Tag: s

The Serpent’s Fang, by Ryan Mullaney

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

“Cara Loft, Room Trader…”

This book comes with a fairly lengthy note at the end, in which the author explains how he came to the idea here. Five words are all that were necessary: “I ripped off Lara Croft.” Because this is the closest I’ve yet seen to the literary version of an Asylum mockbuster movie, such as Tomb Invader. Globe-trotting locator of lost artifacts? Check. Remarkable gymnastic abilities? Check. Orphan? Check. I think it was when I read “Simone started to tie her hair into two braids”, that the eye-rolling began in earnest.

The story begins with her discovery of a lost city in Cambodia. While Simone Cassidy is recovering from that, she is recruited by a secretive quasi-governmental organization, to help them recover the titular blade. This ancient Aztec dagger is laden with legendary mystical energy, and the government want to stop it from falling into the wrong hands, those who would misuse its powers [not something a government would ever do, of course…] Initially reluctant, our heroine is lured into joining up with the promise of information about her parents – who, wouldn’t you know it, were also treasure hunters, before their untimely death. Cue more eye-rolling.

Naturally, they’re not the only ones after it. There is also Heather Severn and her colleagues at SWANN. Do not ask me what that stands for, because we are never told. We don’t learn much about their aims and motivations either, other than that they are “A private organization skilled in tactical combat.” They work for Felix Enderhoff, a private collector of artifacts who wants the Fang… because for him, it appears to be like Pokemon, and you gotta catch ’em all. When word seeps out that a clue to the location of the blade has been found in Mexico, he dispatches Heather and her team, aiming to beat Simone and her quasi-governmental colleague, Lincoln and April, to the punch.

From there, it’s a race through Mexico City to the clue, some gratuitous library-fu, then off into the jungle, and on towards the goal. The main thing we discover is that SWANN are actually more than a bit crap at tactical combat, failing on numerous occasions to take out Simone and her team, despite heavily out-numbering them, and Simone having virtually no fighting experience. Though her psychological qualms about using violence are actually one of the book’s few redeeming merits, and certainly fit in better than her pathological fear of… automobiles? While a result of the car crash which killed her parents 25 years earlier, all I could think of was an Indiana Jones-like line: “Cars. Why did it have to be cars…”

It’s all not very interesting, with little here you won’t have read or seen before. You don’t get much insight into either Simone’s character or the world which Mullaney wants to build. The Fang is no more than a McGuffin, and even when its powers are revealed [Felix, like all megavillains, simply has to be there at the denouement], they’ll provoke little more than “is that it?”. The book itself will probably do the same.

Author: Ryan Mullaney
Publisher: Sunbird Books, available through Amazon, only as an e-book.
Book 1 of 3 in the Treasure Huntress series.

The Spy Who Dumped Me

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★★★
“Competence. It’s VASTLY over-rated.”

A breezy yet slightly odd mix of comedy and ultra-violence, this drops Audrey (Kunis) and her gal pal Morgan (McKinnon) into the middle of a spy caper, after Audrey’s boyfriend Drew (Theroux) dumps her, only for Audrey to discover he was a CIA spy. He tells her she must deliver a statuette to a Viennese cafe, or the world will be in great peril. After the peril rapidly arrives, heavily-armed, she and Morgan head off to Europe, with no idea of who they can trust. In hot pursuit – whether for reasons good or bad – are MI6 agent Sebastian Henshaw (Heughan), and the agents of “Highland”, a criminal syndicate also very keen to get their hands on the statuette and what it contains. A whirlwind tour of European cities follows, including Budapest, Paris, Amsterdam and Berlin.

I’ve rather more time for Kunis than McKinnon; I have previously found a little of the latter’s shtick tends to go a long way e.g. the Ghostbusters reboot, and that’s the case again here. There’s not just much of a character arc for Morgan: she starts the film off being loud and obnoxious, and more or less maintains the same, honking note throughout. Audrey is more restrained, both as a character and in Kunis’s performance, and I found that worked considerably better, to the point the film might have been fine with just her as the lead on her own. Although that might have made the obvious comparisons to Spy all the more apparent. As is, it lacks quite the same level of supporting presence given there by Miranda Hart and Jason Statham.

