Return to the Batcave; The Misadventures of Adam and Burt (2003).
IMDb meta data is 1h and 30m, rated 6.5 by 2,300 batfanatics.
Genre: Docucomedy.
DNA: Nostalgia.
Verdict: Batusi!
Tagline: Kapow!
Senior citizens Adam and Burt attend a charity fundraiser at a car museum, where the Batmobile is stolen right out from under their….selves. ‘Holy grand theft auto, Batfans!’ The elderly duo set off in pursuit of the krim(s) by foot, by car, by bus with the help of citizens they….reminisce about the good old days between popping ibuprofen.
Check that utility belt! It is a good natured reprise which it is hard not to like though the New York Times reviewer at the time managed to not like it. What a fuddy-duddy!
It is certainly more diverting than the ever so self-important retakes of the Caped One, Citizens.
IMDb meta-data is 2h and 7m, rated 5.3 by 198,000 cinematizns.
Genre: Sy Fy.
DNA: Hollywood.
Verdict: Oh hum.
Tagline: It cost so much to make, it must be good!
An insipid blend of Dune and Star Wars. I tried to like it, really I did, but I failed. I tried because a trusted source recommended it, then I realised this same source had recommended the shrill Valerian (2017) and the somnambulant The Tangle (2019). This makes three strikes; the trust badge for this source has been revoked.
A similar but much cheaper, less pretentious, more amusing telling of a like story is Vagrant Queen (2020) rated 5.4, which probably cost less than the catering budget for Jupiter Ascending.
Good Reads meta-data is 317 pages rated 3.66 by 3,658 litizens.
Genre: Satire.
DNA: D.C.
Verdict: Reality.
Tagline: They beamed him up, but not for long.
TV Host is the Prince of D.C., then…. His smug ever so polite attack journalism irritates a minion in an deep state agency so secret it may not exist. In a fit of pique Minion hits the keyboard and things are never the same for Host again, nor for Minion. Host’s wealth, his status, his influence, his marriage, his friends, his sponsors, his home, all are soon lost. But like Phoenix he rises to become leader of the Abductees Alliance. Yes, you read that right. The little Green Men got him and he is going to make them pay.
Meanwhile, rejected by the deep state for his ill discipline, Minion joins forces with Host to reveal…. But wait, it is not that simple….
Christopher Buckley
It is a satire on the D.C. establishment, but how can one parody what is already absurd. Buckley tries very hard to do so and does succeed in landing some stingers, but by and large, read today, it seems understated.
Oh, and when it is finally resolved the plot holes are big enough to accommodate the starship Enterprise.
Yes, of that Buckley, born with a silver keyboard in hand.
Good Reads meta-data is 255 pages rated 3.91 by 663 litizens.
Genre: Magic Unrealism.
DNA: North Woods; Species: Vermont.
Verdict: Picturesque.
Tagline: They went thatta way!
The escapades of the ever optimistic Quebec Bill and his coming of age son Wild Bill told in episodes. Many involve the unseen border between ‘Canady’ and US in the news now. Different taxes, different laws, different religions, different languages, different women, different police, are all reasons to cross that boundary, even in depth of winter. Some of their adventures defy one or more laws of nature, but suspend disbelief and go along for the roller coaster ride. Think of it as a cousin of Latin American magic realism with snow, ice, sleet, floes, sheer, piercing winds, hungry critters, and other wintry delights.
Quebec Bill comes up with one fantastic scheme after another, and each one…fails more spectacularly than the one before, but his glass remains half full.
***
This was Mosher’s first novel in the sequence of Kingdom County. I had read four or five others before I backtracked to this one. Ripley, the book explains a lot about both the Vermont Country Store and Bernie Sanders.
I couldn’t help thinking how fragile the ego of some readers must be when I read the comments on Good Reads from those who scored this book ‘1.’ They seemingly cannot let go enough to suspend disbelief. ‘Tant pis,’ as Quebec Bill might say. I have heard it said that it takes all kinds but I can’t see why in many cases.
Good Reads meta-data is 336 pages, rated 3.88 by 1,842 litizens.
Genre: krimi.
DNA: Thai.
Verdict: tour de force debut!
Tagline: Bangkok’s mean streets.
