Something Old Something New-ish

Old favorites buried for over 10 years but never forgotten, and a few newer ones.

Fool Errant

tags: Benbow Smith, espionage, mystery, romance

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 

Goodreads

Political intrigue and industrial espionage are brewing in Britain’s Foreign Office in this thriller from the author of the Miss Silver Mysteries

On a dark, foggy night, Hugo Ross encounters a beautiful woman. She claims to be running away and begs Hugo not to tell anyone that he’s seen her. Before boarding her train, she warns him not to take the job he’s applying secretary to eccentric inventor Ambrose Minstrel.

The train pulls away, and the stunning stranger is gone. Desperate for employment, Hugo ignores her warning and takes the job. He’s barely moved into Meade House when a message from Loveday Leigh is He must leave immediately and burn the letter. When they finally meet again at Waterloo Station, Loveday is not the mysterious woman Hugo remembers.

Odd happenings continue, and he enlists the help of the esteemed Benbow Smith, an enigmatic figure connected to London’s Foreign Office. Soon Hugo is caught up in an undercover plot involving governmental intrigue, industrial espionage, and stolen military secrets.

With his own life on the line, how much is he willing to risk for his country? Fool Errant is the 1st book in the Benbow Smith Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Patricia Wentworth created 4 sleuths - Miss Silver, Frank Garrett, Ernest Lamb, and Benbow Smith (full name Benbow Collingwood Horatio Smith). I tried reading Ernest Lamb but I was a bit bored with the character. Benbow Smith is a better sleuth and eccentric yet sharp character. He rarely looks directly at the person he is conversing with. He looks at his feet, at the ceiling, or just on the left or right side, or above the head of the other person. Very strange but funny in a way. I love his equally odd and chatty pet parrot Ananias that spouts something like dark poems and utters a string of Spanish cuss words which the reader won't see. It is just described that he swore a load of Spanish swear words. 

In this first novel, there are only 4 in the series, he appears just twice. The story is more about the couple who prevented an international catastrophe. The young man is shy and stutters and the girl is silly and scatterbrained but they are actually very smart in sticky situations. The girl is running away from her cousin who is urging her to marry a man she is not attracted to. According to her, the man is very sentimental and he says her name in a treacly voice if treacle has a voice. She did not want to be "converted" and marry him in a treacly trance. 

Highly recommended.

Paws And Palaces

 

tags: anime, cats, Chinese, Japanese, neko

In the Forbidden City, which has a long history and profound cultural heritage, there live many cute cats. From the perspective of humans, they live an enviable and leisurely life. Among them, six royal cats are special. They are responsible for protecting the memory of cultural relics of "Wuhua."

They entered the world of Wuhua and defeated the destroyer Black Owl time and time again, bringing the world of Wuhua back on the right track and thus protecting the cultural relics. The six imperial cats are Luban and Momo from the literary class, and Shuangmei, Aobai, Pingan and Xiaozai from the martial class. Not only are they intelligent and brave, they also have a tacit understanding.

They form the Forbidden City Imperial Cat Room, which protects the national treasures of the world.

Only people who really love anime, cats, and martial arts will like this. It's set in China and character cats are Chinese but obviously produced by the Japanese. Kinda strange. Meow!😸🐈🐈🐈

Doctor X

 

tags: Japanese dorama, medical, mystery, Netflix, quirky

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Wikipedia

Doctor-X: Surgeon Michiko Daimon is a Japanese medical drama that premiered in October 2012 on TV Asahi. It stars Japanese actress Ryoko Yonekura. The series ran for seven seasons until December 2021, with a total of 69 episodes and one special. It is one of the longest-running medical dramas on Japanese television, notable for its consistent high ratings and enduring popularity throughout its broadcast period. A continuation, Doctor-X: The Movie, was released in 2024.

