Tag: spy

Aesop by Michele Packard

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

Matti Baker has always been… unusual. She was adopted as a child, and subsequently discovered her mother was an FBI special agent who died while giving birth to Matti on a mission. She breezed through high school, and after graduation, began training to become a contractor for a private agency, carrying out “special” tasks, under the (rather vague, and entirely deniable) auspices of the US government. On successful completion of the four-year course, Matti begins missions, such as neutralizing terrorists. She also meets Tom, who becomes her husband and they have three kids – triplets born on September 11, 2001. But, in 2015, the tables are turned, and Matti becomes the target for some highly-motivated and thoroughly unpleasant enemies, who are seeking vials in her possession, and won’t take “No” for an answer.

This is definitely a slog. The vials, for example, are mentioned early on, as having been passed down to Matti by her mother. Yet they are then entirely forgotten for a good twenty-five years. Then, two-thirds of the way into the book, she’s captured and immediately interrogated about their whereabouts. I had, literally, completely forgotten about them by that point, since they were barely mentioned. “We can get to the vials in a sec,” it says on page six. Doesn’t happen. We never do discover what they’re supposed to contain, what their importance is, or why an FBI special agent thought it would be a good idea to bequeath them to her ten-year-old daughter. Given their position at the heart of much of the plot, this seems unforgivable.

The style is equally clunky. It relies heavily on a long series of pop-culture references to music, movies and TV shows. In the course of less than half a page, we get all of the following:

  • I swear I felt like he was thinking about that Nine Inch Nails Closer song as he stared at me.
  • I felt like Olivia Pope in Scandal.
  • Just like in The Italian Job, we had orchestrated every little detail.

These get shoehorned in there, because… Actually, I’m not sure why: we’re not talking obscurist entities that will prove the author’s street-cred. I speak here, as someone who likes Nine Inch Nails. Other sections obsess over interior decor in a way that feels more like house porn. Then again, everything in Matti’s life, for her husband and children through to her pair of impeccably-trained attack dogs, are utterly perfect in every aspect. Why should her living quarters be any different?

The characterizations here, in particular the heroine, all really come over as little more than wish-fulfillment, with a leading lady who appears to possess no weaknesses, flaws or faults – in other words, anything which might make her interesting. The term “Mary Sue” gets bandied about quite a lot with regard to action heroines; probably a little too frequently. However, this may be one of the cases where it deserves to be applied.

Author: Michele Packard
Publisher: Independently published, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
1 of 3 in the Aesop series.

Eye for an Eye (2019)

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★★
“The little engine that couldn’t.”

Stacey Anderson (Sturman) is an agent for the CIA. When an operation in Tunis goes bad, she is blamed, and the intelligence which was supposed to have been collected – a complete list of Russian assets – goes missing. Stacey is disavowed by the organization, and dumped out, with a new identity. Five years later, she’s a saleswoman for a PR company, and her boyfriend, Ken (Haymes) has just proposed, when Stacey’s old life comes back to haunt her. An assault on her workplace shows that someone clearly believes she knows more about the list than she admitted. She is forced on the run, with Ken, while she tries to figure out whether it’s the Russians, or a rogue faction within her former employers. Fortunately, this wasn’t entirely a surprise, and Stacey is quite well-prepared. Less expected: having to take her new fiance along with her.

The script here is actually quite good, with a number of twists and turns I did not see coming, particularly at the end. However, this is one of the cases where a film has aspirations which are massively beyond what it is capable of delivering. This is clear from the get-go, when the drone strike which almost kills our heroine in Tunis, is depicted with really bad digital effects. Unfortunately, that sets the tone for what is to follow, with the production unable to deliver a convincing version of the explosions, gun-battles or blood squibs necessary to the plot. Even some of the rooms appear to have been done with green-screen work which fails to convince. The non-digital stuff is nothing to write home about either, and the makers perhaps should have gone with a stunt woman for the lead. Sturman gives it her all, bless her heart, but considering the frequent need for physicality in the role, it’s a character which really needs somebody like Amy Johnson or Zara Phythian.

