual problems when there’s such a size discrepancy between opponents. The CGI blood remains as poorly-executed as before, which does the entire movie a disservice, leaving it looking cheap and rushed.

It’s a shame, because there are occasional moments which are genuinely impressive. For instance, a well-staged shot of Valerie cradling the dying Beatriz in her arms, while the gunfight goes on in slow-motion behind them. Or the unexpected Debussy which pops up on the soundtrack, as she raids one of Sanchez’s drug houses. These are moments which are likely better than anything in its predecessor. However, they are countered by the weakness of a plot which feels very much a downgrade: it’s implausible at best, and too often topples over into ridiculous. Overall, it comes in at the same grade, and I find myself, once again, cautiously looking forward to a third installment. Hopefully, this time the plot will receive as much effort as the characters.

Dir: Alexander T. Hwang
Star: Emily Rose Hernandez, Hector Soria, Kevin Caliber, Mariah Padilla

El Jardinero

  By

★★½
“Better late than never”

Well, that only took… twenty-one years. Back in 2003, I watched and reviewed El Jardinero 2, with the help of Chris, because it came on a Mexican DVD with no English subtitles. Imagine my surprise, therefore, when I booted up Tubi the other day, and found its predecessor streaming. No English subs – but there were Spanish ones. Nowadays, Google Translate offers a half-decent ability to convert into English, even if I ended up having to apply a lot of polish to the idiom. At least I didn’t have to bother Chris. Still, here we are, and… Well, it probably wasn’t worth all the effort, to be honest. It is another cheap slice of Mexploitation, with too much talk and not enough action, though like its successor is reasonably entertaining.

It turns out I misspoke in the sequel, when I described Pablo Moreno (L. Reynoso) as the husband of Lilia Gallardo (Herrera). It’s a bit more complex. Lilia returns from abroad to her home town in rural Mexico to discover her father has been murdered by drug dealers. Worse, her mother has taken up with the head of the clan, Adan Moreno. Lilia is unimpressed, and in the resulting fracas, shoots Moreno dead before fleeing. The family kinda blames their rivals, and Mom goes to her grave rather than implicate her daughter, despite brutal treatment at the hands of the gang’s enforcer, Mario Argumedo (Pineda). Dismissing the concern of her godfather, Lilia decides to infiltrate the family, do as much damage as possible and take her revenge.

Vengeance is a long time coming, shall we say. She has to befriend Pablo, posing as an out-of-towner (I guess she must have been abroad for a long time, since he doesn’t recognize her), and using her womanly charms to get an invite to stay on the ranch. She then uses this access to figure out where their poppy fields are located, and recruits her godfather to set them on fire one night. There’s also dissent in the ranks between Pablo and his brother Gabino (H. Reynoso – no clue if the actor is related to his on-screen brother), with the latter unhappy about the influence Lilia is having on his sibling. It doesn’t stop Pablo from inviting her to help out in the family business.

And this is how we eventually get back to where we came in for the sequel, with a gun-battle between the two sides, roughly eighty minutes after the first time we see Lilia shoot Adan. It feels more like a feature-length telenovela, with all that implies. I’d be hard-pushed to call this good, yet it did manage to keep my interest, with things like how the small country towns is basically run by the Moreno cartel, with the police chief utterly in their pocket. None of the locals seem bothered. It’s certainly a bit different, though much as with the sequel, I wish Lilia had been as much of a bad-ass as the cover again implies.

Dir: Enrique Murillo
Star: Lorena Herrera, Salvador Pineda, Luis Reynoso, Héctor Reynoso

In the Eyes of the Prey

  By

★★½
“The eyes have it.”

New rule. If ever I become an evil, kidnapping overlord, I shall be sure not to leave potentially lethal power-tools left lying easily accessible, around the place where the abductee is being kept. This is just one of the many mistakes made by the criminals here, in what could be an instructional guide on how NOT to execute a kidnapping. Admittedly, they weren’t aware that their victim suffers from multiple personality disorder. The alternate version is more than happy to wield the aforementioned power-tool – specifically, a nail gun – with extreme prejudice. It helps that these grown men and hardened criminals make it remarkably easy, for a 110-lb woman to overpower them in various ways.

Let’s rewind though, because it takes a while to get to the nail gun carnage, the reason why we’re here. Laura (Calamassi) is the victim, having been kidnapped by a gang led by Santiago (Massaria). These are the usual mix of tropes from this kind of movie. There’s the nice one, Benedetto (Badea); the pervy one, Lupo (Potenza); the fiery hot-head, and so on. Meanwhile, we get far too much back story about Laura’s mental health history. This includes an assault on an art teacher, sessions of therapy, and childhood trauma where she saw her mother gunned down in front of her. Exactly how this triggers the splitting off of PsychoLaura is unclear. I suspect the film is equally reliable in the fields of aberrant psychology, and as a “how to kidnap” manual.

