The Literate Kitty

Something that every good storyteller knows: a great story doesn’t need flash, sex, an exotic location, a hot hero, or any other element obviously thrown in to grab the audience’s attention… such things are far better used as a dash of pink Himalayan salt, rather than a heavy pour from the navy blue Morton’s canister. (Sure, they can be a lot of fun, but feel pretty one-note in a hurry, if relied upon to be the meat of any story.) No, what a great story actually needs is something the audience can really relate to, on a personal level… and generally, that isn’t anything very fancy, at all. So let’s just do the whole TL;DR bit right up front, and say that T. Kingfisher’s The Hollow Places absolutely NAILS some damn fine story-telling, okay? _______________ Kara—a thirtyish (give or take) gal—is as “regular” as they come: she’s been married for several years, but finds herself recently ( surprise! ) divorced (her ex-hubby’s decision), out of home (she let him keep the house)...

2020… welp, it’s a year like no other, innit? Still, we do the best we can; we… adapt , certainly but also try to maintain as much of a sense of normalcy as possible. (Honestly, it’s that, or give up, and quitting is so not an option.) Anyway, that's why I've been trying to do some of the “normal” October stuff. (I mean, trick-or-treating, or the adult version—getting costumed up and partying till the wee hours—is totally out of the equation, but the less-people-y stuff? Like, solo, or with my nearest-and-dearest? Still do-able.) So, in a year that's all about surviving-from-the-safety-of-home? Reading and watching seasonally-chilling fare throughout the month is a no-brainer… which brings me to tonight's watch, Black Box , from the Blumhouse (streaming on Amazon). _______________ A young woman introduces her emotional husband to their newborn daughter… a tender family moment touchingly captured on video. Fade out—then back in—to the same man (Nolan), several years lat...

A waterlogged body, pulled from the ocean by an unsuspecting fisherman. A staid, middle-aged Scottish civil servant, missing for years, finally declared legally dead. The body of an unknown female, now little more than bones, found in a derelict camper van hidden in a recently-deceased woman’s garage. And, a flashy, louche, anti-establishment artist, who committed suicide a decade ago.  There are a lot of dead people woven throughout Val McDermid’s latest crime thriller, Still Life … but, as always, the much-lauded Scottish mystery maven manages to fashion a terrific tapestry from all the pieces and parts. _______________ Detective Chief Inspector Karen Pirie takes her job as head of a cold cases squad very seriously—even more so, after losing her own life partner a few years earlier, and feeling firsthand how devastating the not knowing can be, until a loved one’s murder is resolved. Still, some cases are gonna be trickier than others, no matter how dedicated the team. Take...

A troubled young woman—fresh from trying (and failing) to end it all—finds new life with a grieving family that’s still trying to come to terms with their own sorrow after the loss of their young matriarch, in the picturesque wilds of rural Norway… that’s the bare-bones premise of C.J. Cooke’s latest thriller, The Nesting .   Better, though, to add that it’s a gothic horror, eco-thriller, psychological suspense, and supernatural fairy tale, by turns… lest you’re tempted to write it off as a sappy romance (which it most definitely is not ). _______________ Lexi Ellis hasn’t had what you’d call a great life, but things have gotten progressively worse, of late, and—on the heels of a botched suicide attempt—having her boyfriend of several years suddenly decide to end things is one more straw than she can handle. No, make that almost one more straw; the last straw is that he also expects her—now jobless and still recovering mentally and physically—to also move out of his apartm...