Category: Review

Deep Fear

  By

★★
“Shallow entertainment”

Naomi (Ghenea) is sailing a schooner single-handed in the Caribbean, returning it from Antigua to Grenada so it’ll be ready for a charter customer to take out. Her boyfriend, Jackson (Westwick) has already gone ahead to prepare things there. But a squall diverts Naomi off course, and she then stumbles across boat wreckage to which Maria (Gómez) and Jose (Coppet) are desperately clinging. They tell her there’s still a survivor trapped on the sea bottom, and Naomi dives down to rescue Tomas from his watery tomb. However, on returning to the surface with him, she gets a nasty surprise and finds her work is not over. For the survivors were also transporting 200 kg of cocaine.

Naomi is now key to salvaging it, whether she wants to be or not. Complicating matters is the presence of a large, predatory shark prowling the area, which makes simply going up and down from the sea bottom a perilous endeavour. Especially after one such encounter, where we get the immortal line, “The shark bit into the bags and now the shark is probably high on cocaine.” Sadly, hopes that this was going to become a sequel to Cocaine Bear never materialized [there is a film out there called Cocaine Shark, but it’s so bad, even a hardened connoisseur of badfilm like I, couldn’t get through the trailer] . Instead, there’s just an awful lot of sub-aqua shenanigans, and there’s really only so much SCUBA-ing I can take.

I will say, it all looks lovely. Malta actually stood in for the Caribbean, and if you’re looking for a picturesque tourist destination, combining beautiful scenery with clear water, it seems a good bet. However, as a thriller, it’s distinctly lacking in thrills, whether it’s a shark whose diet seems exclusively to consist of the bad people, through a cast for whom English is not their native tongue in many cases, to a heroine whose lips appear recently to have encountered a swarm of wasps [I note Ghenea’s credit in Zoolaander 2 as “Hot Shepherdess”]. The pacing is also off, especially early, when irrelevancies like Naomi and Jackson renting an apartment show up, serving no apparent purpose except delaying her arrival on the scene.

Gómez, whom you might remember from SexyKiller, is likely the best element the film has to offer, switching from cowering victim to manipulative sociopath. For instance, Maria conceals her nautical skills because if Naomi realizes she’s surplus to requirements after bringing up the coke, she might not be willing to do so. That kind of smarts is something the film needs to have more, ideally replacing the apparently endless amounts of moist mischief. I did like how the shark attacks don’t hold back on the blood, something you don’t see often. However, the creature rarely feels more than a toothy plot-device, thrown into scenes whenever the film-makers run out of other ways to generate tension. And that is far too often, to be honest.

Dir: Marcus Adams
Star: Mãdãlina Ghenea, Ed Westwick, Macarena Gómez, Stany Coppet

Echo 8

  By

★★½
“Easier to forget.”

This bills itself as “Australia’s first female-led independent action movie”. Seems a bit of a stretch, considering how many films we’ve reviewed from Down Under previously, such as Avarice. Heck, Agent Provocateur had a similar plot in 2012. However, this has had a lengthy trip to the screen, shooting having started prior to the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020. Four years later, it’s finally available, and is clearly a labour of love for those involved, not least Tran who wore multiple heads on the production. Between that and the limited resources, I’m reluctant to pan it savagely, but the truth is, even with a rating which is cutting it slack for these reasons, the end product is still not very good. It’s more “shows some potential” than “would recommend.”

The main problem is a script, which is basically a mix of movie cliches #27, the assassin who defies orders, and #32, cinematic amnesia, which naturally releases information at the exact pace needed by the plot. Echo 8 (Tran) has been brought up since she was a young child to be a trained killer, and now works alongside her partner, Delta 1 (Vuong), under the oversight of boss Agent 5 (Hara). But she’s also experiencing flashbacks of her early life, which are causing her to question what she’s doing. When Echo 8 is ordered to kill local activist Hanh (Chan), who is digging into areas potentially troublesome for the organization, the assassin decides not to carry out her task.

