Category: Review

Trial by Twelve, by Heather Day Gilbert

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

Stylistically and in terms of its general tone and vision, this second volume of the author’s A Murder in the Mountains mystery series, set in contemporary West Virginia, has much in common with the first book, Miranda Warning. It’s also set in the fictional small town of Buckneck (near real-life Point Pleasant, in west-central WV near the Ohio River), and a number of the characters from the first book are here as well, especially protagonist Tess Spencer and the family she married into. We have the same leavening of humor, the same realistic characterization, and the same affectionate evocation of modern mountain life.

Even the structure is the same; through much of the book, Tess’ first-person, present-tense narration in normal text is supplemented, at the beginnings of the short chapters, by one or more italicized paragraphs from the unsigned and undated letters of a father to his child. As in the first book, we quickly get the idea that the two strands of material will prove to be related. Here, we also quickly form the suspicion that, in reading these letters, we’re glimpsing into the insane world of a serial killer. But while I didn’t review the first book here, there are developments in this book that I thought entitled it to a slot on this site’s roster of action-female reads (though no spoilers from me!).

Pregnant in the first book, Tess is now mom to a roughly year-old toddler. She’s gotten back into church, and into a rekindled faith that plays a role in her life, but doesn’t overpower the plot of the book. Also, she’s finally gotten her concealed carry permit (so her fans don’t have to keep worrying about her being arrested :-) ), and she’s gotten a Glock of her own, which she packs in a hip holster and generally doesn’t leave home without. Back in the work force, she has a new part-time job booking appointments at a fancy spa near Buckneck. It’s a position that suits her well –until, in the first chapter, workmen digging for a swimming pool behind the spa unearth what proves to be a veritable boneyard of female skeletons, killed with arrows to their chests. These deaths took place years ago –but then a fresh corpse turns up….

As a rule, I tend not to like the idea of serial-killer fiction (and nonfiction), and normally avoid it. But despite that, I really liked this book –the killings aren’t directly described, and there’s no wallowing in grisly gore. Although I pegged the killer’s identity pretty early on (that’s not unusual for me in my mystery reading), there were still questions I hadn’t answered, and the denouement managed to pack a surprise. I did find it somewhat dubious that a police detective would involve Tess in his investigation, despite her performance in the earlier book; and even more dubious that an inveterate tobacco-chewer would give up the habit, even temporarily, on the basis that he does here. But these quibbles aside, this was still a quick, enjoyable read, a re-connecting with some of the characters from the first book, and a chance to observe the continuing growth of an engaging protagonist.

As a Christian author, Gilbert avoids profanity and sexual content. Religious content in the book is low-key, and occurs naturally through the experiences of the characters; readers won’t find it “preachy.”

(Readers interested in such features will be pleased that the author has shared a recipe for “Cousin Nelma’s Banana Pudding” in the back of the book. I haven’t tried it, but it actually sounds like it would be pretty tasty, and relatively easy and inexpensive to make.)

Author: Heather Day Gilbert
Publisher: WoodHaven Press, available through Amazon, both for Kindle and as a printed book.
Book 2 of 3 in the A Murder in the Mountains series.
A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads.

La Banda de los Bikinis Rosas vs Cobras Negras

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★★
“Banda on the run.”

It has been a while since I’ve scraped the bottom of the barrel of Mexploitation cinema: all those telenovelas don’t count, generally being well-produced and with reasonable production values. Just how reasonable is brought home by comparing them to this… Admittedly, I had to cope with it being entirely in Spanish with no subtitles. I kinda hoped that watching north of four hundred episodes of Hispanic TV would magically instill in me the ability to speak Spanish. Turns out, this is not the case. Who knew? But I think I am on fairly safe ground in declaring this a bargain basement comedy-action cross, which exists to provide PG-rated titillation as much as thrills or laughs. 

I’m informed this is the second in a series, which has reached at least three entries (though only this one can be found in the IMDb), so there appears to be sufficient of a local market to justify its existence. It seems to start with the good girls – Los Bikinis Rosas, who do indeed wear pink bikinis – celebrating with their boss after another successful mission. But it’s not long before they are called into action again, going up against the bad-girl gang, the Cobras Negras, for possession of a microchip which… presumably can do something or other of importance. That bit was lost in translation (or lack thereof). No prizes for guessing what shade of bikinis are preferred by the Negras.

