Review of "The Motion Picture Teller: A Novel" by Colin Cotterill

Author Colin Cotterill, a London-born Renaissance man who lives in Thailand, writes the award-winning Dr. Siri Paiboun mystery series. This book, a humorous suspense novel about two Bangkok movie buffs, is a nice departure for Cotterill.

*****

Thirtysomething Bangkok residents Supot and Ali are friends whose prime interest in life is movies.





Supot is a lackadaisical mailman and Ali - who's in the midst of writing a screenplay - owns a video rental shop in Bangkok. In Supot's spare time he 'works' (without pay) at Ali's video shop....if you can call it working.



Usually Supot and Ali sit in the back of the shop watching and discussing films, about which they are VERY knowledgeable. The two pals extol the virtue of western cinema and western movie stars, and especially love legendary actresses like Marlene Dietrich. Conversely, Supot and Ali bemoan the lack of great Thai movies.



The video shop gets about 3 to 4 customers on an average evening, and one night - when a nervous boy with a penciled on mustache comes in, and in a fake deep voice, says the men at his snooker club want a couple of sex films - Ali and Supot can barely contain their mirth.



One day a homeless man called Woot comes by the video store with a box of old cassettes he 'found' (stole).



Ali agrees to purchase the haul for a few Baht and he and Supot proceed to enjoy the movies. Then a miracle happens. One of the cassettes, a Thai film called 'Bangkok 2010' - which neither man has ever heard of - is SUPERB. It has a compelling storyline, great acting, high production values, and so on. Moreover Supot falls in love with the beautiful lead actress, whose name is Suriluk....and who plays a character called Suriluk.



Supot is absolutely mesmerized by the film, watches it again and again, and tries to research the people involved with the movie. It's almost impossible to learn anything about the production, but finally, after going to film studios around Bangkok and doing some sneaky sleuthing with the post office, Supot manages to get the name of one filmmaker and an address for lovely Siriluk.



Supot writes to Siriluk and gets a response, which absolutely thrills him. In a roundabout way, Siriluk's letter leads to Supot and Ali embarking on an amusing excursion around town.



In any case, Supot is DETERMINED to meet Siriluk and find out why the movie was never released. Thus Supot decides to visit the actress where she lives, which is far away from his home in Bangkok. There Supot (eventually) learns what's what.



The main story is interspersed with scenes from the movie 'Bangkok 2010' which is about a fascistic regime in which the ruling ministers have a stable of 'minor wives' (prostitutes). Beautiful long-haired Siriluk is a member of the underground (a spy) who finagles herself into being a minor wife to a high-ranking Deputy Field Marshall. Suriluk's aim is to compromise the Deputy Field Marshall and harm the regime. These scenes from 'Bangkok 2010', which comprise a story within a story, are compelling in and of themselves.





The novel is entertaining, with engaging characters, scenes that made me chuckle, and a feel for the ambiance of Thailand. There's also a good bit of natter about REAL films, actresses, actors, and so on - which would appeal to enthusiastic movie watchers.

Good book. Highly recommended.

Rating: 4 stars

Review of "The Flying Troutmans: A Novel" by Miriam Toews

This book, about a family struggling to keep things together in difficult circumstances, is a sort of domestic drama/ coming-of-age story/ comic travelogue novel.

Twenty-eight year old Hattie, who grew up in Manitoba, has been 'trying to be an artist' in Paris for several years when her boyfriend Marc dumps her and a family crisis calls her home.



Hattie's older sister Min, who's been struggling with mental illness all her life, has taken to her bed, won't eat, and is wasting away.



Hattie and Min's family seems to be assailed by tragedy. Their father died when the girls were youngsters and swam out too far....and their dad drowned trying to save them. Years later, when Hattie was in college, Min's constant 'episodes'.....



.....got to be too much for Hattie, and she fled to France and met Marc.



Now Min's children, 11-year-old Thebes and 15-year-old Logan, need assistance, and Hattie has to step into the breach. After Hattie arrives back in Manitoba, ailing Min is brought to a mental hospital. Then Hattie and the children take the old family van on an excursion to find Doug Cherkis. Cherkis - Logan and Thebe's father - left over a decade ago, and there's a clue that he's working in South Dakota.



Both Thebes and Logan are a challenge, especially for a woman who has no parenting experience.



Thebes dies her hair purple; is covered with fake tattoos and glitter; gets filthy but doesn't bathe; talks non-stop; packs her books and art supplies for the trip....but forgets to bring any clothes; etc.



Logan is expelled from high school; isolates himself with hoodies and headphones; is a basketball hustler; sometimes gets drunk; sneaks off with the van (though he has no driver's licence); carves phrases into the vehicle's dashboard; thoughtlessly worries his aunt and sister; and so on.



All this aside, Thebes and Logan are intelligent, good kids in a bad situation.

Most of the story is about the family's trip through America, first to South Dakota, then down through the western U.S. to California. Along the way, Hattie and the children take turns playing their chosen CDs; stay in ramshackle motels; eat creatively; play road games; require a hospital visit; have car trouble; make innovative works of art with Thebes' supplies; meet all sorts of people (in one hilarious scene, Hattie desperately tries to pick up a reluctant walker to have an adult to talk to); get help from strangers; adopt a dog; and more.



Hattie periodically uses phone booths to call her sister Min and her ex-boyfriend Marc, and these calls are part of the story's arc. Hattie also thinks back to the past, and provides a picture of the family dynamic through the years. For instance, Min's first 'peculiar' episode occurred on the day Hattie was born; Hattie thinks Min tried to push her underwater on the day their father drowned; Min drove the children's dad Cherkis away with threats of suicide; Hattie and Min's mother (now deceased) didn't know how to handle Min's illness; and more.



For me, the novel is not wholly credible. Who would let an 11-year-old just stay filthy and smelly?; or allow a 15-year-old to get drunk without scolding him; and what (otherwise decent) man would go away and not contact his children for over a decade? However, I found the story engaging, rather fun, and finally uplifting.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Review of "Midnight Climax: A Kats Takemoto Thriller" by Peter Kageyama

This review was first posted on Mystery & Suspense Magazine. https://www.mysteryandsuspense.com/mi...


Midnight Climax is a compelling thriller inspired by a real CIA experiment carried out from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s. During the CIA operation, men were lured into brothels by prostitutes, then dosed with psychedelic drugs to study their effects.

The story opens in late 1950s San Francisco, where a Chinese prostitute called Mai is entertaining a client while government agents are filming the encounter through a one-way mirror.



As instructed, Mai gives the trick an LSD-laced drink, after which the man goes crazy.



Mai is killed, the perpetrator escapes, and the repercussions radiate through the CIA, the San Francisco Police Department, and two rival Chinese gangs - the Hop Sing Tong and the Hei Long Tong.

Mai's homicidal client is Steven Epps, a decorated soldier who was captured during the Korean War and held in a POW camp. In the camp, Epps was subjected to chemical treatments and brainwashing meant to turn him into a weapon against his own side. The regimen made Epps freakishly strong, fast, and immune to pain.



When Epps was released from the POW camp, the CIA put him in a medical facility where they secretly continued the torturous experiments. The government's goal was to learn how to create super soldiers. Epps escaped from the hospital, and is now so damaged that psychedelic drugs or stress trigger murderous psychotic episodes, after which Epps can't remember what he did.



The dead prostitute Mai was the cousin of Lin Tai Lo (aka John), the leader of the Hop Sing Tong.



John wants revenge against Mai's killer, so he hires his acquaintance, Japanese-American private investigator Katsuhiro Takemoto (Kats), to track down Steven Epps.



Kats is a decorated World War II veteran who was injured in France and then suffered shell shock. The skilled PI is now a martial arts expert who rides around San Francisco on a motorcycle......



......and has useful contacts in Japantown, Chinatown, and the San Francisco Police Department.



With Kats' military background, he feels a kinship with Epps, and would rather see the fugitive cured than killed. So the PI, with assistance from his girlfriend Molly Hayes......



.....and his pal, bookseller Shig Murao, sets out to find Epps. Kats hopes he can placate Tong leader John and get Epps the help he needs.



Meanwhile, the government is desperately trying to recapture Epps and engineer a cover up. For their LSD experiments, CIA agents have been getting prostitutes from the Hei Long Tong in exchange for guns and ammunition.



Dragon Eye Wen, head of the Hei Long Tong, plans to use the weapons against the Hop Sing Tong, who are his rivals for control of Chinatown.



With Kats, the CIA, the police, and the Hop Sing Tong all looking for Epps, and violence breaking out between the Tongs, the story is chock full of skullduggery, druggings, abductions, fight scenes, and deaths. The gang warfare would appeal to fans of the TV series 'Sons of Anarchy' and the finely choreographed brawls are reminiscent of the 'Orphan X' novels by Gregg Hurwitz.

Kageyama has done his research and nicely captures the atmosphere of the time and place, with beatniks doing their thing;



Chinese shopkeepers dispensing herbal cures and practicing acupuncture;



Japanese neighbors helping each other;



SRO buildings; nightclubs; and brothels;



ethnic food and clothing;





and the ambiance and geography of San Francisco.



This is the second book in the Kats Takemoto series and I look forward to more. Highly recommended.

Rating: 4 stars

Review of "The Soulmate: A Novel" by Sally Hepworth

This book. set in Australia, focuses on two couples who seem to be very happily married: Pippa and Gabe and Amanda and Max. The wives, Pippa and Amanda, are deeply in love with their husbands and can't picture their lives without them.

The millennials, Pippa and Gabe, met in the botanic gardens when Gabe was a groomsman at a wedding and Pippa was taking a walk with her sister. Gabe is handsome and charming and Pippa immediately agreed to go on a date with him.





Pippa and Gabe have been married for several years and have two preschool age daughters. Freya and Asha, whom they adore. Pippa is an estate lawyer and Gabe is a stay-at-home dad.





The middle-aged couple, Amanda and Max, met nearly thirty years ago when amateur photographer Amanda was waitressing at a party where wealthy businessman Max was a guest.





The spouses have been married for decades, have no children, and live a luxurious life of vacations, travel, opulent homes, high-end events, etc.



Gabe and Pippa have moved several times and are now settled in Portsea, a sleepy coastal town a couple of hours outside Melbourne. When the couple took a shine to the Portsea house, they were unaware that it's location, on a cliff called 'The Drop', was the scene of frequent suicides.



Pippa and Gabe purchased the home anyway, and Gabe has now 'talked down' seven people who were about to throw themselves from the cliff. In fact Gabe is famous for being a kind of suicide whisperer, and has been written up in the local paper as a hero.



Then the day comes when a woman approaches the cliff, Gabe goes out to do his magic....and he's unsuccessful. The woman falls to her death. Moreover, as Pippa is watching from the window, the interaction between Jack and the woman seems to be contentious. Could Jack have pushed the woman from the cliff?

It turns out the dead woman is Amanda. As the police look into Amanda's death, the rest of the story - narrated in the alternating voices of Pippa and Amanda - goes back and forth between the past and the present.



We learn that Gabe and Pippa's union had some rough patches, and Gabe had several jobs before he became a domestic husband. Pippa was supportive throughout, as were her parents and her sister Kat and Kat's wife Mei. In fact the whole extended family has now moved to Portsea, and are on hand for babysitting, helping prepare meals, and so on.



As for Amanda and Max, we learn Max is a wily (sometimes ruthless) businessman, and has been 'creative' in finding investors so he can take his enterprise online, which is a very expensive proposition.



Amanda still dabbles in photography and has little to do with Max's professional affairs. However, Amanda makes it her business to always looks elegant and socialize at important functions, which is a great help to Max both personally and professionally.



As the story progresses it's clear there's a connection between the two couples, Pippa and Gabe and Amanda and Max, and - as the truth is slowly revealed - the suspense is edge-of-your-seat compelling. How far should a woman go, and how much should she overlook, to keep her marriage intact? I think author Sally Hepworth wants the reader to think about that.

I enjoyed the book, which is a good combination of mystery and domestic drama.

Rating: 3.5 stars