Needless to say, Agent 5 is less than happy at the situation, and Echo 8 finds herself going from the hunter to the hunted. If this sounds familiar, it’s all very much what we’ve seen before: Naked Weapon uses basically the same story, or more recently, so does Thailand’s The Kill List. A well-worn plot isn’t necessarily a problem, if you do well in other areas, be it performances or action. Its something the films mentioned manage, to considerably greater success than Echo 8, which succeeds only intermittently. You have also to get past the idea of killers who walk around dressed like ninjas on Halloween night – hardly inconspicuous – and get into random fights in night-clubs, because that won’t draw attention to themselves either.

The viewer must then deal with a slew of supporting actors who don’t need to give up their day jobs. Tran is okay, and Vuong actually good, with a dry sense of humour that’s welcome. Some others, though, may be delivering their lines phonetically, and the action is similarly mixed. The small scale of the production sometimes comes through, and even within the same fight, you’ll get one punch that seems to have impact, followed by two that clearly miss the mark. There are odd distractions, like the fight where someone is wielding a child’s plastic chair: what is that doing in an underground car-park? The ending is left open and a trilogy is planned. While I’m not averse to giving it a look, I hope those involved learn from this experience and do better next time.

Dir: Maria Tran, Takashi Hara
Star: Maria Tran, David Vuong, Takeshi Hara, Gabrielle Chan

Martingale

  By

★★½
“Double or – more likely – nothing.”

It’s probably symptomatic of… something, that the film’s title is never explained. With the main character working in a casino, I presume it’s a reference to the Martingale betting system, where you basically double your bet after every loss. It guarantees a profit – unless you hit such a long losing streak you run out of money entirely. Its relevance here is uncertain, and I doubt most viewers would know what a martingale is either. But then, the film is very good at not explaining stuff. Another example would be, what the scam is supposed to be with Andi (Sullivan) collecting left-behind cash-out casino slips and handing them to a collaborator, Whit (Melikhov). These are for trivial amounts, so why bother?

When not bilking her employer out of pocket change, Andi’s main obsession is investigating the death of her daughter, a year previously. She had overdosed in a drug house, but the police were unable to press charges on anyone. Andi is not put off, and is intent on finding the boy whom she blames for her child’s death, and making him suffer in a similar way. Her investigation proceeds with the increasingly reluctant help of local private eye Levi (Adkins), and brings her up against the powerful and evil Harland (Shockley). Turns out, it was his son Robby who was with Andi’s daughter. Neither parent is prepared to back down and give up on their offspring, so eventually, something will have to give.

The tagline on the release poster was changed to “Revenge is a deadly gamble,” which does at least tie in with the title. But the original one of “Revenge is a real mess,” might be more accurate, with Andi stumbling into increasing trouble, and refusing to accept the very sensible advice, just to let it go. While her persistence is the heroine’s most admirable quality, the film itself is also a real mess in some aspects, with plotting which is often as obtuse as its title. While Harland does project a certain menace as the villain, I found it hard to take anyone seriously as a bad guy, when he looks like James May out of Top Gear. 

Nowhere is the vagueness more apparent than at the end. There’s a knock at the door and… That’s it. We never learn who it is. The makers were clearly going for ambiguity, but if you hated how The Sopranos ended, this might well have you lobbing pets, living-room furniture or small children through your television set. If the script leaves plenty to be desired, at least the performances are decent, and a bit like in Adrenaline, you do get a sense of turning over a societal rock, and seeing the less than pleasant results beneath. As a heroine’s journey, it’s a trip into the underworld, though I would be hard pushed to tell you how Andi was changed by her experience. I certainly know I was not.

Dir: Jeremy Berg
Star: Kelly Sullivan, William Shockley, Jason Adkins, Konstantin Melikhov

Adrenaline

  By

★★
“Taking on organ-ized crime.”

You know you’re in for a shaky experience when the film can’t even spell its own title right. That proves a fairly accurate assessment of the overall experience: while not without its merits, these are outweighed by the negatives in the final analysis. The heroine is Victoria Travers (Payne), an FBI agent on holiday with her family in Romania, when she spots a fugitive from justice, John Slater (Mandylor). She attempts to extract him over the border, to where he can be extradited, but while that takes place, her husband is killed, and her daughter snatched by an organ harvesting ring, run by Ivan Raj (Saini). Suddenly, Slater with his local knowledge, is the only hope of Victoria rescuing her child.

It’s all very basic and quite linear. The plot feels almost like it might have been lifted from a video-game, as the odd couple roam Bucharest, working their way up the criminal organization. with the occasional side quest such as rescuing another kidnapped child, freeing hookers, etc.There’s an NPC, in the form of hacker Tony (Hauck), who provides helpful information whenever Victoria and John appear to be at a dead end. The low-budget nature does work for the film, in that there’s an overall scuzzy feel to proceedings which is appropriate, and the location enhances this. It feels like the kind of place where organ harvesting would take place, though I suspect any such organization would, in reality, be more ruthless – and considerably more competent, to be frank.

Mandylor helps elevate proceedings, as he usually does: nice that his brother, Costas, also appears in this, playing Victoria’s long-suffering boss. Shame the Mandylors don’t get any scenes together. Payne is just about adequate as the relentless mother, and much less convincing as an FBI agent. However, she’s still better than certain members of the supporting cast. Some don’t even appear to have English as a second language, but there are others who can’t lean on that excuse.  The action is intermittent, albeit not badly-staged in general. We could have done with more, perhaps in lieu of the interminable scenes of our heroine and hero driving around town, talking to people on the telephone or, occasionally for variety, driving around town while talking to people on the telephone.

I wobbled back and forth for much of this between 2 and 2½ stars. While low-budget, often obviously, it keeps moving forward, and there’s something to be said for simplicity, rather than burdening the viewer with unnecessary subplots. It’s never boring, over its seventy-five minute duration. But the ending is particularly weak, falling well short of providing Constance with an opportunity to face off against a final boss, something the movie undeniably needs. This passed the time adequately, yet I cannot say I was ever engaged, and there’s not enough to make me look into other work by Cerchi, whose talents appear limited to making sure the image is mostly in focus.

Dir: Massimiliano Cerchi
Star: Constance Payne, Louis Mandylor, Adam Saini, Alexander Hauck 

The File, by Gary Born

  By

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

Not many novels come with a ringing endorsement from a former director of the CIA, but Gina Haspel calls this “A thoroughly enjoyable, engrossing thriller.” Argue with her, and she’ll send you an exploding cigar, or something. While it certainly isn’t bad, the rating above reflects its likely moderate appeal for readers here. A general audience might be more impressed, especially with regard to the second half, where the heroine becomes more of a passenger. Things begin at the very end of World War II with a flight out of Berlin carrying documents intended to secure the future of the Reich. It doesn’t reach its destination, crashing in the depths of the African jungle.

Almost eighty years later, a botanical expedition stumbles across the downed plane and its cargo. When word seeps out, various very interested parties converge on the Congo, intent on securing the contents by any means necessary. Surviving the initial onslaught is Sara West, daughter of the expedition’s head, who bails with the documents, and the parties in hot pursuit. In the jungle at least, Sara has more experience and proves eminently capable of turning the tables on her pursuers. After escaping the wilderness, she convinces one of the hunters, CIA agent Jeb Fisher, to change sides, and his assistance becomes increasingly valuable as they head through Africa, into Italy, and eventually to Zurich. There, they make a final stand, in the unlikely location of a venerable Swiss bank.

The above should hopefully explain why this feels like a book of two halves. I really enjoyed the first half, with Sara using all her knowledge, built on years of living in the jungle, to stay one step ahead of the opposition – or sneak up from behind on them. She rarely over-powers her enemies, relying more on stealth, wits and turning their own resources against them. It is still a bit of a stretch to imagine a young woman, untrained in combat, taking out a whole slew of Russian special forces. However, Born certainly sells the illusion well enough to work. The problems arise with the arrival of Jeb, not least the ease with which he disobeys orders to take Sara’s side.

Thereafter, he also becomes the main protagonist. While it makes sense that his skills would become more important outside of the jungle, it results in Sara being somewhat (though not entirely) sidelined. There’s also the almost inevitable romantic dalliance, and I feel that having a Jebina instead of Jeb, might have addressed that, and a lot of the problems I felt hampered the second half. It’s still a decent enough read on its own terms, building nicely towards the grandstand finale – although I can’t imagine even Swiss authorities taking so long to get to a hellacious firefight in downtown Zurich! But I feel it does not do Sara the justice she deserves, especially after the impressive heights reached earlier on.