This colour co-ordination is probably a good thing, since the four women on each side are almost entirely interchangeable in appearance. The Rosas have a token blonde, while the Negras have a girl in glasses, who is presumably the evil nerd of the bunch or something. [I was basically making up my own plot there.] As appears semi-customary, a masked wrestler shows up, in this case the Rosas getting their training from Huracán Ramírez. Which is impressive, since he died seven years prior to this film’s 2013 release. This would not have fazed the Mexican audience. Luchadors, particularly the masked ones, tend to be near immortal, with characters being passed down the generations, sometimes as “el Hijo de” (the son of), or simply by taking over the mask, as appears the case here.

It’s not very interesting, and has horrible pacing. For example, the Negras seem to have their headquarters located in a basement below a food court at the back of a mall. So, we get to see them – apparently in real time – going through the mall… taking the elevator to the basement… and walking from there to the room in question. It’s a sequence even more gratuitously padded than the characters’ bras. The same goes for the lengthy aerobic exercise training sequence, during which the camera appears fixed, with dedication that’s border-line impressive, on the actresses’ chests and butts. The action is not great either, though is likely stellar in comparison to the stabs at comedy, which appear mostly to consist of a flamboyant homosexual.

Half a star of this is credit for my shortcomings in Spanish, which are likely responsible for some of the issues. While her translation skills may have been helpful, I just couldn’t bring myself to inflict this one on Chris, even though her derisive snorts would have been truly epic to behold.

Dir: Julio Aldama Jr.
Star: Julio Aldama Jr., America Ramírez, Julio Zaizar, Coco Rojo

GLOW: season two

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★★★½
“Twoooooooo….”

I don’t typically binge-watch shows, being generally content with an episode or two per week. For the second season of GLOW, Netflix’s original series (very) loosely based on 80’s TV show Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, we made an exception and blitzed through the series in a couple of days. This in itself is a recommendation – with most of the episodes running barely 30 minutes, it was very much a case of “just one more…” Before we knew it, we were done, and left with a vague feeling of emptiness and slight regret at having burned the 10 episodes so quickly.

Is it as freshly original as the first series? I’m inclined to say not quite, mostly because it’s treading in its own footsteps. Some aspects have improved – not least the wrestling, which (under the continued tutelage of Chavo Guerrero, who makes a cameo on the final episode) is now probably better than anything the real Gorgeous Ladies ever managed. But the balance seems to have tilted. It feels more like a soap opera with occasional interludes of sports entertainment, while its predecessor went the other way. This series is also rather more strident and obvious in its morality, not least a ham-handed shoehorning in of a #MeToo narrative that had #MeRollingMyEyes.

If the first season was about the struggle up the mountain to make the show, this one is about the fight to stay on the summit and avoid cancellation, in the face of evaporating sponsors and an unengaged TV station, as well as the ongoing relationship between its top stars: former soap star Debbie, a.k.a. Liberty Belle (Gilpin) and bit-part actress Ruth, a.k.a. Zoya the Destroya (Brie). This comes to a literal crunch when a coked-up Debbie genuinely breaks Ruth’s ankle during a match – an incident inspired by a badly dislocated arm suffered by Susie Spirit in the real GLOW.

Some scenes, and even entire episodes, are great: the GLOW parody of “USA for Africa” is perfect, as is the anti-teen sex PSA Debbie assembles. And the eighth episode is, save for the final few seconds in which life decides to imitate art, an entire TV episode of the supposed show. It’s a faithful recreation of the style – albeit with rather less wrestling than the “real” thing – and is glorious, something I’d happily watch every week. The performances throughout are beautifully nuanced, with the best being Brie, and Maron as the show’s good-hearted bastard director Sam Sylvia.

But there were enough flaws in the writing as well as weaker episodes (especially during the first half); combined with the lack of any much sense of building on the previous season, I have to give it a slightly lower rating. Debbie’s coke use, for example, comes out of nowhere and goes there too. Maybe things like that will become more relevant in any third series: this one ends with the cast and crew heading to Las Vegas [finally catching up with the real GLOW, who were based out of there]. Until then… Well, we’ll just have to watch Lucha Underground instead.

