Six Singles Under One Roof

Tags: Korean, movie and TV actors, reality show

Drat. I'm hooked again on a Korean reality show with 6 TV and movie actors almost and in their 40s and never been married. They lived alone for between 7 and 20 years. It's like Roomate  for older singles. Once again Jang Keun-Suk is the main reason I am watching. But I have seen the works of the other 2 males and one female, Lee Da-Hee. Jang Keun-Suk has been a favorite of mine since I first saw him in You're Beautiful and Beethoven Virus. He disappeared from KDramas for several years making only 2 or fewer series a year to focus on his solo music career. I only found out that he had thyroid cancer 3 years ago from this reality show. That's probably the reason he looks bloated and unhealthy. He takes a cocktail of vitamins, minerals, and a variety of supplements daily like a 90 year old person.

The first episode is hilarious. Keun-Suk ordered an almost 50 pound live octopus for their first night dinner together and it started crawling out of its box. Everybody was shouting and running away from it as though it is a monster. They had a wonderful dinner cooked by Keun-Suk, using all the parts of the octopus.

One of the funniest housemates is Choi Daniel who has no filter and just blurts out his observations of his new roommates without thinking if he might offend them. But these actors are very polite and they don't quarrel or argue at all. 

Lee Da-Hee is the oldest among them at 42. She is tall at 5'8" and very thin, almost skeletal but she eats a ton, very slowly, that she's the last to finish eating. She is also a neat freak, cleaning up everything while they were still cooking, washing and wiping surfaces and walls, all the pans and pots once they have served their purpose. I've only seen her in several series and movies and I have the impression that she is a bit anal in her neatness from just watching one of her reality shows.  

The third male is the "unfortunate" actor Ahn Jae-Hyun who had a very public wedding and nasty divorce story and maybe the reason the shaman proclaimed he had lost his former self and needs to rediscover it. Poor guy. 

There are 5 an hour and a half minute episodes with subtitles so far. Episodes 6 and 7 are already out but still raw (no subtitles). 

This reality show is surprisingly airing simultaneously on HBO, Amazon, and Apple TV. I wonder why Netflix didn't join the party.. 

The cast

 

Murder By Design

Tags: Amazon First Reads, humor, murder mystery, thriller

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Goodreads

In a world carefully constructed for murder, solving crimes takes a keen mind and eye in a witty, clever, and fresh reinvention of the whodunit.

Edison Bixby is wealthy, handsome, and, due to a traumatic brain injury, impulsively rude. He’s also a brilliant insurance investigator who solves baffling crimes by figuring out how the design of the man-made world around us makes them possible.

Enter Wally a struggling actor hired to keep Bixby from offending everyone he meets. Their first case together looks like a simple accident. Caroline Crowley took a nasty fall down a staircase at a shopping mall in front of dozens of witnesses. Video clearly shows the deadly misstep. But Bixby is certain she was murdered by design, subtly manipulated into causing her own demise. The mall itself made the crime intentional, if not inevitable. Now Bixby must prove his outrageous theory before a very cunning killer gets others on his hit list to murder themselves, too.

I'm glad Amazon First Reads included a male writer in maybe 6 months of nothing but female authors. Month after month all the free books for First Reads are written by untalented female authors. The only other time I downloaded was 2 years ago in 2024 Dean Koontz' The Bad Weather Friend. When I visit the First Reads page, I look at the authors' names and if the choices are written by a sea of females, I just skip it. Why bother downloading when they are 99% stupid. Sorry for the rant. 

I didn't expect to like this humorous short novel but I did and recommend it highly.  The pair a la Sherlock and Dr. Watson complement each other very well. Very funny duo. Bixby is a combination of Sherlock Holmes, M. Auguste Dupin, Lord Peter Wimsey, and Agatha Raisin. Teaming with the failed actor Wally as his assistant is brilliant IMHO. There's a twist at the end that I guessed early on. Still a great read for readers who have a sense of humor.

Nobody's Fool

Tags: murder mystery, thriller

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Goodreads

In this stunningly twisty thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Harlan Coben, a secret from former Detective Sami Kierce’s college days comes back to haunt him.

His memory is clear, but all these years later, the facts don’t add up…which is something he cannot ignore. Sami Kierce, a young college grad backpacking in Spain with friends, wakes up one morning, covered in blood. There’s a knife in his hand. Beside him, the body of his girlfriend. Anna. Dead. He doesn’t know what happened. His screams drown out his thoughts—and then he runs. Twenty-two years later, Kierce, now a private investigator, is a new father who’s working off his debts by doing low level surveillance jobs and teaching wannabe sleuths at a night school in New York City. One evening, he recognizes a familiar face at the back of the classroom. Anna. It’s unmistakably her. As soon as Kierce makes eye contact with her, she bolts.

For Kierce there is no choice. He knows he must find this woman and solve the impossible mystery that has haunted his every waking moment since that terrible day. His investigation will bring him face-to-face with his past—and prove, after all this time, he’s nobody’s fool.

This is the second book in a series featuring Sami Kierce, and ex NYC cop. I read the first book, Fool Me Once, in 2017 and I don't recall Detective Sami Kierce at all. He was not prominent in the book nor in the Netflix series. 

Harlan Coben decided to write a series that has him as the lead character together with a bunch of students who are wannabe amateur sleuths. They help him in their own way to solve mysteries, crime, and murders. Kinda like the ongoing trend similar to Thursday Murder Club. I like the story of one of the students, Golfer Gary. If the book is successful and the  author continues with the series, he might feature the students' personal stories one book at a time. I like that idea because Golfer Gary's story is almost a heartbreaking tragicomedy IMO.

Sami Kierce's trauma from the "dead" Anna lasted more than 20 years until she appeared in his classroom. He is of course relieved that he didn't murder her after all but he wants to find out why he was made to believe that he killed her. Any normal person who suffered from the guilt for 20 years will have the same reaction. At the same time, he is dealing with a murderer who was let out of prison and a missing girl from 20 years ago. The novel is definitely twistier than pretzel and very entertaining.

Recommended for Harlan Coben fans.

Project Loki

tags: crime, Filipino drama series, mystery, thriller 

7 episodes so far, every Saturday, ongoing

From Viva One

One of Wattpad’s top mystery-crime thrillers comes alive with Viva One stars Dylan Menor, Marco Gallo, and Jayda Avanzado. Join Loki and Lorelei as they crack puzzles, solve cases, and uncover dark secrets within the halls of Clark University.

I've been watching Filipino comedy and drama series lately, the ones with young people - High School and University kids. They do not have much adult drama scenarios like cheating spouses or manipulative characters. Project Loki got me interested because it's about 2 university students helping the campus police solve mysteries, murders, and crimes within the university They are like Holmes and Watson. Take note of the name - Loki (Sherlock) and he has a nemesis who calls himself M as in you know who.

I like the series, the actors, the theme song that I find myself eager to see the next episode. 

Queen Anne Is Dead

tags: historical fiction, politics, romance

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From Goodreads 

First reissue in over a century of a lost classic by Patricia Wentworth • From the author of the hugely successful and enduring MISS SILVER crime series, QUEEN ANNE IS DEAD is a historical novel set England and France in 1714.Kensington Palace 1714, Queen Anne is dying. Assorted courtiers, flatterers, rogues and favourites are frantically positioning themselves ready to reap bountiful patronages from the new king. 

The scheming Lady Henrietta Clavering is in her element. But the machinations between Lady Clavering, her estranged son Philip and her much younger beau Jack Murray are about to take a surprising turn. Meanwhile, Philip is dispatched on a fool’s errand to the village of Mercy in the Duchy of Lorraine deep in rural France and into the life of the beautiful Hélène, daughter of a Jacobite exile.

The novel set in 1714 is hardly about the death of Queen Anne but more of the suffering of Philip at the hands of his own mother, the despicable Lady Henrietta Clavering. Philip was thought to be dead for 2 years and suddenly came back, His mother tried to make him disappear for good a second time but did not succeed, making Philip learn the truth about his mother's deadly schemes and find true love in young Hélène. 

Highly recommended.

Escape: Sore wa Yukai no Hazudatta

 

tags: Japanese dorama, mystery, satori

⭐⭐⭐⭐

From YouTube 

Yagami Yui, the only daughter of a major pharmaceutical company president, is kidnapped on the night of her 20th birthday. The plan fails miserably. And when the hostage looks her kidnapper in the eyes and says "Run away with me" — a nationwide manhunt begins. What starts as the worst kidnapping in history unravels into a decades-long conspiracy about identity, power, and a secret she's been carrying her whole life. 

The title is Escape: Sore wa Yukai no Hazudatta (ESCAPE It Was Supposed to Be a Kidnapping). The 2025 Japanese series is not playing on Netflix nor Amazon. I watched it in one of the Asian drama websites. 10 Episodes.

The subject of this dorama is a family with satori ability. Yui sees colors when she touches a person, dark for dark aura and light colors for maybe a good person. Her aunt hears sounds, not sees colors. When they touch each other, there are no colors or sounds, neutral in other words. 

Yui takes advantage of being kidnapped to escape not from the kidnapper but from her own father who put a GPS monitoring anklet on her and employed a bodyguard for her. Yui suspects her father of something sinister and decides to cut the device and asks her kidnapper to drive her to where her former nanny lives. From there, she also escapes from the nanny taking the nanny's child with her. The kidnapped becomes a kidnapper in order to protect the child whom she thinks is being neglected by his mother. She and the kidnapper become friends and partners in escaping together. He is not a bad person although he spent sometime in juvie custody for petty theft. They call themselves Hachi (Yui) and Linda (Daisuke). They acquire friends who help them along the way. 

Note: The video is an hour long summary of the almost 10 hour series. I couldn't find a trailer for the series.

The Friend Of The Family

tags: historical fiction, mystery, thriller

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From Goodreads 

A girl liberated from a carnival sideshow discovers her mysterious purpose in a moving novel about family, sacrifice, and transcendent love by #1 New York Times bestselling author Dean Koontz.

The human “oddities” in the Museum of the Strange are less wondrous than the gawking rubes had been promised. But Alida is something else. The real thing. Traveling Depression-era America from carnival midways to speakeasies, Alida is resigned to an exploited and lonely life on the road as the museum’s golden ticket.

Until she’s rescued by two compassionate strangers. Franklin and Loretta Fairchild see in Alida a gifted and uncannily well-read girl in need of a loving touch and a family. With the openhearted couple and their three precociously imaginative children, Alida finds it.

Yet despite everyone’s overwhelming generosity and acceptance, Alida knows she is still a very different kind of girl. Her dreams bear that out. They’re vivid, unsettling, and threatening. Alida fears that they’re also warnings. And that it’s the Fairchilds who may need rescue from a bad, bad world.

Alida will do anything to help those she now holds nearest and dearest. Empowered with a purpose to vanquish evil, she will not fail her family.

The Friend Of The Family is different from all the Dean Koontz books I have read. The first person narrative is a first for me from Koontz. It is written as a sort of journal by the main character, Alida/Adiel.  

Alida is physically deformed but her mind is excellent. She has certain uncommon skills such as remembering word for word the books she has read, and she has read tons of books. She also has a precognitive ability and what the Japanese call Satori. Her dreams are very vivid that foretell future events and although she cannot prevent them, the family can prepare for their coming. She also did something almost supernatural as though she was an angel sent from heaven to help her adopted family and their German shepherd, Rafael. Her deformity was revealed only at the very last few pages which I think is just proper for the readers to see her as she is seen by the Fairchild family, a normal person.

The story is set from 1930 to 1944 when the USA was still suffering from the effects of WWI and up to the tragic WWII. The Fairchild couple work in the movie industry and the novel has many Hollywood biggies such as  Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, Groucho Marx, Laurel and Hardy and their wives. etc. These people sort of lighten the story amid the dark events during that time. 

Highly recommended.

Iranians Worldwide Celebrate

 

Iranians all over the world celebrate the death of their oppressor doing the Trump dance, thanking the president, USA, and Israel. 

The left and the democrats meanwhile are devastated and do nothing but whine and cry hard that their beloved terrorist is gone forever. 

Sudden Marriage (Ikinari Kon)

 

tags: Amazon streaming, Japanese dorama, romance

⭐⭐⭐⭐

From Amazon

"Sudden Marriage" follows plain office worker Mao Koshiba. After being cheated on and drinking herself numb, she wakes in a handsome stranger's bed: Hajime Ando, her new boss.

There are so many questionable things in this Japanese romance dramedy. The male lead, Shirota Yuu is 190 cm (6'3") tall and the lead female, Saito Kyoko is 155 cm (5"). Yuu is 40 years old and Kyoko is 28. 12 year difference in age and she looks very young. But I don't mind and I like the mystery-ish vibe. What's funny and strange is Shirota is shown as pure Japanese and that's how all the characters also see him. I think it is deliberate.

Shirota Yuu is half Japanese, half Spanish (mother). I first saw him in Hana Kimi when he was just 22 years old. I'm not sure if this his first lead role in a Japanese romance series. He has several supporting roles in many Japanese movies and TV shows.

 

Yuu is also a singer. Yuu's Mentirosa featuring his younger brother Jun

Headhunters

tags: crime, mystery, thriller

⭐⭐⭐⭐

From Goodreads

Roger Brown has it all: clever and wealthy, he's at the very top of his game. And if his job as a headhunter ever gets dull, he has his sideline as an art thief to keep him busy. At a gallery opening, his wife introduces him to Clas Greve. Not only is Greve the perfect candidate for a position that Brown is recruiting for; he is also in possession of one of the most sought-after paintings in modern art history. Roger sees his chance to become rich beyond his wildest dreams, and starts planning his biggest theft ever. But soon, he runs into trouble - and it's not long before the hunter becomes the hunted...

I read this book in December 2012 after watching the movie based on this book. I never heard of Jo Nesbø before that. I really liked the movie and I had to read the book. I became a fan and I have read almost all of his books since, except the children's books. 

I'm rereading it after 13 years although I've seen the movie 3 times already and it is still on my Hoopla watch list where it streams in its original Norwegian language. Other streaming sites are English dubbed.

Roger Brown is an arrogant unlikable character, acts as though he is the most clever person in the world, and has expensive taste in everything but does not have the means to sustain his luxurious lifestyle and his wife's art gallery. He bought an expensive house and the art gallery for his wife and to pay for them, he steals expensive artworks, replaces them with copies, then fences them with the help of a weird character.

The writing is fast paced, humorous, and full of [sometimes gross  but funny] surprises and twists.