Author: Gary Born
Publisher: Addison & Highsmith Publishers, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Standalone novel

Role Play

  By

★★★
“Until death do us part.”

If a little light on the action front, this probably makes up for it in heart. On surface, the Brackett family are largely like any other. Sure, mom Emma (Cuoco) spends a lot of time out of town on business. But she loves husband Dave (Oyelowo)  and her two kids, even if she’s a little unfocused, forgetting their anniversary. The problem is, as we know from the start, that Emma is a hitwoman, who used to work for an organization called Sovereign, before turning freelance. They’re still after her. And that’s where the problems start, as on a make-up anniversary date at a hotel, she’s spotted by Bob Kellerman (Nighy), another freelancer, interested in collecting the reward on Emma’s head.

While she is able to fend him off, the fracas blows her cover and she has to hightail it to Berlin. Given she told her husband she was going to Idaho, this understandably leaves a very confused Dave in her wake, trying to come to terms with the woman he loved, not being the woman he loved. The cops believe he was involved in the hotel incident, with special agent Gwen Carver (Nielsen) intent on using him to get to Emma. He heads off to Berlin in his spouse’s wake, only for them both to get captured by Sovereign, who make Emma an offer she can’t refuse. To save her kids, and come back into the company fold, she has to kill Dave herself. 

In general, this appears to be more interested in the dramatic than the explosive. I’m fine with that though, since the performances are all up to the mark. We knew Oyelowo mostly from his time playing a spy on MI:5 (a.k.a. Spooks), so it was somewhat ironic to see him as a naive but doting husband, unwittingly married to an assassin. Cuoco is best known for her time on sit-com The Big Bang Theory, and I was a little concerned about her ability to play a professional killer. However, she’s fine, and Nielsen makes a good antagonist for her. But it’s probably Nighy who delivers the best performance, in a small role that’s just off-kilter enough to be memorable, while always seeming one step ahead.

The fight scenes here are typically brief: do not expect any Atomic Blonde style brawls. It feels they’re trying to depict Emma as a tersely efficient executioner, and given the actress’s lack of combat experience, this approach is probably for the best. This seems slightly like a low-key version of The Long Kiss Goodnight, though the family life here is deliberate, rather than the product of amnesia. It relies a lot on the relationship between Dave and Emma, and that’s good enough to counter the limited quantity of action. This was especially true at the end, where I expected a better battle between Emma and Gwen. Truth be told though, I didn’t mind too much, even if this is perhaps mostly role-playing as an action film.

Dir: Thomas Vincent
Star: Kaley Cuoco, David Oyelowo, Connie Nielsen, Bill Nighy

Roadkill

  By

★½
“As appetizing as its title.”

To be one hundred percent clear, the best thing about this is the rather arresting poster. A far better film than what we have here, would struggle to live up to it. Instead, we have a classic example of vanity cinema, where one man decides to write, direct and play a major part in his own movie. The over-ambition here is palpable, to an often accidentally amusing degree. Perhaps most obviously, a pair of “car chases” – and I use the quotes deliberately – which unfold at a stately 15-20 mph, involving a muscle car on which the production clearly could not afford a single scratch on the paint. They’d have been better off not bothering. 

The story concerns an unnamed young woman, referred to in the credits only as The Driver (Carmichael). She picks up a vagabond, similarly called just The Hitchhiker (Knudson), as she is on her way to… Well, that’s left largely vague until late, though not as much as why she picks him up in the first place. The reason provided at the time, doesn’t make much sense in the light of subsequent events. Also operating in the area is a serial killer called the Highway Hunter, who is being sought by all the resources law enforcement can bring to bear. Which in this film would be a grand total of two (2) officers: Sheriff John Teagan (Fast, the director deciding to give the character he plays an actual name) and his deputy Corey Vernon (Hudson).

It isn’t particularly a whodunit, in the sense that the identity of the Highway Hunter is no great secret. It feels a little like Fast is trying to capture the spirit of The Hitcher. There’s an innocent, who is trapped by association on the road with a complete psycho, the police blaming them for a string of brutal murders. However, not a single element is anywhere in the same league, most obviously the gulf separating this from Rutger Hauer. Carmichael is rarely close to convincing, while Knudson looks like the makers ordered Keanu Reeves on Temu. Not helping matters: the faux film effects like scratches applied to the print. Fortunately, Fast seems to forget about this pointless affectation after the first few minutes of prologue.

There are times when it feels this might be intended as a bone-dry spoof, rolling out idiocy with a deadpan face. Witness the way The Driver manages to strangle someone when a) they are lying on top of her back, and b) her hands are handcuffed behind her. I suggest you get a partner and role-play that out, if you need convincing of its implausibility. Things escalate from there, by which I mean they become both dumber and less interesting. I was genuinely surprised to learn Fast has a previous feature, because almost every aspect of this screams “No experience”. Let’s hope he learns from this. Ideally, learns not to bother making any further films.

Dir: Warren Fast
Star: Caitlin Carmichael, Ryan Knudson, Warren Fast, Trenton Hudson

 

They Turned Us Into Killers

  By

★½
“They turned us onto another channel…”

Well, this is a spectacular mess. Except, the word “spectacular” implies something of interest, and that’s far from anything this delivers in its boring trudge towards a predictable ending. It demonstrates the perils when you, as a film-maker, decide to take your story and fragment the timeline. This only works if the script is able to maintain coherence around the jumps back and forth. This painfully fails on that count, beginning in the middle, but then bouncing back and forth to the point you know little and care less about any of the participants, or what happens to them. How bad is it? It gets the rare honour of me starting on the review, when there’s still half an hour to go.

Loosely, it’s the story of Star (Scout-Compton), who decides to go full vigilante after her best friend, an addict called Karma (Francesca), had enough of life and killed herself. Fortunately for the plot, Karma left a letter behind which explained, in tedious detail, the reasons why she committed suicide. This would largely be the result of abuse at the hands of her boyfriend, BJ (Miller) and various members of his scummy family. Meanwhile, there’s also a connection to a vicious murder that took place forty years ago, and a police investigation, including a homicide detective sporting the most implausible Swedish accent this side of The Muppet Show. What there is not, however, is any reason to give a damn about any of it.

The makers even manage to waste the talents of a triple-bill of horror icons, in Michael Berryman, Kane Hodder and Bill Moseley, all of whom are capable of carrying films on their own. Here, they just kinda… exist, wheeled on screen and then shuffled off again without making any significant impact. Instead, it’s mostly Star yelling at BJ and their relatives, as they are abducted with remarkable ease, and tied up in a shed somewhere. This proves sufficient to reduce them to snivelling wrecks, apologizing for whatever they did. The notion that Karma might – as her name ironically suggests – be in any way responsible for the unpleasant consequences of her own actions, is never breached to significant degree.

I was certainly left asking myself questions. Unfortunately, the questions were along the lines of, “What happened to Taylor Scout-Compton’s once promising career?” or “How many incriminating photos does the writer/director have, in order to get this financed?” Because what you have here is an ugly, uninteresting mess, which fails on the level of basic coherence, and has almost nothing to offer the viewer. It’s startling to see an 86% audience score for this on Rotten Tomatoes; looking at the far more credibly harsh reviews on Letterboxd, I’m certainly leaning shill. Not even going to bother reaching my usual 500 words here. This simply doesn’t deserve it.

Dir: Thomas Walton
Star: Scout Taylor-Compton, Lauren Francesca, Bryce Draper, Taryn Manning

Place of Bones

  By

★★★½
“Grave encounters.”

I’ve followed director Cummings since we screened her debut feature Berkshire County, at our film festival. Here, we reviewed the impressive She Never Died in 2019. Both films were distinctly horror-tinged, so it was a bit of a surprise to see her attached to what seemed a Western period piece. Having watched it… let’s just say, things make more sense now. For right at the very end, the film takes an abrupt turn into darkness, that may remind the viewer of Bone Tomahawk – albeit nowhere near as graphic. I’ll say no more than that, except: well played. Things unfold in a remote part of the West, where Pandora (Graham) is bringing up her daughter Hester (Robillard) after the death of her husband. 

