The Literate Kitty

Every big city in America has its share of serious crime... but in a sprawling megalopolis like Los Angeles,  there’s your run-of-the-mill crime, and then there’s your okay-that-went-crazy-really-effing-fast crime.   In the latest entry in P. J. Tracy’s Detective Margaret Nolan series,  City of Secrets , Maggie—along with her stalwart partner, Al Crawford—are definitely ankle-boots-and-loafers-deep in the latter.     After arriving on the scene of what—at first glance—almost certainly appears to be  “just” another fatal car-jacking, Maggie and Al soon realize that the dead guy in the fancy car was actually the owner of a premium pet-food company worth millions... which he just so happened to be in the process of selling, for a huge profit. And  that  immediately puts a whole different spin on things.    Sure, in the part of town where things went down—one of those areas someone super-wealthy only goes with the idea of scoring s...

Out of the myriad things that COVID has brought to our lives (masking, rabid hand washing [and/or hand sanitizing], drive-thru testing and inoculation sites, daily infection and death counts, etc.) since early 2020, “delays and truncations of shows” surely ranks way, way down the list of “Things That Actually Matter”, and yet… given the concomitant rise of streaming, it’s nonetheless another happening worth noting. Some shows were affected by mere months—no doubt pushed hard by that aforementioned boost in streaming, as many of us sheltered or isolated at home, with suddenly endless time on our hands—while others suffered much longer delays.  The Welsh show Hidden (or Craith , as known in its native Welsh) was one of the latter; a three-season show, it experienced a gap of three full years between its sophomore and final seasons. But, while that kind of lull could well be too much for many shows to bear, it’s possible that Hidden may have gotten even stronger for it.  _...

You think you’ve got problems? Well, imagine you’re celebrating (what you thought was) 25 years of wedded bliss, when your partner turns around and tells you that not only are they no longer "feeling it”, but that they haven’t been, for a very long time. So much so, in fact, that they want a divorce. Ouch. Now, put yourself in the partner's shoes. Giving up all of your dreams and aspirations at a young age, to get married and have a child with someone you loved... only to wind up feeling completely sidelined by your spouse's greater dedication to work than to your relationship. Years of canceled-last-second, or entirely forgotten, plans.  Again, ouch . Or, consider being the third wheel to all of this, for decades. Best friend to one, and long-ago ex to the other, you love and care about both of them, deeply... but in very ( very ) different ways. Oh, and did I forget to mention? All of you work closely together, solving murders in a bucolic coastal city. This triangle is ...

There are certain things an Angeleno just accepts as part of life.  Insane amounts of traffic, clogging freeways and local access roads alike, for two-thirds of every day. Choppers flying overhead fast and low, at all hours.  Perpetual threats of wildfires and earthquakes.  The realization that no matter how much you might want to be one of those people who has “beach days”, the chances of such are slim.  Some new political scandal, somewhere in the county. Rationalizing those late-night In-and-Out burgers by consuming mass quantities of kale and outrageously-priced juices.  Avoiding most of Hollywood like the plague (despite some great theaters and restaurants), due to the overwhelming presence of mentally-unstable transients and gaping tourists (who can never understand why they aren’t running into “stars” at every corner).  And—since the arrival of the coronavirus—a resurgence of the rampant crime (that had actually, finally, been on the downswing). Wh...

In the mood for a smart detective yarn that requires neither an epic binge session nor an immense cast of characters of which to keep track? BritBox’s The Tower [I watched via Amazon, which counts the streamer among their slate of add-on subscription options] makes for a fine choice. _______________ When a pair of detectives from the Met’s Special Investigations Division—DS Sarah Collins and her partner, DC Steve Bradshaw—are called to take charge at the scene of a tragic accident, they know it means one thing: a police officer was involved in the incident.   Only after they’ve arrived on the scene do they fully comprehend the nature of the tragedy, which has left two crumpled bodies—that of middle-aged beat cop, PC Hadley Matthews, and a teenage girl, Farrah Mehenni—lying facedown, in spreading pools of their own blood, at the base of a multi-story building. Meanwhile, a rookie cop, PC Lizzie Adama, is still on the roof, in shock, holding the hand of a scared five-year-old boy...

  "They laugh at me because I'm different. I laugh at them because they’re all the same."                                              ~Kurt Cobain Although these words aren’t uttered until the final episode of the first season, the idea is a poignant leitmotif which runs throughout the French series, Astrid , from the very start… and I couldn’t be more enchanted. This show is an absolute delight. Astrid, streaming on PBS via Amazon Available to stream on PBS, Astrid (or Astrid et Raphaëlle , in its native French—no idea why they decided to drop the other name, stateside) is another fine police procedural/detective program from Walter Presents… but there’s so much more to it than just that .  On paper, Astrid might seem not so different from a host of other cop shows over the years. It features an odd couple: the messy, loud det...

My latest streaming recommendation is—not surprisingly (if you know me)—international, but—more surprisingly— not from Great Britain or any of the Nordic countries. Instead, this enthusiastic pick is from a land Down Under (hint: the one associated with a lovely, fuzzy fruit, not the one with adorable-fluffy eucalyptus-munchers). The Brokenwood Mysteries might be described as the antipodean second-cousin of Midsomer Murders (the looooong-running mystery series set in the British countryside)… but if so, it’s the charming, wry, witty, non-uptight cousin. As in  MM , TBM is set in a small (New Zealand) town which also covers the rest of the county, wherein a shocking number of murders (and other shenanigans) occur. Both shows also share a light touch; there’s always at least one murder—and usually more—but the tone is never grim, because the focus is always strongly on the personalities. And for me, that’s where TBM really shines. First, there’s a fantastic main cast—Nei...