Surprisingly, it maybe works better as an action film than a comedy, despite Fogel’s almost non-existent work in the area previously. [Some second-unit magic being worked?] Drew and Sebastian do much of the heavy lifting, yet not all of it. In this area, there’s a great car chase, and I enjoyed the supporting role of Ivanna Sakhno as Russian gymnast-assassin Nadejda, as well as Gillian Anderson as Henshaw’s deadpan boss. Nadejda also has one of the drollest comic moments: ordered to assassinate “two dumb American women,” she’s confounded by discovering just how many dumb American women are present in Europe. The hitwoman ends up battling Morgan on a trapeze. Because Morgan went to circus school. As you do. Yeah, the script here will occasionally make you roll your eyes like that.

The end hints at some kind of franchise, which has the potential to be more fun than this origin story, the pair becoming fully-fledged agents on their own, rather than operating in the shadows and under the protection of their male counterparts. There’d be something to be said for a film featuring a pair of spies who simply pretend to be those “dumb American women” for cover purposes, while actually being smart and entirely competent. Such a film likely would need to feature someone else other than McKinnon, however. I’d be perfectly fine with that.

Dir: Susanna Fogel
Star: Mila Kunis, Kate McKinnon, Sam Heughan. Justin Theroux

The Steel Queen, by Karen Azinger

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

“In this world, you are nobody unless you can wield a sword, and I will not be nobody! My life will count for something!”

Another one in the ongoing series of “books I read because of the interesting-looking cover,” I suspect I may have lucked out here. Most of the other six volumes in the series possess rather more generic fantasy covers, and I’d likely have browsed past them. That would have been a shame, because I’d have missed out on a well-written story that combines many threads, and has three… two… dammit, 2½ heroines worthy of our site’s interest.

It takes place in the land of Erdhe, across in particular the kingdoms of Castlegard, Navarre, Lanverness and Coronth. Magic exists, but fell into disrepute centuries ago, after the War of Wizards, and things are roughly around the early middle ages, technology wise. At the highest level, it’s a straightforward “good vs. evil” tale, with the forces of the Lords of Light facing the Dark Lord and his minions. But the story proceeds, mostly around the various royal courts and their interactions.

To our end, the two most interesting characters are Princess Katherine of Castlegard, and Queen Liandra Tandroth of Lanverness. The former is the youngest child of the monarch, coming after five sons, and has absolutely no interest in being the demure, marriage token her father wants. She gets secret sword lessons from one of his knights, and after the King sends her off to Lanverness, in the hopes of her becoming more ladylike, fate (and the Lords of Light) intervene. It becomes increasingly clear Kath will play a significant role in the upcoming conflict against the Dark Lord, especially after his minions abduct her on the way to Lanverness, and she has to fend for herself and try to escape.

I thought Queen Liandra might be the monarch of the title, but her nickname is the Spider Queen, for her astute political instincts. She was the king’s sole heir, and was only allowed to assume the throne if she got married. Her husband died in a hunting accident – very Game of Thrones! –  and she has ruled ever since, using her unsurpassed wits and guile. While we’re on GoT, imagine a kinder, gentler version of Cersei Lannister, without the incest, and you’re in the right area. She has managed to out-think her opponents so far, but a conspiracy is under way to remove Liandra and put her dissolute (and easily manipulated) second son on the throne instead.

There’s also Princess Jordan of Navarre, one of seven siblings, who is as martially-inclined as Katherine; the two become ‘sword sisters’ after meeting in the Lanverness court. She’s the ½: for spoilerish reasons, I suspect she may be somewhat peripheral, shall we say, to the saga as a whole. These are the main players of relevance; it’s not all action heroines, by any means, and that’s perhaps Azinger’s main talent. She’s great at telling a story that has a lot of moving parts, in a way which keeps things clear in the reader’s head and builds well-defined characters, that engaged and interested me – even the villains. 