He has lived there long enough to speak Thaiglish and, more importantly, to learn the Bangkok glide and now aspires to sweat less. Yes he is a European ex-pat living cheap in Thailand, writing travel guides for the, ahem, adventurous rough travellers. He is tough and cynical, he thinks. Then he meets several people who give him masterclasses in being tough and cynical.
While I found both subject matters at issue repellant [guess], the reader’s nose is not rubbed into it, and I flipped some pages, but the ride is a mile-a-minute with some unusual (to this jaded hack) characters and unexpected twists and turns.
Bangkok itself is the major character, its human tides and lulls, its uneasy relationship with the eponymous river, its scorching days and hotter nights, its sex tourists, its Buddhist rectitude and venal corruption, its crowded streets and desolate corners, the human flotsam and jetsam that have beached there ….from typhoons , revolutions, wars, tsunamis, crimes, and more. The spine and title page but not the front cover have the subtitle: A Novel of Bangkok.
There are corrupt cops, another who quotes English philosophers, a reluctant and apologetic murderer, a murderous murderess war criminal, a sadist worse than the war criminal, a loving niece, two street kids, Go-Go dancer 47, a righteous seeker of vengeance, all in a rich mélange of characters. There are two plots that interweave but do not combine. Deft. There is no Great Attractor that brings everything together.
The aside on the woeful influence of Nescafé appealed to me because I saw the same thing in Greece, where its convenience displaced some of the best coffee in the world with brown glug.
It just about reads itself, and that is partly due to the very short chapters that speed along with energy on the page.
First in a series: Much as I liked this one I am not going to read another one soon. The repellent subject matters leave a long and unpleasant aftertaste. I have had this one on my shelf for a decade or more, the pages have yellowed, before I got around to it. When I got the first Kindle I switched to reading mainly on it, and only lately have gone back to my stash of paper books.
Timothy Hallinan
The Bangkok glide is to walk slowly and barely lift your feet leaning a few degrees forward as you almost slide/glide forward: Energy conservation in the perishing climate. Hero can work on that. As for sweating less, well maybe that is covered in the later volume of the series.
Good Reads meta-data is rated 3.82 by 4,917 litizens
Genre: krimi.
DNA: Finland
Verdict: TMI.
Tagline: DOA.
He went to the doctor with a headache and the doctor diagnosed something far worse. (See my review of the Brazilian short Instant Doctor elsewhere on the blog.) Hero finds that he has been irreparably poisoned and there is so much internal organ damage he has but weeks, perhaps days, to live. He sets out to find out who has killed him.
He suspects his unfaithful wife or her toy boy and …. Then his business rivals look like prospects. A satisfying array of red herrings are tested before he gets to the least likely candidate. Bingo!
This is a trope used before. The most vivid example I can recall at the moment is the film Dead on Arrival (1949).
Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Elusive Bombay Duck (2025).
Good Reads meta-data is 244 pages rated 4.50 by 84 litizens.
Genre: krimi.
DNA: India.
Verdict: Amusing culture clash.
Tagline: Pass the aloo, and hold the murderer.
Mystery indeed!
Vish Puri, the world’s greatest Indian detective returns to the field after a five-year sabbatical. But he is playing away without the aid of the Handbrake, Tubelight, Flush, Missy and the rest of his agency and on unfamiliar turf. Although West Ham has a lot of India about it, and that comforts him.
Why would Puri leave India and all its food behind? He has been invited to London to receive an award and of course his wife and mother demand to go along. Not ideal but he has no choice but to agree. Then a representative of a Minister who could make his life miserable suborns him into an investigation while in London. Unofficial, hush-hush, secret. As if. This fact he tries to keep from the distaff side but his mother, as always, see through him.
While his original thought was to see sights and sites, with wife and mother along, he knows they will do the rounds of relatives distant, tenuous, and friends of friends and more with little chance to go to the British Museum, Big Ben, or the War Rooms that he wanted to see.
The more Puri tries to trim his sails, the more deeply entangled he becomes. As usual Mummy-ji sets off on her own mission, while assisting him, against his will. A new ingredient is a London born and bred nephew who acts, unwillingly at first, as Puri’s guide and translator. When he discover his fat, old uncle from Indian is on the trail of a major villain, he warms to the chase. Nicely done this clash of cultures and generations.Then there is the closing explanation of how Mummy-ji was able to get a passport and visa in record time. Nice that, too.
‘Come to India and learn to speak proper English,’ Puri tells his street smart nephew.
A lot of characters to keep track of and, of course, plenty of food for the big man. I could not fathom why the hairy villain wazzed against the wall, and so drew attention to himself.
Tarquin Hall
Note for the cognoscenti, ‘Bombay Duck’ is…. Look it up and be informed.
Make Russia Great Again (2020) by Christopher Buckley.
Good Reads meta-data is 220 pages, rated 3.68 by 2,145 litizens.
Genre: Satire.
DNA: Old Money.
Verdict: Ugh!
Tagline: It has happened (t)here.
A fictional account of the 7th Chief of the White House Staff in 3 years, as part of his rehabilitation in a Federal prison. Told absolutely deadpan. The author’s delight is obvious in having the great manure pile all to himself and he feasts on it. And it is sharp and deadly, but…well, reality is worse than fiction. Intended as a Swift satire, reality has overtaken it since publication. The most garish, stupid, outlandish, vile things in the book seem childish compared to what has happened since.
All those Dr Frankensteins, large and small, who created this monster with votes and donations in the mistaken belief they could control it, will be proven wrong. It is an old story, quite unknown to fools, that the monster always bites the hand that feeds it. Since that is the closest hand, it starts there.
Enuf said.
Buckley has a long list of novels to his credit and I might try another when the dust settles from reading this. Starting with Little Green Men.
Good Reads meta-data is 224 pages rated 3.16 by 2073 litizens.
Genre: krimi.
DNA: Finland. Species: Helsinki.
Verdict: Unbalanced.
Tagline: The worst has come.
There is a rich context of Helsinki, some of which resonates with memories of our visit there – the central station guarded by those giants, Stockman’s, the rock church, the bears at the door of museum with the 1919 broken glass in the door.
The hero is sympathetic. Moreover, the police are not cardboard fools.
This world has a oneway descent into a state of nature. There is mercifully no preaching about this catastrophe; it just is. Instead we have a study of how different people react to that fact. Some go into denial. Others welcome it, until it hurts them. A few find profit in it.
Though the authority of the state has all but disappeared, the police are still rule-bound and paper money in euros retains value. Further, for a penurious poet Hero seems to have a good supply of that paper money.
Hamid appears, saves hero’s life, starts a backstory, and then disappears from the text. Poof! Uh? Likewise, hard to fathom was the fact that poet seems to have known nothing about his wife or his two best friends. Instead far too much leans on the plotter’s crutch: the all enveloping conspiracy.
Had this been the first Antti Tuomainen book I read, I would not have read any more. Very Nordic noir formulaic: the protagonist tortured by his backstory, gruesome violence, a bleak environment, insidious corruption by anyone with more than two euros to rub together, and a downbeat ending. Same old, same old.
Good Reads meta-data is 278 pages, rated by 3.67 by 2,278 litizens.
Genre: Krimi.
DNA: Finland.
Verdict: Deep and dark in the forest primeval.
Tagline: Vroom!
Much more serious than any of his I have read before. Deep and dark in the deep and dark north woods 20 miles from the 1944 imposed border with Russia.
Hero is a pastor (though which church and who employs him is left in the clouds, but probably Lutheran) in a small community among the lakes and forests. He tries his best, though like Miguel Unamuno’s Father Emmanuel he has lost the vocation. A few years earlier he volunteered for service as a pastor with a contingent of Finnish soldiers deployed to Afghanistan. That experience marked him.
First he had to extend the compulsory military service training he had done earlier with additional training in hand-to-hand combat and desert survival. In the field he went along on patrols and saw things that, well, if God let this happen, then he had no use for that God. He also got shot with some long term consequences.
But he does not advertise any of this, not even to his new wife. Most the villagers take him at face value, a well meaning but insipid fellow. Nice enough, but not a buddy among the manly elk hunters, loggers, fishermen, woodsmen, trappers, and the other hardy souls who endure 20 hours of darkness 6 months of the year.
Then comes the meteor! Yep. Act of God or what? From heaven or the devil’s spawn? Or both?
There are some exhilarating scenes of F1 driving that set the tone. Most of the early material plays into the plot, though the plot is, to this reader, overdone, as is the cynical ending. But I did finish it and I am glad I did.
I never did get what happened to the gym owner or why such an elaborate set up was needed.