The show follows Daimon Michiko, a freelance surgeon who works at university hospitals in Japan. Also known as Doctor-X, Daimon is introduced at new hospitals by walking into surgery staff planning review sessions, where the conditions of her work are established. She is depicted as challenging a medical system in crisis, which follows the laws of the jungle. Her trademark line is "I never fail", and she is willing to do high risk surgeries that other surgeons are not, sending those patients elsewhere when they are deemed non-operable. Her success in treating high risk patients is a result of always putting the patient first, prioritizing their health above performing medical firsts or innovative techniques, and to adapt the right surgical methods on the spot when needed. This practice often puts her into conflict with other doctors. Beyond being a surgeon, she also served as a vet, combat surgeon and resort doctor. Daimon is supported by her manager Akira Kanbara and anesthesiologist Hiromi Jōnouchi.

Doctor X: Surgeon Michiko Daimon all 7 seasons and the movie were in my watch list on Netflix before the Korean remake was added last week. I'm watching it 2 episodes at a time because there are 7 seasons, 70 episode total. Plus the over 2 hour movie. That's a lot to watch. 

I'm not into medical dramas, the last one I watched was the 2 or 3 seasons of ER but I love this Japanese series from the first time Michiko came on. She was in a glittery dress and stiletto high heels dancing by herself in a club when a man got sick and she gave her medical opinion which turned out to be accurate. She, as usual with Japanese characters, is a strange funny person with her sets of rules in order to work in the hospital as a surgeon. As the other characters are introduced, I became addicted to the series. Michiko lives with an elderly man, Akira, who is also her "manager" collecting her salary as a freelance surgeon and gifts the director of the hospital a boxed Japanese melon (those cost hundreds of dollars each BTW). He is very happy when he gets paid walking on air clutching his bag of cash. Yes, cash. Michiko and Akira who was also a surgeon play mahjong with 2 other males most nights after her shift ends at 5 P. M. and after a little dancing at the club.

I highly recommend this Japanese dorama.

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tags: Doctor X, Korean drama, medical, Netfix, remake of Japanese Doctor X

⭐⭐

The drama is a remake so the plot is similar. I've only seen 3 episodes and I dropped it like a hot tteokbokki. I am not liking the changes the Korean writers and director made to the original series which is full of humor but still dramatic with some mystery thrown in. The remake is darker with humor and quirks completely gone. I like the lead actress but she does not fit the role. The other reason I dropped it is the "manager". She started screaming on Episode 3, which is the polar opposite of the always happy soft spoken Akira character. And the intern over reacted when he mistakenly thought that Doctor X was hurt. What the heck! 

I don't recommend the Korean remake. 

The Dark Magician: A Murder In A Town With No Name

tags: conjurer, Japanese, murder mystery

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Goodreads

Mayu has just moved back to her hometown to plan her wedding when tragedy strikes. Her father is murdered. Her uncle, Takeshi, a former Las Vegas marquee magician, impulsively decides that he'll catch the culprit himself. Who needs the police? When Mayu's former classmates emerge as the prime suspects, it takes a conjurer's dazzling sleight of hand to unravel this teasing pandemic-period puzzle.

Who's next? The murderer holds the high cards, always one step ahead. But who better to unpack this twisty, turny mystery than a master illusionist? Mayu's naive eyes are about to be opened wide--as she hurtles headlong into a nightmarish narrative with a shocking conclusion!

I like very much Keigo Higashino murder mystery novel, set after Covid-19 pandemic in 2021. This reads closer to previous KH novels because it was translated by Alexander O. Smith who really captures the Japanese way of acting and speaking and unlike Guilt, the only curse word used is crap. 

Takeshi, the younger bother of the victim is a brilliant magician. He uses his expertise in making things happen to find out who murdered his brother and why. His method is both effective and remarkably entertaining to the annoyance of the police. There are lots of suspects to consider and plenty of humor courtesy of Takeshi and his niece Mayu's interaction with each other. 

Highly recommended for mystery and Keigo Higashino readers.

Paranormal Nonsense

tags: humor, mystery-crime, supernatural, urban fantasy,vampires 

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Goodreads

If Jack Reacher was a paranormal investigator…

The paranormal? It’s all nonsense but proving it might just get me killed. I won’t tell you what I used to do in the army, it’s not important. Let’s just say I picked up some skills. Now those skills are proving useful, but I didn’t choose my second career as a paranormal investigator; I don’t even believe in vampire and werewolves.