I get the feeling she is perhaps trying to draw parallels between events here and contemporary social politics. The Flame God who has taken over Coronth is brutal fundamentalist religion at its worst and most corrupt. However, the book originally came out in 2011, so it’s not necessarily quite clear now what those parallels are. It’s also far from a complete story: as you’d expect from the opening volume in a seven-book saga, things are only just beginning to get going by the end here. Yet, I was still reeled in, and if I didn’t already have a “to read” pile the size of a small mountain, would likely head straight into the next part. That, however, will likely have to wait until I retire from doing book reviews for the site…

Author: Karen Azinger
Publisher: Kiralynn Epics, available through Amazon both as an e-book and paperback.
Book 1 of 7 in The Silk & Steel Saga series

Sheborg Massacre

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★★★½
“Australiens”

From the director of From Parts Unknown, and offering a similar pastiche of cult elements – in this case, alien invasion films rather than combining wrestling and zombies. It works rather better: Armstrong seems to have better restraint here, letting the entertainment value flow more naturally, rather than feeling the need to force his hip credentials on the viewer. Dylan (Duff) is a self-proclaimed anarchist, a rebel whose father is running for mayor. She and her pal, Emma (Masterman) get involved in a plot to liberate the inhabitants of a puppy mill, only to find themselves embedded in the middle of an alien invasion. It’s up them, along with geek Velma (Monnington) to save the day and prevent the cyborg queen (Wilson) leading the invaders from powering up.

This feels a bit like the very early works of Peter Jackson – Bad Taste in particular – with a spirit that sits somewhere between “can do” and “screw you.” The nods to other movies are copious, not least the poster (right), which is straight retro fire: Emma is an almost shameless clone of Dianne from Shaun of the Dead, while Velma, equally obviously given her name, is right out of Scooby-Doo. But the film takes these elements, and meshes them together into something a bit more than that. Not least, you’ll rarely find a B-movie with quite as many strong female characters on both sides of the script. I’d like to have seen more of the queen – she spends most of the film off-screen, operating through her minions. Yet those minions are no less bad-ass than the heroic trio of women fighting them, particularly the former puppy farm overseer, up against whom Dylan has to go on a number of occasions.

There’s a certain sweet spot which a film of this kind needs to find, located between taking itself too seriously and not seriously enough. You need to be aware of your own limitations, acknowledge them and work around these, and generally, this does a good job. For instance, what the film may lack in quality for its special effects (the mask on the queen is particularly half-assed), it makes up for in the sheer volume of blood, goo and alien slime which ends up hurled everywhere – not least over its characters! The action style is also interesting, with editing used well to enhance the impact of the fights, when it’s clear the skills of some participants are… limited.

It’s not perfect, certainly: you’ll still need a tolerance for low-budget cinema, and ideally a love for and knowledge of, the kind of content which is its inspiration. You may find the pacing uneven, especially in the second half, and certain elements just don’t work, such as the shoehorning in of a punk band whom, I can only assume, are present because they are mates with the director. It’s certainly not because they have any acting skills. However, it remains the kind of film which I’m prepared to cut significant slack, and after the underwhelming nature of Parts, I’m now highly interested to see what genre Armstrong mines for his next “neo-pulp” effort.

Dir: Daniel Armstrong
Star: Whitney Duff, Daisy Masterman, Louise Monnington, Emma-Louise Wilson

Should Be Dead, by Jeramy Gates

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

“Liberation, Val had learned, was not a simple matter of casting off stereotypes and social conventions. Nor was it a mere change in perspective. Rather, it was an evolution in state of being, a release not from consequences, but from fear.”

Valkyrie Smith was the sole survivor when her family had the misfortune to encounter a serial killer known as “The Collector”. Her husband and son were brutally slain, and she only escaped by hiding in a well. After a long recovery process, and still somewhat disabled, she sets out to track down the Collector and make him pay for what he did to her family. A series of mysterious clues, left for her by an anonymous party, bring Valkyrie to the Pacific coast, where it appears two killers, “Odin” and “Loki”, have teamed up and are inflicting a reign of terror on the region. Playing the risky game of posing as a federal agent, she joins the investigation under local cop Sheriff Diekmann, since it appears there’s a strong connection to the Collector. With the help of her tech advisor Matt and local reporter Riley, can she find and stop the killers before her own identity is exposed?

Despite the odd name, which is really the kind only given to heroines in thrillers like this, I liked Smith. She’s a little older than most of the genre, is intensely focused and owns one of the most kick-ass cars I’ve ever read about. It’s a restored, heavily-customized 1934 Packard, which had been her husband’s pride and joy, and now resembles something Q Branch would hand to 007, after a stern warning to pay attention. There’s little or no romance to be found here: while she beds Riley, it’s a one-night stand, born mostly out of sympathy, and causes more problems than it solves. Her independence from “official” authority gives her more flexibility; she’s better able to respond as things develop, and has no hesitation about putting herself in danger in pursuit of her targets.

The negatives I found here were mostly plot-based. Impersonating a federal agent is one thing – using your own name to do so, an unusual and highly-recognizable one at that? More seriously, the whole “anonymous” tips element bugged the hell out of me. As well as being lazy writing, it’s obvious Valkyrie is being manipulated into doing someone’s work for them. Fortunately, it’s not a major aspect here, save for the beginning and end. I have to say, I wasn’t particularly surprised by the “twist” in the latter, since it seemed obvious to me that Odin was not who Valkyrie hoped or expected. It flows instead into something pointing towards the second volume.

There was one aspect I found particularly well-done. Part of the second half is told from the perspective of one of Odin and Loki’s victims: a retired woman who, along with her husband, has becomes the target of their home-invasion. In terms of the overlying story arc, it’s mostly superfluous. Yet it’s chilling stuff, and in terms of a standalone tale, her struggle to survive may well the equal of Valkyrie’s.

“I had trusted in humanity, the basic goodness of people, that they won’t walk into your house and kill you just because they can. But that’s not the way the world is…”

Author: Jeramy Gates
Publisher: Timber Hill Press, available through Amazon as both an e-book and paperback.
Book 1 of 2 in the Valkyrie Smith Mystery Series.

Saala Khadoos

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★★★
“A maniac training a rebel.”

Despite thrashing virtually every sports cliché under the sun into the ground, this just about manages to skate by on the energy of its two central performances. Adi Tomar (Madhavan) is a boxing coach who gets hit with a trumped-up #MeToo charge by the head of the boxing association Dev Khatri (Hussain), and punted off to the backwoods of Chennai. There, however, he finds a raw jewel in Madhi (Singh), a fish-seller whose sister, Lakshmi (Sorcar), has been training as boxer with an eye to joining the police. But it’s Madhi’s aggression which attracts Adi’s attention, and he eventually convinces her to strap on the gloves.

From here unfolds, pretty much, exactly everything you would expect. Parental disapproval. Sibling rivalry. Madhi mistaking Adi’s devotion to her for something romantic. And, especially inevitably, Dev seeking to sabotage Adi’s hard work and claim the credit of Madhi’s success for himself. It all builds to the finals of the world championships – apparently a team sport – where Madhi goes up against Russian nemesis Natalia Riker, who battered her to a pulp in an earlier match [albeit with various extenuating circumstances]. If the Russki doesn’t quite snarl, “I must break you” before the contest, she might as well do. And if at least avoiding full-blown musical numbers, the songs all but required by Bollywood show up in the form of so many montages, they could form the basis for a drinking game.

I suspect this was inspired by the success of Mary Kom, and has much the same strengths and weaknesses. The makers seem to think that making a woman the central character is enough to offset the hackneyed story. Do not, however, take this as meaning the film is devoid of entertainment. For as mentioned, both leads crackle, and the tag-line on top accurately sums their relationship; it’s a lot of fun to watch develop, as they spar, both verbally and physically. Madhavan certainly looks the part of a former boxer, and although Singh could do with some more definition on her arms, makes up for in pure, undiluted Attitood (spelling and capital letter entirely deliberate) what she may lack in musculature.

That said, the boxing scenes are effectively enough staged that I could overlook the heroine’s wispiness, and this is considerably slicker all-round than the last Bollywood film I stumbled across on Netflix, Warrior Savitri. The cinematography is particularly effective, helping to generate a good volume of raw emotion, and this in turn helps distract from the thoroughly generic “underdog makes good” level of the story. It may even manage to catch an unwary viewer with the occasionally effective shot, such as when Madhi says to her coach, after he has just had to make a very difficult, personal decision: “You gave up everything, just for me. If that isn’t love, what is?” Ouch. If perhaps a low blow, it’s still a line that packs a wallop.

Dir: Sudha Kongara
Star: Ritika Singh, R. Madhavan, Zakir Hussain, Mumtaz Sorcar
a.k.a. Irudhi Suttru

Slave, Warrior, Queen, by Morgan Rice

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

The author  is certainly prolific: this series, Of Crowns and Glory is eight books, yet only her third-longest, not even half the length of The Sorceror’s Ring. Unfortunately, based on this, what she delivers in volume, is negated by the low quality. The first problem is the setting, which is a lazy version of ancient Rome, right down to a population kept in thrall by gladiatorial games. Except, it’s actually “Delos”, which seems a convenient way for the author to avoid having to do any research; she can then make up whatever she wants, since it’s not a “real” place. You certainly don’t get much sense of it being a world into which much thought has been put.

The heroine is 17-year-old Ceres, whose father is a weapon-smith to the monarchy, though this brings in barely enough money for the family to survive. When he has to go off to try and earn his fortune, Ceres is on thin ice, because her mother tries to sell her. She runs away, and gets a job in the palace, becoming the “squire” (for want of a better word) to Prince Thanos, the only member of the ruling class who is not a scumbag, and is as handsome as he is moral. [Insert eye-rolling here. Just once, I’d like to read about a character who was smart, kind and ugly…] Elsewhere, Ceres’s brother and boyfriend have taken up arms as part of a rebellion against cruel King Claudius.

You can probably figure out where the rest of this goes, with Thanos having a jealous fiancée, while Ceres bounces in and out of dungeons, and has unexplained magical powers that manifest only when necessary to the plot. The last is a particular annoyance, not least because her upbringing has led Ceres to be not exactly short of combat skills herself, in defiance of society’s mores. This aspect is sadly underdeveloped, and she spends more time moping in cells than putting her skills to use. Although the cliff-hanger ending, with Ceres thrown into the gladiatorial arena as a political pawn, suggests more might perhaps be made of this in ensuing volumes. And is it wrong of me to mention that she never even touches a bow, as the cover depicts? On further investigation, it’s a stock photo, used by at least one other novel…

The plot and characters might also have been bought off-the-shelf, since they are hardly any less generic. The simplistic politics on view are particularly irritating, with noble peasants being relentlessly oppressed by their cruel overlords (Thanos excepted). The story keeps cutting back and forth between the palace intrigue and the rebellion, and the two sides never manage to mesh: the latter seems more an annoying distraction than anything. Rice does deserve credit for killing off some unexpected characters, which provides some sense of peril. But the ratio of title present here is about 80% slave to 20% warrior, with queen present only at trace, “produced in a facility which processes peanuts” levels.

Author: Morgan Rice
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services, available through Amazon as an e-book or paperback.
Book 1 of 8 in the Of Crowns and Glory series.

She’s Crushed

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★★½
“An object lesson about not sticking your dick in crazy.”

Playing somewhat like a more brutal version of Fatal Attraction, this sees Ray (Norlén) help out the girl next door, Tara (Dickinson) with some heavy suitcases she’s trying to move into her car. From this eventually stems a one-night stand between the pair, made all the more unfortunate by Ray’s girlfriend, Maddy (Wehrle) being stranded by the side of the road with a flat, while the pair do the dirty deed. Ray then discovers Tara’s darker side: and when I say “darker side”, I mean she makes Alex Forrest of Fatal Attraction look like a bunny-boiling beginner. With the aid of a condom from their dangerous liaison, she frames him for the rape/murder of his boss, forcing him to help her get rid of the body. And Tara is only getting warmed up. Wait until she gets her hands on Maddy…

