Sherlock: The Sign of Three
by Stephen Thompson, Steven Moffat & Mark Gatiss; dir. Colm McCarthy (BBC, 2014)
Possibly the funniest of all Sherlock episodes, albeit skewed beyond the pale towards character development and adapting little of its plot from Conan Doyle’s stories. While Benedict Cumberbatch brings Sherlock’s misanthropy painfully centre-stage, Martin Freeman and Amanda Abbington are more humanly sublime.
H. P. Lovecraft: He Who Wrote in the Darkness
by Alex Nikolavitch; ill. Gervasio, Carlos Aón & Lara Lee (Pegasus Books, 2018)
Lovecraft himself is evocatively drawn and Nikolavitch sets out with creative intent, incorporating H.P.’s imaginings into reality. As the biography proceeds, however, it reveals itself as little more than a fan tribute preaching to the converted. There is little to interest non-aficionados.
Father Brown, Series 3
(BBC, 2015)
A 15-episode series exploring all manner of murderous avenues and festering social issues in 1950s rural England. The mysteries are nicely scripted and prove easily digestible, though Inspector Sullivan does rather grate in his wilfully officious, one-note resistance to Father Brown’s meddling.
Stop Press
by Michael Innes; audiobook read by Matt Addis (Bolinda, 2013)
originally published as “The Spider Strikes” (Dodd, Mead and Company, 1939)
A triumph of sustained tedium. Innes wields a beautiful turn of phrase, yet Appleby’s only notable achievement across 17+ audiobook hours of pointless, pontificating conversations, plumping out of superfluous characters and mendacious touting of murder in the offing, is to stay awake.
Tales from the Loop
by Simon Stålenhag (Simon & Schuster, 2020)
Categorised as a graphic novel but more a showcase reproduction of art-gallery paintings, with written asides to add tone (and a hazy half-narrative). The landscape art is evocative if not brilliant, the prose incapable of standing alone. Best suited, perhaps, to adaptation.
The Case of the Canterfell Codicil
by PJ Fitzsimmons (2020)
The double locked-room murders are ingeniously plotted, and solved in a whirl that makes merry of the Golden Age plodders. Anty Boisjoly embodies both Wooster’s insouciance and Jeeves’s nous. Fitzsimmons strives in turn for Wodehousian prose but manages only a middling pastiche.
Blake’s 7, Series 1
by Terry Nation (BBC, 1978)
Terry Nation’s scripts present as increasingly ham-fisted but the guest stars are generally very good and the regulars are so well cast as to become immediately iconic. The edgy character dynamics give the programme punch beyond its dated parade of SF tropes.
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
by Kai Bird & Martin J. Sherwin (Alfred A. Knopf, 2005)
audiobook read by Jeff Cummings (Blackstone, 2006)
A huge biography, manifestly thorough in detailing Oppenheimer’s life and times (though the authors’ commitment to prefiguring and then detailing Oppie’s security hearing becomes a bit much). Oppenheimer’s flaws are acknowledged. American political and military figures sink still further in history’s estimation.
Tempered Illusions
by Whitney Hill (Benu Media, 2023)
There should have been nowhere for Otherside to go after Eternal Huntress, yet Hill has managed not only to continue the series but also to up the sense of peril and urgency—humanity’s unceasing bigotry proving more problematic than the gods’ ire.
The Replacement Killers
dir. Antoine Fuqua (1998)
A straightforward lone-wolf action film that just about transcends its 1980s b-movie vibes. Chow Yun-fat invests his character with a rare vulnerability. Mira Sorvino makes the most of an unusually empowered (if poorly dialogued and lamentably shallow, wholly plot-serving) ‘female hanger-on’ role.