Still Armed. Still Dangerous. Still Got It.

Frank (Bruce Willis) is a former black-ops CIA agent living a quiet life alone... until the day a hit squad shows up to kill him. With his identity compromised, Frank reassembles his old team-- Joe (Morgan Freeman), Marvin (John Malkovich), and Victoria (Helen Mirren)-- and sets out to prove that they still have a few tricks up their sleeves. Stand back and watch the bullets fly in this explosive action-comedy that critics call "a rip-roaring good time."

Title: RED
Release: October 15, 2010
Genre: Action Comedy
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Based On: RED by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner (graphic novel)
Writer: Jon and Erich Hoeber
Director: Robert Schwentke
Music By: Christophe Beck
Produced By: Lorenzo di Bonaventura
Studio: di Bonaventura Pictures and DC Entertainment
Distributed By: Summit Entertainment
Run Time: 111 minutes
Official Site

“Some thumb-sucker came along and tagged [them] RED…. Retired: Extremely Dangerous.” Those retirees; Frank Moses, Victoria, Marvin Boggs, and Joe Matheson are a team of black ops assassins who used to work together and now that someone is gunning for one of them, they’re all back in the game. These retirees are played by award-winning, veteran actors Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren, John Malkovich, and Morgan Freeman. RED is a 2010 action comedy that was shot entirely in Canada and New Orleans, this star-studded film was nominated for the Golden Globe in the category Best Motion Picture- Musical or Comedy.

This was an incredibly fun movie with lots of shoot-out scenes (Helen Mirren with a machine gun is not to be missed), witty dialogue, and some  great, but not overdone special effects (love that stepping out of a spinning car shooting move that Willis does) too. However, it was all of the brilliant actors that made me enjoy RED as much as I did. I would have enjoyed the movie more if they would have cut out the perquisite romance angle though. Willis’ character’s girlfriend Sarah Ross didn’t really add to the movie in my opinion. She stood around, sat around, and generally just got in the way. I honestly think Mary-Louise Parker tried her best but she isn’t given too much room to maneuver here. I actually wish that she had somehow been taken out of the film and Morgan Freeman’s character given more scenes than the few he does get since he’s one of my favorite actors. Personally, I thought the relationship between Sarah and Frank was slightly creepy as well. I was making the same face as John Malkovich’s character does at the end.

Speaking of which, the character Marvin Boggs played beautifully by John Malkovich. He’s this crazy guy whose not playing with a full deck and yet he’s funny, not goofy or slapstick (nothing in the film is like that even if it is a comedy). The character almost ended up being played by John C. Reilly but scheduling conflicts made it so the producers could go with their original choice. However, it was another character completely that became my favorite rather quickly and that was Helen Mirren who played Victoria. She’s so elegant, sophisticated, and deadly! Her demeanor is supposed to be based on Martha Stewart but I thought she pulled it off even better. While visually nothing like the original comic books and having moved away from the darker tone of them, RED doesn't completely forget it's source material either. The Victoria and Ivan (played by Brian Cox) story in the prequels is actually completed in the film though it would have been so much more interesting if someone could have found a way to work more of the others backstories in.

The main character I guess would be Frank Moses played by Bruce Willis and there’s just nothing I can say about him that I‘m sure hasn‘t been said before in every action film he‘s played in. Though Bruce Willis has done more than enough action films to qualify him to be in the action men hall of fame, I did think he brought a bit of difference to his role here because he’s not trying to deny that he’s getting old (or passing the reins to someone younger) but he can still kick young guy butt when needed to. Karl Urban (who plays the current CIA guy William Cooper whose been ordered to kill Willis’ character) gets his butt handed to him! Urban said that getting to fight Willis was “the most fun [he] had in years.”

Overall, RED is a good story with fantastic actors that wasn’t quite as good as it could have been but still a lot of fun to watch.  A sequel has been recently confirmed so who knows? Maybe it will be even better than this one by developing the remaining characters more. I just hope that the plot will be half as good as this one and of course that all of these fantastic actors will be coming back.

Favorite Quotes

Marvin Boggs: Do you know what's wrong with this country? 
Sarah Ross: They all are trying to kill us? 
Marvin Boggs: Exactly! 


Ivan Simanov: [sighs] I miss the old days. 
Ivan Simanov: I haven't killed anyone in years. 
Frank Moses: That's sad. 


Frank Moses: People get shot all the time. 
Sarah Ross: No they don't. They get... paper cuts. 
Marvin Boggs: ...I mostly get shot. 


Marvin Boggs: Why are you trying to kill me?
Frank Moses: Why would I be trying to kill you? 
Marvin Boggs: Because the last time we met I tried to kill you.
Frank Moses: That was a long time ago.
Marvin Boggs: Some people hold onto things like that.

Find RED Online
Official Site
Imdb
Wikipedia
ReelzChannel
Facebook
Movieweb

Interviews
Karl Urban on ReelzChannel
Helen Mirren on Moviefone
Ernest Borgnine on Moviefone
Willis, Freeman, & Malkovich on Moviefone Unscripted (video)
Robert Schwentke (director) on I Am Rogue
Robert Schwentke on Superhero Hype
Erich Hoeber & Jon Hoeber (screenplay writers) on Movieweb (video)
Warren Ellis (graphic novel author) on Movieweb (video)
Mary-Louise Parker on The Cinema Source

Trailer:


IGN Bruce Willis Interview:


ETC Red Carpet Interviews:


Cast Interview at Comic Con by EW:


Related Reviews
Bruce Willis- Frank Moses
Die Hard Franchise (1988, 1990, 1995, 2007)- John McClane
Brian Cox- Ivan Simanov
The Bourne Identity & Supremacy (2002, 2004)- Ward Abbott
Kiss the Girls (1997)- Chief Hatfield, Durham P.D.
Morgan Freeman- Joe Matheson
Wanted (2008)- Sloan
The Bucket List (2007)- Carter
Kiss the Girls (1997)- Dr. Alex Cross
Karl Urban- William Cooper
The Bourne Supremacy (2004)- Kirill
Helen Mirren- Victoria
National Treasure 2 (2007)- Emily Appleton

Magic and Romance

Deep in the heart of Oxford’s Bodleian Library, scholar Diana Bishop requests a manuscript called Ashmole 782 in the course of her research. Coming from an old and distinguished lineage of witches, Diana senses that the ancient book might be bound up with magic-- but she herself wants nothing to do with sorcery; and after making a few notes on its curious images, she banishes it quickly back to the stacks. But what she doesn’t know is that the old alchemical text has been lost for centuries, and its sudden appearance has set a fantastical underworld stirring. Soon, a distracting horde of daemons, witches, and vampires descends upon the Bodleian’s reading rooms. One of these creatures is Matthew Clairmont, an enigmatic and eminent geneticist, practitioner of yoga, and wine connoisseur-- and also a vampire with a keen interest in Ashmole 782.

Equal parts history and magic, romance and suspense, A Discovery of Witches is a novel of epic scope, traveling from the cobbled streets of Oxford to the chateaus and mountains of the Auvergne to a small town in upstate New York. It also takes us into a rich fifteen- hundred-year history that spans Clovis and the Crusades, the Knights Templar, and the American Revolution. As Matthew and Diana’s alliance deepens into intimacy, Diana must come to terms with age-old taboos and her own family’s conflicted history-- and she must learn where the modern woman she is meets the source of ancient power that is her legacy. With a scholar’s depth and the touch of a great storyteller, Deborah Harkness has woven a tale of passion and obsession; the collision of magic, alchemy, and science; and the closely guarded secrets of an enchanted world.

Title: A Discovery of Witches
Author: Deborah Harkness
Series: All Souls Trilogy, Book 1
Start & Finished: 1/17/11- 1/27/11
Published: February 8, 2011
Publisher: Viking
Pages: 579
Genre: Fiction- Romance/ Paranormal
Official UK Website

From Romeo and Juliet to Edward and Bella, the forbidden love story never seems to get old and Deborah Harkness’ A Discovery of Witches is no exception. Already this lush, well-researched book has gotten great buzz from a variety of sources, including pieces in O, The Oprah Magazine and Entertainment Weekly and it is to be translated into 32 languages as well. Not bad for a professor of history at the University of Southern California’s fictional debut. A Discovery of Witches is the first book in a trilogy.

A Discovery of Witches is really only a love story on the surface between a vampire and a reluctant witch (whose ancestor was Bridget Bishop) who is coming into her powers after burying them so long, but it's actually so much more complicated than that. The story is equally about evolution, extinction, and racism (none of the supernatural races are supposed to mix) while sprinkled throughout are history, alchemy, and several beautiful settings too. It’s also equally about a lost manuscript called Ashmole 782 (which is an actual lost manuscript in real life, though Harkness’ contents are fiction) that only Diana has been able to get her hands on which peaks the interest of all three of the supernatural races who have been trying to get to it for years. Oh, and you can’t forget Matthew’s (and the author’s) love of wine either. What I would like to know is where in the world did this yoga thing come from? I’ve never heard of a vampire that does yoga. Much less witches and daemons too!

My initial impression of Diana is that she’s a bit of a loner and has the potential to be pretty powerful if she chooses to stop letting magic scare her so badly which is what she tries to do throughout the entire book. I loved all of the powers Diana kept discovering in herself, especially the ones where she can speak to the animals, ghosts, and control the elements too, even if the witchwater scene reminded me of Bella in New Moon. My only real issue was that Diana continued to let so many of the creatures bully her and calling in Matthew instead of taking care of it or even equally helping out. I’m not a big fan of a man (vampire in this case) fighting a woman’s battles for her when she’s capable of doing it herself. The male character Matthew took a bit of getting used to and I’m still not really sure what to think about him. He’s quite temperamental and some of his mood swings would give a pregnant woman whiplash though thankfully that starts to taper off some towards the end.

The author said that she came up with the idea for book by asking herself: “If there really are vampires, what do they do for a living?” Heroine name came second. "It's pretty hard not to notice the popular preoccupation with witches, vampires, and things that go bump in the night. But we aren't the first to be fascinated with these creatures. Today, we often imagine them into fantastic other worlds, but the people I study believed that such magical beings were living alongside them in this world. So I started thinking, if there are vampires and witches, what do they do for a living—and what strange stories do humans tell to explain away the evidence of their presence? A Discovery of Witches began with the answers to those questions as I essentially reimagined our modern world through the eyes of medieval and Renaissance people."

Out of the three creatures described in book (witches, daemons, and vampires) the witches are what fascinated me the most. The vampires are interesting- especially how logical they are: no fangs, sunlight isn’t an issue, enhances senses, and immortality- in that the ones in this story had much to do with several historical people and events but the daemons weren't really explained well since we only slightly get to know Hamish, Sophie, and Nathaniel. And they were only in a few chapters. I have high expectations for the next book in this trilogy since the book leaves off on a bit of a cliffhanger. I hope we get to see more of the Congregation because I really am curious if there isn't some good people to be found in it since all we see in this book is the evil.

Written in about a year; though it takes place in 40 days (“I think the only thing we’ve escaped is a plague of locusts.”), this book has got the feel of a good urban fantasy adventure story woven in with the aura of a great contemporary classic. Think an adult Twilight with a little Harry Potter thrown in for fun yet much more sophisticated. Considering that this ends right when it was really getting good, I’m definitely going to be first in line when the sequel comes out!

Favorite Quotes

Even at a safe distance, this manuscript was challenging me-- threatening the walls I’d erected to separate my career as a scholar from my birthright as the last of the Bishop witches. Here, with my hard- earned doctorate, tenure, and promotions in hand and my career beginning to blossom, I’d renounced my family’s heritage and created a life that depended on reason and scholarly abilities, not inexplicable hunches and spells. 

Aunt Sarah had always told me that magic was a gift. If it was, it had strings attached that bound me to all of the Bishop witches who had come before me. There was a price to be paid for using this inherited magical power and for working the spells and charms that made up the witches’ carefully guarded craft. By opening Ashmole 782, I’d breached the wall that divided my magic from my scholarship. But back on the right side of it again, I was more determined than ever to remain there. 

Witches aren’t the only creatures sharing the world with humans, however. There are also daemons-- creative, artistic creatures who walk a tightrope between madness and genius. “Rock stars and serial killers” was how my aunt described these strange, perplexing beings. And there are vampires, ancient and beautiful, who feed on blood and will charm you utterly if they don’t kill you first. 

“History only became more challenging when it became less neat. Every time I pick up a book or a document from the past, I’m in a battle with people who lived hundreds of years ago. They have their secrets and obsessions-- all the things they won’t or can’t reveal. It’s my job to discover and explain them.”
“What if you can’t? What if they defy explanation?”
“That’s never happened,” I said after considering his question. “At least I don’t think it has. All you have to do is be a good listener. Nobody really wants to keep secrets, not even the dead. People leave clues everywhere, and if you pay attention, you can piece them together.” 

“I don’t like this one bit,” my aunt finally said in a tone that suggested the world was falling apart. “Bewitched books? Daemons following you? Vampires taking you to yoga? Witches threatening a Bishop? Witches are supposed to avoid notice, Diana. Even the humans are going to know something’s going on.” 

The enormity of what it meant to love a vampire struck home as I slid the account book back onto the shelf. It was not just his age that posed the difficulties, or his dining habits, or the fact that he had killed humans and would do so again. It was the secrets.

All Souls Trilogy
1. A Discovery of Witches (2011)
2.
3.

First Paragraph: The leather-bound volume was nothing remarkable. To an ordinary historian, it would have looked no different from hundreds of other manuscripts in Oxford’s Bodleian Library, ancient and worn. But I knew there was something odd about it from the moment I collected it.

Find Deborah Harkness Online
Official Site
Facebook
Twitter
Author’s Blog: Good Wine Under $20

Links
DOW Tour of Oxford (photos if Matthew & Diana's world)
Book Trib (Guest post)
Janicu’s Book Blog (Guest post)

Interviews
Wall Street Journal Speakeasy
Love Vampires
Penguin (Q&A, reading guide, etc)
Vampires.com
Night Owl Reviews
Crystal Book Reviews





Source: Personal copy, I was contacted by a representative for the publisher (hardcover)

Picture Explanations
Duke Humphrey’s Library: Diana discovers Ashmole 782 here as well as meets Matthew here.
Rowing on the River Thames: Diana rows when she’s not jogging or doing yoga for her exercise.
All Soul's College: Academic research oriented college, with no undergraduates that Matthew belongs to.
Horse: Once they get to Sept Tours, Diana spends a lot of time riding horses.
Old Wine: Matthew is a wine connoisseur and has tons of really old wine

Angel in Love

There's something achingly familiar about Daniel Grigori.


Mysterious and aloof, he captures Luce Price's attention from the moment she sees him on her first day at Sword & Cross boarding school in Savannah. He's the one bright spot in a place where cell phones are forbidden, the other students are screwups, and security cameras watch every move.


Except Daniel wants nothing to do with Luce-- he goes out of his way to make that very clear. But she can't let it go. Drawn to him like a moth to a flame, Luce has to find out what Daniel is so desperate to keep secret... even if it kills her.


Dangerously exciting and darkly romantic, Fallen is a page-turning thriller and the ultimate love story.

Title: Fallen
Author: Lauren Kate
Series: Fallen, Book 1
Start & Finished: 9/3/10
Published: December 8, 2009
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Pages: 452
Genre: YA- Fantasy, Fallen Angels
Official Book Site

Angels and their fallen brethren have been the subject of many stories- some biblical and some not- since the written word. Some of the legends that get passed on through the Bible have actually inspired authors to write their own stories such as Lauren Kate. Though she knew very little about angel mythology going into the story, the author first got the idea for Fallen when she was a grad student auditing a class that was about "reading the Bible as a narrative text" which is when she came across a passage in the Book of Genesis about "a group of angels who were kicked out of heaven because they lusted after mortal women." As a writer of love stories, Ms. Kate said that she "started thinking about what it would be like to be normal girl—suddenly the object of an angel’s affection. What kinds of thrills and challenges would spring from such an unusual match? And what would her very over-protective parents think? When my mind started spinning around this mortal girl’s character, I had the feeling her love story had the power to be bigger, weightier, and with a lot more at stake than any romance—or really any thing—I’d ever written before." Fallen is the first of what will be a four book series.

Well, I will say this, my first foray into this fallen angel genre that’s cropping up in YA lately was certainly fruitful even though it irritated me to no end that I was left with the feeling of “what’s going on?!” which prevailed through most of the book. Even though the story is written in third person, it’s mainly told through the main character Luce’s perspective and she didn’t seem to have a clue either. I did get the fact that it’s main theme is kind of reincarnation early on and I understood from buzz I had heard that it was about angels some how, but to be honest, I wanted to read this book because of the beautiful cover (I love Fernanda Brussi). The fact that it’s set in Savannah, Georgia which is one of my favorite places in the whole world was just more incentive so I was very disappointed that Ms. Kate didn’t take advantage of her setting (hopefully she will in future books?). I’ve never traveled to the part of Savannah described in the book and I still don’t understand what the hell was going on with this story. That’s not to say I didn’t like it because I actually loved it (even with the slight Twilight undertones I detected, which Fallen is being compared to by several reviewers). I was just incredibly confused…

The characters in Fallen are what had me hooked more than anything however, the I felt like the story moves around Luce as she doesn’t seem wholly a part of it. I remember more about her hair than her actually. Maybe it’s a case of all the other characters being so vivid she just pales in comparison? I really liked Arriane and Penn. Both very different characters but each has their own brand of spunkiness. They are what lightens the heavy atmosphere of some of the book. I'll be the first to admit that I like a bad boy and brooding passive aggressiveness doesn't really appeal to me so Daniel and I didn't get along at first. I really wanted to like him but even with their supposed bond I would have thought Cam would be the guy for Luce until a bit later in the book. I actually preferred him over Daniel until about the last maybe 50 pages of the book... or at least the bar scene anyway. So, does he want her dead or what? I am SO confused. Another thing, I thought Cam liked Luce?

Surprisingly, Luce's story doesn't really hinge on any religion in particular nor does Fallen have a religious tone at all. When it boils down to it, everything is about the battle between good and evil with a forbidden love story woven throughout the rest of it. Disney has already optioned the film rights shortly before the book actually came out which is probably what helped get this so heavily marketed the way it was (there was even shirtless guys walking around in New York in winter with only wings on). That and it was awarded as the Book of the Year by the Random House sales team.

"What was only glimpsed in Fallen about Daniel and Luce’s long history of love will be vastly expanded on in [the sequel] Torment, and even more so in Passion (the prequel [the author is] about to start working on). Very soon, readers will be able to see what makes their love so pure and so special, how and it’s grown and changed over time, and why it’s so essential that their love endure." I badly want to know what happens in the next book but I had a problem with this book because I had much more questions than answers in the end so it may take me awhile to get around to getting Torment.

Favorite Quotes

"Some things are more important than love. You won't understand but you have to trust me."


No one knew the murky shapes she sometimes saw in the darkness. They'd always come to her. They'd come and gone for so long that Luce couldn't even remember the first time she'd seen them. But she could remember the first time she realized that she shadows didn't come for everyone-- or actually anyone but her. When she was seven, her family had been on vacation in Hilton Head and her parents had taken her on a boat trip. It was just about sunset when the shadows started rolling in over the water, and she'd turned to her father and said, "What do you do when they come, Dad? Why aren't you afraid of the monsters?"
There were no monsters, her parents assured her, but Luce's repeated insistence on the presence of something wobbly and dark had gotten her several appointments with the family eye doctor, and then glasses, and then appointments with the ear doctor after she made the mistake of describing the hoarse whooshing noise that the shadows sometimes made-- and then therapy, and then more therapy, and finally the prescription for anti-psychotic medication.
But nothing ever made them go away.


"That said, I don't know what you were expecting in terms of mushy-gushy friendship here at Sword & Cross. But let me be the first to tell you, it ain't that easy. People are here because they've got baggage. I'm talking curbside-check-in, pay-the-fine-'cause-it's-over-fifty-pounds kind of baggage. Get it?


And Luce brought up the rear, considering what might happen if she were to give her parents her own personal tour of the cemetery.
Here's where I served my first detention...
And here's where a falling marble angel nearly decapitated me...
And here's where a reform school boy you'd never approve of took me on the strangest picnic of my life.


No. This was precisely the circular argument she did not want to engage in. Luce didn't want to play any games. She just wanted to be with him. Only, she had no idea why. Or how to go about it. Or really, what being with him would mean. All she knew was that, despite everything, he was the one she thought about. The one she cared about.


She didn't understand what was happening. At all. And she didn't like it at all that everyone else did.

Fallen Series
1. Fallen (2009)
2. Torment (2010)
3. Passion (2011)
4. Untitled

First Paragraph: Around midnight, her eyes at last took shape. The look in them was feline, half determined and half tentative-- all trouble. Yes, they were just right, those eyes. Rising up to her fine, elegant brow, inches from the dark cascade of her hair.

Find Lauren Kate Online
Lauren Kate.com
Lauren Kate.net (official Site)
Twitter
Blog

Links:
Official Australian Fallen site
Official UK Fallen site
Fallen Fixation (fan blog)
Author Wikipedia
Beatrice.com Guest Blog on Selective Reading
Through a Glass Darkly Guest Blog on Her Joy of Cooking vs. Writing
The Children's Book Review Guest Blog on Why Angels?
The Book Butterfly Guest Blog on Bad Boys
Suvudu Guest Blog on Characters
Book Chick City Guest Blog on Reading Dead Authors

Interviews:
Bitten By Books
Undeath Match
Narratively Speaking- spoiler questions!
Book Chick City
Fallen Fixation Q&A
The Crooked Shelf
Fantasy Book Review
Once Upon a Bookcase
Good Day Sacremento (video)

Source: My personal collection, hardcover


Book Trailer:


UK Book Trailer:


Random House Q&A:


The Fallen Are Among Us (promotional work):


Comic Con Interviews:


Picture Explanations
Prison: The Sword & Cross Academy looks like a prison, complete with barbed wire
Angel Statue: Daniel saves Luce from a falling angel statue in the graveyard.
Surveillance Camera: The students are constantly on camera, or the "reds" as they're called... well unless they've rigged them to not record.
Fighting Angels: Angels fighting their fallen comrades.

Poirot’s First Mystery

Styles Court, a sprawling English estate, should have been inherited by John Cavendish. But instead it is left to his stepmother Emily Cavendish who loses no time in marrying a young fortune hunter… and soon meets her death.


Dapper, brilliant Monsieur Hercule Poirot is fascinated by the mysterious affair and steps out of retirement to unravel the threads of intrigue and snare a most ingenious murderer. And thus is launched the most legendary career in mystery fiction.

Title: The Mysterious Affair at Styles
Author: Agatha Christie
Series: Hercule Poirot, Book 1
Start & Finished: 9/2/10- 9/3/10
Published: October 1920
Publisher: John Lane
Pages: 296
Genre: Mystery

A manor house out in the middle of the country in an Agatha Christie novel… must be murder afoot! Matter of fact, The Mysterious Affair at Styles was Christie’s very first detective novel as well as the first of many books to feature her "dandyfied little man" Hercule Poirot who is a retired Belgian detective whom "a speck of dust would have caused him more pain than a bullet wound." An eccentric little man with a slightly Sherlock Holmes way of investigating, Poirot was Agatha Christie’s most famous detective. “Perhaps the most salient example of Agatha Christie’s ability to both synthesize elements from the existing tradition of detective fiction and forge something new and original is her creation of Hercule Poirot, the second most famous fictional detective, after Sherlock Holmes. Poirot appears in Christie’s first novel and goes on to star in almost everyone of her most celebrated and admired novels. Christie’s achievement as a detective novelist is closely intertwined with this one character.”

There are several suspects in this story such as Alfred Inglethorp, the recent husband of the deceased who is much younger than she whom nobody likes, John Cavendish, who is the eldest of the two brothers that are the deceased stepsons. He’s a retired lawyer who along with his wife Mary are living at Styles with his stepmother because she holds the purse strings and he is low on funds. Mary herself is estranged from her husband and spends most of her time in the company of a Dr. Baurenstein who is a bit of an expert on poison. The younger brother Lawrence who studied to be a doctor but gave up medicine to pursue a literary career. He’s also low on funds as well. There’s also Evelyn Howard (or ‘Evie’), Mrs. Inglethorp’s companion who soon has a row with the grand dame and leaves a few days before she is murdered. Cynthia Murdoch is also on hand and she works in a dispensary too which has access to poison. She was Mrs. Inglethorp’s ward since Cynthia was an orphan whose father was friends with the grand dame, she took her in. Oh and the narrator is a Lieutenant (later Captain) Hastings but we know he’s not the murderer since he’s helping Poirot.

However, I was pretty sure from the start of Cynthia’s innocence of the crime since she was so hard to wake up the night of the murder and I knew Mary Cavendish was guilty of something for the sole reason that she’s being forced to live with and depend upon her mother-in-law. Other than these two ladies and Hastings’ innocence of course, I didn’t have a clue! Agatha Christie said (and I have to concur), “Like all young writers, I was trying to put far too much plot into one book. I had too many false clues-- so many things to unravel that it might make the whole thing not only more difficult to solve, but more difficult to read.” However, it didn’t make the story no less enjoyable for me. What a remarkably clever woman Agatha Christie was! So far I’ve read three of her books and I haven’t once been able to figure out whodunit. I would never have thought of the guilty party in The Mysterious Affair at Styles and that just goes to show that every single word in a Christie book is important.

“How about calling my little man Hercules? He would be a small man-- Hercules: a good name. His last name was more difficult. I don’t know why I settled on the name Poirot; whether it just came into my head or whether I saw it in some newspaper or written on something-- anyway it came. It went well not with Hercules but with Hercule-- Hercule Poirot.” Hercule Poirot is such a great character even if Ms. Christie was said to have really hated him after a couple of years of writing him, I thought he was very intelligent but hid that behind his funny little ways. The first time I read a story with him in it was Murder on the Orient Express (which was the ninth Poirot novel) and I actually thought he was annoying! I don’t know why I disliked him then but just thought of him as eccentric now but perhaps it’s because the author hadn’t started disliking him yet?

Though this was her first novel and her first murder by poisoning (certainly not her last!) it’s no less masterfully written than her later books. The author was working at a dispensary (just like her character Cynthia in this book) which is a kind of pharmacy, when she decided to write this so a lot of her knowledge of poisons go into her stories. Besides poisons, Christie didn’t know much about solving crime other than what she had read in other detective fiction but since she’s one of the most famous detective writers even several decades after her death, I have to say she did a terrific job. Her publisher John Lane certainly recognized her genius (though it took her a long time to get published) when he said he’d publish The Mysterious Affair at Styles if she would change a few things in the book (like a major overhaul of the ending) and sign what the author would later discover to be a really bad contract that caused her to not earn very much at all with this and her next five books though they all did extremely well.

About her first novel the author said in her autobiography, “And so it was that I started on my long career; not that I suspected at the time that it was going to be a long career. In spite of the clause about the next five novels [in the contract with John Lane], this was to me a single and isolated experiment. I had been dared to write a detective story; I had written a detective story; it had been accepted, and was going to appear in print. There, as far as I was concerned, the matter ended. Certainly at that moment I did not envisage writing any more books. I think if I had been asked, I would have said that I would probably write stories from time to time.” Well considering she published 80 novels in her lifetime, several short stories, and even an autobiography I would have to say she was selling herself short. Almost every book Agatha Christie has written has been adapted for either film, TV, radio, or as a play and The Mysterious Affair at Styles is no different. It was adapted in 1990 for TV by London Weekend Television in Britain with David Suchet as Hercule Poirot.

Favorite Quotes

Occasionally she referred to her husband over a question of days or dates. His watchful and attentive manner never varied. From the very first I took a firm and rooted dislike of him, and I flatter myself that my first judgments are usually fairly shrewd.


For the first time I felt that, with Evelyn Howard, something indefinable had gone from the atmosphere. Her presence had spelt security. Now that security was removed- and the air seemed rife with suspicion. The sinister face of Dr. Bauerstein recurred to me unpleasantly. A vague suspicion of every one and everything filled my mind. Just for a moment I had a premonition of approaching evil.


Poirot was an extraordinary looking little man. He was hardly more than five feet, four inches, but carried himself with great dignity. His head was exactly the shape of an egg, and he always perched it a little on one side. His moustache was very stiff and military. The neatness of his attire was almost incredible. I believe a speck of dust would have caused him more pain than a bullet wound. Yet this quaint dandyfied little man who, I was sorry to see, now limped badly, had been in his time one of the most celebrated members of the Belgian police. As a detective, his flair had been extraordinary, and he had achieved triumphs by unraveling some of the most baffling cases of the day.


I pass over Alfred Inglethorp, who acted the bereaved widower in a manner that felt to be disgusting in its hypocrisy. Did he know that we suspected him, I wondered. Surely he could not be unaware of the fact, conceal it as we would. Did he feel some secret stirring of fear, or was he confident that his crime would go unpunished? Surely the suspicion in the atmosphere must warn him that he was already a marked man.


“It is well. The bad moment has passed. Now all is arranged and classified. One must never permit confusion. The case is not clear yet—no. For it is of the most complicated! It puzzles me. Me, Hercule Poirot!


“Is he quite mad, Mr. Hastings?”
“I honestly don’t know. Sometimes, I feel sure he is mad as a hatter; and then, just as he is at his maddest, I find there is method to his madness.”

Hercule Poirot Series
1. The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)
2. The Murder on the Links (1923)
3. Poirot Investigates (1924)
4. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926)
5. The Big Four (1927)
6. The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928)
7. Peril at End House (1932)
8. Lord Edgware Dies (1933) aka Thirteen at Dinner
9. Murder on the Orient Express (1934) aka Murder in the Calais Coach
10. Three Act Tragedy (1934) aka Murder in Three Acts
11. Death in the Clouds (1935) aka Death in the Air
12. The ABC Murders (1936)
13. Cards on the Table (1936)
14. Murder in Mesopotamia (1936)
15. Death on the Nile (1937)
16. Dumb Witness (1937) aka Poirot Loses a Client
17. Murder in the Mews (1937) aka Dead Man's Mirror
18. Appointment with Death (1938)
19. Hercule Poirot's Christmas (1938) aka A Holiday for Murder / Murder for Christmas
20. Sad Cypress (1940)
22. One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (1940) aka An Overdose of Death / The Patriotic Murders
23. Evil Under the Sun (1941)
24. Five Little Pigs (1942) aka Murder in Retrospect
25. The Hollow (1946) aka Murder after Hours
26. The Labours of Hercules (1947)
27. Taken at the Flood (1948) aka There Is a Tide
28. Mrs McGinty's Dead (1952) aka Blood Will Tell
30. After the Funeral (1953) aka Funerals Are Fatal
31. Hickory Dickory Dock (1955)
32. Dead Man's Folly (1956)
33. Cat Among the Pigeons (1959)
34. The Clocks (1963)
35. Third Girl (1966)
36. Hallowe'en Party (1969)
37. Elephants Can Remember (1972)
38. Poirot's Early Cases (1974) aka Hercule Poirot's Early Cases
39. Curtain: Poirot's Last Case (1975)

First Paragraph: The intense interest aroused in the public by what was known at the time as "The Styles Case" has now somewhat subsided. Nevertheless, in view of the worldwide notoriety which attended it, I have been asked, both by my friend Poirot and the family themselves, to write an account of the whole story. This, we trust, will effectually silence the sensational rumours which still persist.

Links:
Complete Book Online
Book Wikipedia
Author Wikipedia
Poirot Wikipedia
Hercule Poirot Site

Source: Library Loan, large print hardcover

Picture Explanations
Styles Manor: This could be the manor house
Floor Plan: This is the sketch of the floor plan included in the book.
House of cards: Poirot is building this when Hasting remarks upon something that helps Poirot solve the crime.
Dispensary: This is what a dispensary looked like back in the 1930s. This is where Cynthia worked.
Hugh Fraiser: He plays Lieutenant Arthur Hastings in the TV adaptation of this book.
Letter: This is the letter to Ms. Hastings from Mrs. Inglethorp


Related Reviews

Murder On the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
Murder On the Orient Express (1974)
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
Ten Little Indians (1965)

A Whole New World to Police

Atlanta: it’s the promised city for the off-worlders, foreigners from the alternate dimensions of heaven-like Elysia and hell-like Charbydon. Some bring good works and miracles. And some bring unimaginable evil…

Charlie Madigan is a divorced mother of one, and a kick-ass cop trained to take down the toughest human and off-world criminals. She’s recently returned from the dead after a brutal attack, an unexplained revival that has left her plagued by ruthless nightmares and random outbursts of strength that make her job for Atlanta P.D.’s Integration Task Force even harder. Since the Revelation, the criminal element in Underground Atlanta has grown, leaving Charlie and her partner Hank to keep the chaos to a dull roar. But now an insidious new danger is descending on her city with terrifying speed, threatening innocent lives: a deadly, off-world narcotic known as ash. Charlie is determined to uncover the source of ash before it targets another victim- but can she protect those she loves from a force more powerful than heaven and hell combined?

Title: The Better Part of Darkness
Author: Kelly Gay
Series: Charlie Madigan, Book 1
Start & Finished: 8/31/10
Published: November 24, 2009
Publisher: Pocket Books
Pages: 391
Genre: Urban Fantasy/ Sci-Fi

Kelly Gay has written other books (and screenplays) before and though they went unpublished they were nominated for several awards. However, The Better Part of Darkness was her debut novel and it was sold to Pocket Books publishing in June of 2008. They've only signed for the first two books in the series so far (the second one that just came out a few weeks ago). This book was an "Okra" pick for the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA) and finaled in two categories for the RITA's too.

"What if our myths and traditions of heaven and hell were based on some obscure truth? What if the beings in them were nothing like we had imagined? And what if this woman, Charlie, works on the front lines, dealing with the integration of our societies, and suddenly she’s forced to make a terrible choice when it comes to her child?" These are the questions Kelly Gay asked herself and this book is what was the answer. Mythology is what first motivated the author to write and it still inspires her even now. Which shows so much during The Better Part of Darkness in which the Elysian and Charybdon (pronounced  Eh-LEE-see-ah and Char-bih-don) characters are creatures out of our myths. For example, Charlie's partner on the ITF police force Hank is a siren... a male siren! How cool is that? So, don't expect vampires and werewolves in this urban fantasy (there aren't any), but keep an eye out for quite a few other mythological beings!

Even though the beings in the book are found in human's myths about heaven and hell, The Better Part of Darkness actually has nothing whatsoever to do with religion. I don't think religious preferences are ever mentioned by anyone except to say that none of the off-worlders know anything about human's version of God either. Which makes me wonder about the off-worlder's religions actually. Ms. Gay says, "Elysia is a take on the Elysian Fields, the final resting place for heroes and the virtuous in Greek mythology. And Charbydon is a combination of Greek myth words: Charybdis, the sea monster and daughter of Poseidon and/or whirlpool depending on which myths you read, and Charon, the being who ferried souls across the River Styx to the side of the underworld."

The author said, "I think I've always wanted to explore the possibilities of real supernatural creatures being the basis for many of our myths. The main idea for the story, however, came with Charlie and wanting to write about a single mom, to put her in a position where she has to make a choice between her work and her city, and protecting those she loves. I kept thinking of the fierce nature of a mother protecting her young, and how cool this would be in an urban fantasy setting/world. It all kind of fell into place after that." I found it remarkable that the main character was a divorced, single mother as that’s not too common in urban fantasy that I've seen lately. Normally I have a problem with that but being a mother was just part of who Charlie was. It didn't hurt that her kid Emma was a sweetheart and not really all that young either. This is a dark and gritty urban fantasy and Charlie could have run the risk of being just as dark and gritty as her world but I think her kid helped keep her grounded. What surprised me about this divorced mom is that her ex-husband Will is actually not a bad guy, he just got mixed up in some bad things and did some dumb stuff. Really, I was all set up to hate him but he's truly not a bad guy though he did do another stupid thing and it kind of takes him out of the last half of the book which I'm really curious about how the author is going to handle in the sequel. I also really like Rex so that's certainly a conundrum!

The Better Part of Darkness is an incredibly neat book even though it pushed me about as far as I'm willing to go when it comes to sci-fi. It was actually urban fantasy though and set in Atlanta, Georgia.... well, in an alternate version of the city. I haven't seen such original world building in urban fantasy for years (and I‘ve seen some great world building in urban fantasy), you truly believe in this world because it's so grounded so Kelly Gay really hit this one out of the park. My only complaint is that though it's set in an alternate Atlanta, it could have been set in any major city since it doesn't mention any place specifically... though the area around Charlie's sister Bryn's store Hodgepodge sounds a bit like Little Five Points to me. The drug in the book was originally called After Glow which actually makes so much more sense than ash which it ended up being called.

The world building may be awesome but it's the characters that really are what make this story so good. I mean everyone from main to extremely minor characters are very real, colorful, and you want to know more about them. I have never been so strongly reminded of an actress before when reading a book but something about Charlie reminds me of Eliza Dushku who played Faith on Buffy. Partly because of her description but I was influenced a good bit by the cover model as well by Chris McGrath (same cover artist as Jim Butcher's Dresden Files and Kat Richardson's Greywalker series). The author offered up actress Stana Katic and she too is somewhat reminiscent of the character as well. I loved that though Charlie is essentially a cop and can be hard as nails, she's not afraid of being a girl (and a mother to boot) either. I always enjoy when an author doesn't make her character sacrifice one for the other and somehow combines both. I do hope the author does write other books in this series with other characters instead of Charlie & Co. as the main ones someday. There are four books planned in this series but Kelly says she wants to do more, especially some stand-alone novels featuring characters besides Charlie. I would love to see one about Hank!

"It's about choices and sacrifice. I wanted to explore what lengths a person would go to, what they'd sacrifice for those they loved. I think most people are certain in their answer, but when faced with it head on...well, it might be an entirely different story. And when it's an entirely different world, things can get even more complicated. I hope readers will find the story unique and fresh, with things they haven't seen before, but with all the human emotions and motivations they recognize and relate to." I can honestly say that Kelly Gay accomplished everything she set out to do with The Better Part of Darkness and I only hope the sequel The Darkest Edge of Dawn is just as good. Kelly Gay also writes under the name Kelly Keaton (for her grandmother) and her first book published under that name will be called Darkness Becomes Her which is a YA novel and will be released in 2011.

Favorite Quotes

Yeah. October tenth was my favorite freaking day of the year. The thirteenth anniversary. The day heaven and hell came out of the closet. Literally.
It wasn’t a day one tended to forget.

Our training and selection process had become legendary. Not many people could look a hellhound in the eye and know how to defeat it. We’d been trained to face every being and beast from both worlds, and we had the scars and the nightmares to prove it.

“Try being a single mother, who carries three lethal firearms and can take down a runner at fifty yards. Trust me, it doesn’t make a date feel all warm and fuzzy inside.”

Ask anyone and they can tell you where they were and what they were doing when the news broke. Scientists had discovered (some say “stumbled upon”) two parallel planes of existence, which, according to many leaders and believers of the world’s major religions, resembled certain aspects of heaven and hell.
They’d been visiting us for thousands of years, using our world as a battleground and neutral zone, interfering in our lives, speaking our languages, doing good works and miracles, committing horrible crimes. And now we knew the truth. Elysia and Charbydon, and the beings in them, weren’t the things of Sunday school lessons and Hallmark figurines.

“I’m fine, Hank.” I just rolled out of a moving car in high heels. “How are you?”

Seconds later, he moved back and whispered, “Hellhound.”
I looked at Rex, “You’re up.”
“I should be on Broadway right now,” he muttered. “Instead I’m here in the Blair Witch forest, about to get eaten by a hairless fucking dog on gigantic fucking steroids.”

Charlie Madigan Series
1. The Better Part of Darkness (2009)
2. The Darkest Edge of Dawn (2010)

First Paragraph: “You told a two-thousand-year-old oracle to prove it.” Hank kept pace beside me, nursing his bloody nose with a handful of fast-food napkins I’d pulled from the glove box earlier. “ I mean, do you ever think before the words spew out of your mouth, Charlie?”

Find Kelly Gay Online
Official Site
Blog
Facebook
Twitter

Links
Original cover on author's blog  MAY 21, 2009. Slightly different from finished product.
The 2K Event character Charlie interviews another character on author blog
Once Written, Twice Shy- Guest Blog on Fears
Mama Writers- Guest Blog on writing with kids
Deadline Dames- Guest Blog on release day jitters
Debuts & Reviews- Guest Blog on Reviews
Literary Escapisms- Guest Blog on Religion in the book
All Things Urban Fantasy- Guest Blog on Hank the siren

Interviews
Amberkatze’s Book Blog
Romance Writers on the Journey
The Electic Book Lover
Dark Faerie Tales
Hooked on Romance
Reluctant Adults
Number One Novels
Organized Chaos Kelly Meding character interview
Fantasy Dreamer's Ramblings
Novel Thoughts
SciFi Guy
Jackie Kessler Cat and Muse character interview
Sara's Urban Fantasy Blog
Susan Adrian

Source: Personal collection courtesy of All About {n} blog, paperback

Picture Explanations
Atlanta: Takes place in an alternate version of the capital of my home state
Bath House: Where Hank goes to unwind because it reminds him of home and where they get some clues about the ash. Kind of resembles Roman baths
Hospital: Charlie dies before the beginning of the book but she also ends up back in the hospital during it
Bryn's Shop: I did ask the author and she said the area was inspired by Little Five Points