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TR
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Just for reference - I will not be giving anything away in my review. Don;t wanna spoil it for all you potential readers. What I will say is: Wow.

As you can guess, The characters are a reaper, as in grim reaper... and a cop.

Well. I have a thing for cops ;) And Troy is soooo hot and domineering, yet with a caring side. As heroes go, he is perfect in my opinion.

Laney is a great heroine. She has a fantastic attitude and is incredibly sarcastic to boot. She is who she is, and if the other person doesn't like it? Tough. I love that about her. She's strong and independent, and to me feels very confident. What every woman aspires to be. Awesome sense of humour too.

Short read so I like that I can get through it in an evening. These sort of books are a god send to a mother of two - or a person busy via other reasons I guess.

Well written. Well thought out story line and left me wanting more. Loved it and would definitely suggest to others. <3
  
TL
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Melissa Baugh was the victim of a dinosaur – at least the one being used to film a movie outside of Phoenix. Someone used the full size dinosaur to trample her. Phoenix cops Joe and Tommy are called into help with the investigation, but as it leads in some unexpected directions, will they be able to find her killer?

This mystery doesn’t wrap up as neatly as I normally enjoy since a couple of the hows are left for us to figure out. We can, but it would be nice if we didn’t have to guess. However, the who and the why are perfectly logical, and it is a fun ride getting to the end. Joe and Tommy are fun main characters, and I like watching them and the supporting cast in action. We get to see more of Rico, Joe’s son, and I enjoyed that as well. A sub-plot involving a traveling preacher adds to the fun, and the Christian elements adds to the book overall without becoming preachy.

Read my full review at <a href="http://carstairsconsiders.blogspot.com/2017/06/book-review-last-dinosaur-by-sandy.html">Carstairs Considers</a>.
  
Rogue Lawyer
Rogue Lawyer
John Grisham | 2016 | Fiction & Poetry
3
5.7 (3 Ratings)
Book Rating
Character Study that Left Me Cold
This book introduces us to Sebastian Rudd, a lawyer who handles the clients no one else wants to take on. We’re talking about an older teen accused of a horrible crime and convicted by the people of his town. Or a mobster on death row. With enemies from the ranks of the police and the clients he hasn’t been able to get off, can Sebastian navigate his life?

The book is really more of a character study with several cases taking the foreground at various points. It reads like these stories were originally published separately and brought together for this book, although I haven’t researched to know if that is true or not. The ending definitely leaves things open for more books. My issue is that I had a hard time liking many of the characters and found myself actively rooting for Sebastian to lose some of his cases. The fact that all the cops were over the top corrupt didn’t help any at all. Plus Sebastian came across as a knock off of Michael Connelly’s Mickey Haller character, and that certainly didn’t help matters at all since I love Mickey.
  
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Awix (3310 KP) rated Cold Skin (2017) in Movies

Jun 18, 2020  
Cold Skin (2017)
Cold Skin (2017)
2017 | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
6
7.0 (6 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Polished European genre movie is one of those films that suggests you can be a bit too thoughtful. Young man arrives on a remote island, uninhabited but for a dissolute old curmudgeon of a lighthouse keeper; he will be here for a year and is not delighted to learn that every night the place is swarming with fish-men wanting to kill him. He and the other man form an alliance, complicated by the presence of a female creature (hey, we all get lonely, I guess).

Ultimately yet another raid on H.P. Lovecraft, even down to some of the dialogue, but the movie cops out when it comes to the bleakness and existential despair. Not quite as weird as The Lighthouse, with which it shares a number of similarities, but still fairly hard work: it's fine to be high-minded and serious, but the glacial pace and lack of emotional range in this film is a problem. Looks good, but then again so what: it's a truly exceptional film that doesn't, these days. In the end it's okay but I was looking at my watch a lot towards the end.
  
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Jeremy Workman recommended Revanche (2008) in Movies (curated)

 
Revanche (2008)
Revanche (2008)
2008 | Crime, Drama, Romance
(0 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"I love soulful noirs, and this slow-burn Austrian crime thriller is one of my faves of the new millennium. It’s as if Bergman made a movie about cops and robbers. Austrian director Götz Spielmann gets incredible naturalistic performances, and the storytelling has some real breathing space, which is rare in crime thrillers. (For another soulful Criterion crime pic, give The Hit a look-see.) What I love most about Revanche is this narrative magic trick it pulls. You think it’s going to be a relatively conventional story about a robbery that goes off the rails and criminal-code revenge. But instead it turns into this deep exploration about the intersection of people and the happenstances that lead us down surprising paths in our lives (a theme that I explored in my documentary Magical Universe. Find it!). Like the best noirs, the crime plot is just the Trojan horse that takes you into a profound story about choice and consequence. Before you even know it, Revanche has morphed into something like a Kieślowski film, and it suddenly knocks you on the floor and leaves you in a heap."

Source
  
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Awix (3310 KP) rated Apaches (1977) in Movies

Jan 21, 2021  
Apaches (1977)
Apaches (1977)
1977 | Drama, Horror
Nerve-manglingly bleak and grim public information film. Six young children play cowboys and indians, cops and robbers, etc, on a (seemingly quite badly managed) farm and are one-by-one crushed under trailers, drowned in slurry pits, poisoned by weedkiller, etc, etc. All the time the adults are preparing for a mysterious party...

Pretty much guaranteed to traumatise most young viewers, I would have thought, and quite a tough watch for anyone else: you *know* that something horrifically fatal is going to befall one of the young cast every few minutes. In this respect it's written and paced exactly like a horror movie, the kind of thing children would never be allowed to watch - but this is supposed to be educational, see, so they can do things you'd never be allowed to show in an actual commercial movie. Director Mackenzie would go on to make The Long Good Friday and The Fourth Protocol (amongst other things) and brings a mixture of gritty naturalism and an eerie, dream-like quality to the film. Nastily effective: enough to put anyone off a trip to the countryside.