If the script is flimsy and not very interesting, the film does rebound somewhat in the performances. Calamassi delivers good work when going Full Gollum, tussling with her internal demons, and if the supporting cast aren’t given much to work with, they do what they can. Things liven up when PsychoLaura takes full control, but here the limited budget (only fifteen thousand Euros) comes into play. That’s why we only get told one of her victims suffered 90-100 stab wounds and has a saw sticking out of his forehead. Or when someone else is decapitated with wire… it’s nowhere near as cool on screen as it sounds. Pro tip: if you can’t afford to show it, don’t include it in your script. 

Conversely, the sole female member of the gang is included to no real purpose. She’s initially set up as another victim, yet once the truth is revealed, nothing much happens. The scenery is very nice. Wherever it was filmed, seems like a lovely place to visit – whether or not you happen to be hiding out with a mentally deranged teenage girl you have kidnapped. So when the story doesn’t manage to retain your interest, you can admire the setting. Well, during the second half, when both the film and Laura escape the confines of the house. Everything ends in an uncertain manner. I’d probably have been disappointed in it, if I had felt any more than marginally invested in the final outcome. 

Dir: Leonardo Barone
Star: Laura Calamassi, Gabriel Dorigo Badea, Paolo Massaria, Jerry Potenza
This review originally appeared on Film Blitz.

Hope

  By

★★
“Hope isn’t necessarily good.”

Hope (Larkin-Coyle) is an aspiring vlogger, though has not yet figured out how to make it pay sufficiently to quit her grindingly dull day job, for a boss who perpetually questions Hope’s commitment. She’s not wrong, because Hope’s heart definitely lives in the outdoors, not at a desk or in a Zoom meeting. Her particular niche of content creation is in wilderness adventures, whether that’s going up mountains, diving underwater or – as in this case – scaling a cliff-face. She then posts the videos online, so that others can live vicariously through her experience. She’s excited for her next trip, which will take her back to a part of Ireland by the ocean, which was a favourite haunt of her late mother.

However, a moment’s inattention leads to disaster, with Hope sent plummeting to the rocks below. When she regains consciousness, she finds her shin bone shattered and sticking out of her leg. With (inevitably!) no cell signal, she is thrown back on her own resources, and will have to make her way out of an increasingly precarious situation, entirely by herself. As you can imagine from this synopsis, it puts a lot of weight on the shoulders of the lead actress, and it’s all a little contrived. Initially, I expected there to be much more of her speaking to the camera, documenting events for her online followers. But the film doesn’t really go that way, favoring a more general voicing of Hope’s inner monologue.

In the main, to be blunt, you are basically watching a woman crawl across rocks for an hour, and I’m probably stating the obvious when I say that this is of limited appeal. There are some inconsistencies which seemed annoying at the time, almost as if whole scenes had been removed. One second, Hope is on a beach. The next, she’s swimming in the water – broken leg and all. Then she’s suddenly marooned in a cave. There’s also character stupidity, such as Hope’s ignorance or wilful disregard for basic survival protocols. However, there’s a third-act twist which, to be fair, goes a long way to explaining what had gone before. On the other hand, you’re left wondering if perhaps the film-makers have sabotaged the entire point with it.

A more definite problem is the sense that there simply is not enough happening here. The fall, presumably for budgetary reasons, is a simple fade to black accompanied by a scream. I will say, the sounds Coyle makes when exploring her wound are legitimately harrowing, and help sell her injury as much as the small but effective effects work on her leg. That takes care of about five minutes, leaving… 93 others, which fall well short of possessing the same degree of intensity. It feels as if the makers were looking to paint a psychological portrait, using the frame of a wilderness survival story. As someone who was expecting a genuine wilderness survival story, I’m left feeling distinctly short-changed, and a little bit cheated.

Dir: Bobby Marno
Star: Sadhbh Larkin Coyle

Keisha Takes the Block

  By

★½
“Talk is cheap, and so is this.”

Reviewing director Profitt’s filmography on the IMDb is an interesting experience. He seems to have started off in the paranormal, drifted through pseudo-reality TV with titles like Untold Undercover Police Stories, and has now found a niche in the low-budget urban gangster field, for which Tubi seems to have an inexhaustible appetite. But the promise very much exceeds the product. Case in point: while the woman on the cover here is the main character, she does not even touch a gun until, literally, the final shot of the movie. Profitt has instead realized that the best way to stretch his budget is to have long scenes of two characters talking to each other.

So that’s what you get here. A lot. It begins with Keisha (Seaton) talking to a fellow “prisoner” in “jail”. Quotes used advisedly, because after an establishing shot of the outside of a prison, the whole scene takes place in an entirely generic corner of a room. No guards. No bars. Could be a community college classroom. This sets the tone for the next thirty minutes, almost without exception: two people have a conversation. Two different people have a conversation. Two people have a conversation outside. Two people have a conversation on a couch. If you can think of a (slight) variation on two people having a conversation, you are likely to see it used here. It almost becomes hypnotic.

The story unfolds entirely through the resulting dialogue. Keisha is seeking to expand her criminal operations, but is facing push-back from the current boss, Quan (Settles). So she recruits his abused girlfriend, Rayna (Yvonne) to provide inside information on his activities. Meanwhile, her pet dirty cop, Ronny (Profitt), also tells Keisha heat will be coming from law enforcement, especially as the cold war between her and Quan heats up. Keisha’s long-time best friend begs her to leave the criminal life before it all catches up to her, and she begins to realize she needs an exit strategy. All of which sounds considerably more exciting than it is, because it’s far, far too dialogue heavy, and even these scenes are flat and largely lacking in dramatic energy.

The performances aren’t bad, and mercifully, Profitt doesn’t lean on the “my friends’ rap music” soundtrack typically used in this genre. Indeed, the lack of music, while probably another money-saving device, is sometimes effective. But there just is not enough going on here to hold the audience’s interest. The supposed battle for territory between Quan and Keisha doesn’t appear to use more than one clip of ammunition. Then again, both sides could probably hold their gang meetings in a phone-booth, such is the lack of resources here.  It is something of a shame, as there are elements here capable of generating dramatic conflict, in the right hands, and as noted, the actresses generally deliver their lines well. But Profitt the director seriously needs to fire Profitt the writer.

Dir: Jeff Profitt
Star: Brandi Seaton, Vicky Yvonne, Bernard Q. Settles, Jeff Profitt

When Women Were Warriors: The Warrior’s Path, by Catherine M. Wilson

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

To be frank, I was expecting rather more action given the title here. Almost all of it, however, takes place “off-screen”, as it were, being described second-hand, rather than experienced. It makes sense in the context of the book, and it’s not badly written. But when you use the word “warrior” or derivations thereof, not once but twice in your title, it would seem fair to expect a higher quotient of… warrioring. I tagged this as fantasy, mostly because it clearly takes place elsewhere and/or elsewhen. It is fairly grounded e.g. no dragons or vampires, but certainly contains elements I would call mystical.

The book tells the story of Tamras, who is sent to join the house of Lady Merin, hoping to progress through the ranks of apprentices and become a warrior woman herself, like her mother before her. Tamras feels too small and weak to succeed, but bonds with another outsider there, Maara, a mysterious woman with no past, who came from the north and whose loyalties are consequently suspected by the others. Maara initially rejects Tamras, but after the warrior is hurt while fending off cattle raiders, it’s Tamras who is largely responsible for nursing her back to health, and the pair begin to forge a relationship. After providing valuable information, Maara wins Merin’s trust, although others in the house still perceive her as a threat.

There is a great deal of sitting around here, though I suspect that might be partly the point. To quote Maara, “Most of a warrior’s days are uneventful” this coming after a month when she and Tamras have been part of a group which spent a month guarding against further livestock theft, without very much happening at all. The nearest to proper action are the reports of the battle where the warriors successfully repel an attack, thanks to Maara’s intel. I liked the setting, this being a world where gender – at least, in this part of the world – is not seen as an issue, with men and women fighting side by side. It’s also definitely lesbian friendly – more so than action heroine friendly, I would suggest.

For there was a point, probably about two-thirds of the way through, that I realized the author really wasn’t interested in providing an adrenaline-packed thrill-ride. This is much more about the relationships between the women – we poor men rarely merit a mention – and in Tamras’s growth as a person. Taken as that character study, it’s by no means bad: Wilson has a good turn of phrase, with some of the more spiritual experiences having particular weight. But at other points, it does feel more like sword ‘n’ soap-opera, and the overall sense of much more interesting stuff happening elsewhere became overpowering before the end. The rating above reflects that; while on purely literary terms, it’s likely better, I was left wanting less talk and more fighting.

Author: Catherine M. Wilson
Publisher: Shield Maiden Press, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 3 in the When Women Were Warriors series.