#whodunnits

[basicallyanotherwitchesthing]

Ellis Peters - A Morbid Taste for Bones - MacMillan - 1977

[oldhollywoodfilms]

Here's our top five TCM picks for the week of Jan. 4, 2021:

1. Gilda (1946) at 10:45 am ET/7:45 am PT Tuesday, Jan. 5: Every Tuesday in January TCM's lineup will feature films from each of the old Hollywood studios (for more on how the studio system operated, read Martin Scorsese's monthly column for TCM: https://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/020898?source=nav). This week's daytime lineup features films from Columbia Pictures, including Gilda, the quintessential Columbia noir with the studio's quintessential star, Rita Hayworth. FYI: The primetime and late night lineup are dedicated to Warner Bros. studio.

2. Death on the Nile (1978) at 8 pm ET/5 pm PT Wednesday, Jan. 6: The Wednesday night lineup of whodunnits begins with this Agatha Christie adaptation starring Peter Ustinov as Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. The all-star lineup includes Bette Davis, Maggie Smith, and David Niven, but Angela Lansbury steals the show as a flamboyant romance novelist.

3. Trouble in Paradise (1932) at 10 pm ET/7 pm PT Thursday, Jan. 7: This sophisticated pre-code comedy about love among jewel thieves is one of several films star-of-the-month Miriam Hopkins made with director Ernst Lubitsch. Hopkins plays a beautiful pickpocket who teams up with a suave jewel thief (Herbert Marshall).

 4. North by Northwest (1959) at 8 pm ET/5 pm PT Saturday, Jan. 9: This thriller about a handsome advertising executive (Cary Grant) who gets mixed up in international espionage is perhaps the perfect Hitchcock film. We'll be tweeting along on Saturday night at  https://twitter.com/oldhollywood21

5. Remains of the Day (1993) at 8 pm ET/5 pm PT Sunday, Jan. 10: This drama about the inner workings of a great English estate just before the start of World War II is a beautifully wrought period piece with a brilliant Anthony Hopkins as a repressed butler who sacrifices his family and personal happiness for duty.

[cathygeha]

REVIEW

Rich Justice by Robert Bailey

Jason Rich #3

“There is only one kind of justice on Sand Mountain…” and that is often a bullet rather than a prison sentence. Great story addition to the series.

What I liked:

* Jason Rich: lawyer, wealthy, alcoholic who fell off the wagon when his license was suspended, in a dark place, good friends with the Tonidandels – like brothers to him, brilliant, here’s his deceased sister’s voice at times, accused of murder

* Shay Lankford: lawyer, ex-District Attorney, bright, trying to find her purpose, becomes advisor to Jason as he defends himself, loves her mother, might be a future love interest

* The Tonidandels: three brothers that were wild as children, are distinguished military veterans, lethal, protective and there for those that they care about – they did not come out unscathed this time

* The small-town dynamics and finding out why and how the meth-king has more power in many ways than the law

* The plot, pace, setting, and writing – drew me in and kept me reading from beginning to end * The unexpected twists and turns and way I felt at the end

* The complexity of the case facing Jason and how he finally manages to get the facts needed to win a very personal case

* That Sand Mountain justice was achieved even though there was collateral damage

* That there was a bit of light at the end that had me wanting to find out what happens next.

What I didn’t like:

* Who and what I was meant not to like

* The ruthlessness of the drug gang and the fear all have when they are around

Did I enjoy this book? Yes

Would I read more in this series? Yes

Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for the ARC – This is my honest review.

5 Stars

BLURB

In this twisty thriller from Wall Street Journal bestselling author Robert Bailey, a disgraced attorney’s mistakes come back to haunt him when he’s tried for a murder he didn’t commit.

Once the flashy, successful lawyer known for his in-your-face billboards—IN AN ACCIDENT? GET RICH—Jason Rich has fallen from grace, his reputation scrubbed of its glitz and his life stripped of the people he cares about. All thanks to meth kingpin Tyson Cade.

But when Cade is shot and killed in the heart of his territory, things go from bad to worse for Jason as he is charged with his murder.

To clear his name, Jason seeks help from an unlikely source: Shay Lankford, an old adversary and attorney almost as disgraced as Jason himself. Now Jason and Shay have even more to lose—their lives—as they dig into the dangerous truth behind Tyson Cade’s murder.

Neither time nor evidence is on their side, but after everything he’s lost, Jason is determined to save his future from the mistakes of his past—no matter the price.

[twittercomfrnklin2001-blog]

See How They Run

Loaded with in-jokes, Tom George’s SEE HOW THEY RUN (2022, HBO Max) is great fun though never quite as clever as its creators would like us to think it is. An American film director (Adrien Brody, whose frequent return in flashbacks is most welcome) is murdered and left on the stage of Agatha Christie’s THE MOUSETRAP. Eccentric police inspector Sam Rockwell is assigned to the case with the delightful Saoirse Ronan as his overeager assistant. Suspects include the play’s stars, Sir Richard Attenborough (Harris Dickinson) and Sheila Sim (Pearl Chanda), its producer (Ruth Wilson) and the play’s screen adapter (Dave Oyelowo). The picture has meta elements — Brody’s complaints about formulaic whodunnits describe the film’s plot, and Oyelowo mocks film conventions like flashbacks and titles saying “Three Months Later” in the midst of narrating a flashback that contains just such a title — but they never make it beyond clever. Though George’s direction is serviceable if a bit overwrought (he loves his split screens), the cast keeps the whole thing afloat. The play is set in our current idealized past, so purists and bigots will be upset to see people of color and women in positions of power they wouldn’t have held in 1953. But if that means we get Oyelowo’s delicious turn as a playwright who keeps his “nephew” in his overdecorated flat or Wilson’s steely producer, I’ll gladly grant the production historical license. As escapism, the film is well worth your time, and if you’re a fan of Tom Stoppard (Rockwell’s character is named for him) and/or Agatha Christie, you’ll wallow in the references to their work, though in one case knowing Christie too well might just lead you astray.

[offthewallplays]

Well-deserved holiday? Check. Beautiful apartment in the Canary Islands? Check. Some much needed R&R? Double check for both R’s. Good friends, James and Ollie are supposed to be enjoying their time on holiday. It is also the perfect opportunity to catch up with some friends who've also taken to the Canaries (though Ollie is somewhat…

[bouncingtigger10]

New Post has been published on The Bouncing Tigger Reads

New Post has been published on http://www.tiggerreviews.com/winter-whodunnits-box-set/

Winter WhoDunnits Box Set

Winter WhoDunnits in order:

A Pie to Die for  Stacey Alabaster

This is the first of this set that I have read and i must say that it did not hold my attention.  I failed to complete the story even though I was about 60% of the way through.

A Merry Christmas Wedding Mystery  Anne Celeste Burke

Much Ado About Felines  Kathi Daley

The 3rd Girl  Nell Goddin

The Cause of the Hidden Flame  Alison Golden

Murder at Jade Centre  Dianne  Harmon

The Tempting Taste of Danger Cee Cee James

The Slippery Slope of Murder  Summer Prescott

The Case of the Faithful Frenchie BR Snow

The Root of All Evil  Shanon Van Bergen

Pineapple Lies  Amy vansant

Haunted disappearance JA Whiting

[shananananagins]

Assassins from around the world have gathered for the annual 'Killers International' meeting. Strangely enough, one of them ends up murdered - who's the killer's killer?

@chesshunter38 I like this one but here are few others as well...

http://www.mysterygamecentral.com/games/MasqueradeMurderMayhem.html

http://www.mysterygamecentral.com/games/NoMurderPleaseWereBritish.html

[punksanderson]

What a nightmare! I’m in lust with his wife, and now he’s trying to hit on me. Never a dull moment in my life, I tell you.

'The Absurd Nonsense of the Orange Eyebrow' by Punk Sanderson