Blue Screen

[Amazon Link]
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Attentive readers will maybe have noticed that I am a semi-major Robert B. Parker fanboy, and have been so for slightly—wince—over 30 years. I pick up his Spenser series in hardcover, and the others in paperback as issued. And this one just came out in paperback.

Blue Screen's protagonist is Sunny Randall, Parker's female private investigator. She's initially hired to nursemaid a stunning, but not particularly talented, movie starlet, but by page 40, there's a body, and Sunny gets switched over to investigate that.

But the crime takes place in scenic Paradise, Massachusetts, which puts it smack dab in the jurisdiction of another of Parker's series heroes, Police Chief Jesse Stone. So the two meet, and join their investigatory forces.

The result is actually surprising, but won't be spoiled here. Suffice it to say, I did not see that coming. I'll be tuned in for future entries in both series.


Last Modified 2024-02-02 4:30 AM EDT

Déjà Vu

[Amazon Link]
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[4.0
stars] [IMDb Link]

Shockingly, this turns out not to have been a movie interpretation of the classic Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young album. However, there's a Beach Boys song.

Nevertheless, I hope readers appreciate the effort in getting those accents over the letters in the title correct; I don't have one of those fancy-schmancy HTML editors here.

Oh, yeah: the movie. Well, it's pretty good! Denzel Washington is our hero, an ATF agent investigating a horrific terrorist attack on a New Orleans ferry. But what starts out as a police procedural takes a science-fiction twist, … and I shant continue, because part of the fun here is figuring out what's going on, just as Denzel has to do.

The twist is contrived and ludicrous, but if you suspend disbelief just for that one little thing, the movie plays fair with you thereafter. It's not a spoiler to observe that Denzel develops a Laura-like obsession with one of the terror victims, and it's really kind of neat to see how that plays out.


Last Modified 2024-02-02 4:30 AM EDT