Their isolated life is disrupted when Hester finds a badly injured man near the cabin. This is Calhoun (Nemec), who also has two saddle-bags of money, the proceeds of a bank robbery. Calhoun subsequently had a violent falling-out with his accomplices. However, Bear John (Hopper), the brother of one of the deceased criminals, is growing concerned about his sibling’s disappearance, and is closing in on Pandora’s cabin. It’s going to be up to her, a crippled robber and a teenage girl to withstand an inevitable assault from career criminals, with limited resources in the way of arms and ammunition. On the positive side, it’s clear from the way Pandora deals with Calhoun, that she is not somebody who should be taken lightly or underestimated. 

This is definitely a slow burn. The first hour is more concerned with depicting the life of Pandora and Hester, along with how Calhoun’s arrival changes things. Though I have to say, after how the film shifts at the end, you’ll find yourself viewing these early interactions in a very different light. Bear John doesn’t even arrive on screen until well into the movie, in a well-handled scene which does a good job of depicting his gang and their relationships. Thereafter, there’s a looming sense of threat, with a ticking clock of escalating tension as the cabin’s inhabitants try to get ready for the violence to come. Again, without revealing too much, mother and daughter may be more ready for this than they seem.

I do admire movies where you reach the end and are forced to reassess everything that has gone before. Even the title takes on a different meaning by the time the end credits roll. This certainly helps a film which, otherwise, would be a fairly generic Western siege pic. Graham has always tended to be under-rated, and it’s nice to see her get a chance to exercise her acting talent. Nemec is a good foil, and their interplay helped guide my interest through a fairly languid first two-thirds. Once things kick off, the pace ups considerably and by the end there’s little doubt it deserves inclusion here. It may still be a little too horrific for Western fans, and too Western for horror fans. Yet if you like both, this is an interesting combination. 

Dir: Audrey Cummings
Star: Heather Graham, Corin Nemec, Brielle Robillard, Tom Hopper

Louisiana Longshot, by Jana Deleon

  By

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

A Goodreads friend gave this novel (the first book in the author’s Miss Fortune Mysteries) five stars, which put it on my radar; and I downloaded the e-book edition when I discovered that it’s offered for free, as a teaser for the series. While my rating isn’t as high as my friend’s, and I didn’t expect that it would be, I did turn out to like the book somewhat more than I expected to.

Our protagonist and first-person narrator here is “Fortune” Redding. We’re not told her real first name (“Fortune” is the handle she’s used to answering to, but it’s indicated, well into the book, that it’s a nickname, short for “soldier of fortune”) or her exact age; but she’s worked for the CIA for eight or five years, depending on which figure we go with, since we’re given both in different places. (I took the first one to start with, so picture her as about 30, joining the Company just after college.) The affiliation was a natural one for her; her father, with whom she had a prickly relationship, was a top CIA agent, and after his death when she was 15, her remaining teen years were overseen by a couple of CIA officials, one of whom is now her boss. (Her mother had died years earlier.) She’s a seasoned assassin (of verified baddies), with a VERY long list of kills to her credit, and zero compunctions about her line of work. But she’s neither a psychopath nor a moral nihilist; on the contrary, she’s basically a kindhearted person (albeit an emotionally-constipated loner with no confidential friends), who sympathizes readily with those in danger and distress.

That trait got her in trouble on her latest mission. It wasn’t supposed to be a hit; she was simply posing as the glamorous mistress of a drug dealer, delivering money for him to a Middle Eastern crime boss. But (as we learn along with her, at the debriefing in the first chapter) her meeting was compromised by an unknown leak in the CIA, who’d tipped the bad guys off as to who she was. They’d decided to test the tip by setting up a situation where she’d have to act to try to rescue a 12-year-old sex trafficking victim, figuring that she could then easily be dealt with, since she’d come unarmed. Unhappily for them, Fortune’s quite adept at improvising a weapon when she has to; though she doesn’t care much for high heels, she dispatched the head honcho with a stiletto heel on the shoes she was wearing, and got away clean, presumably with the 12-year-old. (We learn about this only in a terse second-hand report; I’d have loved to read it in real time!) Now, the deceased’s brother Ahmad, also a big-time crime lord, has put her picture all over the Dark Web, with a million-dollar price on her head (ten million, if she can be delivered to him alive to be tortured).

If Ahmad can be taken out, the contract on her will be moot, but in the meantime, she needs to be stashed in a safe place –and one that can’t be compromised by the unidentified leaker. Luckily, her boss’ niece, librarian and former beauty queen Sandy-Sue Morrow, just inherited a house in Sinful (population 253) in the bayou country of southern Louisiana from a newly-dead aunt on her mother’s side. The two weren’t close; Sandy-Sue has never been to Sinful, and she has no social media presence due to a stalking incident years ago. With summer just starting, she’s scheduled to go down there to inventory the house’s contents and prepare it for sale. Before the very unwilling Fortune can say “culture shock,” her boss has packed the real Sandy-Sue off for a summer in Europe, and our heroine is in route to Louisiana to hide under this new identity. It’s only supposed to be through the summer months; and in a small, quiet southern community, nothing’s apt to go wrong, right? But the flooding caused by a recent hurricane unearthed and moved a lot of debris in the backwoods, and on Fortune’s first evening in town, the late aunt’s dog fishes a human bone out of the bayou behind the house. It proves to have belonged to a very wealthy, and universally hated, town resident who disappeared some five years ago….

As mysteries go, this one is not deep or in some respects very plausible, but it is entertaining. Despite the author’s use of a humorous tone in most of it –though it has its serious moments, some of them deadly so (literally!)– it’s not really an example of the “cozy” subgenre, nor even of the broader stream of more “genteel” who-dunnits in general. That tradition features more actual detection in terms of sifting physical clues and witness statements, and eschews directly-described physical violence. There’s little of the former here, and definitely some of the latter in the denouement. (Action-heroine fans may be pleasantly surprised to find that Fortune’s combat skills won’t necessarily have to go to waste in this new environment!) But the mystery of who killed Harvey Chicoran doesn’t necessarily have an immediately obvious solution (many characters, and no doubt readers, may assume that the widow did it –but did she?). There will be twists and turns in solving it, and Fortune’s involvement in that effort will provide her –and readers– with challenges, adventures, excitement and danger.

A weakness of the book is that a lot of the humor exaggerates the quirkiness and peculiarities of the Louisiana bayou country’s rural inhabitants to the point of caricature. It plays to stereotypes that too many urbanites have about the South, and rural people in general, which reflects culpable ignorance of cultures outside their own. Fortune herself is a prime example; she seriously wonders, for instance, if the community she’s going to has electricity. (Rolls eyes profusely.) She also has a tendency to reduce women with Sandy-Sue’s background to despised, stereotyped “Others.” Some characters, like the members of the Sinful Ladies Society (membership is only open to “old maids” or widows of 10 years standing, to avoid contamination by “silly man thinking”), are steeped in misandry, and Deleon views that as funny. This is mitigated to a degree by the fact that she’s native to the region (which I’ve visited) herself, does reveal some basic affection for it, and depicts it with some realistic local color; and by the fact that she does portray a couple of male characters positively. There are also a few inconsistencies that should have been caught and edited out.

On the positive side, this is a tautly paced book that keeps you turning pages, or in my case clicking frames (I read the first two-thirds of it in one sitting, and could and would have read it all if time had allowed!), with a tightly-compressed plot that unfolds in less than a week. Even if you disagree with some of Fortune’s attitudes, she is honestly likable, with a wryly humorous narrative voice that’s appealing (at least to this reader). She exhibits a willingness to look at herself and grow through exposure to new experience, which I like; and I appreciated the strong depiction of female friendship and loyalty. There’s a certain amount of bad language here, mostly of the h and d-word sort or vulgarisms, but not much profanity and no obscenity; and there’s no sexual content nor any romance at all (though I understand that a romance develops in subsequent books in the series). While Fortune describes herself, though not out loud, as a “heathen” (when she’s informed that everybody in Sinful who’s not one of the latter attends one of its two churches), and some humor based on the foibles of the church-goers, there’s no actual pushing of an anti-Christian agenda.

I only read this book as a diversion, because it was free; I don’t plan to follow the series. But I don’t regret making Fortune’s acquaintance, nor visiting her in her new-found community. :-)

Author: Jana Deleon
Publisher: Self-publihed; available through Amazon, both for Kindle and as a print book.
A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads.