Criminal Record is a British crime thriller television series …
… premiered on Apple TV+ on 10 January 2024.
Two detectives, one a seasoned veteran and the other early in her career, clash on an old murder case after an anonymous phone call draws them to it.
Very good.
Peter Capaldi as DCI Daniel Hegarty should win all the awards.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Spy thriller. Set after the murdering dictator-for-life invaded Ukraine.
A very good book. This is the kind of writer that other authors admire.
It is a little … long.
Published January 28, 2025.
Paul Brightman is a man on the run, living under an assumed name in a small New England town with a million-dollar bounty on his head. When his security is breached, Paul is forced to flee into the New Hampshire wilderness to evade Russian operatives who can seemingly predict his every move.
Six years ago, Paul was a rising star on Wall Street who fell in love with a beautiful photographer named Tatyana—unaware that her father was a Russian oligarch and the object of considerable interest from several US intelligence agencies. Now, to save his own life, Paul must unravel a decades-old conspiracy that extends to the highest reaches of the government. …
Joseph Finder was born to be a spy.
Much of his childhood was spent living around the world, including time in Afghanistan and the Philippines.
Capable of speaking multiple languages, Finder began learning Farsi as a child navigating the streets of Kabul.
From an early age, Finder was placed in extremely stressful environments with many unfamiliar faces surrounding him.
Eventually, Finder’s family settled permanently just outside of New York.
Finder was born into the Cold War era of detente and mutually assured destruction with Russia.
Consequently, it is no surprise that someone as cultured and well-travelered as Finder became interested in the Soviet Union, the KGB, and Russian history. From high school to college at Yale, Finder devoted his studies to anything and everything Russian From history to politics to the government, Finder became an expert on Russian affairs.
Elite Canada, Markham, ON, from February 14 to 16.
Photos via GymCan.
Gold: Zoe Ewens (Calgary Gymnastics Centre, AB)
Silver: Nelly Dube (Quebec Performance, QC)
Bronze: Eden Belay (Toronto Gymnastics International, ON)
Gold: Coralie Demers (Gymnix, QC)
Silver: Aila McKinley (YEG Gymnastics, AB)
Bronze: Mackenzie Grant (Edge Gymnastics, ON)
Gold: Lia Monica Fontaine (Wimgym, QC)
Silver: Gabrielle Black (Oakville Gymnastics, ON)
Bronze: Alyssa Guerrier-Calixte (Wimgym, QC)
Gold: Olivier Lapointe (Laval Excellence, QC)
Silver: Mikaël Morin (Imagym, QC)
Bronze: Miles Hii (Phoenix, BC)
Gold: Eito Fujihara (Calgary Gymnastics Centre, AB)
Silver: Reuben Dykstra (Langley Gymnastics Foundation, BC)
Bronze: Ethan Lee (Langley Gymnastics Foundation, BC)
Gold: Liam Vanounou (Vaughan Gymnastics, ON)
Silver: Evan Aliwalas (Toronto Gymnastics International, ON)
Bronze: Rishi Sheoran (Gymnastics Mississauga, ON)
Gold: Matteo Bardana (Gymnastics Mississauga, ON)
Silver: Connor Fielding (Twisters Gymnastics Abbotsford, BC)
Bronze: Raphael Madore (Gymnika, QC)
Gold: Elel Baker (Gymnastics Mississauga, ON)
Silver: Kenji Tamane (Laval Excellence, QC)
Bronze: William Black (Halifax ALTA Gymnastics Club, NS)
Wow. This is terrific television.
100% on Rotten Tomatoes for season 1.
The cast is fantastic.
The Tower (season 1) … follows the aftermath of the deaths of a veteran Metropolitan Police officer and a young Libyan girl who fell together from the roof of a London tower block.
When Constable Lizzie Adama—one of the only witnesses—disappears soon afterwards, Sarah Collins‘ investigation becomes two-pronged: what happened on the roof, and finding Adama. …
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
I felt season 2 was equally good. But that season 3 was somehow not up to the quality of the first two.
In fact, it was cancelled after three seasons.
On the other hand, Ella Smith as DC Elaine Lucas is a terrific character. Hilarious.
In any case, this is top notch British television. Recommended.
My biggest complaint is overuse of flashbacks. Weak story telling, in my opinion.
by Catherine Mack
Funny. But a piss poor murder mystery.
I enjoyed the humour. The pop culture mentions.
It’s mockery of the cozy mystery genre. Makes fun of the authors.
And we readers don’t come off too well, either. 😀
All that bestselling author Eleanor Dash wants is to get through her book tour in Italy and kill off her main character, Connor Smith, in the next in her Vacation Mysteries series—is that too much to ask?
Clearly it is, because when an attempt is made to kill the real Connor—the handsome but infuriating con man she got mixed up with ten years ago and now can’t get out of her life—Eleanor’s enlisted to help solve the case.
Contending with literary competitors, rabid fans, a stalker—and even her ex, Oliver, who turns up unexpectedly—theories are bandied about, and rivalries, rifts, and broken hearts are revealed. But who’s really trying to get away with murder?
Catherine Mack is the pseudonym for thriller writer Catherine McKenzie. Her other books include Have You Seen Her, Hidden, Smoke and The Good Liar. She is currently based in Montreal.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. The start of the audio book.
If you suffer with 1st World Problems, you MIGHT struggle with finding the perfect bath mat.
After 3 failed purchases at thrift stores, I finally researched and bought the Toftbo IKEA Bath Mat on Amazon.
We’re not using any underlay. It doesn’t seem to slip on our bathroom floor.
Twisted Prey (2018) is #28 in the Lucas Davenport series.
They are all good — but, for me, this one had too little action.
Lucas Davenport had crossed paths with her before.
A rich psychopath, Taryn Grant had run successfully for the U.S. Senate, where Lucas had predicted she’d fit right in. He was also convinced that she’d been responsible for three murders, though he’d never been able to prove it.
Once a psychopath had gotten that kind of rush, though, he or she often needed another fix, so he figured he might be seeing her again.
He was right. A federal marshal now, with a very wide scope of investigation, he’s heard rumors that Grant has found her seat on the Senate intelligence committee, and the contacts she’s made from it, to be very…useful.
John Sandford is the pseudonym for the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John Camp. He is the author of twenty-eight Prey novels; four Kidd novels; ten Virgil Flowers novels; three YA novels co-authored with his wife, Michele Cook; and three other books.
A formulaic thriller that ranks with Quirk’s lesser efforts.
This is only my 2nd Quirk book — but I’d call both silly non-stop action thrillers with very little else to recommend them. He’s not my kind of author.
Suspend your disbelief.
As a Secret Service agent, Nick Averose spent a decade protecting the most powerful men and women in America and developed a unique gift: the ability to think like an assassin.
Now, he uses that skill in a little-known but crucial job. As a “red teamer,” he poses as a threat, testing the security around our highest officials to find vulnerabilities—before our enemies can. He is a mock killer, capable of slipping past even the best defenses.
His latest assignment is to assess the security surrounding the former CIA director at his DC area home. But soon after he breaches the man’s study, the home’s inner sanctum, Nick finds himself entangled in a vicious crime that will shake Washington to its foundations—as all the evidence points to Nick.
He knows he’s the perfect scapegoat. But who is framing him, and why? To clear his name, he must find the truth—a search that leads to a dark conspiracy whose roots stretch back decades. The prize is the most powerful position in the world: the Oval Office.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
A scary spy thriller.
Silly escapism. But with some interesting twists.
If I was editing, I would have cut the length of the novel in half. Many threads did not contribute to the plot resolution.
I Am Pilgrim (2015) is the debut novel by former journalist and screenwriter Terry Hayes. …
“Pilgrim” is an American former intelligence agent known as the “Rider of the Blue” who later writes a book on forensic pathology. …
The “Saracen” is a Saudi who becomes radicalized by watching his father’s beheading. He later trains as a doctor and fights in the Soviet–Afghan War.
Pilgrim is recalled to the intelligence community who have detected a threat involving the Saracen, who has created a vaccine-resistant strain of the variola major virus. Smallpox.
Smallpox was a terrible infectious disease.
Smallpox is estimated to have killed up to 300 million people in the 20th century and around 500 million people in the last 100 years of its existence.
The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) certified the global eradication of the disease in 1980, making smallpox the only human disease to have been eradicated to date.
Inoculation for smallpox appears to have started in China around the 1500s. In 1796, Edward Jenner introduced the modern smallpox vaccine.
Officially, 2 live samples of variola major virus remain, one in the United States at the CDC in Atlanta, and one at the Vector Institute in Koltsovo, Russia.
Between 65 and 80% of survivors are marked with deep pitted scars (pockmarks), most prominent on the face.
U.S. Presidents George Washington, Andrew Jackson, and Abraham Lincoln all contracted and recovered from the disease. Washington became infected with smallpox on a visit to Barbados in 1751.
Finally, I feel the author was not successful in combining a lightweight good v evil thriller with some sort of philosophical overview.
Pick a lane. 😀
Rick McCharles 