Tag: seal of approval

Real Dangerous People, by K. W. Jeter

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

This gritty and action-packed series was originally marketed in seven volumes. The new edition condenses that to four, by combining the first six into three and designating each component in the pair as either Part 1 or Part 2, the original title of each Part 1 serving as the new book title for both. So this book counts as two series installments. That’s a felicitous arrangement, because installments 1-2 (now paired as Real Dangerous Girl) and 3-4 here both fit together nicely as two self-contained two-part story arcs, each featuring protagonist/narrator Kim but centering on a different challenge each time, that starts in Part 1 and finds its resolution in Part 2. But the books should be read in order; here, references are made to persons and events from the prior installments, and in order to fully understand who Kim and her wheelchair-bound kid brother Donnie are, their situation, and the development of her character, you really need to have read the preceding part of the canon. Warning: this review will contain “spoilers” for the previous book(s).

As I’d deduced and mentioned in my review of installment 1 (I read and wrote about the first two as separate books: what is now Real Dangerous Girl Part 1 and Part 2), the setting is an unnamed city in western New York state. It’s not named here either; but references to docks and ocean-going commerce point to Rochester, which is on Lake Ontario and can access the Atlantic via the St. Lawrence River. Several months have passed since the end of the previous book; it’s now winter. One reference suggests that Kim’s still 17; but she has to be getting pretty close to 18. (A credibility problem with the series is that it’s hard to fit all of her backstory into 17 years.) We’re not actually brought up to speed on the intervening events until Chapter 3, and Kim’s wry description of her new line of work as “killing people” might give the idea that she’s been working as an assassin. She hasn’t –but she has opted to make her living with her .357 rather than her calculator; and as she recognizes, the possibility of lethal violence is always present, especially given the sort of people who’ll employ her.

At Cole’s funeral, a meeting with Curt, an old acquaintance of his that he’d recommended her to, led to a three-month gig in “security” for one Mr. Falcone, another mobster like her former employer, who now prefers to be called Mr. Falcon since he’s looking to shed his Mafia image; also like the late Mr. McIntyre, he’s moving to position himself as more plausibly “legitimate.” (So “security” work for him involves dealing with his double-crossing employees, and attacks by thugs working for his equally shady rivals.) Near the beginning of this book, she’s invited to join his personal bodyguard team, where a sudden vacancy has opened up. But the way it opened up isn’t encouraging…. Since there are a couple of more books in the series, we know that our girl’s going to make it home at the end of the day. But she doesn’t have any such assurance, and the chances of this job ending with a tag on her toe look pretty real. She needs the money, though, since failing to provide for Donnie isn’t an option she’ll accept; and she’s about to face another unexpected existential threat to her little family unit, from a totally different quarter.

As noted above, Kim’s character is developing, and not always in ways that please her. (In fact, some developments concern and scare her.) The criminal underworld she originally entered unwittingly when she landed a job with McIntyre’s now defunct organization has become pretty much her default environment. That’s partly because no legitimate business will hire her as an accountant with no formal credentialling, even if she’s good at it, but also because, though she doesn’t like to admit it to herself, at one level she thrives on the excitement, empowerment and adrenaline rush of life in warrior mode; and she takes fierce pride in being equally good at that. Thanks to Cole’s training, she’s a very accurate, quick-reflexed markswoman, and strong and agile despite her petite stature. (And she can now kill without batting an eye –though that’s a development she fully realizes is problematical.) This career choice puts her on a tightrope between the demands of her job and her moral instincts; the tension of walking it can make her cry and vomit at times. Shades of grey often define her alternatives; there’s a lot of food for thought here in terms of moral reflection, as there often is in this genre. That’s implicit in the story, though, not embodied in explicit struggles in Kim’s mind; survival generally dictates her choices, and the one here that many readers will most intensely disagree with and disapprove of is one she makes instantly and without having to agonize over at all. (Having a family of my own, I totally understand why she doesn’t have to.)

There’s no sex, licit or illicit, in this book (or the prior installments). Kim’s not without interest in sex; but like most teens, she sees herself as unattractive. She’s never pursued a relationship, and she’s taken to heart Cole’s advice that the best option for a hired gun is celibacy. (Though given that he was in a long-term relationship with a live-in girlfriend, he failed to practice what he preached.) Compared to the prior installments, there’s an increase in bad language here, including some use of the f-word and religious profanity, though Jeter’s use of it is still restrained compared to many writers who depict this milieu. (Kim’s own language isn’t as bad as that of her colleagues, though if I were her dad I’d still call her on some of it.) In fairness, given the kind of characters we’re dealing with, the language isn’t unrealistic. Violence comes with this territory; several people here exit the world with bullets in their bodies (some of them by Kim’s hand). But none of them are particularly nice people who would elicit any tears from the average reader; I can safely promise that “no innocents were harmed in the writing of this book.” :-)

In terms of literary quality, this is a highly gripping and emotionally evocative read, and a fast-paced one. Depiction of well-drawn, nuanced characters is one of the author’s strengths; Kim herself is a vital bundle of three-dimensioned nuance, but all of the cast here come to life. (Most aren’t especially likable, except for Donnie and Mae, but I do like Kim and root for her, despite her rough edges; Jeter lets me understand where she’s coming from, and her narrative voice makes me empathize with her.) There’s also more of a mystery element here than in the previous story arc, though I still classify this as action-adventure rather than mystery. It has to be said, though, that this book isn’t as well crafted as the preceding. There are editorial issues, some minor. but several more serious. In places details, plot elements and conversations are inconsistent with things written before, which can fray (though not break) the thread of the plot. (The worst of these is where a character dies in one chapter, but reappears alive in the next one!) That cost the book a star; but I’d still recommend it to all readers of the first book (though not as the starting point for the series). And I most definitely intend to follow the series to its completion!

Author: K. W. Jeter
Publisher: Lincoln Square Books; available through Amazon, both for Kindle and as a printed book.
Book 2 of 4 in the Kim Oh series, containing previously available titles Real Dangerous People and Real Dangerous Place.
A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads.

Emily the Criminal

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★★★★
“Parks and Illegal Recreation.”

For six months or so, our morning routine involved the consumption of an episode of Parks and Recreation with breakfast. Our favourite character on the show was Ron Swanson, but not far behind was April Ludgate, played by Aubrey Plaza. She was the mistress of deadpan misanthropy, delivering lines like “I’m just gonna live under a bridge and ask people riddles before they cross.” We’ve not seen her in much since the show ended, but the concept of April Ludgate, career criminal, was too delicious to pass up. So here we are, yet I must admit, Plaza is almost good enough to make us forget April. Well, except for one roll of the eyes, which was vintage Ludgate.

She plays Emily, a young woman saddled with an inescapable pit of student loans, for a basically useless qualification, and an unfortunate felony relegating her to food delivery work. A chance encounter brings her into contact with Youcef (Rossi). She earns $200 for making a fraudulent credit-card transaction on his behalf, and is offered the chance to earn ten times that, for a larger, riskier purchase. With regular employment clearly not the solution, Emily embraces her new, illegal career, working with Youcef, much to the disdain of his Lebanese brothers. As their infighting escalates, Youcef decides to cut and run, only to be beaten to the punch. Emily won’t stand for that: “You’re a bad influence,” says Youcef, as he and Emily prepare to rob his brother. He’s not wrong. 

On one level, Emily’s situation is a result of her poor choices. Running up eighty grand in debt for an art degree and committing felonious assault are both decisions she made, of her own free will. These have consequences. Yet I increasingly found myself rooting for Emily, and her refusal to be ground down by the unfairness of life, or those seeking to exploit her – both in the legal and illegal employment sectors. She possesses undeniable smarts, and a righteous anger at the undeserved success of those she sees around her. Her wants are not excessive, and her crimes are… if hardly victimless, non-violent. At least, if you don’t count those who try to take advantage of her. For Emily wields a mean stun-gun.

If the world won’t give Emily a chance, playing by their rules, she’ll simply make up her own rules. She’s not willing to conform just to become society’s victim, and in this, weirdly, it has elements in common with urban flicks like The Bag Girls. There’s also no sense of honour among thieves, though the authorities and police in this movie are notable by their complete absence. Certainly, the threat of arrest is never a consideration for Emily, or at least, doesn’t alter her trajectory. The ending is ambivalent, to put it mildly: crime appears to pay, though it seems Emily may be addicted to the adrenaline high as much as the ill-gotten gains. While the morality here may be questionable, Plaza’s performance still makes it more than worthwhile. 

Dir: John Patton Ford
Star: Aubrey Plaza, Theo Rossi, Megalyn Echikunwoke, Gina Gershon

La merveilleuse vie de Jeanne d’Arc

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★★★★
“Merveilleuse is the word for it.”

I generally make it a rule not to review foreign movies without subtitles, simply because it’s difficult to judge them reasonably if you can’t understand them. I made an exception for this 1929 French film for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it’s silent, so comprehension is limited only to the intertitles: I can read the language better than I can understand it spoken. Also, it was approximately the eleven millionth version of the Joan of Arc story I’d seen in the past month:  I think I had a pretty good handle on the plot by this point. Boy, am I glad I did, because it’s the best silent film I’ve seen, albeit in my quite limited experience of them.

History has largely forgotten this version, in favour of Carl Theodor Dreyer’s La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc. Both movies were produced concurrently, interest in the topic apparently having been spurred by the canonization of Joan at the start of the twenties, and the approaching 500th anniversary of the events in her life. However, delays during filming meant this adaptation was beaten to the cinema by Dreyer’s. It perhaps was also impacted commercially by the arrival of the new-fangled “talkies”, leaving silent movies like this looking old-fashioned. Half a century later, the film was eventually restored, and can be found on YouTube as well as the Internet Archive.

At over two hours long, it’s certainly epic, yet is almost constantly engrossing. Its main strength is Genevois in the role of Joan, who has an incredibly impressive face, which more than counters the lack of dialogue. She was only 15 when the film went into production, but already had a decade of experience in making films, including another silent epic, Abel Gance’s Napoleon. It was quite a stressful production, with the actress enduring heavy costumery. She said, “They made me a very light suit of armour, but I ended up with real armour. At the Battle of Orleans I had to wear a 22-kilo suit of chain mail. As soon as I finished a scene, they would lay me down and I would sleep on the ground because I couldn’t take the weight.”

Those battle scenes are extraordinary, especially for the time, overcoming the constraints of the 4:3 aspect ratio. The siege at Tourelles is a phenomenal set piece, involving 8,000 extras, largely recruited from the French army. There’s additional poignancy to the spectacle, Joan realizing the horrors of the battlefield, which have been unleashed as a result of her actions. While I’ve yet to see the Dreyer version (by most accounts, it seems rather talky for a silent!), it’s hard to imagine anyone improving on Genevois’s performance. Inevitably, things do become a bit of a slog during the trial; the dialogue heavy nature of those scenes are always going to be tough. Yet even here, there are moments of exquisite beauty; Joan sat, her head bowed, as her accusers file out past her.

Then there’s the burning at the stake, another scene which came uncomfortably close to historical accuracy for Genevois. “The moment the wood caught fire I yelled ‘It burns!’ [The director] Marco was so sure I was afraid, that he did nothing at all. All of a sudden the cameraman, Gaston Brun, shouted ‘She’s burning!’ and everyone ran towards me, because I was tied up and couldn’t budge. I was very frightened.” Even putting that aside, there’s no denying the emotional wallop it packs, particularly in the extended shot of Joan walking towards her death: Simone’s face, again, sells this in a way which left me genuinely distraught. This doesn’t happen often, and never before while watching any silent movie.

de Gastyme then simply stops the film. It’d seem an abrupt ending almost anywhere else; here, it acts as a force-multiplier for Joan’s death, letting it resonate in the silent darkness which follows. Finally, I have to give credit to the sadly unknown composer who provided the score accompanying the movie. It’s top-tier stuff, complementing and enhancing the on-screen action to great effect, whether rousing the blood during the battles, soaring to the heavens for her visions, or mourning the inevitable fate of the heroine. Over its 125 minutes, this hits all the expected moments with precision, and Genevois – who retired from movies at the ripe old age of 23! – deserves to be far better-known in ranks of actresses to have taken on the iconic role of Joan.

Dir: Marco de Gastyne
Star: Simone Genevois, Fernand Mailly, Georges Paulais, Jean Debucourt
a.k.a. Saint Joan the Maid

Fall

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★★★★
“Nope. NopeNopeNope. Nope.”

I never considered myself to be afraid of heights. I respect them, sure. But I am capable of going up the ladder to change that annoying smoke alarm battery without a safety net. This film though, literally gave me sweaty palms. It’s about climber Becky Connor (Currey) who lost her husband Dan (Gooding) in a rockface accident a year before, and has spiralled down into alcoholism and depression since. Her father (Morgan) gets her best friend Shiloh Hunter (Gardner) to intervene, and she convinces Becky the best thing is to get back on horse, with a climb of a two thousand feet tall, abandoned TV mast. 

The journey up is where the moist hands started. I don’t care how nice the views might be, I’m afraid it’s going to be a no from me, dawg. Adding to the fraught tension, is the focus by Mann on the decaying structure: rust, missing bolts and general creakiness. It’s like Final Destination: you know something is inevitably going to go terribly wrong, it’s just a question of when, and the specifics. It duly does, leaving the pair stranded near the top, on a platform about the size of our dining table, with no route down or way to call for help. The rest of the film is the struggle of Becky and Hunter (she uses her last name, or her social media identity of “Danger Deb”) to find a way to do one or the other. 

Most of it is well-written, with the two women using every bit of ingenuity, as well as both their physical and mental strength, in that struggle. While I was ahead of the plot a couple of times – some of the foreshadowing isn’t as subtle as it could be – there was one doozy of a twist near the end, that we definitely did not see coming. By the end, there’s no doubt Becky is an utterly badass, prepared to survive by any means necessary. My main complaint, storywise, was the clunky shoehorning in of a wedge issue to divide her and Hunter. This served no dramatic purpose, and had me rolling my eyes at the incongruity of it all. Hello: you are two thousand feet in the air!

Technically, however, it’s very well done, giving the viewer a real sense of what it must be like. If you are the slightest bit sensitive about heights, this film will find out, force its way into those cracks, and use them as leverage, to an almost queasy extent. I found it easy to believe they were genuinely up there, even if neither lead actress has quite the ripped physique of a real climber, someone like Slovenian Janja Gambret. I did wonder if it was potentially going to go full The Descent on us at the end, and embrace its inner bleakness. I won’t say whether or not it does. However, I suspect that the next time our smoke alarm starts to beep, its battery will have to change itself.

Dir: Scott Mann
Star: Grace Caroline Currey, Virginia Gardner, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Mason Gooding

The Princess

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★★★★
“Die Hard in a castle.”

Well, this was a surprise. I was not expecting too much, this being a movie released straight to Hulu or Disney+ (depending on your territory), and starring someone best known for rom-com franchise, The Kissing Booth. Actually, scratch the “too” from that sentence. I went in on the basis that I was contractually obliged to watch it, as the guy running this site. I say this, so you’ll understand how unexpected it is to be writing this: it’s the best action-heroine film of the year so far. This is just thoroughly entertaining, and as the tag-line above suggests, is as close as I’ve ever seen to a genuine, female version of the greatest action movie of all-time. 

The first half structure though, plays more like The Raid in reverse, the heroine having to fight her way down, floor by floor, from the top of a high tower. It opens with the Princess (King) ‐ and that’s her credited name – waking to find herself in a bed-chamber. She’s being prepared for a marriage she very much does not want to happen. Her father, lacking a son and heir, intended to wed her to Julian (Cooper) for diplomatic purposes. She jilted him at the altar, and he then staged a coup, seizing her family and planning a union by force. What he doesn’t know, is that the Princess had been quietly trained by family retainer Linh (Ngo) in fighting skills, and begins working her way down, to rescue her family and stop Julian. Guess he is going to have to “altar” his wedding plans, hohoho.

It’s the kind of film which will stand or fall on its action sequences, and the good news is, these are the movie’s strongest suit. Kiet had previously worked with Ngo on Furie: that was solid, yet it now appears his imagination was bigger than the resources available to him there. Right from the start, when the Princess takes out the two attendants sent to her chamber, the fight scenes are all inventive, well-executed and assembled in a coherent manner. Now, King is no MMA fighter. However, they’ve constructed a fighting style for her character based on speed and agility, rather than strength and power. Her holding her own against bigger (sometimes, far bigger) opponents feels credible as a result. 

This reaches its height in a glorious, extended sequence, with the Princess battling her way down the tower’s staircase. It feels as if it’s 20 minutes long, such is the energy contained in it. There’s even a beautiful moment of tension releasing humour, part of a running gag involving one of Julian’s minions who is too fat for all the stairs he’s ordered to climb. Nothing thereafter, including the inevitable fight against her wannabe husband, quite reaches the same heights. Glover is good value as Julian, staying just this side of a pantomime villain. As Die Hard shows, having a memorable antagonist is an important element. He’s not quite Alan Rickman – though who is? And I do have to question some of Julian’s decisions. 

I mean, if ever I become an Evil Lord, I will choose a more definitive method of execution for my nemesis than defenestration. And if I did chuck them out a high window, it would be on the side of the building over the cobblestone courtyard, rather than the one facing the water. Though I must give credit where it’s due, for his selection of a sidekick, in whip-wielding bad girl, Moira. Kurylenko has a track record of her own on this site, most recently in Sentinelle, and builds further on that here. On the other hand, the Princess’s father is a totally ineffectual pussy, when faced with the brutality of Julian and his crew. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing though. It makes his daughter’s rebellion feel organic and legitimate, rather than some kind of obvious third-wave feminist statement. I’d rebel in her shoes too.

Speaking of which, my concerns this would end up being some kind of Statement Movie, largely proved unfounded. Indeed, some reviews criticized it for not being progressive enough. [Insert eye-roll] This is largely traditional fairy-story territory, except with a female lead who is capable of rescuing herself, rather than needing a prince to come to her aid. I would say some of the flashback scenes were superfluous, breaking into rather than enhancing the narrative progression. For instance, we know Linh trained the Princess; do we really then need to see it taking place as well? The R-rating, while welcome, seems a little at odds with the atmosphere too, which does feel quite Disney+. If you’re going R, embrace it in all its forms, I’d say. However, these are minor gripes, and this is one Disney princess I’m certainly happy to endorse. 

Dir: Le-Van Kiet
Star: Joey King, Dominic Cooper, Olga Kurylenko, Veronica Ngo

Arisaka

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★★★★
“The wilderness strikes back.”

The heroine here, Mariano (Salvador), has to count as the baddest bitch I’ve seen in quite a long time. In terms of being a sheer, unstoppable force, she’s right up there with Jen from Revenge. There’s an absolute moral compass at play here, which combines a stoic refusal to harm the innocent, with utter ruthlessness when it comes to punishing the guilty. And she is judge, jury and especially executioner, when it comes to determining who’s who. Of particular note, most action heroines tend to kill only when directly threatened. Here however, once Mariano has decided you’re on the wrong side, death can come for you at any moment, without the need for any further provocation.

She is a Filipino police officer, part of a convoy taking the vice-mayor of a town to testify against a drug cartel. In particular, he’s going to name names of those in authority who are working with the cartel. Naturally, this can’t be allowed to happen, and it’s no surprise when the convoy is ambushed. Mariano is the sole survivor, and takes possession of the official’s cellphone, which contains the incriminating evidence. It’s not long before Sonny (Confiado), the cartel leader shows up, demonstrating a ruthless approach to the situation, and none too happy to discover he’s one short in the corpse department. He and his lackeys, including one of Mariano’s colleagues (Acuña), enter the jungle in pursuit of the wounded fugitive. She gets help from a young indigenous girl (Romualdo) and her family, but doing so exposes them to Sonny’s brutal wrath.

That’s when the gloves come off, thanks in part to Mariano being led to a stash of World War 2 weapons, left behind when local soldiers were trying to escape the Japanese. I’ll admit to raising an eyebrow at this. Would such weapons really be in perfect working order, after 75 years in a tropical jungle? Hey, I’m no expert. [Despite running this site, I haven’t even touched a gun since moving to Arizona in 2000!] With that as a given though, what follows is some remarkably splattery head-shots, as Mariano works her way through Sonny’s henchmen, and up to the inevitable confrontation with the man himself.

Interspersed in this are flashbacks to her back in the big city, being ordered to shoot someone entirely on the say-so of her boss, to prove her loyalty to her colleagues. That is about the extent of insight into Mariano’s character the film offers, but it’s enough to work, since actions here definitely speak louder than words. Indeed, the audience is likely better off than the heroine, getting subtitles for the native dialogue, a language which Mariano doesn’t speak. The intent is typically clear enough, even if a few scenes did leave me a little uncertain as to their purpose. Overall though, the result is an engrossing and always interesting watch, which doesn’t hold back, and takes no prisoners. Much like its central character.

Dir: Mikhail Red
Star: Maja Salvador, Shella Mae Romualdo, Mon Confiado, Arthur Acuña

The Assault

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★★★★
“Assault on Shelter 13”

This was a very pleasant surprise. I wasn’t expecting much from this, especially after seeing Wynorski’s name – let’s be honest, he is best known for bargain basement soft-port. That said, he does occasionally hit one out of the park, such as the sublime Deathstalker II. This is definitely one of his better entries, even if it is, by and large, a low-budget version of Assault on Precinct 13.

Lisa Wilks (Ryan) witnesses the murder of her boyfriend by mob boss Blade, but is too scared to testify. Stacie (Randall), a detective on the force. is told to take care of her, and when Lisa says she’s too scared to go home, takes her to an isolated women’s shelter run by Stacie’s sister, Cindy (Dobro). However, Blade is intent on making sure Lisa doesn’t change her mind and sends his minions to storm the shelter and terminate the threat. However, he reckons without the pluck and resilience of the residents, bolstered by Stacie, as well as ex-army maintenance man, Mike (McCoy).

This has its share of questionable moments. The firing of a good twenty bullets from a hand-gun without reloading would be one, and then’s there’s the supposed two-minute countdown to the climactic explosion, which takes closer to six minutes to happen [I know, because I rewound and timed it]. But there’s a breezy energy which I found highly enjoyable, and the characters, if briefly sketched, are effectively drawn. For example, Toni (co-writer Melissa Brasselle) plays a Latina with a grudge against Stacie, for putting her boyfriend in jail. Or there’s Sandahl Bergman from Conan the Barbarian, as a paranoid schizophrenic, convinced the government is out to get her.

These are simple traits, yet prove entirely usable for plot purposes. We don’t need or want much more than this – it’d only get in the way of the action. There’s certainly no shortage of that, with wave upon wave of faceless minions storming the house, as the inhabitants try to board it up and repel any who make it through their barricades. At points, it feels almost like Night of the Living Debbies, with the thugs playing the role of the zombies. This being a Wynorski movie, there is the contractually obligated strip-club scene. However, showing unexpected restraint to keep its PG-13 certificate, the employees go no further than their undies, and are even strippers necessary to the plot, as that’s where we first meet Stacie, working undercover to expose a protection scam.

You do have to take as read the casual approach for the authorities, the first hour spent dispatching a apparently procession of cop cars into the area, who then either fail to notice anything, or vanish off the grid – because they’ve been mown down. Blade’s tactics, too, seem a bit questionable, especially considering how out-gunned the women are. But as a PG-13 actioner, I found this thoroughly entertaining, moving relentlessly forward, and making the very most of its limited resources.

Dir: Jim Wynorski
Star: Stacie Randall, Matt McCoy, Carrie Dobro, Leslie Ryan

Avenging Angels: The Wine of Violence, by A.W. Hart

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

Like “Franklin W. Dixon” and “Carolyn Keene,” “A. W. Hart” is the house pen name assigned by the publisher to all the various authors of individual books in the series of which this novel is the seventh installment. In this case, though, A. W. is actually my Goodreads friend Charles Gramlich (that’s no secret; he’s credited in the “About the Author” note at the book’s end). Although I’d read and liked a couple of his short e-stories previously, I’d never tried any of his long fiction. So, when I saw this novel mentioned in one of his blog posts last year, I was intrigued enough to buy a copy. (Barb and I read it together, since she’s an avid Western fan, and I knew this would be right up her alley.)