Unlike Attraction, there is never any sense of doubt as to the woman’s sanity. Right from the get-go, it’s perfectly clear that Tara is barking mad, and likely already a killer; those suitcases mentioned above seem to contain the body of a previous victim. There’s some backstory about a severely-abusive father – one whose abuse of Tara continues right to the present day – and a mother in an asylum. It’s not really necessary, especially following the scene where we see her shaving her armpits with a carving knife. After that, very little more has to be said. Of course, she’s a relatively high-functioning psycho, in that Tara can come over as perfectly normal in everyday conversation. This, and her physical attractiveness, do make Ray’s interest seem somewhat plausible, along with the shrewish nature of his current girlfriend, although there’s so little build-up to Tara’s night with Ray, it’s a bit eyebrow-raising.

Indeed, events unfold in a way that’s rather too obvious for the first hour, with Tara alternating wildly between over the top Generic Loony (TM) and eye-blinkingly adorable, without any particular impact or development. Only after she kidnaps both the target of her affection and his girlfriend, does this achieve a degree of disturbing brutality, far beyond what Attraction depicted. And that’s exactly the territory which low-budget films need to inhabit, in order to succeed (or, at least, be memorable): where Hollywood fears to tread. If you’re not crinkling your toes up by the end of that sequence, you’re not paying attention. Does that 10 minutes justify the existence of the entire film? I’d likely need some convincing of that, and for a supposed military veteran, Ray finds it remarkably difficult to escape from the clutches of not exactly powerful Tara. At least, until the plot requires it, anyway.

Bonus points to the makers, for their use of videos on a Youtube channel, “taraiscrushed”, as a viral promo for the film telling Tara’s backstory, beginning more than three years before it was released. That’s planning ahead…

Dir: Patrick Johnson
Star: Natalie Dickinson, Henrik Norlén, Caitlin Wehrle, Keith Malley
a.k.a. Crushed

Strong Girl Bong-soon

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★★★
“A not unpleasant Korean stew.”

The 16-part series proved an unexpected sleeper hit in its native land, more than doubling the audience from debut to finale. This is all over the place in terms of genre, with comedy, thriller, romance and action threads. While they aren’t equally successful, it does a pretty decent job of managing most of them, and is surprisingly accessible for a Western audience. The heroine is Do Bong-soon (Park B-Y), the latest in a matriarchal line of very strong women. She has been brought up to keep her power suppressed, due to the potential issues it can cause; Bong-soon has also been warned that if she misuses them, and hurts an undeserving person, they will go away. [Let’s not worry too much about how this presents an easy solution: slap one innocent, and she would become just like everyone else…]

Additionally hampered by low self-esteem, she has so far largely flown under the radar, but that ends when she stops someone from being bullied by an organized crime gang. The incident is witnessed by Ahn Min-hyuk (Park H-S), head of a game company, who is dealing with a stalker and hires Bong-soon as his bodyguard. She starts to fall for her boss, but is conflicted due to having feelings for long-time friend, In Guk-doo (Ji). He’s now a local cop, investigating a series of kidnappings which have terrorised the local area.

All these threads and more, intermingle and develop over the course of the series. The crime gang, who are trying to redevelop the area, seek revenge on Bong-soon, only to become semi-permanent residents in hospital. A group of young local wannabe gangsters turn to Bong-soon as their leader. Her parents go through relationship difficulties. The psycho kidnapper’s attentions target a victim too close to our heroine for comfort. She tries to leverage her bodyguard position into achieving her ambition, which is to design video games. She has a gay supervisor, who has a crush on their boss. Yeah, there’s a lot going on here: everything from a soppy post-teenage love-triangle to something which borders on Silence of the Lambs.

Credit is due, therefore, that the end result is even watchable, given this scattergun approach, though obviously some elements are not very interesting from my perspective. It’s hard to see quite who might enjoy all the angles; on the other hand, perhaps this is a case of there being something for everyone? Park B-Y is admirably deadpan as Bong-soon, dealing with the bizarre hand life has dealt her, and the action scenes, although less frequent than I’d like, are decently handled: the highlight is probably her duel with the entire crime syndicate in a warehouse. It works better for me in the first half, when the various elements gel into a more coherent whole: later on, it becomes almost entirely about the kidnapper or the love triangle, and the switches in tone feel more jarring. I can’t say I’m eagerly anticipating a second series, yet didn’t mind what’s certainly a different take on the genre of super-powers.

