The movie adaption of Agatha Christie's novel Evil Under the Sun, published in 1941, premiered March 5, 1982 with a stellar cast. Peter Ustinvo appears as Hercule Poirot for the second time. He previously played the detective in Death On The Nile. Evil Under the Sun also starred Dame Maggie Smith, Roddy McDowall, and Diana Rigg.
This movie did not do as well at the box office as previous Agatha Christie adaptions had, but it did receive critical acclaim with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 86%.
I was intrigued by the title of Brandreth’s book Oscar Wilde and the Vatican Murders, since it promised to depict a giant of literature as a detective. In fact, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is the main character, with him as the narrator in first person, with Wilde as secondary. However, as the story unfolds, it is Wilde who employs Sherlock Holmes’s techniques to solve a mystery and murders unfolding in the Vatican. Although Doyle is the creator of Holmes, one of the world’s greatest detectives, he is relegated to playing Watson to Wilde’s Holmes.
Doyle is depicted as clueless and Wilde is the observant one,
who eventually solves the mystery.
During the heyday of Doyle, the author received volumes of
fan mail, including many messages for Sherlock Holmes. In Brandreth’s novel, Doyle receives several
packages addressed to Holmes, which he opened weeks and months after receipt. Doyle had been delinquent in responding to
his mail, which moved slowly in the late nineteenth century. Among the correspondence, Doyle found a mummified
hand, a severed finger with a rose-gold ring, and a lock of hair.
Since the packages were sent from Rome, Oscar Wilde
convinces Doyle that they must travel there to discover the source of the objects,
the purpose in sending them, and solve the mystery of their origin.
To Wilde, money is no object and is more than willing to
throw it around to conduct the investigation in luxury, with good food and
drink.
Brandreth employs Wilde’s flair and witticism throughout the
novel. But his treatment of Doyle is bland
in comparison. Doyle seems dull and
without personality. Of course, compared
to Wilde, most everybody would be ordinary.
In this story, Doyle meets a charming young lady, “Irene Sadler” (an
obvious reference to Irene Adler, who appears in A Scandal in Bohemia, and is
the only person to outsmart Sherlock Holmes). It seems Doyle is smitten by Irene
Sadler based on Wilde's observations, but there are no inner thoughts or acknowledgement of his feelings
toward her.
Weird.
If you’re an Oscar Wilde fan, you might enjoy this novel,
but it really did not hold my interest and took me a while to finish it.
Her main character Cassandra Lynch, while in Bergen, Norway,
gets a job of her dreams, being the skipper of a Viking longship for a
film. The downside is she has to return
to the Shetland Islands, where she escaped some fourteen years earlier. Now she must face all the ghosts and skeletons
she left behind.
During the movie shoot, Cassie finds the starlet of the film
dead on the deck of the Viking longship.
Usher in a tired trope of identical twins. We’ve seen it before. Favelle, the actress had a twin sister Maree,
who routinely fills in for the star for certain shots. And has mysteriously disappeared.
The questions begin quickly.
Was Favelle the intended victim? Or was someone trying to kill her
stand-n sister Maree? Was Favelle mistaken for Maree? Where is Maree? As moldy as this trope is,
Taylor does manage to keep it new and not tedious.
Another breath of fresh air is the array of characters.
First, we meet a group of hardened sailors and fishermen in Shetland. Then in a slight dig at Americans (which we
probably deserve), the movie production crew descend upon the small village, rather
oblivious to the local customs and ways, giving the natives much to laugh
about. The crew includes the starlet
diva Favelle, her husband-director Ted, his guard-dog assistant Elizabeth, and
the twin sister Maree.
Albeit later in the novel, Cassie’s internationally famous
opera singer mother minces back into the scene, trying to wrest control of the
situation.
Taylor keeps the plot convoluted and confusing to the readers
to keep them guessing to the last minute.
In a scene, straight out of a Scooby-doo cartoon, Cassie is able to
unmask the killer.
If one enjoys cozy mysteries with a modern setting in a colorful location, Taylor’s first foray into the mystery genre is a good read. For fans of the grittier, rougher stories, one might find this one a bit tame.
.jpg)
Everyone in Opelousas,
Louisiana hated Agnes Seyfert. The
sheriff, local businessmen, the gay priest she outed, even her own family. When her body is discovered in her booby-trap
laden house, nobody seems sad she’s dead.
Paranormal sleuth, Randy Arsenault, of the Psionic Corps is brought into
the investigation and discovers she was suffocated, murdered in her own
bed. It is soon discovered she suffered
from an advanced form of cancer and had high levels of arsenic in her system.
Randy realizes he has more suspects than he can count: The dead woman’s three daughters, her grandchildren, a gay priest she outed, a local stylist, a mechanic and his own fiancé.
With a hurricane bearing down on Louisiana, Randy races against time to find out what actually happened to the old lady before Hurricane Abigail destroys everything.
It's a re-release from earlier, but still, I'm excited to announce Purple Sword Publishing has released A Faire Day for Murder by Alan Scott.
Blurb:
The brutal murder
of an old man in his isolated farmhouse and very few clues leaves local law
enforcement with no alternative but to ask the Psionic Corps for help. Ian Houston with his paranormal abilities is
called in but his presence isn’t welcomed by all. The sheriff is convinced the owners of the
nearby renaissance faire are behind the murder, especially since the victim was
about to evict the faire from his land just as their season was getting underway.
Ian is not
convinced the case is so straightforward, especially since there are other
people with just as motive for doing away with the old man; the neighbor whom
he has had a long-going property dispute, the son who will inherit his lands
although the farm isn’t very profitable; one of the many participants and
patrons of the faire whom the old man harassed over the years. To keep innocent people from being charged
with murder, Ian must join the renaissance faire as a cast member to see if
there is a murderer lurking among the ren folke.
Compounding his
investigation is the beautiful actress Diana Morgan who instantly steals his
heart. But as a cast member, she is also
under suspicion and Ian discovers she may have a dark past, too.
A second murder
confounds the investigation and the mystery becomes even more confused. Meanwhile the sheriff is moving closer to
charging the renaissance faire owners with murder.
Can Ian use his powers to find the real culprit and prove his new-found friends innocent?