The pacing also seems to lag badly in the middle. The opening set-up is, for all its flaws, put together quite effectively (though do the CIA really have formal “disavowal” speeches?”), and as mentioned, the ending delivered some sharp twists in regard to Stacey, not the least being her background. In between those though, it didn’t seem to know what to do with itself. This is the kind of movie that I really wanted to like, since it seemed a project made with some passion, rather than a by-the-numbers studio product. However, there is only so far that passion and heart can take you. The technical aspects – such as audio in some sequences which sounds like it was recorded underwater – are a very significant distraction from its entertainment value. It may have worked better if they had cut their cloth to fit their resources; sitting on the shelf next to far more polished productions, the comparisons are obvious and not to this movie’s benefit.

Dir: Stephen Lambert
Star: Alex Sturman, Clayton Haymes, David Chattam, Shirley Dalmas
a.k.a. Patriot: A Nation at War 

Scarlett

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★★½
“Better red than dead.”

I was looking forward to this one quite a bit. Lyde is no stranger to these pages, having a track record of low-budget action heroines to his name: Survivor, 626 Evolution and a couple of entries in the Mythica franchise, including the best of them, Mythica: The Iron Crown. The star here, Melanie Stone, was also a big part of Mythica, where she played Marek the necromancer, so I was excited to see what their reunion might bring. And… s’okay, I suppose. In particular, you will need to be in a very forgiving mood as far as the plot goes. The heroine is Scarlett (Stone), a nursing student at odds with her father, Cal (Krause), a single parent who keeps her on a tight leash and has trained Scarlett in all manner of unusual skills, from martial arts to pursuit evasion. For we know, and Scarlett doesn’t, that her father is a globetrotting spy, who is concerned his pigeons might come home to roost one day.

Turns out, he’s right to worry, and he is kidnapped by people who want a bioweapon he is holding, so they can sell it to the highest bidder. Scarlett has to turn her skills to practical use, locate the people who abducted her father and release him. Except, her first attempt instead frees Sean (McConnell), an associate of her father who had also been kidnapped by the bad guys. Somewhat reluctantly, he teams up with Scarlett as her investigation brings her ever closer to a face-off where she’ll exchange her father for the vial of bio-nastiness. One of the numerous problems with the story is, the twist in the second half is blatantly obvious. I’m usually easy to fool, but spotted it quickly. Even worse, Chris wandered in about half-way and within five minutes, had also nailed it. That Scarlett was apparently oblivious, doesn’t quite jibe with her supposedly razor-sharp abilities, that let her easily out-think and out-fight the professionals the rest of the time.

Stone is not bad, clearly doing a lot of her own action, to decent effect; even simple things like a foot-chase, which sees her leaping fences in a way which would have many actresses calling for a stunt double. However, it feels as if she takes a back seat to her father as things proceed. While Krause is actually surprisingly good, he’s no Scott Adkins – and to be honest, we’re not here for him, but the action promised by the sleeve, which puts Scarlett front and centre. I think this might have worked better had they been a fully-functional and active father-daughter partnership before his abduction (the end vaguely hints at that as a possible future direction). As is, the repeated flashbacks needed to cover her training makes for a bit of an awkward structure, not adding much to  proceedings.  The film is a good idea, and the low-budget is well enough disguised not to be a problem. The script, however, is well below par, and ends up taking the whole endeavour down with it.

Dir: John Lyde
Star: Melanie Stone, Brian Krause, David McConnell

Jet, by Russell Blake

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

Born as Maya, the heroine here adopted the name of “Jet” when she became part of a seriously black ops group, part of the Israeli intelligence service known as the Mossad. There, she and her colleagues had carried out thoroughly deniable operations against… well, supposedly Israel’s enemies, though it’s not as if she asks questions. The secrecy wasn’t limited to her work, as she carried on an unsanctioned relationship with David, the man in charge of the group. But eventually, it all became too much: with David’s assistance, Jet faked her own death on a mission and vanished off the grid, re-appearing as “Carla” in Trinidad, where she enjoyed a quiet life for several years. That came to a sudden end when assassins make an attempt to terminate her new identity. Her cover has clearly been blown. The questions are: what happened, who is responsible, and how can Maya a.k.a. Jet a.k.a. Carla restore the balance?

Finding the answers apparently requires her to rack up the air miles, as the resulting narrative goes from Trinidad through Venezuela to Israel, then back via Cyprus to Belize, before finishing off in Monaco. And that’s not even including any globe-trotting in the flashbacks to her time as a Mossad agent. Still, I guess that’s one of the fun things about writing a novel: you don’t have a production budget! While this aspect feels reminiscent of a Bond book, I think Kill Bill is perhaps a greater inspiration here. This is apparent both in the fractured timeline, and in particular, the revelation at the end of the book, which clearly sets up Jet’s direction for the next volume. As well as her being an unstoppable bad-ass, of course.

If the book has a weakness, it’s likely David, whose actions don’t appear to be consistent with each other. It’s hard to be specific without spoilers for “that” revelation, but if he loved Jet as much as some things imply, why did he not quit his job and go be with her when she pulled her vanishing act? This question is somewhat addressed, but the argument, little more than “He’d taken an oath”, falls a long way short of being convincing. I think their relationship either needed to be depicted in considerably more nuanced depth, or considerably less. As an action fan, who tends to roll his eyes whenever romance crops up, I’m leaning towards the latter.

Jet just doesn’t feel like a person who needs anyone else, and Stone’s handle on the action – which is plentiful – is good enough that anything else feels like an unwanted distraction. I felt it was particularly strong at the beginning, as the heroine tried to get out of Trinidad, providing an excellent demonstration of Jet’s abilities. But the raid she and David carried out on the Belize compound was also impressive. Overall, I’d not be averse to reading more – though I’d probably rather wait for the movie instead.

Author: Russell Blake
Publisher: Reprobatio Limited, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
1 of 15 in the Jet series.

The Serpent

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★★
“You’ve got to tell him about the other bombs inside the kids.”

Wait, what? Other bombs? Inside kids? Less than two minutes in and I am already incredibly confused – because before the line above, there was no mention at all of bombs or kids. All we’d had is Detective Franklin (Wade) get a weird call at a shooting from someone promising to tell him the truth about what happened. He gets into his car, and Lucinda Kavsky (Skova) pounces from the back seat. Here is their exchange, in full.

“Who the hell are you?”
“Lucinda Kavsky, CIA. I will tell you everything I know about this case. Okay?”
“Well, hot damn if I don’t believe that story. How’d you get into this mess? Y’know, I think you’re going to have to contact Rodney Williams of the CIA, there’s no other choice.”
“I’ve already sent all the proof to him.”
“Well, you’ve got to tell him about the other bombs inside the kids.”

Yes, time of death is, exactly one minute and 58 seconds in. I have never seen a movie go from zero to completely inexplicable so quickly. A few seconds later, Franklin says, “Your explanation’s good enough for me.” No. It’s not. I can’t help feeling as if there was a large chunk of exposition edited out between the second and third lines, and the film never recovers. We do eventually discover that there is a plot to create bio-weapons by implanting chips of some (ill-defined) kind into kids. Kavsky stumbled into it when she took over a mission for a friend, and has been hunted ever since by those – both inside and outside the CIA – who are seeking to keep it secret.

It’s a straightforward story, and one which would have benefited enormously from a straightforward telling. Instead, we end up with what feels like a Russian doll-like series of flashbacks, including a five-year (!) period spent by Kavsky in prison. Quite what the bad guys were doing during all this time, is – like so much else – never explained. It makes about as much sense as the high numbers of British accents sported by supposed CIA operatives, not least Lucinda herself.

The action is no great shakes, except for one sequence where she is helping a doctor remove one of the chips from Avy (Heath) a subject she has rescured, when her phone is tracked to the hospital and an assault launched. The resulting battle is… Well, realism isn’t its strong suit, shall we say. But it’s done with enough enthusiasm to give it at least a fighting chance of overcoming any credibility issues. Otherwise, it’s about what you’d expect from a former model who is also making her debut as both writer and director. All credit to Ms. Skova, whose cheekbones alone should count as lethal weapons, for actually making a damn movie. But you’d have to be extremely charitable to consider this as more than entry level, especially when it comes to the script, which is simply far too serpentine for its own good.

Dir: Gia Skova
Star: Gia Skova, Travis Aaron Wade, Nigel Vonas, Violet Heath

The Barista’s Guide To Espionage, by Dave Sinclair

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

Eva Destruction – and, yes, that is the legal name of the character – is an Australian expat who owns a coffee shop in Central London. But when we first meet her, she is making a hasty exit off a rapidly-exploding tropical island, somewhere in the Pacific. How she gets from point A to B, is the saga which unfolds in flashback over the course of this book, as she tells her history to the disbelieving American navy officers who rescue her off the island.

The key player in that, and Eva’s transformation from barista to secret agent, is her boyfriend Harry. For he actually turns out to be Horatio Lancing, a cross between Elon Musk and Edward Snowden, a hi-tech idealist with unlimited resources and an agenda. Initially, it’s apparently benign: applying pressure to governments around the world to “do the right thing” and act on behalf of the people they supposedly represent. But Eva eventually finds out, his end-game is considerably less altruistic. Due to her connection to Harry, she comes to the attention of the British intelligence services, who recruit and train Eva through unrepentant chauvinist Charles Bishop, in an effort to use their relationship to help stop Harry. And they’re not the only ones out to do so.

The resulting adventure globe-trots from London to Iceland and Prague, before ending on Harry’s secret island lair. By the end, Eva proves to be as capable of whipping up improvised munitions as a double-shot latte, even if her prowess with firearms allegedly comes mostly from the somewhat unlikely source of Virtua Cop II. She is, unquestionably, very much an archetypal Aussie girl, with all that implies – both good and bad. She’s brash to a fault, and can curse like a sailor, but is fiercely loyal to her friends. Interestingly, that applies even to Harry, with whom she stays well past the point I think I’d have noped out of there. She also suffers some angst, when Eva realizes she has abandoned all her feminist ideals for a jet-setting lifestyle and a castle, effectively becoming “an exceptionally high-priced hooker.”

It’s all entertaining enough, if thoroughly disposable and largely implausible, with the important people miraculously surviving against all odds. It is the kind of plot which is probably impossible to read with any seriousness, so it’s fortunate that the author and his heroine embrace this. Even if that does make it difficult to care, when it’s all being taken very lightly by everyone involved. Sinclair does have a good way with action, both in a hellacious chase through Prague, and the eventual, very Bond-like climax on the island. At least the relationship between Eva and Harry does go some way to justifying the “Before I kill you, let me tell you my entire plan” trope. I probably won’t be actively seeking out subsequent volumes. But I’ll tell you this: I wouldn’t mind a movie adaptation either.

Author: Dave Sinclair
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
1 of 4 in the Eva Destruction series.

The Golden Lady

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★★½
“The Gun With the Golden Girl”

This British film occupies an odd middle ground between Ian Fleming and Jackie Collins – with a garnish of… The Village People? Yeah, there were points where I genuinely wondered what I’d strayed into. The titular female is Julia Hemingway (Skriver, under the rather laughable screen name of “Christina World”, which seems more like a dubious theme-park), who is a corporate espionage specialist. She accepts a commission to infiltrate the bidding for oil rights in a Middle Eastern country, on behalf of one of the four participants.

With the auction about to take place in London, Hemingway brings in three agents (Danielle, Chadwick and Pavel), and tasks each with working on one of the other candidates – not least with their sexual wiles. However, as an increasing number of dead bodies start to show up, it becomes clear that this is not straightforward business. More than one government intelligence agency is highly interested in the outcome, and is prepared to stop at nothing to get the right outcome.

Director Larraz is best known for the cult horror movie Vampyres, and certainly seems out of his element here. There is probably a decent spy thriller in here – there’s a reason Desmond Llewellyn, the long-term Q in the Bond films, shows up in a minor role. Hemingway and her “angels” are all perfectly smart and capable too. Except, just when some momentum builds up, it keeps going off the rails, in a variety of directions. Some of those aren’t so bad: Ava Cadell, later to be a sexy radio host for Andy Sidaris, plays a modestly-priced hooker.

But then there’s the terrible soundtrack, book-ended with songs by The Three Degrees and (gack!) Charles Aznavour. And don’t get me started on the entirely gratuitous nightclub performances by Blonde On Blonde (a pop combo made up of two Page 3 models) and Hot Gossip, a “naughty” dance troupe, who at one point included future Mrs. Andrew Lloyd-Webber, Sarah Breitman, in their ranks. The kindest thing about them I can say is, there may be an alternate universe where these sequences made sense.

The action quotient is about as limited as you’d expect from a seventies British film, even if the ladies occasionally do get to engage in some brief fisticuffs of the limited kind. The best sequence is probably towards the end, when Dahlia (Danielle) is in a low-flying helicopter, blasting away at her target on the ground as they swoop back and forth; it looks rather risky, not least because it appears to be the actress herself present in the cockpit. I was also at least somewhat amused by the use of technology here. I imagine it was quite advanced for the late seventies, though they may want to recalibrate their database. Given the context of their work, I’m not certain that “nymphomanic” really deserves to be classified as a weakness for an agent. But generally, it’s boring stuff.

Dir: José Ramón Larraz
Star: Ina Skriver, Suzanne Danielle, June Chadwick, Anika Pavel

Ready, Willing and Able

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★★★
“Puts the ‘able’ in disabled.”

This is certainly something of a novelty and/or a gimmick. But it’s none the less reasonably effective for it. Templeton – who is a woman, despite her first name, given to her after the character of Christopher Robin in the Winnie The Pooh books – suffered from polio as a young child. This left her with a badly damaged right leg; despite this, she pursued an acting career, and became a regular on soap The Young and the Restless for eight years. While I’ve seen a few disabled action heroes – Daredevil was blind – as far as disabled action heroines go, it’s basically her and Imperator Furiosa from Mad Max. And Charlize Theron wasn’t genuinely short an arm, so advantage Templeten. Though, sadly, she appears to have passed away in 2011.

She plays Samantha ‘Sam’ Martin, a former CIA agent who is confined to a wheelchair after a mission goes wrong. Back in civilian life, she goes for a job as the manager for at corporate security firm F.R.T.R.I.S. The owner, Lamont Vaughn (Steve DuMouchel), quickly terminates the interview without giving Sam a fair change. As revenge, she seeks to show how the company’s security sucks, by breaking into their HQ. Doing so, she finds evidence indicating that F.R.T.R.I.S are involved in shady business, involving chemical weapons. Attempts to alert the authorities go nowhere, so Sam puts together and leads a team of her old colleagues to find irrefutable evidence of Vaughn’s wrongdoing. However, the CEO quickly becomes aware of her efforts and takes countermeasures.

For the majority of the time, it plays considerably more like a TV movie than a genuine feature, to the point where you can almost see the commercial breaks. Just as I was certain of that, there is suddenly a gratuitous sequence where Sam meets one of her team in a bargain basement rock/strip-club. This, along with occasional spots of non-televisual language, suggest it was more likely straight-to-video. The most laudable thing is how Sam absolutely refuses to let her disability stop or even slow her down. She can take out a mugger or chase after an attacker – though I must admit, the sequence where she zip-lined off the roof of the F.R.T.R.I.S building, in her wheelchair, was probably a bit of a stretch.

The final third becomes more or less a single, extended set-piece, covering the team’s infiltration into the F.R.T.R.I.S lair, and subsequent battle with their operatives. Turns out, in a twist, someone with whom Sam is quite familiar is working for the other team, though I can’t say it’s a particularly stunning turn of events, dramatically speaking. It’s all handled competently enough, though again, is never able to achieve escape velocity from the gravity well of mediocrity. I’d probably rather have seen Sam going solo, and exercising more ingenuity and inventiveness rather than her having to rely on her colleagues as much as here. That said, it’s still something you won’t see every day.

Dir: Jenni Gold
Star: Christopher Templeton, Rus Blackwell, Steve DuMouchel, Mike Kalvoda

Ava

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★★★
“Haywire. With baggage”

It has been a rough year for action heroines at the cinema. Actually, it has been a rough year for everyone everywhere, thanks to COVID-19. But for the purposes of this site, we have been sadly lacking the kind of tentpole releases which we usually write about over the summer. Wonder Woman 1984, for example, was to have come out in June. But with all venues bar the few remaining drive-ins closed, that was moved first to August, then October [and I don’t know about you, but I’m still not comfortable with the concept of cinema going]. Disney’s live-action version of Mulan opted to bypass theatres all together, and will instead be released on their streaming service.

Poor Ava is suffering a similar fate, going straight to video-on-demand in most places – except, bizarrely, in Hungary, according to Wikipedia. Certainly, given its rather high-powered cast, you would have expected better for this, in a normal world. It still, however, probably ranks as the biggest-profile action heroine movie of the year – at least for a few days until Mulan shows up. To be honest, though, it doesn’t do enough to justify that position. While Chastain is very good in the central role, it’s burdened down by too much drama to be effective, and comes over mostly like a soap-opera adaptation of Haywire.

Ava (Chastain) has overcome a troubled past to become an assassin for a murky intelligence agency, working for Duke (Malkovich). But she is increasingly questioning her work – indeed, literally doing so, having an unnerving habit of asking her targets why someone wants them killed. After a supposedly stealth operation in Saudi Arabia becomes not-so-stealthy, Duke’s protege, Simon (Farrell), takes matters into his own hands, bypassing Duke to put out a kill order on Ava. She’s none too pleased by this, obviously, and seeks to turn the tables on him.

The above paragraph is lean, mean and would have made for a perfectly decent movie. However, the script apparently decides it’s not enough – perhaps Chastain wanted something into which she could sink her dramatic teeth. For we get a whole slew of subplots and conflicts thrown on top. These include, but are not limited, to the following. Ava is a recovering alcoholic. Ava is estranged from her sister (Weixler). Ava had a previous relationship with her sister’s boyfriend, and there are still feelings there. He has a gambling problem. Ava caught her father having an affair, which led to her leaving home. It also caused Ava to break ties with her mother, played by Geena Davis.

It’s all too much, dragging down the plot. Say what you like about Haywire, you never cared that Mallory Kane didn’t have a compelling history, for the film was too busy moving forward to look back. This one spends too much time creating, and then having to tidy up, all these loose ends from Ava’s past. I just wasn’t interested. Though those scenes did give me time to imagine ways this could have worked better.  It would have been way cool if, at the end, Davis had thrown off her motherly trappings, revealed she also used to be a government assassin [perhaps actually being Samantha Caine, Geena’s character from The Long Kiss Goodnight], and teamed up with Ava to take down Simon.

This movie writing thing is a piece of cake.

Anyway, no such luck. The stuff between the drama is not bad, though I have some… questions about seeing the 66-year-old Malkovich going toe-to-toe with Farrell [ditto the 59-year-old Joan Chen and Chastain, actually] Or Farrell’s choice of facial hair and black turtleneck, which give him an unfortunate resemblance to 1930’s fascist, Sir Oswald Mosley. Or Simon’s decisions, including calling up Ava, apparently purely for taunting purposes, then going after her by himself, rather than first sending an escalating series of minions. If the movie hadn’t spent so much time dwelling on all of Ava’s drama, maybe we would have had time for such things.

Despite the relentless slagging delivered over the previous few paragraphs, this wasn’t actually too bad. The lead actress is the main reason why. If the film feels like a cinematic opposite of Anna, where the heroine was little more than a gun-carrying clothes-horse, Chastain is able to carry the weight of all those subplots, and deliver a complex character. She has played her share of action roles previously, perhaps most notably as far as we are concerned, in The Huntsman: Winter’s War, where we said she “kicks surprising amounts of butt.” Here, this aspect is front and centre, and she acquits herself well, even if her hand-to-hand combat against considerably larger opponents could have used a force equalizer or two more, for the sake of credibility.

Two scenes likely stand out. The first (and only!) attempt on her life by Simon’s minion, in a Paris park. And the final battle against him in her hotel bedroom [again, echoes of the similarly-located fight in Haywire between Gina Carano and Michael Fassbender]. Equal credit for those probably has to go to the ever-reliable Amy Johnston, star of Lady Bloodfight, who was Chastain’s stunt double for this. I should also mention Simon’s daughter, Camille, played by Diana Silvers. The ending, though somewhat conclusive, sets up a potential future Camille vs. Ava scenario, which I must confess, I would not mind seeing at all.

Overall, it is worth a look, though its insistence on trying to insert dramatic conflicts into a vehicle that doesn’t need them, becomes increasingly annoying as the movie progresses. When it’s not doing so, however, it is a slick, Bourne-like entity, providing a decent vehicle for Chastain to show off her action credentials. as well as her already-known acting skills. On that basis, it’s a shame I suspect it’s going to end up not being seen by too many people – thanks, Coronavirus! I hope that won’t put her off further exploration of our genre, as it can always use some more high-powered leads.

Dir: Tate Taylor
Star:  Jessica Chastain, John Malkovich, Colin Farrell, Jess Weixler 

The Harlequin and the Drangue, by Liane Zane

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

Goodreads author Liane Zane is a published novelist under her real name, but has adopted this pen name for her new venture into paranormal romance, beginning with this opener for a projected series. She and I are Goodreads friends, so I accepted her offer of a free review copy, with no guarantee of a favorable one. PNR as such isn’t typically my thing (nor is “romance” in general, in the book trade sense); but both supernatural fiction and action adventure are, and I could easily approach this book in those terms. I’m also a sucker for a well-drawn action heroine who kicks butt and takes names –and here we have not just one but three such ladies.

Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament, referring to the time before Noah’s flood, states, “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days –and also afterward– when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown” (6:4). Biblical scholars are not agreed on exactly what the writer meant by this; but one ancient interpretation, articulated for instance in the inter-testamental Book of Enoch {which is not actually by Enoch], held that it refers to matings of rebellious angels and humans, with resulting offspring. Personally, I’m skeptical of that interpretation, but I can accept it as a fictional conceit in a novel; and it’s used as such in a number of modern novels, usually (as here) with the idea that these mixed bloodlines survived to the present day. Zane terms the descendants of these pairings the “Elioud;” her premise is that they may or may not know of their heritage and may have different amounts of angelic genes, but they inherit certain physical/mental powers, to the degree of angelic ancestry they have. Like angels and other humans, they also have free will; those who know their ancestry may ally themselves with God’s cause –or with the Adversary.

This information is the backdrop context for this novel; it’s disclosed more gradually in the book, but IMO it’s not a spoiler, and is actually helpful for the reader to know from the get-go. That understood, our setting is present-day central and eastern Europe, initially Vienna. Protagonist Olivia Markham is a young (I think her age is said to be 24) but very capable CIA agent stationed there, under the cover of graduate study and internship in international business development. But unknown to the Company, she has a side hobby: by night, she sometimes dons a Harlequin mask to take on sexual predators/rapists who use the Internet to line up victims; and she has a couple of female friends (also with backgrounds in covert intelligence) who help her.

Her latest target is a slime-ball who calls himself Asmodeus, the name of a demon in the Book of Tobit from the Apocrypha. What she doesn’t know, however, is that Asmodeus just might be his real name, and that he’s heading up a murderous cult who call themselves bogomili after a medieval Gnostic sect. (The Bogomils were an actual sect which originated in the Balkans, and which I’d read of before in various places, but the medieval Bogomils weren’t into murdering people to “liberate” their souls.) She also doesn’t know that he has another adversary watching him, a wealthy Albanian named Mihail Kastrioti, who has some friends of his own, friends who call him a drangue, which is usually translated as “dragon” in English. A drangue is a being known in actual Albanian folklore, but the concept is really pre-Christian and Zane has reinterpreted it somewhat. The plot takes off from there; and it’ll be quite a ride!

At 517 pages, this is a thick, substantial novel, but it doesn’t feel padded in the least; it flows quickly, with steady development of events, no dull moments, and a lot of action. In between, our heroines and heroes may stop to regroup and compare notes, and Zane may use the interludes to develop characters and impart information; but they’re interesting characters and information which are well worth developing and imparting, and which enhance the story. Characterization here is very adept and three-dimensional, and definitely a strong point. It’s obvious that the author also has done a lot of background research into history, Balkan culture and language (foreign-language phrases are translated for the reader where they need to be) etc.; it shows, but in a good way that masterfully evokes the setting as a seamless part of the narrative, not in the form of info-dumps or displays of erudition. She clearly has a particularly good grasp of the physical geography of Vienna and other cities where events take place. Action scenes are handled realistically and well. There’s a high body count, but no wallowing in gore for its own sake. As a whole, the story is a page-turner with a high tension and suspense factor, especially near the end.

While this is not “Christian fiction” in the commercial sense – it has a small amount of occasional profanity and obscenity, within the bounds of reasonable realism for the characters speaking – it is fiction written by a Christian. We get a picture of angels and demons, and their interaction, here which is morally and theologically consistent with what we’re told in the Bible, not a drastic reinterpretation of it in the manner of some modern writers. We’re solidly in the realm of a serious, high-stakes conflict between clearly defined good and evil, which grounds the novel and gives it substance. There’s no illicit or explicit sexual activity as such, though readers should be warned that there is one scene that could be described as “steamy”. There’s a clear closure to the immediate story arc with no cliffhanger, while the stage is clearly set for the projected sequel, which I want to read!

IMO, Olivia’s vigilante activities are unrealistic for a CIA operative. They’d be far too risky in terms of possible exposure and unwanted publicity: the Harlequin mask would hide her face, but still draw attention, and the consequences of her bosses’ wrath if they found out about it too drastic to risk. It’s also likely that the CIA’s recruiting process would have included psychological profiling which would have red-flagged vigilante tendencies; and there’s also the problem of what to do with offenders if she did catch them –just beat them up? Lethal force isn’t her default option –though she’s not squeamish about using it when she needs to– and she can’t make a citizen’s arrest and turn them in at the police station. The entire plot here unfolds in less than a fortnight, so there’s an insta-love situation with the attendant credibility challenge. If the angels mating with humans before the Flood were said to be disobedient, it renders it dubious to have similar unions going on in post-medieval times, between humans and angels in good standing. And one key aspect of the way a demon-acolyte bond magically works was a bit murky, at least to me. That kept my literary rating from a full five stars this time; but this is nonetheless a very good novel, and highly recommended!

The four-star kick-butt quotient here, for action-heroine action, draws on the activities of all three of our female spies/vigilantes. Olivia contributes her share to the body count I mentioned; but her two friends and sidekicks ably shoulder some serious action as well. My guess is that each of them are very likely to serve as protagonists in their own books in the series, which will make it at least a trilogy!

Author: Liane Zane
Publisher: Self-published; available through Amazon, both for Kindle and as a printed book.
A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads.