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What His Wife Knew
What His Wife Knew
Jo Jakeman | 2022 | Thriller
7
7.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Was it suicide or was it murder? That is the question and one that this book does a great job of unravelling.

Oscar is found dead by his brother at the bottom of Cloud Drop; a note is found which just says "sorry" and his wedding ring in his car - a slam bunk you might say but his wife, Beth, is having none of it and the more she delves, the more she realises her husband is not who she thought he was but neither are those around her.

This was proper good! The story was compelling with plenty of twists and turns to keep you guessing and although I guessed the main twist, it didn't ruin the story for me at all as it was great getting there. The main characters are excellent and well developed and the pace is good.

All in all, a great psychological/domestic thriller and one which I would recommend to lovers of this genre.

Thank you Penguin Random House UK and NetGalley for my copy in return for an honest, unbiased and unedited review.
  
Blood and Honour (Forest Kingdom #2)
Blood and Honour (Forest Kingdom #2)
Simon R Green | 1992 | Science Fiction/Fantasy
6
6.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
This is an old favourite of mine, set in the same world as Simon R Green's earlier Blue Moon Rising but just, well, seemingly missing something compared to that earlier novel.

I struggle to put my hand on what that something is, though.

In this, a down on his luck actor - 'The Great Jordan' - is hired to impersonate Price Victor, one of the three claimants to the throne of Redhart following the mysterious death of its former incumbent, and after the chaos of The Demon War, which is really only mentioned in passing, with a few cameos from characters from said war.

None of the three claimants, however, are particularly nice characters ...

Cue a mix of magic and mayhem, with an outsiders view of the politics played in the courts of those high in the land, a few twists and turns - some of which you can see coming a mile and a half off, but others of which you (or, at least, I) didn't the first time around.

Then again, I was in my early teens that first time around ...
  
The Valley of Fear
The Valley of Fear
Arthur Conan Doyle | 2015 | Fiction & Poetry
8
7.3 (3 Ratings)
Book Rating
Sherlock Holmes stories I had previously heard of / knew (even if only a little bit) about:

The Hound of the Baskervilles (natch)
A Study in Scarlet
The Sign of Four
The Red-Headed League
The Final Problem

.. and a few others whose name I cannot currently recall.

None of them, however, were this one.

Like "The Hound...", this was a later-written story, but is also set before Holmes encounter with Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls. And like "A Study in Scarlet", it's also very much split into distinct sections: the first section in which Holmes and Watson are called to the English countryside to investigate a murder (or is it suicide?), and the a whole other section set in the United States of America filling in the backgrounds of the principal actor of the first section.

Being new to me, also, I have to say I did wonder - until the reveal! - just how this whole section (and the mention of the Pinkerton Detective Agency) fitted into the first part.

Perhaps because of its novelty (to me), I also fairly enjoyed this.
  
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David McK (3280 KP) rated Shazam! (2019) in Movies

Apr 17, 2019 (Updated Jul 14, 2024)  
Shazam! (2019)
Shazam! (2019)
2019 | Action, Sci-Fi
Zachary Levi (0 more)
None of the rest of the Chuck TV series cast (0 more)
One of the better entries (at the time of reviewing) in DCs attempt at a shared universe, although (if I'm honest) I barely realised that it was part of that universe at all: yes, there's a couple of mentions of Superman and Batman et al, but they could easily be viewed similarly to how we talk about them.
I was also quite surprised by how dark/scary parts of this were for a child-friendly film, with it really only lightening up once the 14 year old Billy Batson gets his powers and transforms into Zachary Levis's adult superhero (but still with his child's mind).

With a subplot concerning family - one strand of which could probably have been handled better - and Levi knocking it out of the park (I'll admit, the TV series Chuck in which he starred is one of my favourites) as Shazam, this is one of the better entries in DC growing catalogue of movies.