In choosing to read this installment by itself, I guessed correctly that it can be treated as a standalone. The series premise is explained in passing near the beginning, without needing any burdensome long exposition. Just after the end of the Civil War, then 16-year-old twins George Washington (nicknamed “Reno”) and Sara Bass were orphaned when a band of renegade ex-Confederate soldiers raided the family’s Kansas farm and brutally slaughtered their parents and siblings. The twins’ father, a Lutheran pastor as well as a homesteader, had brought the two up as Christians familiar with the Bible, and also trained them both to handle firearms very capably. He lived long enough after the attack to charge his two surviving kids (they’d been out on the prairie when the raiders struck) to avenge the outrage, and to rid the world of murdering evildoers. After serving justice on their family’s killers in the series opener, they went on to become successful bounty hunters, despite their youth, with their ensuing adventures in the subsequent books each apparently episodic and self-contained (so the series doesn’t have to be read in order).

We’re not given an exact date for the events of this installment, but I’d guess it to be roughly 1867, and the twins’ age by now to be about 18. Our setting here is western Missouri and the Arkansas Ozarks, a region genre fans might not associate with Westerns; but in fact, in real life, this area was as much a frontier as the contiguous Kansas and Indian Territory countryside, there was a lot of movement and economic interchange across the state lines, and lifestyles and attitudes didn’t differ much on either the western or eastern sides. The tale begins in medias res, with our Avenging Angels stealthily closing in on the camp of a band of train robbers. Early on, one of these outlaws will drop the name of Rev. Eli Cable. He’s an apparently mesmerizing and charismatic preacher who’s building his own settlement, New Kingdom, in the Ozarks –and who may or may not be the mastermind behind this train robbery. It’s up to our hero/heroine to find out the truth about that; and naturally, it won’t be a simple matter of just riding up to his door and asking him.

This is a well-plotted, ably written novel, with a fast pace and a lot of action. (There’s no “pornography of violence,” but the body count is high, and gun/knife fight scenes, etc. are described simply and straightforwardly.) Some factors give the book a bit more depth than run-of-the-mill Westerns. Eli Cable is a highly complex character; the author looks realistically at the hatreds and grievances left on both sides in the aftermath of America’s bloodiest war, in an area where the fighting was often up-close and personal guerilla war, without justifying hatred or demonizing all ex-Confederates; and the faith of some of the main characters gives a spiritual dimension to the story. (Gramlich himself isn’t necessarily a Christian now, but he was raised as a Roman Catholic and treats faith sympathetically; the book, and evidently the series as a whole, is Christian-friendly.) What we would today call post-traumatic stress disorder also gets some scrutiny. Besides the Western elements, elements of the mystery genre are also deftly incorporated. Bad language is very minimal; and though there’s mention of rape and prostitution, there’s no sex as such. (Reno’s faithfully given his heart to a young lady back home in Kansas.)

My impression of series written by multiple authors is that the main characters can tend to be drawn quite blandly, with a minimal profile that’s not expanded on, so as not to confuse new-to-the-series writers. (After well over 100 books, for instance, all we really know about the Hardy boys is that Frank’s blonde and Joe’s dark-haired. :-) ) Here, though, both the Bass siblings come across as three-dimensional characters whom we do get to know as persons, not as stock roles; and while they’re twins, they’re not clones of each other. In this particular episode, the demands of the plot give Reno more “screen time” in the middle chapters that make up the longest part of the book; he’d have to be described as the main character. But Sara’s role isn’t negligible; she’s a full (and lethal) participant in the many fight scenes, recognized by Reno as smarter and deadlier than he is, and I’d also judge her to be faster and more adept with a pistol than he is (though she admits he’s better at handling a long gun). Both are likable, but she comes across as the more reserved of the two, and also as the one who still has the most anger over the tragic fate of their family.

This would be a quick read if you had a normal amount of time for reading (with our “car books,” of course, Barb and I don’t, hence the long time it took us!), and I think most genre fans would find it enough of a page-turner to make their reading sessions as long as possible. I’m not looking to get drawn into another long series right now, and investigated this volume only because I know the author (electronically); but it made enough of a favorable impression that, if I had handy access to other books in the series, I’d definitely check them out too!

Author: A.W. Hart
Publisher: Wolfpack Publishing, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
7 of 12 in the Avenging Angels series.

Wentworth

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★★★★
“Sheilas behind bars.”

Back in the eighties, there was an Australian women-in-prison soap opera called Prisoner Cell Block H. [It was called Prisoner on its home turf, but was renamed in the UK and US, to avoid confusion with The Prisoner] It ran for eight seasons, totalling 692 (!) episodes, and achieved a fair bit of cult status, mostly through late-night screenings on TV. Much of its reputation was based on “so bad it’s good” elements, such as the wobbly sets; a review calls it, “one of the most bizarre, violent, lesbian-fetishy-heart-warming dramas ever created.” The show concluded its run in 1986, but was never forgotten.

More than 25 years later, the concept was rebooted in 2013 as Wentworth, and enjoyed a renaissance. While also running for eight seasons, rather than trash (not that there’s anything wrong with that, mind you!), this version proved to be remarkably well made. It likely helped that the remake’s production schedule here was rather less frantic, ending at exactly 100 episodes last October. The show is currently ranked by the IMDb in the top 250 TV series of all time, and was sold to over 90 countries, achieving a worldwide audience, thanks in part to its distribution on streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime.

It spawned local remakes in a number of countries. The Dutch was the most successful, running for four seasons, but Belgium, Germany and Turkey also took the show and recreated it. [Here is as good a place as any to mention that back in 1982, there was a male spin-off of the original show called Punishment. Though it lasted only one season, the cast included some guy called Mel Gibson…] Indeed, the Turkish one, known on Netflix as The Yard, was reviewed here in August 2020. That review began, “I really must get round to reviewing Wentworth.” And eighteen months later, here we are…

It’s a show I’ve thought about covering on a number of occasions over its run, but now that it’s finished, I feel I can finally do it justice. I definitely can’t argue with the acclaim it has received. For Wentworth features a slew of extremely strong female characters, including one of the most memorable villainesses in TV history, and maintained a high degree of dramatic quality from beginning to end. That’s rare for a series; even classics like Buffy dropped off after a certain point, with commercial motivations typically surpassing artistic ones. Not so here, with the eighth series virtually as strong as the first.

One element, which it does share with its predecessor, is that the setting is the “star”, rather than any performer. I think this certainly helped contribute to its longevity, and sustained the show’s freshness. If one of the actresses began to feel jaded, and wanted out, their character could be replaced by another. The prison scenario meant there were always new arrivals potentially coming in, and scope for departures too, without excessively disrupting the overall structure. If you look at many of the ultra-long running shows, e.g. Dr Who or the many incarnations of Law and Order, they have a similar ability to rotate their cast seamlessly.

Not to say there weren’t main characters – many of them with the names and/or backgrounds as their “ancestors” in Cell Block H. But they tended to have arcs across three or four years; few lasted the full eight, mostly on the guard side. This timeframes was long enough to allow for fulfilling development, without getting stale. The first such was Bea Smith (Cormack), who arrives at Wentworth after attempting to murder her husband, following years of abuse. She becomes involved in the struggle for “Top Dog” status – the role of the most powerful prisoner – between two existing inmates, only to end up becoming Top Dog herself. However, it’s a lonely position, where you always have to watch your back, and allies can suddenly become enemies.

One such was the character mentioned above: Joan Ferguson (Rabe), known as ‘The Freak’ (left). She joined the show as the new governor of Wentworth in season 2, and was, to be blunt, a clinical psychopath, devoid of empathy and incredibly manipulative. She was also very smart, a lethal combination. However, it’s not enough to save her from ending up a prisoner in the jail herself. The first episode of season 5, where Ferguson is released into the general population was, for me, peak Wentworth, and one of the best 45 minutes of television I’ve seen, in any genre.

Remarkably, she didn’t just survive this reversal of fortune, but thrived. She took over as Top Dog. until an escape plan misfired, ending in her being buried alive by long-serving prison officer Will Jackson (Robbie Magasiva)). But you can’t keep a good villainess down, though it appeared the trauma led to amnesia, with Ferguson subsequently using a different name and with a completely different personality. Was this genuine, or another of her ruses? I couldn’t possibly reveal that. What I will do though, is laud a glorious performance by Rabe, who at six feet tall, has a remarkable physical presence, backed up by ferocious intensity. She’s Cersei Lannister on steroids. And without the incest.

In general, it’s perhaps less exploitative than you might expect, with nudity only when genuinely necessary to the plot, rather than for titillation purposes. On the other hand, the show does not soft-pedal the brutality of prison life, with violence and death a common occurrence. Inmates tend to handle their own infractions internally, the Top Dog having the ability to impose punishments for theft, deceit or, perhaps the worst offense of all, “lagging” i.e. talking to prison authorities. It would definitely be rated a hard R, purely for its authentically no-holds barred language. Boy, do the Aussies love themselves a good c-bomb – even more than us Scots!

There were, admittedly, times where the story-lines seemed to get away from the creators. A few threads did appear to be ended, rather than properly resolved. But considering the 70+ hours of television the show represented, such misfires proved remarkably few. The writers definitely had a talent for juggling multiple plot threads and keeping them all moving forward simultaneously. In the end though, it was the actresses (and actors) who made this show what it was, and which kept us coming back for the best part of a decade. If not our favourite show ever on Netflix, it’s definitely up there with the very best.

Creators: Lara Radulovich and David Hannam
Star: Danielle Cormack, Pamela Rabe, Kate Atkinson, Katrina Milosevic 

Made to Be Broken, by Kelley Armstrong

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

Although I first experienced this series through the two sequel novellas, this second installment of Armstrong’s Nadia Stafford trilogy would be best read after the series opener, Exit Strategy. References are made to events in the first book, and to parts of Nadia’s backstory which are detailed there, and these are much more meaningful if you’ve read the first installment. Even more importantly, Armstrong really introduces Nadia’s complex character and current circumstances in depth in the first book; the development she undergoes here presupposes that foundation. (That’s also true for other characters from that book who continue to play roles here; you need the full-orbed picture to understand them.)

Some six months have passed since the events of the earlier novel. Nadia’s kept in contact with Quinn, a U.S. federal cop who secretly moonlights as a vigilante assassin. He’s romantically interested in Nadia; her feelings about him are more ambiguous (even to her), but she values his friendship. As a teen, she came close to qualifying for Canada’s Olympic distance shooting team. That gives her very formidable skills with a sniper rifle; and when this book opens, she’s peering through the scope of one from a belfry in downtown Toronto. Quinn’s solicited her help with one of his hits. That particular episode, though, is over quickly and painlessly for all concerned. It serves mainly to remind us (and to clue in readers who skipped the series opener) that as fictional female sleuths go, our protagonist is not nearly so law-abiding a member of that sorority as, say, Nancy Drew. She is, however, one who has some investigative know-how, which she’s willing to use in a good cause if it’s needed –and it’s soon going to be, sorely.

Even with her off-the-books side income, Nadia can’t afford to pay more than a tiny staff at her guest lodge; but out of kindness, she’s given a job as assistant housekeeper to a 17-year-old girl from the nearby small town of White Rock, Sammi Ernst. Sammi’s foul-mouthed, barely literate, and has a chip on her shoulder; the latter isn’t surprising, given her life situation. She’s the out-of-wedlock daughter of Janie Ernst. Both women are widely looked down on in the community –Janie because she’s a drunken, mean-tempered, self-centered deadbeat, and Sammi mainly because she has Janie for an (abusive) mother. Also a single mom herself, Sammi’s not promiscuous like Janie (she had a single affair, with a visiting rich college kid who wasn’t interested in marriage or fatherhood, and left her to bear his unacknowledged daughter alone); and also unlike her own mom, she genuinely loves baby Destiny, and wants to work to support her, rather than making a dead-end career out of welfare dependency as Janie has.

When, soon after Nadia’s return home, Sammi and Destiny don’t come back from their usual evening walk in the woods, there are things that strongly suggest to our heroine that their disappearance wasn’t voluntary. But White Rock’s police force is small, not especially competent, and has other priorities; and the two senior officers despise Nadia because of the way she was kicked out of the force years ago, so aren’t disposed to take anything she says seriously. As far as they’re concerned, Sammi obviously just ran off; because, hey, that’s what trashy teens can be expected to do, right? Most of the townsfolk are quite content with that explanation. (Janie’s only feeling about the matter is anger at losing the rent money she charged the girl.) Of the few who aren’t, Nadia’s the only one actually capable of looking into the matter. But though Jack’s been out of touch for about six months, he’ll soon be at the lodge recovering from a broken ankle. (And don’t forget about Quinn, either.)

This is a gritty, page-turning mystery, reflecting the violent stylistic school associated mostly with American writers (rather than the more cerebral traditional school of Doyle and Christie). A number of people are going to die here, not all of whom deserve to, because we’re dealing with ruthless villains with no consciences. (While this is fiction, it looks at a dark underbelly of anomic modern society in a way that could easily be true.) And Nadia being who she is, the mode of dealing with some of these types may be with the business end of a pistol. As another reviewer commented, her ethics and moral compass may not be something all readers endorse (I don’t, as such –and Nadia doesn’t claim saint status for herself, either).

But she does HAVE ethics and a moral compass; and for me, the way she sincerely tries to grapple with balancing it with the realities of a very grim world, in which the law doesn’t always serve justice or protect the helpless, is one of the great strengths of the series, and a source of its considerable emotional power. That’s as true of this book as of the others. Despite the body count, there’s no wallowing in blood and gore, and no sex as such, though there are a few “sexual situations.” Romantic feelings and angst are not a major strand of the plot here. Nadia’s narrative voice, IMO, is perfect for these books. The one negative is the amount of f-words and profanity from some characters, especially Jack. I admit that this is “realistic” for speakers who are steeped in this milieu, and have the backgrounds that some of them do; but I don’t really need that much pedantic realism. But the strong character portrayals and serious moral reflection here earn the book its stars despite that factor.

Author: Kelley Armstrong
Publisher: Bantam Books; available through Amazon, both for Kindle and as a printed book.
A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads.