When Even the Director Doesn't Think You're Hot

This is basically a necropost in anticipation of some upcoming renewed blogging activity. I don't know why I didn't post it when it was written, and it's been quite a while since then. But on rereading, my feelings remain the same, so here goes:
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 So, if you've looked at my Twittering, you know that I've surrendered at last to the overwhelming lure of a new 40 inch flatscreen TV. With HD and DVR. With three separate remotes and no clue how to do anything. And after marveling at the sheer amount of human genius devoted to allowing me to count the number of sequins on Vanna's dress, I faced the inevitable bounceback: 100 HD channels of nothing to watch.

So I dial up the old On Demand and what is there? Very little for which I have any demand. But at last I settle on Mrs. Winterbourne (1996, Richard Benjamin), which I remember as one of those cheesily enjoyable movies that provide an agreeable way to kill 2 hours without danger of exercising any brain cells. But the movie was neither as fun nor as pleasantly mindless as I thought.

I've never read the original Cornell Woolrich novel I Married a Dead Man (note to self: put on BookMooch wishlist), but I have seen the first film version No Man of Her Own, and I think it's safe to say that Mrs. Winterbourne has lost something in translation. Not only have the screenwriters half-heartedly turned it from a taut noir thiller into a big-misunderstanding-wacky-hijinx romantic comedy, but they have gone out of their way to make Connie unbelievably young and innocent, when it really would have served the plot better to make her a little more rough around the edges, a little more in need of the redemption that the Winterbourne family offers. And look, I don't hold it against Ricki Lake that she's no Barbara Stanwyck. I mean, who is? But plenty of actresses could have done a creditable job in the part -- just look at Sandra Bullock in the basically-not-dissimilar While You Were Sleeping. Ricki's either flat or over the top -- she just drags the film down, making her very good co-stars Shirley MacLaine, Brendan Fraser, Miguel Sandoval, and Loren Dean work all the harder for very little reward.

But none of that is what I want to talk about. No, I want to talk about Ricki Lake's clothes.

They are tragic. They are heinous. And not just in a this-is-the-'80s-what-can-you-expect kind of way, either. (I was surprised to learn this movie was made in the '90s. It just has that '80s feel about it.) No matter what the decade, these clothes are epically bad.

It doesn't make any difference what part of the movie we're talking about, either -- whether she's a plucky teenager leaving home; homeless and pregnant in New York; wearing the expensive clothes of the rich girl she's replaced; or spending the Winterbourne largesse on a few new outfits -- Ricki's wardrobe is uniformly floppy, droopy, too long, too dark or too pastel, and intended to cover every inch of skin. (At least when she flees Jersey, her skirts only reach her knee, but she wears black opaque tights to make up for it.)

The kicker is when some icy WASP girls make fun of Connie for her big Jersey hair (not that big) and loud makeup (not that loud, although: cool it with the purple eyeshadow). They don't say a word about her dress, although it could use a few: it's a long, drab white tent covered with a matching duster, completely colorless and shapeless. Shirley MacLaine whisks her off for the inevitable magical makeover -- and she emerges with a $29.99 fat girl's bob* and a long, droopy pastel pink-on-pink suit with about 17 layers to it, entirely colorless and shapeless. This is enough to make Brendan Fraser fall in love.

In the whole movie, Connie only gets to wear one remotely pretty outfit. At her engagement party, she has a sparkly purple gown with a boned corset that actually displays her rack and shows her waist. When lowlife Steve remarks, "Not for nothin', Connie, but that's a good look on you," he's not wrong -- or he wouldn't be if the dress weren't inappropriately floorlength and equipped with an unnecessary jacket to prevent her from God forbid showing her arms.

I initially thought that the costume designer was a talentless hack who should be horsewhipped and drummed out of the corps forthwith, but it turns out that she may have done one or two OK little projects, so I must place the blame elsewhere. And then it hit me.

