Silent Bones - Rachel Lynch

 

DI Kelly Porter returns with her new thriller

A gripping tale that is as much about the past as the present. DI Kelly Porter returns with a new tale about a cold case that brings back haunting memories for all involved.

Kelly was a good girl in school she stayed away from the cool kids, she kept her head down and did not rub people up the wrong way yet she remained approachable and knew when the cool kids went bad. 

In 1997, a young boy called Brian disappears and during a drought in the Thirlmere part of the Lake District, a body is found in a reservoir. The body is found to be that of young Brian who never came home one night.

The case spins on the discovery that some people are not letting on to know as much as they originally suggested. From the teacher, Mr. Thompson who hangs out with children at the weekend and may or may not been a drug supplier to those same pupils to Michelle the owner of a Holiday camp who took pity upon a local no-good Jason Cooper.

The discovery of a second body turns the case upside down with two murders to solve in a small town; coupled with accusations that Kelly's father, John Porter, renowned local policeman was not the salt of the earth he led people to believe.

As well as having to solve a case, Kelly also has a young family to look after and this follows familiar tropes of Canelo Crime releases from Lynch's contemporaries (MJ Lee and Marion Todd) who also have domestic routines to account for. This stable of writers make clear that law enforcement have problems at home to deal with as well as the crimes to solve - and this balance or openness of relationships certainly makes the characters more relatable and sympathetic. 

At times highly enthralling and page-turning, this is my first read of a Lynch crime thriller and certainly shall not be the last.

SILENT BONES is out on all formats from 27th July 2023 from Canelo Crime.

Medusa

Brazilian genre-bending horror MEDUSA out 14th July 

Writer-director Anita Rocha de Silveira second feature film is a mind melt of genres that follows 21 year old Marianna who is a member of a repressive patriarchal Christian sect. By day, she is all sweetness and Christ and yet at night she is a member of a vigilante gang of women who scare the women of the city they deem to be sinners in God's eyes. This film tackles the question of vanity and feminism in an increasingly smaller world due to the ubiquity of social media.

The Brazil we see her is similar to ones we are familiar with in this watered down social media where beauty is only skin deep, vanity is paramount and the need to be rich is at odds with own religious beliefs.

As Marianna, Mari Oliviera evokes a lot of connection and subtext into her role as a women questioning her beliefs and scared of the ramifications her actions within the vigilante group may have.

At times the style outdoes the substance of this film, and yet it remains highly engaging and watchable with its satirical take on the marriage of instagram and Christianity in one character who teaches followers how to take the perfect Christian selfie. In this film everyone is always looking at and gazing, a feast for the Laura Mulvey fans out there.

A film that could easily have been labelled provocative is in fact something a little bit more perscient than that and violence upon women by women - often as form of control - is apparent to this day; this form of control with the perpetrators seeking the victims to be like them is worrying as a whole and an indictment of the power of social media especially upon impressionable young women.

Her collaboration with her cinematographer Joao Atala creates a world that is both hypnotic and foreboding, a visual style and language of De Silveria's own coming together with excellent production design by art director Dina Salem Levy and the ominous soundtrack created by the director and Bernardo Uzeda.

A feast for the senses embodying the works of David Lynch in terms of melting of genres such as drama and horror; Dario Argento's out and out horror but also Brian De Palma's paranoid thrillers and twisty narratives.

Medusa is out from 14th July via Peccadillo Pictures. It shall be on streaming services from August.

THE BURNING TIME - Peter Hanington

 

New William Carver novel out July 6th from Baskerville 

Timely and perscient, Hannington has written a novel that is both of our time and for our time as we follow investigative journalist William Carver who attempts to take down an Australian inventor, Clive Winner who may or may not hold the secret to global warming.

William is tipped off by a Whitehall insider who fears that the influence Winner is having over the current PM is doing an injustice to government policy when ulterior motives may be more apparent for the antipodean.

Globe-trotting from Spain to Washington DC and Sydney to London; Hannington has captured the spirit of Jason Bourne for journalism with a fast paced taut thriller that is unputdownable.

Paranoid thriller tropes abound from suspicious disappearances to the general sense of being followed along with the presence of the lazy eyed henchman who strikes fear into all who cross paths with him.

Short, sharp chapters maintain attention and the tight plotting moves along a pace keeping the reader enthralled with intrigue and panic, and how refreshing to see a journalist be the hero for once in narrative fiction.

A must for new people to the series and character in the same vein as Mick Herron

THE BURNING TIME is out 6th July from Baskerville 

My thanks to Baskerville for the review copy.

Smoking Causes Coughing

 

New Quentin Dupieux film out 7th July from Picturehouse Entertainment

Any film from Dupieux is an event, not one of those Indiana Jones/Mission:Impossible type events, but a reminder that the French film-maker and all around visual medium specialist is back with another great yarn to share with the world.

In this instance, he has offered us Smoking Causes Coughing where he takes a five person superhero troupe who are governed by their puppet leader to combat the world challenging events.

The film begins with a family having to make a rest stop for their child to go to the toilet, during that stop the child sees Tobacco Force (Benzene, Methanol, Nicotine, Mercure and Ammoniaque) fighting a giant turtle whom they destroy with their combined tobacco powers to make him explode.

From the get go you notice this battle is not like anything we see nowadays in superhero films with mass CGI and expert choreography, instead we are treated to an affection tribute to the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers with ill-fitting costumes, over the top costumes and lots of fake blood.

Dupieux has a knack of making loopy and eccentric narratives, which is indicative of his own feverish personality, his attention span flies from one thing to another. Following their triumph, the Force report back to their boss - Chief Didier - a puppet rat who is the head of Tobacco Force and is highly desirable to any woman who encounters him.

Didier sends the team off to a retreat so they can reconvene and rebuild their teamwork which has been lacking on recent assignments, upon this retreat the world learns of a new threat to the world by evil Lezardin who threatens to destroy the Earth. Can Tobacco Force co-exist or will the world be snuffed out?

On their retreat, the team take to telling ghost stories of lore which means we break from the camp and see these stories told from a woman who cannot take off a helmet which shuts out the world to a nephew visiting his aunt at a farm with tragic results. 

The point of these narrative shifts or breakaways is a chance for the viewer to re-focus themselves away from the hectic chaotic world we find ourselves in at the moment - the moments of levity throughout from the supermarket fridge to the macabre moments of body horror are genuinely funny and welcome upon first watch.

Dupieux fortuitously has a game cast amongst his five leads who all play it straight and themselves show enough of the kinship as a group while maintaining individuality from missing their children while saving the world to seeking romance.

A funny yet fleeting film of 80 minutes and a love letter to those crazy Saturday morning superhero shows that stay with you, much like this film does.

Smoking Causes Coughing is out from 7th July via Picturehouse Entertainment

Bella Ciao - Giulia Giapponesi

 

Smart documentary on protest song that still rings true

Bella Ciao is a song that has become the Italian national anthem of protest - a chorus that rings around the world in times of adversity. From the mosques of Istanbul to the mountains of Chile, the song holds a special resonance to those who hold it dear.

The history of the song is as rich as the song's lasting appeal from a song of defiance to one used as the theme music to Netflix hit television show Money Heist. The film starts with a showing of the song being used around the world from Iran to Turkey and back to the homeland of Italy.

The film takes a long period telling the story of the Partisans, those who opposed fascism. Veterans speak of giving to their country for the freedom, and how the mistakes of having a sixteen year old fight in a war are being repeated around the world by insurgents and ongoing warfare. Yet these veterans speak of how they did not sing the song during the war, and it only became an anthem some 15 years after the conclusion of World War 2 by the youth movement and uprising in the Eastern bloc of late 1950s and early 60s - as a song for the masses.

The song was given a life of its own and its own mythology began to circulate in the 1960s and the film shows many stories from around the world expressing how the song came into their life and remains.

This documentary is as stirring as the song it lauds, giving life and reason to a song that has stood the test of modern warfare and an ever changing society. The film is indicative of how we express our identity through song and singing alike giving us a sense of belonging and unity.

Bella Ciao receives its UK premiere as part of the Cinecittà Italian Docs series at London's Bertha DocHouse on Sunday 25th June at 3.30pm with a Q&A with director Giulia Giapponesi.

SVEGLIAMI A MEZZANOTTE (Wake Me Up at Midnight)

 

Fascinating documentary on personal trauma

Directed by Francesco Patierno, this is based upon an autobiography by writer and narrator, Fuani Marino, who attempted suicide by falling from the fourth floor of a building a few months after giving birth to her daughter, Greta.

Suffering from post-partum depression, Fuani makes the case that this was a build-up of pressures and emotions that led to her attempt to take her own life and leave the darkness she found surrounding her world.

Told with a mixture of archive photographs from her own family albums, with up to date photos and videos along with stock library footage; in unison Patierno and Marino craft a gripping and intense viewing experience that is both first-hand but welcoming to the audience to understand where Marino has been and is going.

The loss of her writing (left) hand following the accident is tragic for any writer, having to re-learn that skill and not being able to recognise your handwriting as your own is hard. What is telling is that Marino has now recovered and she is not trying to hide her suicide attempt - in her words the writing of the memoir on which this film is based was in fact a political statement on behalf of all those who choose to remain silent.

A gripping and intense watch that is rewarding in its naked honesty on a taboo subject; she lived so she could tell the tale.

Screening as part of the Cinecitta Italian Docs at Bertha Doc House receiving its UK Premiere on Saturday 24th June 6.30pm with a Q&A with director Patierno afterwards.

Black Valley Farm - Sheila Bugler

 

New crime thriller from Sheila Bugler out 22nd June from Canelo Crime

Hailing from the South Coast, well Eastbourne to be precise, Sheila Bugler has curated a nice niche for her crime fiction. Previously she has written a series of novels featuring Dee Doran an investigative journalist which were very entertaining. This time she has written a novel that could read like a true crime novel about the discovery of bodies at the pseudonymous farm where a cult had been residing.

Incorporating dual narratives and timelines, so we follow the tale of Clare on the run for 10 years following the fire at the farm and how the fire started that engulfed the site killing ten people including children.

Nuala Fox, is a podcaster who won awards for her series based upon the cult, has now fallen by the wayside and needs another hit. She takes the job of working on a documentary with Andrea Leach, a far-right MP candidate for the new Progress Party, yet who is Ms. Leach and where did she come from.

Nuala though is hiding a secret herself in that she fabricated the end of her series to get better results, morality and ethics circumvent the narrative throughout. Everyone is being chased and all are chasing something, namely the truth.

Bugler is a writer this reader admires, and following her career has been a pleasure, and this book took a while to start but once it did get its wheels on track the pacing of the narrative was cranked up and handled with such robustness and thrills that it was hard to put down afterwards. 

The impending threat of being found out or discovering a hurtful truth is encompassing and the claustrophobic atmosphere Bugler creates of the cult itself along with the judgmental world we find ourselves in today, where we feel we have to please everybody but ourselves is key to the tension.

Heart-pounding by the books conclusion, Bugler has again written an engrossing tale of thrilling suspense that you will find hard to put down and find hard to forget.

Black Valley Farm is out on all formats from Canelo Crime on 22nd June.

Check out my reviews of other Sheila Bugler books below:

NextToTheAisle: When The Dead Speak - Sheila Bugler

NextToTheAisle: Before You Were Gone

NextToTheAisle: I Could Be You - Sheila Bugler