Carl Deuker -- Books, Movies, TV

A reluctant murderer--not her first plan--but when Phillip persists in being a pest. Ambrose, who we think of as reliable, is suspicious of her. The locked up laburnum seeds did it for me.  A gardener wouldn't collect seeds of a plant she already has in Italy; she'd want something new.  And we keep hearing repeatedly about her herbal tea and her skill with herbs.  Yes, she saves Phillip. Yes, she decides to kill Phillip. Contradictory, but that's what makes the book intriguing. Points against the murder . . . She could have just let him die when he had meningitis. She returns the jewelry to the bank. Beginning and end . . . guilty men hang at the crossroads.  Phillip throws a stone at the hanging man . . . is he throwing a stone at himself?

Mysterious ending. Many signs pointing to Rachel as conniving devil; many signs pointing to her being greedy/impulsive; some signs pointing to her being basically okay. Phillip, though, is convinced that she killed Ambrose and is after him as well. He's got good reasons, most having to do with laburnum. Construction around the house  . . . They made a movie of this which didn't do well. I can see why. Many scenes involve reading letters or talking to lawyers.  Not really much in the way of action. Not as good as the Go-Between, though Phillip in his naivete reminded me of the main character of that.  Vertigo?  Infatuation is similar.  I preferred Rebecca, but I'll certainly give Jamaica Inn a try. Du Maurier writes beautifully.

Odd--not the famous trial of Goebbels, etc., but a later trial of ordinary Germans (judges, for example) involved in day-to-day Nazi life.  Nice premise, but it's BORING. It looks like there will be a series of guest appearances.  Tonight we saw Montgomery Clift. Judy Garland is also a co-star.  Too much talking; not enough action. And the main ideas are no longer controversial--yes, ordinary Germans were implicated. This one is getting the hook.  Three hours . . . which is twice as long as it needs to be.

So, Rachel has the $ and doesn't want to marry Phillip. Or was Phillip always mistaken in thinking she'd agreed. Illness, but Rachel doesn't run off. Instead, she nurses him back to health.  Louise, though, thinks R. is a thorough cad. (Is that an appropriate word for a female?) And now we learn that laburnum seeds are poisonous--didn't know that--and that Ambrose had a laburnum outside his window. Rachel the poisoner? Nice movement back and forth with Rachel, a blend of good and evil. Phillip reminds me a bit of the MC in The Go-Between.

Pakistani/American male, southern white girl. Romance fraught with problems. He can't bring himself to tell his parents about his non-Muslim girlfriend . . . then, she gets sick. Nice play of comedy (that's his profession) versus tragedy.  It almost seems that we're headed to an unhappy ending . . . but no! Based on true story of main character's romance with his wife.  Pretty good, all in all. Adult-onset  Still's disease  (AOSD) is a form of  Still's disease , a rare systemic autoinflammatory  disease characterized by the classic triad of persistent high spiking fevers, joint pain, and a distinctive salmon-colored bumpy rash. The  disease  is considered a diagnosis of exclusion.

"Rachel the mysterious. She sometimes seems like a gold-digger, a spendthrift who will go through Phillip's money and break his heart. Or is she just misunderstood, a European whose mode of life is so foreign to the English that they think the worst. Conflicts: the pearl necklace given and then taken back; letters is Sam's gifted jacket. Good, solid story . . . a bit of a chick book, but I'm okay with it. Hmmm

Rachel the mysterious.  Ambrose loves her, then writes saying she is ruining him.  He dies--a brain tumor? fever? or has Rachel killed him. Phillip (MC) goes to Italy only to find that A. is dead and Rachel is gone. He despises her. But . . . upon his return he learns that, although she has his books and clothes, she is making no claim on his land. She then shows up in England, writes to his guardian, and explains that she has brought all the books and clothes and wants to give them to Phillip. Phillip remains suspicious, but he does invite her to his estate. She arrives. He expects to hate her, but he is charmed.  She is 35, unpretentious, plain spoken--just the woman for him, though he doesn't quite know it yet. She has also arranged to have flowers and shrubs sent from Italy to England for Phillip's estate.  She knows just where Ambrose wanted them planted, but she of course won't be around to supervise as she is only a visitor. To be continued Book looks ...

Terrific, except for the final few minutes in which a happy ending is forced on a dark movie investigating the side effects of drugs and drug abuse in middle-America.  Mason at one point sees himself as a modern-day Abraham called upon to kill his only son.  His wife, desperately trying to stop him, points out that Isaac was spared by God in the end. Mason:   God was wrong. Wonderful moment.

Schoolteacher suffering from inflamed arteries (autoimmune disease? RA? Lupus?) is giving cortisone.  It works, but the side effects make him feel he is bigger than life. Football in the house with his boy; great PTA back-to-school night scene with parents in which he calls their children unformed gorillas.  Buying spree of clothes for wife.  Headed toward trouble -- he's doubling up on his pills.

Rider has an unsettling meal with his uncle.  He's asked which of his nieces looks older.  Then Molly, who he'd been suspected of molesting the day before, takes him down to the river to swim.  She "chicken fights" on his shoulders, but seems to be masturbating, though she's just 10, by grinding against him.  Then she deserts him.  He makes it back to the house okay and they all leave, but not before the strong hint is made that his mother and his uncle had an incestuous relationship (down by the river) when they were children.   Excellent acting, genuinely creepy feel, screenplay to my mind needed something more definite to HAPPEN. 

Great start.  Main character as little boy sees hanged man at the crossroads--the old days.  He throws a rock at the corpse, then vomits in sorrow/confusion at the scene. His uncle Ambrose raises him. Idyllic male world, but Ambrose has rheumatism. he goes to Italy for the winter, falls in love with their cousin Rachel, gives up his bachelor status, marries her, is happy, stays in Italy, sends letters indicating he is miserable, dies.  Main Character now is in Italy trying to sort all this out.  Who is Rachel?  Young? Old? Kind? A witch?  We'll find out.

Family reunion.  MC (Rider) goes off with little girl to a barn. She starts screaming and runs out of the barn with blood on her dress.  Her first period? Did Rider assault her.  Family in Nebraska is already suspicious of Rider and his family because they are the "California" relatives. Rider is not midwestern in any way, wearing too-short shorts, star sunglasses. He's also interested in art--nothing like his cousins who are suspicious, contemptuous, and mystified by him.  Rider's mother has some beef with her brother, and there is the hint that Rider's father is not actually his father.

Bombing in Saudi Arabia.  Freeh, new director, is obsessed with solving this crime and neglects coming crimes.  Freeh also is investigating Clinton, so there is no harmony between WH and FBI.  Bin Laden is gearing up, but FBI is not yet proactive.  Other cases going on: Ruby Ridge, Branch Davidians, Unabomber, first World Trade Center bombing.

Nixon leaves the FBI in turmoil.  The movement toward considering terrorism as a major aspect of the FBI.  Iran/Contra. Locherbie.    This continues to be a very balanced, thoughtful book.  It does not sugar coat the FBI's failings, nor does it revel in them.  Author makes it clear that the FBI has both infringed on rights of citizens and protected citizens.  Movement of the FBI post Hoover is in a positive direction.

More machinations.  Spacey uses his wiles to dethrone speaker of the house, outfox teachers union, get a bunch of money for his wife's charity, seduce Zoe, the reporter (who is now working for an on-line news agency). Wife is almost reseduced by Adam the photographer.  Russo, the Pennsylvania congressman with the coke/alcohol habit, sells out his district for Francis, but as a reward may become governor of PA. Soap opera, but okay.

The "Nixon" chapters are, of course, fascinating.  Nixon warns Patrick Gray "never, never, never," to trust anyone, to be ruthless, to remember the Nazis who, after a sniper killed a soldier, lined up entire villages and threatened to shoot them all if they didn't turn over the sniper.  Oh, my. FBI responsible for the fall of Nixon as they gathered the information which Mark Few and others passed on to NYT. FBI eventually has to investigate itself, to make sure that in protecting America from terrorist is isn't also taking away American's rights.  One thing I hadn't thought about:  FBI can wiretap foreigners without court approval.  They aren't citizens so the don't get the protection of the constitution.

Hoover feared Soviet suicide attacks, dirty bombs, chemical and biological warfare.  Gotta give him credit for seeing the possibilities.  Soviet spies get info on nuclear bombs.  Philby and Burgess.  Hoover actually opposes Joe McCarthy because Mc. is so extreme he hurts the fight against communism. New to me:  Truman attempted assassination by Puerto Rican nationalist. Truman disliked Hoover and called him infrequently. Thought Hoover was trying to set up a secret police.  Nixon, once vice president, call twice a day.

Academy Award winner.  We saw it and didn't like it when it came out so thought we'd give it another go.  No go.  It has high production values, which imparts to its tawdry plot an unearned high seriousness.  This is really a Roger Corman film.  One other thing.  Both of us thought that the character was based on a real murderer--again, because of the "seriousness" of the whole endeavor. But no, it's all fiction . . . ghoulish fiction.  We hooked it after one hour.  No more tries for this one

Excellent.  James Cain novel.  Veda is a great "bad seed" child.  Joan Crawford is terrific, as are all the supporting characters, particularly Jack Carson.

So far, this has been a book almost exclusively about J. Edgar Hoover, a sign of how influential he was and of how new the FBI actually is.  Most chilling aspect of the tale is the death of FDR.  Truman knew very little (he'd been VP for two months) when he became president.  He did know enough, though, to be cautious in his support of Hoover. He feared an American secret police. And for good reason.  Hoover, an anti-communist from 1919, supported round-ups of communists, believed that communists were ready to do Stalin's bidding, feared terrorist attacks using biological, chemical or nuclear weapons (he was ahead of his time on this) etc.  Hoover also opposed the formation of the CIA as it developed. He wanted an agency much smaller. Interesting book, though maybe more about the FBI than I care to know. Nixon just made his first appearance--questioning possible communists as a 34 year-old congressman.  Hoover immediately is drawn to Nixon.

Leopold, father, as incapable of submitting to authority. He realizes early on that Wolfgang and his sister are talented and that Wolfgang is a prodigy.  They will be his ticket to money. Grand tour for years showing off the child prodigy, and it doesn't fail to impress.  Mozart is so baffling that some think he is a god of sorts; others that there is some magic involved. Six cd's filled with lots of good music and about the right information on his life and death.  Amadeus, not surprisingly, is not accurate.  M. probably died as a result of rheumatic fever.  He had this as a child (his father angry because he couldn't perform) and probably had repeated bouts as an adult.  Overwork, stress, etc. The lecturer was a little annoying at times, but he was lively at all times, so all in all, good.  I wouldn't want to listen to two in a row, but I would come back to him again.

Couldn't make it.  I have a feeling that this would have been a charming book had an editor gotten to work on it.  I'd say almost every chapter so far has been at least 30% too long.  Also, the unending witticism wear on a reader--I stopped after the gay samba dance scene.  It's a good example of the need for editors.

Main character and Tully make it to Palm Springs. Dinah Shore LPGA is going on, also a lesbian celebration.  MC is hot on the trail of her niece and has a love/hate relationship with Tully. Too purposefully charming for my taste.  It feels a bit like Wodehouse but not quite. I think the probably with a book that relies so heavily on  a series of funny lines/jokes is that if the #3 is very funny and #4 is just funny, there's a disappointment.

Richard Widmark, a nobody, trying desperately to be a somebody.  He cajoles and weasels and lies his way into promoting a wrestling match between a Greco-Roman purist and a WWE-type wrestler. it would make him great money . . . but the two wrestle in the gym out of anger before the real match.  The older Greco-Roman guy dies, and his son--a promoter and mobster--wants Widmark's blood. He gets it, too. Jules Dassin.  Very "noir."

** spoiler alert **  Ending was weak. Spoilers: Anna is actually Annabelle, Charlie's twin separated at birth. (weak) Both have Marfan syndrome, weak heart and tall. Charlie dies after sprinting (weak heart, weak plot). Annabelle hates Grace because Grace was Charlie's best friend and "sister" when Annabelle should have been. So Annabelle comes back for vengeance. She seduces Grace's beau, moves in, tries to kill Grace a number of times, eventually captures Grace, chains her to a bed, captures her mother, chains her to the same bed. Then . . . Mom picks the lock and Annabelle goes to jail. Grace has a baby though she doesn't (though she may) reunite with weak boyfriend, Dan the Man. Jensen's observations as a writer are excellent. The plot was okay (though Grace seemed stupid in her failure to see through Anna). The ending . . . cover your eyes. Still, I'd read another by Jensen because of her skill as a writer and her powers of observation. This was ...

Self-published, then gets some notoriety, then published after death of author (her only book.) Main character attends wedding of niece.  She is on the outs with her half-sister. Niece jilts groom. Half-sister, wealthy, offers MC $50K to track down daughter and bring her back, along with various expensive items daughter has absconded with.  MC, poor, agrees.   Witty, but I suspect the witticism will wear me out.  MC also has flirted with Groom's step-father, also a rich Hollywood type.  We'll see.