Now, I know absolutely nothing about the backstory of this production. I don't know how it came to be made, how Ricki Lake got cast, or how Richard Benjamin got involved. But it's clear to me now that Benjamin didn't want to work with Ricki. He thought she was fat and unfuckable, and that since he didn't want to do her, neither Brendan Fraser or anyone would or should want to do her. So his directions to the costume department, stated or unstated, were: "Keep her covered." (This also explains the almost entire lack of love scenes -- an odd omission for a rom-com, n'est pas?)

I also don't know much about where this movie falls during Ricki's dramatic weight loss story.** The only details I could find, at IMDB, said that she'd already lost 125 pounds but "they" made her lose another 20 before filming (which: figures!). Now, I think it's fair to say that in this movie, Ricki is certainly not Hollywood slender; she might even be a little chunky. But she was a very pretty girl before she lost weight, and she's a very pretty girl at whatever weight she is here. With another director, and better clothes, I think more people would have seen that. 

*I have a fat girl's bob. I like it and it works for me. But I'm not a 19-year-old lady of leisure with nothing to do but fit in with the millionaires and/or snag a man.
**Yeah, I kind of hate her for selling out and spreading her if-I-can-do-it-anyone-can-do-it bullshit, but I have to admire her. However she did it, a woman who's lost that much weight and kept it off for more than 5 years is literally a freak of nature.

Persona Non Grata

Persona Non Grata, Ruth Downie

Downie's series continues to be a kind of poor man's version of Lindsay Davis's Marcus Didius Falco books. It mines the same veins of humor and culture while attempting to show the similarities between people then and now -- but only half as successfully. The mystery in this book is spoiled by a very misleading prologue that seems to point toward the guilt of one particular character; since the information is never known to Ruso or Tilla and the character is never suspected, it dupes the reader to no purpose.

My main problem with the book is one that I had with the earlier books in the series. I don't buy the relationship between Ruso and Tilla at all -- for all this great love they supposedly share, they never talk to each other or understand each other at all. And I continue to find Tilla in particular extremely dislikeable.

A Duty to the Dead

A Duty to the Dead, Charles Todd

An interesting new series from Charles Todd, still mining the psychological effects of WWI on the participants. Bess Crawford is a plucky and sympathetic character, and overall the book is an enjoyable read. However, Todd at times seems as hampered by period social conventions as his heroine. The central mystery is easily penetrated, and once you've done that it's not hard to guess the perpetrator -- although I confess Todd made me waver in my conviction once or twice. The ultimate explanation for the crime rings somewhat false.

We Interrupt This Regularly Scheduled Static for an Important Announcement

It's with some surprise that I learn that someone over at Rotten Tomatoes is posting movie reviews under the handle "museofire" (cuz I thought I was so clever and original and everything). For the record, it's not me. I do use "MuseofIre" in places like Twitter that don't allow spaces in screen names, but always with capitals.

Y'know, the idea of personal branding is suddenly starting to make a lot more sense. Before this, all I could think was, "That must be painful."

Victory of Eagles

Victory of Eagles, Naomi Novik

A great entry in the Temeraire series -- the best, I think, since His Majesty's Dragon. The choices made by Will and Temeraire in the last book have devastating consequences for both them and England, and although the book ends with a victory, those consequences are not thereby wiped out. Will continues to be a thoroughly decent and likeable hero, while Temeraire is thankfully losing some of his childish naivete. Portraits of historical figures, particularly the Duke of Wellington, some interesting interaction among the dragons, and kickass battle scenes complete the pleasures of this book.

Catching Up a Bit

The ARC gods at LibraryThing have been extraordinarily good to me recently, but before I get to those books, it turns out I have a few from earlier I need to acknowledge.

• Dreamers of the Day, Mary Doria Russell. The first two-thirds of this book, describing Agnes's early life and travel to Cairo, are well-written and entertaining, and Russell's portraits of the real-life figures of Churchill, Lawrence, and others are fascinating. However, the whole tone of the book is a little too "fly on the wall of history" -- Agnes has no real effect on the unfolding of events, and they in turn don't really do anything to alter the arc of her life. The quasi-mystical/fantasy/religious final segment is completely tacked on and unnecessary.
• Tokyo Year Zero, David Peace. I made several valiant tries, but I could not progress more than a couple of chapters into this book. The incoherent style and unpleasant subject matter made it unreadable to me.
• Pushing Up Daisies, Rosemary Harris. It's hard to find much to say about this debut mystery, which is sort of like rice pudding: OK if you like that sort of thing, but not the most original or tastiest dessert in the bunch. The mystery is fairly well plotted (although the murderer is obvious from the get-go), and some of the secondary characters are well drawn (unfortunately, not the heroine). One annoying point: I found it impossible to tell what the heroine's background in television was supposed to be. Was she a filmmaker? A scheduling executive? Or what?

Back. In the Saddle Again?

Excuse me. . . hello . . . is this thing on? Whoa, wicked feedback.

There, that's better.

I just wanted to pop in for a moment to say that the medical issues that have sidelined me for most of the last year seem to be pretty much fixed (crossing my digits and knocking wood repeatedly). I'm going to have some minor unrelated surgery in a couple of weeks. When I recover from that, I fully hope and intend to start blogging again regularly. I miss it and have lots to discuss, including several ARCs I so generously received via LibraryThing.

Also, you may have noticed I've started Twittering -- it's kind of like blogging lite. Follow me at @MuseofIre.

Gladiatrix, by Russell Whitfield

Mindful of my obligation to review this book for LibraryThing, I struggled valiantly to finish it, but despite my best efforts, I could only get halfway through. It would take a doughtier warrior than myself to conquer Whitfield's leaden prose, abysmal dialog, complete absence of characterization, and predictable plotting.

Except for the heroine Lysandra, there's not a single character with a spark of life, but in her case that's not a recommendation. The arrogant know-it-all who doesn't realize how others perceive her can work well when used sparingly or for comic effect -- see Elizabeth Peters' ever-adorable Amelia Peabody, for example -- but Lysandra is utterly without humor or charm. She is simply an unlikeable brat who needs a big dose of get-over-yourself.

Whitfield's endnotes (I always read the endnotes) acknowledges someone who helped him get rid of his contemporary point of view, but I'm afraid that person had too much to contend with to take care of it all. The author seems concerned, for example, that readers will find Lysandra's temple implausible and justifies it at some length. To me it seems perfectly plausible, except when we come to Lysandra's function as a "mission priestess." I am by no means an expert on ancient Greek religion, but it seems clear that proselytization was not one of its features; it spread haphazardly through conquest and syncretization with existing local deities.

The more serious historical lapse involves the so-called Tribe comprising the women from Gaul and Britain. We modern readers can accept that they all fall into an overarching definition of "Celtic," but I sincerely doubt that an Iceni and a Dacian are going to automatically recognize each other as blood-sisters.

On a shallow note, Whitfield's sex scenes are embarrassing and far from erotic, not only as though he knows nothing about lesbians, but as though he knows nothing about sex between any two people anywhere.

Murder on the Eiffel Tower

Murder on the Eiffel Tower, by Claude Izner

I received this as an ARC from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers group, and if I hadn't been obligated to review it, I would never have finished it. This book is a very weak historical thriller set in the heady atmosphere of the Paris Exposition of 1889. It has the stiff prose I associate with bad translation, but translation alone can't account for its clunky exposition, unrealistic dialog, shallow characterization, haphazard plotting, and pointless name-checking. The hero suspects his lover and business partner on less than no evidence, and never does come around to guessing the identity of the real killer until he reveals himself. In a way, that's not surprising, since the killer's motive is laughable, and the authors provide no substantive clues whatever.

Know How I Said I Was Back? Not So Much

Remember how I mentioned last time I'd been having some health problems? Well, they're ongoing. Nothing too serious, but debilitating enough that basically all I've got the energy for is working, reading, and sleeping. Lots of sleeping. Blogging? Not really on the agenda right now. So while I may pop in now and again, you can consider me on the dreaded hiatus until I get my innards seen to.

As long as I'm here, though, let me just say this about that. Did you ever have an old friend you hadn't seen in a while, and then you got together, and suddenly you realized that all his little jokes were really racist, or all she could talk about was dieting? That's kind of how I'm feeling in rereading the Smith and Wetzon mysteries by Annette Meyers. I really liked these books back in the day, and I kept them when sorting through Mom's collection, but on reflection, I have to wonder what it was I saw in them. The heroine, Leslie Wetzon, a former Broadway dancer turned Wall Street headhunter, is a terrible investigator; especially in the first book (The Big Killing), she consistently withholds information, tampers with evidence, lies for no reason, and fails to ask the crucial and obvious questions.

I can't blame her entirely for her dysfunctional relationships with her partner and cop boyfriend, though, because however prickly and defensive she is, neither one of them is any prize. Smith is materialistic, greedy, narcissistic, and manipulative (cue obligatory "and those are her good points"), while Silvestri is the sort of emotionally closed off guy who compartmentalizes so thoroughly he doesn't introduce Wetzon to his mother until they've been practically living together for 5 years.

The one thing I am digging is the way these books are a positive time capsule of a certain Manhattan yuppie milieu of the 1980s, complete with designer labels, hip restaurants, and a time before cell phones. But somehow I don't think that was what I found cool at the time when I too was running around looking for a phone booth.

I'm Back (Didja Miss Me?)

I didn't intend to take off the whole month of July. But first I went on vacation and then I went on vacation again and then I had some health problems. So before I knew it, boom! it was August.

So anyway, I have lots of cool things to say about books I've read (and by the way, I'm so hopelessly behind tracking my reading that I've given up trying to catch up) and movies I've seen (three of 'em! in a theater!). But I'm not here to talk about that now.

No, what brought me back was the stupid Geico commercial where the customer explains that his father was CARJACKED AT KNIFEPOINT and Joan freaking Rivers makes jokes about her plastic surgery. And then the poor man graciously COMPLIMENTS GEICO ON THEIR SENSITIVITY.

I'm sure some ad guy just cracked himself up thinking he was so fucking clever and edgy. But guess what, bozo: when you cross the line into making fun of people who have had a horrific experience and make them thank you for it, that's not edgy, THAT'S JUST FUCKING WRONG.

Sheesh.

Edited 8/2 because I'm still pissed off.

Patriot Hearts

Patriot Hearts, by Barbara Hambly

I've read damn near everything Barbara Hambly's ever written, and while there were a few of her books I didn't like so much, I never thought she could write anything so BORING. This story of the first four First Ladies (counting Thomas Jefferson's slave mistress, Sally Hemings) is a rambling, episodic collection of flashbacks -- and often, flashbacks within flashbacks -- loosely tied together by an unnecessary frame device. None of the heroines emerges as a particularly interesting character, and indeed the book had the effect of making me less sympathetic with some of them (Martha Washington tsking that Pennsylvania's anti-slavery laws complicate her housekeeping arrangements, Abigail Adams fuming that an Irish immigrant shouldn't have political opinions because he has no stake in the country). There's no driving, overarching story here; and while I don't doubt that a peek behind the scenes into the domestic side of the great events of early American history could make a fascinating novel, this isn't it.

8 Unanswered Questions About The Tenderness of Wolves

It took me two tries to get into this historical mystery about a murder in the snowy Canadian wilderness in the 1860s. Once I did, I enjoyed it, but it's almost breathtaking in its loose-endedness, leaving plots unresolved and characters scattered across the landscape. So herewith, the list of things I still want to know:

1. Whatever became of Amy Seton?
2. With Moody dead, how are the Knoxes going to learn about Eve Seton/Elizabeth Bird?
3. Why and how did Mrs. Ross leave the asylum with Mr. Ross?
4. Who was Half Man and what was his relationship with Stewart?
5. Why did Mr. Ross start to turn away from Mrs. Ross, and what is she going to do about it?
6. What's Jacob going to do when he learns that Moody was killed while he wasn't around to protect him?
7. What's going to become of Francis, Line and her children, Susannah, Maria, and Mr. Knox?
8. So what is that mysterious bone tablet anyway?

I Defy the AFI

It's no use getting too bent out of shape about the lists published by the AFI. Tastes differ; also, they're an institution that depends at least partly on donations and they're not above pandering to certain films because they were popular or made a lot of money. But their broadcast last night of the 10 Top 10 was very badly done (each segment way too short, then wasting time on recaps; dubious experts), and I have to take issue with some of their more egregious choices:

• Titanic on the list of epics? ONE OF THE WORST MOVIES EVER MADE, PEOPLE.
• Moonstruck and Sleepless in Seattle in romantic comedies? These horrible, horrible films are better than Bringing Up Baby or My Man Godfrey or even Victor/Victoria? Don't make me laugh (they sure couldn't).
• The Usual Suspects? Good movie, but a better mystery than The Thin Man or The Big Sleep or Notorious? I don't think so.
• Both versions of Scarface on the gangster list? That's just lazy.

And whose idea was it to trot out Kirk Douglas? I'm sure whoever did it kidded themselves they were doing something very noble, but I found it just sad and exploitative.

True Dreck

I used to have a razor-sharp memory for everything I had read or watched, but as time goes on I find myself losing my grasp on the details. So, as it now often happens, I remembered that I really hated the movie True Lies, but not why. Thus, having nothing in particular better to be doing last night, I watched it again.

And then I remembered. Because this is the movie where THE HERO (Arnold Schwarzenegger) thinks that it's a fine idea not only to abuse his position as a Government agent to spy on his wife (Jamie Lee Curtis) when he thinks she's having an affair, but also to kidnap her, throw her into a cell, interrogate her, and threaten her with torture and exposure. And who also thinks it's fun to torture and humiliate the man she's involved with. And who thinks it's sexy to then force her to pretend to be whore and make her dance naked for what she thinks is a stranger.

And not only does she not think he's a sick bastard, she LIKES IT. And then proceeds to torture and humiliate the other guy herself a little more at the end.

With good guys like this . . . .

As a side note, the whole conjunction of Arab terrorists/planes/tall buildings takes on a whole new resonance in the post 9/11 world.

You know, I've always kind of despised Tom Arnold. The fact that he's pretty much the best thing in this movie is deeply depressing.

Garden Spells

Garden Spells, by Sarah Addison Allen

I am in love with this book, which is all about love and loss and hurt and happiness. It's about families, about small towns where you carry the baggage of all your ancestors, and about sisters. It's about wanting to belong, and what happens when you don't. It's about magic, and some seriously tasty-sounding food. Go read it.

Long Overdue Post #2: Does the Wind Get Tired Out There?

This post also got started and lost in the shuffle a good while ago.

I watch Mr. Smith Goes to Washington almost every time I run into it. There's a lot to admire in this 1939 Frank Capra classic, notably the acting from almost everyone involved: Jimmy Stewart as the idealistic young Jefferson Smith; Jean Arthur as Clarissa Saunders, the hard-boiled secretary who's transformed by Smith's sincerity; Claude Rains as stately, silver-haired, but corrupt Sen. Joseph Harrison Paine; and Edward Arnold as smooth-talking political boss Jim Taylor; not to mention Thomas Mitchell, Eugene Pallette, Harry Carey, and Jack Carson. The dialog by screenwriter Sidney Buchman is snappy and often very funny, as when drunken urbanite Clarissa tries to repeat what Smith has told her about the plains she's never seen.

In outline, the plot is simple. Naive young publisher Smith is appointed as an interim senator for his state, in the expectation that he won't get in the way of the Taylor machine. In the person of Sen. Paine, the machine is trying to engineer passage of a bill to construct an unnecessary dam on land owned by a Taylor advocate that will (somehow) enrich Taylor, Paine, and others. By chance, Smith decides to sponsor a bill asking the government to buy that same land to sponsor a boys' camp (you know it's 1939 when all the sincere speeches about kids growing up to respect each other never consider that some of them could be, you know, girls). Taylor tries to buy Smith; when that doesn't work, he decides to smash him by showing that Smith, not Allen, owns the disputed land. With coaching from Saunders, the disgraced Smith provokes a confession from Paine, brings down Taylor, and clears his name.

It's fine, rousing stuff. But despite my recognition of its good qualities, I've never loved the movie the way so many other people do, and it's taken me a long time to figure out why. I think it's a series of three interlinked problems. First, Smith does a terrible job of defending himself. Sure, the Taylor syndicate blindsides him with the forged contract, but if there is enough time for a trial with three different handwriting experts, there's enough time for Smith to try to expose the connection between the landowner and Taylor. But it looks like he doesn't even try; nor does he try to tell his story and ask for time to prove his allegations when he has the chance and it might do him some good.

That failure leads directly to his desperate filibuster, which is the second problem. For most people, I think, this is the highlight of the film: a lone man, battling the forces of corruption arrayed against him, with nothing but his voice and ability to stay on his feet. And I must admit it's genius when, hands deep in the negative telegrams Paine has trucked into the Senate chamber, an all-but-spent Smith turns to him and rasps, "I guess it's just another lost cause, Mr. Paine." But the whole idea falls flat for me. Smith really does nothing with his opportunity except assert his innocence again and again. It's no wonder his fellows turn their backs on him, if he can't summon up a shred of proof. He says he's trying to reach the people in his state, but again, what does he offer them except hollow assurances without evidence?

The third and biggest problem, though, is that he wouldn't need much evidence if he simply applied a little logic. Taylor's whole scheme depends on the fact that owning the land on which the dam will be built will bring in a huge profit. Would that not be equally true if Smith owned it? Why would he bother trying to con schoolboys out of nickels and dimes for a camp if he could sell the land to the Government for an enormous amount? It's so OBVIOUS, yet neither he nor anyone else ever points that out.

Honesty and bravery and patriotism and good intentions are all great qualities in their place. But I like my heroes, and my elected officials, to have a few smarts as well.

Long Overdue Post #1: Mystery 101

I started to write this post quite a while ago, and for some reason never got around to finishing.

By coincidence, the same night I watched To Catch a Thief (1955, Alfred Hitchcock), I also happened to finish Lisa Scottoline's Dirty Blonde. At first glance these two works, one of Hitchcock's most famous movies and a better-than-average paperback thriller, would seem to have very little in common. But actually they share a very important characteristic. They both violate the principles of good mysteries in not playing fair with the audience.

To Catch a Thief is the story of former jewel thief John Robie the Cat (aging though he is, Cary Grant is still one terrific hunk, although he's never looked less sexy than in the striped shirt and red bandana he wears at the beginning of the movie). At the start of World War II, he escaped from a French prison when the Germans bombed it, and he and his fellow prisoners became heroes of the Resistance. Now, 10 years after the end of the war, Robie lives in a huge villa on the Riviera where he raises flowers and grapes, and his cohorts toil away in a restaurant one of them owns. Suddenly, somebody begins duplicating Robie's crimes, and both the police and his old buddies think he is responsible. He must catch the real thief to clear his name, before the police lock him up or one of his pals decides to kill him.

One of the old gang, the wine steward Foussard, has a daughter, Danielle. Her age is never exactly made clear, although from dialog it appears she's supposed to be under 20. We meet her several times: first, she drives Robie away from the restaurant in a boat. She flirts with him, exposits the whole story of the prison and the Resistance, and taunts him with his wealth and the comrades' poverty. Next we see her at the beach at Cannes, where she flirts with him and taunts him some more. The third time is at the funeral of her father, who has been killed in a trap set for Robie; Danielle blames Robie for his death. But Foussard can't, as the police want people to think, have been the cat burglar himself, because he had a wooden leg.

At the climax of a dramatic rooftop chase, we see Danielle for the last time, when Robie rips off the mask of the burglar to reveal her. He shouts: "I figured it was you the night your father died! He always got you to do his legwork, even during the war when you were a kid."

And that, my friend, is cheating. Robie knew something that the audience was never told. Nowhere in her three prior scenes did we ever get a hint that Danielle was part of the wartime gang. Indeed, the scene on the boat is clearly played as though the whole thing is a story she has heard, not something she lived herself. It would have taken only a line of establishing dialog to make it clear. Even a bit of business at the restaurant, where Foussard sends her to fetch something from a high shelf, would have laid the groundwork. But Hitchcock (and screenwriter John Michael Hayes) didn't want to chance spoiling the surprise ending: in opting for the cheap twist over the carefully hidden clue, Hitchcock robs the audience of its satisfaction in the solution of the mystery.

Dirty Blonde, a mostly successful return to form after a couple of disappointments from Scottoline, tells the story of Cate Fante, a newly appointed federal judge with a penchant for picking up guys in sleazy bars. After ruling against Richard Marz, a writer who has sued Hollywood producer Art Simone, Cate is shocked to learn that Marz has apparently killed Simone and then shot himself. Marz's friend Detective Russo, however, believes Cate is responsible, and soon he has leaked her secret sex life to the press. Dumped by her boyfriend, made a citywide laughingstock, and with her job in jeopardy, Cate begins to search for the truth. She's supported only by her loyal secretary Val, her oddball clerks Emily and Sam, her best friend Gina, and new love interest Det. Nesbitt.

I've always liked Scottoline's books, but she has a habit of telegraphing the bad guys very early. I thought she had done it this time too -- a fellow judge called Meriden. I sat confidently through Cate's determination that the killer was Simone's former assistant (for a lawyer, Cate has apparently very little acquaintance with what constitutes evidence). Sure enough, right on cue, there is Cate in her deserted office at night when in walks Meriden. But no, he isn't the nut with the gun -- it's Cate's Goth chick clerk, Emily.

Emily who? you may be asking yourself. We haven't seen nearly as much of her as we saw of Danielle. Our only real view of her is way back in Chapter 5, when she and Cate talk about the case. Cate says something about Marz's dream and Emily responds, "My dream is to pay off my student loans. I have trailer trash dreams." Then we get a few fleeting glimpses of her being worried how Cate's troubles are going to affect her job. That's it until the final confrontation, when she confesses that she was being paid to pass information on to Simone. She shot him because he threatened to tell Cate about it, then set up Marz's suicide to make it look like he'd done it. She says, "I followed him to dinner and I shot him. I had to. My family depends on me. You remember that day, when we talked about people and their dreams? This is their dream. I am their dream."

Now, I don't mind having my expectations confounded. I like it when I pit all my cunning against an author and she still outwits me. That's the intellectual pleasure a good mystery provides, the tingle you get when you look back and say to yourself, "Of course! THAT's what that meant." But that kind of challenge depends on the author's bravely hiding all the clues in plain sight, not burying them by the dark of the moon in a cave on the far side of forever. No strike that: it involves actually PROVIDING clues, which Scottoline has signally failed to do.

As with Danielle, even a very little more information would have been sufficient to set the stage. Scottoline could have given us even a hint of the pathetic pride Emily's parents have in her, just the suggestion that Emily is so desperate for money she'll do anything to get it. But no, there's nothing like that, and without it, the girl's exposure as the murderer is completely random -- it could just as easily have been some bum off the street for all the sense it makes. It's as though we see the Man Behind the Curtain unmasked without ever seeing the great and powerful Wizard of Oz at all. And that's not just cheating, my friend. That's bullshit.

As You Might Have Expected

Keeping up my movie diary has become more of a chore than a pleasure, so I'm giving it a rest until further notice. If I've got an observation about a movie that's absolutely dying to be made, I'll make it. Otherwise, you can just imagine me watching Notorious and Now, Voyager for the kajillionth time each.

The Duke and I

The Duke and I, by Julia Quinn

Despite my earlier post on romance, I keep TRYING to like the books recommended by Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. However, not even for free could I persist past the second chapter or so of this Regency. Quinn's prose is flat and her ear for dialog tin.