Somebody Somewhere – season 2

On By Rick McIn TVLeave a comment

I loved season 1.

Season 2 is not nearly as good.

My favourite character for sure is Jeff Hiller as Joel, Sam’s co-worker and friend. He gets a romantic interest this season.  

The show is original. It’s still a relief to watch normal people in normal situations in a normal small town.

In each of its roughly half-hour episodes, people talk, drive, go home. It is a series of small character studies, set in a sleepy town in Kansas, and whatever plot rears its head tends to gently nudge the drama forward in ever-so-gentle increments. Yet, just as it did in its superlative first season, it stuffs every subtle scene with emotion, poignancy and a great sense of humour. …

Guardian Review – Somebody Somewhere season two review – even this uplifting comedy’s quietest moments are dazzling

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

related – Somebody Somewhere‘s Jeff Hiller Is More Than Ready to Play a Romantic Lead

I mean, obviously no one’s going to cast me as the romantic lead. But I loved playing that tenderness, I loved playing that romance, and I loved thinking about it for Joel and how specific he has laid out what type of relationship he wants. It was sweet, it was tender, I liked it.

Strategic Moves by Stuart Woods

On By Rick McIn booksLeave a comment

Silly escapist fantasy. I enjoyed the 2011 book in the Stone Barrington series. 😀

All the books with Herbie Fisher are entertaining.

It’s tough luck for Jim Hackett, founder and owner of Strategic Services, that he got shot to death while he was in Stone’s company, but making his acquaintance has paid big dividends for Stone. In token of Woodman & Weld’s appreciation for landing Strategic Services’ business, managing partner Bill Eggers presents Stone with a $1 million check and dangles a promise of a full partnership before him.

Given Stone’s current lifestyle, however, his settling down with the firm where he’s long been of counsel sounds about as likely as his settling down with just one woman.

When his perennial-nuisance client Herbie Fisher summons Stone to his wedding reception to Christine Gunn, it looks as if Stone may be in for a serious romance with Christine’s sister Adele Lansdown, who recently widowed herself by shooting her abusive husband. Alas, after a brief interlude between the sheets, Adele’s shot to death herself.

Will Stone, so grief-stricken that he doesn’t have sex for nearly a week, be able to focus on catching her killer? Not unless he turns down an offer to accompany Mike Freeman, Hackett’s successor at Strategic Services, on a clandestine flight to extract non-extraditable arms dealer Erwin Gebhardt, aka Pablo Estancia, for Lance Cabot at the CIA.

The mission goes belly-up when Pablo escapes just before the plane lands in the United States …

Kirkus review

Open Season by Jonathan Kellerman

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Mixed review.

I’ve never really got into the Jonathan Kellerman books.

Open Season (2025) is 40th of his Alex Delaware series.

Psychologist Alex Delaware and Homicide Detective Milo Sturgis race against time to find a twisted killer …

I found the book slow. There was no real race against time. No rush

The body of an aspiring actress is found dumped near a hospital emergency room.

She’s been drugged and murdered and the motive for the callous crime remains maddeningly out of reach. Until, a prime suspect materializes. Another Hollywood hopeful. Only to be shot dead by a sniper using a weapon that turns out to have been catalogued in a previous murder. And another, before that. It’s not long before more bodies begin piling up.

What makes the murderous spree baffling is the apparent lack of connection among the victims. Is this the work of a random thrill killer, the toughest of all cases to unravel?

Kellerman’s writing style is unusual. Short sentences. Vivid, detailed descriptions.

Smart, sometimes entertaining dialogue.

But — for me — this book was too much police procedural, not enough action.

Red Queen – TV and Book

On By Rick McIn books, TVLeave a comment

Red Queen (Spanish: Reina Roja) is a thriller TV series based on the novel of the same name by Juan Gómez-Jurado.

The world’s most intelligent person, Antonia Scott, is coaxed out of her hermit-like retreat to be partnered with gay Basque police agent Jon Gutiérrez after the killing of the son of a wealthy family and the kidnapping of a wealthy heiress.

The book is good, not great. Perhaps something is lost in translation from Spanish.

The TV show is not as good, I’d say. Confusing. Poor acting.

I only made it through a few episodes.

For the world’s smartest person, Antonia is not that bright.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

From BOAT to TABLE 😀

On By Rick McIn food, McCharles familyLeave a comment

Delicious.

We caught this salmon a few hours earlier out of my favourite French Creek Marina near Parksville, B.C.

My brother Rob and friends had invited me along as general dogsbody.

I’d been out in charters murdering salmon in the past — with great success. But this was my first time in a personal boat out of French Creek.

Our skipper, Wayne, keeps a shipshape craft.

Out of French Creek we had our lines in the water within 15 minutes.

Most of the time, we had 2 fishing. Two inside navigating.

Then someone would switch off, front to back.

We ended up taking out only 2 salmon — having released many more for being the wrong species for our permits. Or the wrong size.

Weather was fickle. Perfect conditions could quickly switch to gusty with whitecaps.

We came in after about 4 hours. Wayne cleaned the fish at the marina.

I would have enjoyed the scenic boat ride even if we hadn’t caught anything.

BUT it was delicious a few hours later. 😀

Do Not Disturb by Freida McFadden

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Excellent murder mystery. An easy read.

Fast paced. Interesting construction.

Highly recommended.

Quinn Alexander has committed an unthinkable crime.

To avoid spending her life in prison, Quinn makes a run for it. She leaves behind her home, her job, and her family. She grabs her passport and heads for the northern border before the police can discover what she’s done.

But when an unexpected snowstorm forces her off the road, Quinn must take refuge at the broken-down, isolated Baxter Motel. The handsome and kindly owner, Nick Baxter, is only too happy to offer her a cheap room for the night.

Unfortunately, the Baxter Motel isn’t the quiet, safe haven it seemed to be. The motel has a dark and disturbing past. And in the dilapidated house across the way, the silhouette of Nick’s ailing wife is always at the window. Always watching.

Amazon

I’m not a fan of all the McFadden books.

For example, I got about 1/3 of the way through her book The Tenant — then quit because the protagonist, Blake Porter, was so annoying. 😀

She is very popular, however.

Hacks – season 3

On By Rick McIn hiking, TV1 Comment

Still very funny.

Perhaps the best season, so far.

Both Jean Smart as Deborah Vance, a legendary (aging) Las Vegas comic, and Hannah Einbinder as Ava Daniels, her young comedy writer, are hilarious.

They are the world’s worst hikers, though. 😀

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Shadow Woman by Thomas Perry

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Excellent.

The chase takes them to Glacier National Park. A Grizzly shows up.

Shadow Woman (1997) is 3rd book in the Jane Whitefield series by Thomas Perry.

Jane Whitefield is a Native American (Seneca) who has made a career out of helping people disappear.

When her latest client, a Las Vegas gaming executive who has lost the trust of his criminally-connected bosses, asks for help, Jane Whitefield gets him out of town with a spectacular display of casino magic.

Then she keeps her promise, gives up her dangerous trade, marries her loyal doctor, and settles down to live peacefully in upstate New York.

As if.

… her client screws up.

Jane’s highly developed code of honor makes her leave her bridal bed to rescue him from an eerily psychotic Los Angeles couple who use everything from sex games to attack dogs to track him down.

Secret Prey by John Sandford

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Another great Lucas Davenport book. He’s morose and unmotivated at the start, his future wife having just left him.

John Sandford:

Secret Prey, the ninth of the Prey series featuring Lucas Davenport, is the most intricately plotted of my books, at least so far …

… Secret Prey, starts with a murder, and then expands to a whole batch of murders, extending more than twenty years back in time. There are numerous suspects.

There are at least three subplots, unrelated to the main story, but fitting within it (the after-effects of an old romance, the beginnings of a new romance, the detection and arrest of a bunch of improbable opium junkies) and the main plot itself has a couple of subplots, including a continuing case of domestic abuse, and another new romance. …

JOHN SANDFORD ON SECRET PREY – Author’s Introduction