Dir: Lee Hyung-min
Star: Park Bo-young, Park Hyung-sik, Ji Soo, Jang Mi-kwan

The Sheriff’s Surrender, by Susan Page Davis

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

Having started our acquaintance with the Ladies Shooting Club trilogy last year with the third book, The Blacksmith’s Bravery (long story), my wife Barb and I are now reading the other two volumes in order. Neither of us were disappointed in this one! My reviewing it here was a happy surprise. Although the covers of all three books feature gun-toting women, and a basic plot current of the trilogy is women learning to take responsibility for defending themselves and others, the heroine of the third book wasn’t actually called on to engage in any gun-fighting action. So I assumed the same would be the case here. But [at the risk of a mild “spoiler” –though for fans of this site, this will add interest rather than spoil it :-)], in this series opener, our heroine does need to step up to the plate with a Winchester. (Contrary to many fictional and movie depictions, rifles were used more for serious shooting in the Old West than six-guns). Despite that difference, though, both books have a lot of similarity in tone, content and style. Since I gave the concluding volume five stars on Goodreads, that’s a good thing!

In 1885 small-town Idaho, young Gert Dooley keeps house for her widowed brother, the town’s gunsmith. One thing she can do to help him is test fire the guns he repairs; and she’s gotten to be a crack shot over the years of doing this. When the town’s longtime sheriff is murdered in his office (the titular sheriff is his replacement), the usually quiet community is spooked; and a widowed storekeeper friend asks Gert to teach her how to use her late husband’s Colt, in case she needs it to protect herself or her business. There’s initially no thought of creating a club as such; but as other crimes follow and other women join in the lessons, the Ladies Shooting Club takes shape. Reactions among the community’s menfolk aren’t uniformly supportive –but not uniformly hostile either; stereotypical role expectations of female helplessness weren’t so ingrained in the late 19th-century West as they’d become later.

Despite the historical setting, the issue the novel poses is very contemporary, and hotly debated even today. Male chauvinists tend to see any use of weapons by females as transgressive of patriarchal norms. And while all feminists believe in “empowerment” for women in some sense, many of them either feel that pacifism is ideologically essential to true feminism, or believe that the State and its agents have an absolute monopoly on legitimate use of lethal force, which renders use of a gun for self-defense by ordinary citizens as nearly as bad as using it to attack an innocent. But another strand of feminism rejects that thinking, and views responsible and educated gun ownership as a legitimate tool of women’s empowerment. It’s not hard to deduce from this book what view of that matter Davis takes.

There’s nothing tract-like about this novel, however, any messages emerge naturally from the story itself. Christian faith plays a role in the lives of Gert and other characters, and of the town –the coming of a preacher and his wife to form a nondenominational community church is an important event, as it really was in many Western communities, where organized religion came more slowly than it did in the more easily-settled Eastern states– but the author isn’t “preachy” in her handling of this. The club is also a vehicle for creating female camaraderie and friendship that crosses social divides set by class, religion, and Victorian attitudes (it’ll eventually include both the preacher’s wife and a saloon owner and her girls), and some characters will have lessons to learn in that area.

But the main focus is on the question of what’s behind the sudden rash of arson and violence in the community. I’d describe this as a Western (and there’s horses, guns, a posse, and gun-play at the end), but it embodies very real characteristics of the mystery genre as well. (While I guessed the identity of the villain early on, I’m not sure many readers would –and you might have fun testing your own wits!) And in the background, we have regard and respect growing into love between a worthy man and woman.

Since this was the second book we read of the series, as Barb said, it was “like visiting old friends.” I’d recommend to new readers, though, that they read the books in order. And for us, it’s now on to our third book (which is actually the trilogy’s second), The Gunsmith’s Gallantry!

Author: Susan Page Davis
Publisher: Barbour Publishing, available through Amazon, both for Kindle and as a printed book.

A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads.