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Dead Body Language
Dead Body Language
Penny Warner | 1997 | Mystery
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Unexpected Body in the Cemetery
Connor Westphal has moved from San Francisco to the town of Flat Skunk in California’s gold country, where she is running the weekly paper she inherited from her grandparents. When Lacy Penzance comes in to place an ad to track down her long-lost sister, Connor readily agrees. Then Lacy takes back her ad. The next morning, Lacy is found dead. The sheriff doesn’t think it is the suicide it was staged to look like. Under the guise of writing an article about Lacy, Connor begins to investigate. Will she find the killer?

What I haven’t mentioned so far is that Connor is deaf. I found this character trait to be an interesting addition to the mystery, and it really added suspense to the climax. Connor is an all-around strong character, and I enjoyed getting to meet her friends here as well. The plot is strong, although I have a couple niggles about who the killer turned out to be. Even so, I have to admire the strong plotting; I missed several major clues. I did find there to be a few more four-letter words than I was expecting, and I think there were timeline issues, although I might have added an extra day in there somewhere as I was reading. I originally read this book close to when it was originally released in 1997, but I never read the rest of the series. I’m looking forward to fixing that soon.
  
Mr. Vampire (1985)
Mr. Vampire (1985)
1985 | Action, International, Comedy
9
8.0 (3 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Contains spoilers, click to show
When a 20 year old corpse is exhumed for a re burial Master Gau and his two students find that the body hasn't rotted. When the corpse re animates as a vampire the trio have to protect the vampires family and find a way to stop the monster.

Mr vampire is a Chinese horror/comedy and a breakthrough 'Jiangshi' (Rotting Copse) movie due it's mixing of slapstick comedy, kung-fu, Chinese folklore and western vampire myth and has a number of sequels.

The humour is very slapstick, with people getting hit with furniture or getting their head stuck in prison cell bars and the horror level is quite low and most of the effects are quite cheesy.

The Kung-Fu aspect makes the fight scenes entertaining and both the vampire and the ghost have to be dealt with slightly differently..
The image of the living corpse, be it vampire or zombie, being controlled by a yellow paper talisman stuck to it's head is though to have come from Mr Vampire and has been used in many subsequent Jiangshi film as well as many other shows, including the recent Netflix show 'Kingdom' where we see a scene of villagers selling the talismans when the zombies are threatening their village.

Mr Vampire manages to pull off Horror comedy in a way that is watchable by almost anyone. The film has a 15 (UK) rating and does contain vampires and ghosts but neither are overly frighting, partly due to the effects of the time.
  
Puzzling Ink
Puzzling Ink
Becky Clark | 2020 | Mystery
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Using Crossword Puzzles to Catch a Killer
Quinn Carr has had to return home and take a job at the local diner. If only her passion, creating the crossword puzzles for her local paper, paid her more. One night as Quinn is closing down the diner, she finds the last patron slumped over dead in the corner booth. When the police determine he was murdered, they arrest Jake, the diner’s owner. Now Quinn has to keep the restaurant running while also figuring out a way to clear her boss. Can she do it?

This book sets the stage for a fun new mystery series. Quinn is a bit unusual in that she has recently been diagnosed with OCD, something we don’t usually see in the books I read. It was handled well. I also loved Quinn’s relationship with her parents. The mystery got sidelined at times with Quinn trying to run the diner. I was interested in both stories, but I do prefer strong mysteries in the books I read. There is a good mystery here, with plenty of suspects and motives. A few key pieces of information were introduced a bit abruptly, and one key element of the plot was never quite resolved, but the majority of our questions are answered, including the who and the why. Fans of crossword puzzles will enjoy the one that Quinn creates over the course of the book. Additionally, there are two fun sounding recipes at the end of the book.