Created by:: Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch
Star: Alison Brie, Betty Gilpin, Marc Maron, Sydelle Noel

The Feral Sentence by G. C. Julien

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

The handling of this story is a little different from the usual novel. Julien adopts an “episodic” approach, with the story initially released in novella-length installments (seven of which have come out to the point of writing), some with cliffhangers. In structure, this is almost like the movie serials of old. Book 1, reviewed here, compiles parts 1-4. It’s set in 2087, when the authorities have gone back to a retro version of penal punishment: exiling criminals to a remote tropical island, from which there’s no escape, and where prisoners can pose only a danger to each other. 18-year-old Lydia Brone is sentenced to three years for killing her mother’s abusive boyfriend, so is dropped off (literally – out of a helicopter offshore), and left to make her own way on Kormace Island.

She is almost immediately captured by one of the existing tribes, under the control of long-term inmate Murk. To survive, the women have implemented their own society, with each being assigned a role necessary to the survival of the group. Brone is initially made a needlewoman, but after an attack by the “Northers”, a rival tribe, she’s re-assigned to learn archery. Daily life is not without conflict, with Brone being shaken down by another inmate, and eventually she realizes that attempts at practicing non-aggression can simply get you tagged as an easy mark. However, it turns out, there are much bigger problems at hand, with her entire new “family” coming under threat.

It’s an interesting, if somewhat uneven, character arc for Brone (she abandons use of her own first name quickly), as she evolves, mostly out of necessity, from scared teenager to battle-hardened warrior for the tribe. I say “uneven”, because it feels slightly inconsistent. At one point, she appears to say she was almost obsessive-compulsive about cleanliness, hygiene, etc. yet this is rapidly discarded, and he has few apparent problems adapting to a primitive lifestyle. I’d also have welcomed background information about the outside world: what brought us to the point where this solution was adopted? It has been running for decades, going by how long Murk has been there, and the apparent one-way nature of the place would seem to raise obvious questions. Do none of the women have friends or relatives on the outside waiting for them?

Julien does a good job with drawing the rest of the inmates, creating a set of characters whom are generally distinguishable, even if their back stories have a certain “society’s to blame!” similarity [not many of the prisoners accept full responsibility for the consequences of their actions, there’s always some excuse]. The episodic approach also means, almost out of necessity, a constant stream of incidents: there is, literally, never a dull moment here. The ending, admittedly, falls a bit awkwardly between two stools: it’s neither a satisfactory conclusion, nor dramatic enough to lure you into the next volume. This remained entertaining, however, and the almost complete lack of romance – for obvious reasons! – was a refreshing change from some recent entries.

Author: G. C. Julien
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book.
Book 1 of 3

Hunting Emma

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★★★½
“The Revenge knock-offs start here…”

Actually, that’s unfair. For this was released in its home country of South Africa in March 2017, six months before Revenge had its world premiere. But the timing of its US release, less than two weeks after Revenge, is… let’s say, “interesting”, given the strong similarities between the two films. While there are significant differences, which we’ll get to shortly, both depict the pursuit of a lone woman across a desert landscape, by a pack of men intent on making sure she doesn’t get out alive. She has to turn the tables on them, pushing past societal norms in the name of self-preservation.

Indeed, if I was the makers of Jagveld, I might be a bit miffed that they’re now faced to play catch-up in the US market. Revenge has swept in and grabbed all the plaudits, leaving their film feeling (even if it isn’t) like a mockbuster. It inevitably suffers from being second. If I hadn’t seen Revenge, this might well have got our seal of approval. Instead, it no longer feels as fresh, even if it’s by no means bad. It doesn’t have quite the same feminist subtext, bypassing the sexual assault angle. Instead, the trigger for the hunt is a car breaking down in the veldt, and while Emma (du Randt) is looking for help, she stumbles across Bosman (van Jaarsveld) and his gang, just as they’re shooting a policeman. This not being something to which they want a witness, the chase is on.

This is rather more restrained than Revenge: something of a double-edged sword, as its sibling’s excess was part of the gonzo charm. Most obviously, it’s far less gory, and also has a more prosaic explanation for the heroine’s savagery. Rather than peyote triggering a pharmacological resurrection, Emma’s dad (Meintjes) was a special forces soldier. His cynical view about the savagery of the world led him to train her in survival skills, an upbringing she rejects in favour of a career as a teacher and fervent pacifism – there’s a rather clunky subplot about her breaking up with a boyfriend because he defended himself in a fight. The lessons still stuck, and just as there are no atheists in fox-holes, there are no pacifists in desert warfare.

There’s something of the young Uma Thurman about du Randt, and the gang members offer an interesting range of characters, from the hardcore Bosman through to some of his minions, who would clearly rather be somewhere else. While they’re all meat for Emma’s grinder, some of the wounds are rather self-inflicted [even I know better than to drink untreated wilderness water, and I do not camp well…] The main flaw is its lack of a sense of escalation, something Revenge had by the crimson-coloured bucket. When I saw Bosman picking up his F-sized rifle, I was eagerly anticipating the moment it would be turned against him. At close range. By a thoroughly pissed Emma. No such luck, but I did appreciate what might be a nod to Ms. 45 in the use of an iron as a deadly weapon. Instead, it plateaus some time before the end, finishing on an “All right, I suppose” note rather than the necessary crescendo. Worth a look though. Especially if you haven’t seen Revenge yet.

Dir: Byron Davis
Star: Leandie du Randt, Neels van Jaarsveld, Tim Theron, Tertius Meintjes
a.k.a. Jagveld

Daughters of the Night Sky, by Aimie K. Runyan

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

“They seem like nice enough boys, but they haven’t the hunger my ladies do. That can’t be taught or disciplined into anyone. It comes from decades of being told we can’t do a thing while knowing we can. They’ll never have that.”

No army in recent military history has made more use of women than the Soviets during World War 2. As we’ve already covered, they operated on the front lines in positions ranging from sniper to tank commander. But few of their stories have ever been covered in any depth. This book aims to redress that balance, at least somewhat. While the characters in this are fictional, the 588th Night Bomber Regiment, comprised entirely of woman, did exist. It flew bombing and harassment missions of German forces, using extremely light aircraft, so slow the German fighter planes were unable to follow them without stalling. Their tactic of cutting their engines before beginning their bombing run, allowing them to arrive in silence, helped earn the regiment the nickname from the Nazi soldiers of “nachthexen” – Night Witches.

The heroine here is Ekaterina Ivanova, known as Katya. She has always had an interest in flying, dreaming of it as an escape from her rural home. But the opportunity arrives in 1941, with Hitler’s army massing on the border, and she is one of the few female recruits allowed to train at the Chelyabinsk Military Aviation School. It’s not easy: she has to overcome the doubts, not just of the trainers, but her fellow cadets. As Katya puts it, “We have to be the best. Not just good… We need to fly more missions than the men. We have to be more efficient than they are. We can’t be excellent. We need to be exemplary.” There, she meets and falls in love with fellow trainee, Vanya Soloneva: the two quickly marry, but are just as soon separated, as the Nazis roll into Russia. Katya joins other women pilots, navigators, armorers and engineers in the 588th, under the command of record-breaking aviatrix Sofia Orlova. But will she and Vanya survive the battles to come?

Even if wholly fictional, it still offers what feels like a credible insight into the time, as well as the hell which was World War II. The mortality rate here is fearsome, almost approaching Game of Thrones level: I’d recommend not getting too attached to any of the characters, because… you never know. The story is told in first-person perspective, which allows you to get right inside Katya’s head and see the world through her concerns, doubts and hopes. But her colleague, Oksana, is perhaps the most poignant character: she suffered a devastating personal loss, yet found a way to carry on and serve her country. I was initially somewhat concerned the Katya/Vanya romance would overwhelm the main narrative. However, Runyan reins it back in, after some early scenes are noticeably overcooked, with her heroine simply not having time to start out the window and sigh plaintively. However, I do have to dock some points for an ending apparently lifted wholesale from A League of Their Own, right down to the women bursting into song: fortunately, it is missing any Madonna warbling.

Otherwise, however, there are very few mis-steps here. It’s an engrossing story, populated by very human characters, who behave in ways that generally seem convincing. Even Katya, at one point, tries to escape the horrors of the front-line with Vanya, after being shot down and injured. It’s a largely unexplored and unknown area of military history (though the documentary below sheds some good light on its inspiration), and Runyan does it more than adequate justice.

Author: Aimie K. Runyan
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing, available through Amazon as an e-book or in paperback.

“Only madmen and sadists want war. We wanted to fly, and when the war came, we wanted to do our duty. Its not foolish. It’s brave.”

Night Swallows

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★★★
“Flying tonight…”

This week, we’ve been focusing on Soviet military heroines of World War II, and as well as Spies, I also found this Russian TV series, about the female biplane pilots, known to the Germans as the “Night Witches”. Here, their name has been changed for the series title – a tad unfortunately, in some regards – and this falls short of Spies in terms of emotional wallop and overall coherence, among other angles. It’s still worth a look though.

The two lead characters are Galya Shevchenko (Nilova) and Zhenya Zvonareva (Arntgolts), members of the 46th Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment, founded to take advantage of an untapped resource of women pilots, navigators and engineers. Except, the former has been grounded after going off-book and bombing a German convoy for reasons more personal than military. It takes intervention by legendary flier and regiment founder Marina Raskova for Galya to dodge a court-martial, and that sets the tone, with Galya the wild-card, working with the more restrained Zhenya, under their long-suffering commanding officer.

It seems the makers didn’t think the straightforward bombing missions would generate sufficient drama to propel the series, and I can see how that might be a little limited in scope. They tack on various other plots, such as the efforts by their CO’s assistant to get the women in trouble – it’s a bit more gender mixed than the real 46th. The main thread is their work in support of an undercover team, operating behind German lines, run by Alexander Makeev (Nikiforov). For example, the regiment provide air cover for a raid on a convoy carrying important military documents, or a mission to recover technology from a downed plane – the latter, also used in Spies. [Sidenote: I always thought night vision wasn’t invented until, maybe, Vietnam. But the series has it used by the Germans in WW2, and Wikipedia confirms this]

This approach does make it somewhat fragmented; there’s less flow, and also less sense of character development, than Spies managed. Must say though, it’s all rather too glamorous to be convincing: the four lead actresses all appear to have arrived straight out of Supermodel Flight School. It almost feels as if the Soviet Air Force recruited mostly from Robert Palmer’s backing dancers [Kids! Ask your parents!]; in reality, flying ability was valued over how good you looked doing it, and the regiment covered the full spectrum of attractiveness. The horrors of life during wartime here are largely limited to some cute smudges of grease now and again, rather than the reality of life described by one pilot: “We were filthy, exhausted and hungry. We were just trying to survive.”

If you don’t get much feeling of the women being part of a larger battle – in part because there’s no updates  on the ebb and flow of the war elsewhere – the individual episodes are generally fine. The best is probably one where the regiment and Makeev’s team have to infiltrate a German chemical weapons testing ground, which is using Russian civilians as the subjects. It’s chilling, and reminded me a little of a similar element in Wonder Woman. Speaking of chilly, the bleak, snow-covered landscapes are a fittingly frosty backdrop, against which the cold-hearted conflict of the Eastern front can unfold, and the cinematography is effective, making the most of the landscapes. However, the flight aspects are a bit up and down: some scenes work very well, yet others are obviously composites and/or shaky CGI.

I’d perhaps have been more impressed if I’d seen this before Spies, which set the bar really high in terms of quality. Compared to that, this is a little disappointing, if decent enough. While other attempts to tell the Night Witches story have foundered, I’m simply pleased to see anything that covers the topic, even with room for improvement. The entire 8-episode series is available on YouTube, with English subs, so you can give it a shot easily enough.

Dir: Mikhail Kabanov
Star: Tatyana Arntgolts, Elizaveta Nilova, Denis Nikiforov, Evgeniy Ganelin
a.k.a. Ночные ласточки and Nochnye lastochki

Night Swallows
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Spies

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★★★★
“Red spies delight.”

I stumbled across this Russian TV series on Amazon Prime during our annual freebie month, but not until the final weekend, so wasn’t able to watch it there. Happily, I discovered the entire show has been uploaded to YouTube – embedded below, complete with English subtitles – and it’s well worth a watch. It’s set during World War II, and tells the story of two young women, from diverging backgrounds, both of whom are recruited in 1941, somewhat unwillingly. to act as intelligence operatives, during the early day

The first is Arina Prozorovskaya (Ivanova), a party girl – as in Communist Party, being a true believer whose idealism is tested after her father is accused of activities against the state. Then there’s Zoya Velichko (Ustinova), a criminal who is Nikita‘d out of prison by the spy group’s commander, Major Egorievich Vorotynnikov (Vdovichenkov). Adding to the tension between them: Zoya was involved in a robbery that went wrong, leading to the death of Arina’s mother at the hands of Zoya’s then-boyfriend. The pair end up being the top students in the class, even though training is cut short due to the German invasion. When Vorotynnikov needs two women for a mission, it’s therefore Arina and Zoya who are dispatched to risk everything, on the first of a number of dangerous jobs behind enemy lines.

Once we got past a weirdness about its presentation (we’ll get to this in a moment), both Chris and I thoroughly enjoyed this. The two Svetlanas make their heroines multi-faceted characters, who have fascinating arcs over the dozen 50-minute episodes. Arina becomes far more cynical, largely due to the treatment she and her husband, a member of the Red Army, suffer at the hands of authorities. Conversely, Zoya’s hard exterior, where the only person that matters is her young daughter, gradually softens. She falls for Vorotynnikov’s deputy, Captain Nikolay Petrov (Pronin) – really the first person to have shown genuine affection in her adult life – which helps her become a strong, loyal and fearless agent. Credit is also due to a solid supporting cast:  Vdovichenkov is outstanding as a man forced to navigate between his loyalty to the state and to those under his command, as well as Irina Apeksimova in the role of spy teacher Matilda, a role apparently influenced by Jeanne Moreau’s in Nikita.

It is a little fragmented in the early going, and not initially clear where the focus of the show will lie. However, once it settles on Arina and Zoya, it gets into a very good rhythm. Each mission takes place over a couple of episodes, allowing them to develop without feeling rushed. They’re varied enough to avoid repetition, showcasing different facets of espionage, from reconnaissance and infiltration, through to Arina becoming a “red sparrow”, and having to overcome qualms about being faithful to her husband.  There’s a sense of danger almost every moment (enhanced by my experience of Russian novels, where everyone usually dies tragically!).

This is most apparent in an episode where Zoya helps a badly-injured Petrov through a forest, only for a dramatic reversal at the end, which ranks among the most impactful “bait and switches” in our TV viewing history. This is just one of the memorable moments that will stick in our mind. Another is Arina’s “honey-pot” target, who initially seems decent enough… until he describes to her an incident where his Luftwaffe squadron attacked a civilian target, killing Russian women and children, after he over-rode the objections of his men. The expressions that flicker across Arina’s face as he tells the story, and she is clearly struggling to suppress the urge to stab him repeatedly on her throat, are quite awesome.

In the YouTube version at least (I can’t speak for the Amazon Prime edition), there is an oddity whenever characters speak any language but Russian – mostly German, as in the scene mentioned above. As well as the English subs, that dialogue is also over-dubbed into Russian, and all characters, male or female, get the same male voice. While I believe this is standard practice in that country, it takes a bit of getting used to, especially when it’s two women who are conversing! However, it certainly didn’t significantly interfere with our entertainment.

By the end, Chris and I were completely engrossed and on the edge of our seats as to whether Arina and Zoya would make it out alive. I won’t spoil that, though have to say we felt it was entirely appropriate, and left us emotionally satisfied. If this is in any way typical of Russian television, we’ll have to see what other hidden gems might be out there for us to find.

Dir: Felix Gertskhikov
Star: Svetlana Ivanova, Svetlana Ustinova, Vladimir Vdovichenkov, Evgeny Pronin
a.k.a. Разведчицы

Blaze, by Krista D. Ball

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

“Kiner and I have fought many battles together. All of us knights have seen our closest friends cut down in front of us. Some of us have seen family killed before our eyes. Even the most battle-hardened soldier can lose their minds when the blood flows. Always concentrate on staying alive. Focus on your target. Mourn your friends later. Honor them by staying alive.”

The half-elven Lady Bethany has shattered the glass ceiling for women in the military forces, rising to third in command, a position she has achieved on her own merit. Of course, it probably didn’t hurt that she is daughter of the goddess Apaxia, although her ancestry causes as many problems as it solves. This is due partly to some pesky secret prophecies which outline – in typically vague prophetic ways, with references to the “Diamond” and the “Viper” – Bethany’s very important place in future events, and partly her estranged twin sister, Sarissa. For she has turned to the dark side of magic, insanely jealous of her sister’s success, with the emphasis squarely on “insanely” there…

Meanwhile, Bethany feels a strange attraction to one of the new soldiers she is supposed to be training, the human Arrago, who seems to have a role to fulfill in prophecy as well. Yet what will happen when he finds out about Bethany’s divine origins? This makes for a solid enough bit of fantasy, though I am not certain it stands up to scrutiny. For instance, it’s well into the book before we discover Bethany actually had another sister, Drea, one who was not quite so gloriously barking mad. This was a “Wait, what?” moment, and something you think might have been mentioned when discussing her twin.

The other demerit is for Sarissa. Not that she’s a bad villainess. Quite the contrary: she’s so good at being bad, she’s an amazing scene-stealer. I’d rather have read more about her…ah, interesting world-view, rather than the Bethany-Arrago romance, which never manages to be convincing [I’ve always felt any human/elven romance is going to be on shaky ground, due to the difference in lifespans]. At the risk of treading on spoilers, it’s a real shame it turns out Sarissa isn’t quite the big bad she’s initially painted. That’s a pity, and significantly decreases the odds of me going back for subsequent volumes.

What I did like was Bethany’s interactions with colleagues such as fellow lords Jovan and Kiner: there’s a familiarity in these which rings true (and a crudeness to their humour which is not quite what I’ve experienced from fantasy elves). I just wish we’d been given more evidence of the heroine’s skills. It’s well past the half-way point before we see anything more than the literary equivalent of training montages. When they show up, they’re undeniably impressive – even before she has tapped into her full, literally god-given “power” – and I’d love to see a feature version of this, with Gwendoline Christie playing both sisters. But I do have to wonder how the long, red-haired Bethany mutated into the woman shown on the cover…

Author: Krista D. Ball
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services, available through Amazon, both as an e-book and a paperback
a.k.a. Tranqulity’s Blaze
Book 1 of 5 in the Tranqulity series.

ExPatriot

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★★★
“National insecurity”

Riley Connors (Kane) is a CIA analyst, who quits her job and blows the whistle on secret government surveillance programs. Having pulled an Edward Snowden, she hides out in Colombia, helped by the reporter who broke her story. Her peace is short-lived: a knock on the door proves to be a local cop, working in conjunction with Bill Donovan (Weber), her former CIA colleague and lover. He comes with a proposition. Help them take down a pair of shady Cuban banking brothers (Espitia and Browner) who are suspected of funding domestic terrorism, and she’ll be able to return to the United States, with the slate wiped clean. It’s a very risky proposition, even if her reputation as an enemy of the state might be the perfect “in” to the targets’ organization. But can Bill be trusted either?

Probably wisely, it avoids too much in the way of potentially lethal (and largely irrelevant) political commentary. Though the main twist, to be honest, is so obvious, I have to wonder what kind of vetting the CIA does for its employees, and also about the overall accuracy of the term “intelligence community”. Yet, in something of a contradiction, once this clown-sized narrative shoe finally drops, it makes for a more straightforward and effective narrative the rest of the way. Everyone’s true motives have been exposed, rather than the murky world of spy vs. counterspy which the first half of the film has largely inhabited. That section feels a little like an episode from Alias with Sydney Bristow going undercover, climaxing in Riley trying to transfer all the brothers’ ill-gotten funds out of their accounts, before one of them arrives in their office.

As such, it does take a fair amount of disbelief suspension. Would any group of shady bankers employ an ex-spook as a security consultant – particularly one who was too morally high-minded for the CIA? Inevitably, one of the brothers falls for her, causing some friction between her and Bill, who still blames her for walking out on him, yet simultaneously still carries a flame for Riley. I think the latter half works better, showcasing some above-average location work, in and around Bogota, ending up on top of Mount Monserrate with its giant status of Christ [when I first saw this, I though we were in Rio!]. Oddly, this is the second film I’ve recently seen which was filmed there, for no particular reason, after The Belko Experiment.

Kane was also familiar to me, having played the ex-girlfriend of serial killer Paul Stagg in The Fall, though is rather different here, to the point I didn’t recognize her. It makes for solid, if unspectacular, entertainment which site a couple of F-bombs away from being a decent TV movie. While predictable, it’s well-enough constructed, and Riley makes for an interesting character, one whose scruples could end up being the (literal) death of her. There is a certain amount of bait and switch here, in that the Snowdon-esque escapade of the opening, ends up not being particularly relevant to the main plot: I can see how it could have been eliminated without much tweaking of the plot. However, what the film gains from this, likely balances out any losses, although it probably helps I had no fore-knowledge of the specifics. I see a sleeve with a girl and a gun, it goes on the list…

Dir: Conor Allyn
Star: Valene Kane, Charlie Weber, Mario Espitia, Andres Ogilvie Browne