The Literate Kitty

The basic plot has promise: young(ish) married couple goes on vacay on a remote Malaysian island, in hopes of repairing and rekindling their floundering relationship… only to find themselves kidnapped and carted off to the jungle by a band of pirates. Not inherently original, but surely the sort of action/psychological-terror vehicle to provide ample—and satisfactory—escapim, right?  Unfortunately, not so much; despite having the makings for a suspenseful low-budget movie, the premise of Kirk Kjeldsen’s The Depths is far better than its execution.  How does it all go so wrong, then? Believe it or not, even at a miniscule print length of 143 pages (listed as a “novel”, by the way, though to me it would be more-aptly described as a “novelette”)—the very definition of “tight” writing and editing(!!)— The Depths still feels a good ( or bad, yeesh ) 90 pages longer than it needs to be. (Yes, really .) The problem, in all those excess pages, is that very little ever...

TV Tuesday... On the heels of a major bust—one which resulted in his naming a fellow, decorated, senior cop as a young woman’s murderer—detective Nikolai Andreassen (played by Tobias Santelmann) is given some time off… to decompress, and to let things settle around the police station and in the media.  Before leaving town, though, he’s roped into attending a party thrown by the victim’s family—jubilant at receiving some closure—in his honor. And there, amidst all the merry-making, Nikolai shares a tender, passionate kiss with… the victim’s brother. Thus begins the never-predictable Borderliner (or Grenseland , in its native Norwegian), one of the latest in a recent crop of totally-immersive Scandi-Noir crime dramas, streaming on Netflix.  ___________________________________ So, where does a suddenly-in-the-spotlight detective go after being commanded to hole up for awhile? The same place a lot of people would: back home, which in Niko’s case is a small town i...