Sometimes though, I secretly worry that I might be wrong. People call on me to solve cases too weird for the police to take on. Take today for instance; a third victim was found with a bite mark in her lifeless throat. It’s happening in my town and I take that sort of thing personally. I’ll take the case on without having a client, but one soon arrives in the form of Amanda Harper, a disillusioned police officer who wants the killing stopped just as much as me. Together, and with back up from a cast of friends, we are going after whatever is behind the deaths, but my probing draws its attention and now my family are the hunted. But when someone I know is taken, a race against time begins which will pitch me into a battle for my life. Good thing I have some skills then.

If you are a fan of fast-paced paranormal thrillers, then this urban fantasy series is sure to please.

This is the first novel written in 2017 by the author, Steve Higgins. I read 2 of his newer books and I find them just so so. 

I like this one better than the "culinary tour" murder mystery series. The ex military main character, Tempest Michaels, reluctantly opened a private investigation office for paranormal activities because of a typo in the advertisement. He let the mistake pass so he started accepting jobs with supernatural complaints, not to validate or solve them, but to prove they are nonsense and that they don't exist. 

He lives alone with his 2 cute dachshunds, Bull and Dozer, Dozer being the dumb one but very sweet. (aren't all dachshunds dumb? ) He visits his parents in their home regularly and vice versa. Sometimes, he is assisted by a group of male friends in uncovering some incidents. 

The guy is very health conscious, flirts with several women, and a bit annoying but I can't help but compare him to M. C. Beaton's Agatha Raisin who has a sharp tongue and can't stand insufferable people. The author just like Beaton, is not afraid to be politically incorrect specially when he described  one female character as overweight, oversexed, and unattractive because she has a Lando Carlissian moustache.  

The writing is not very good but it is fine with me. It is his first book published and he just needed to polish his writing. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the books in this series.

JJ Cale And Leon Russell

 

79 minutes. Recorded live at Paradise Studios, Los Angeles, 1979. 

I bought the DVD after watching this recording. We made music CDs from the DVD.

The Final Problem

 

tags: murder mystery, Netflix, Spanish

4 less than an hour episodes

⭐⭐⭐⭐

An isolated hotel. A mysterious death. Thirteen guests under suspicion. And only one person capable of solving the enigma. The game is afoot!

The Final Problem is the period mystery thriller starring Jose Coronado, María Valverde, Martiño Rivas and Maribel Verdú, based on the novel by Arturo Pérez-Reverte. Premieres September 25, only on Netflix.

Spring, 1959. A storm cuts off a small island near Mallorca. At the hotel where the guests take shelter, Elisa Mander, a quiet English tourist, is found dead. What looks like a suicide soon turns out to be something far more disturbing: a murder. Basil (Jose Coronado), a retired actor who once played Sherlock Holmes on the big screen, is drawn — almost against his will — into unravelling what happened. Alongside Adela Figueroa (María Valverde) and Foxá (Martiño Rivas), he searches the halls of the luxurious hotel for answers, testing the composure of the hotel's manager, Mrs. Ausländer (Maribel Verdú).

In a place no one can leave and no one can reach, every guest and every member of staff becomes a suspect in a crime that grows more complex by the minute.

An actor who played Sherlock Holmes was invited by a producer to an island in Mallorca to discuss possible future projects. When a guest was murdered, originally ruled as suicide, the actor Benjamin Basil started to investigate just like his role as Sherlock. He keeps saying he's just an actor but he can't help himself when 2 more guests were murdered. 

The mystery is good and has a different angle than other Sherlock Holmes or Agatha Christie mysteries. It has a little bit of similarity to And Then There Were None. I guessed correctly the murderer but not the twist and the reference to a famous Sherlock Holmes adversary.

Highly recommended.

***********************************************************************************

I recognize the actor Martino Rivas playing the young novelist Foxa who acts as Benjamin Basil's Dr. Watson. I saw him in the 2007 Spanish telenovela El Internado with the young Ana de Armas, Blanca Suarez, and my idol, Yon Gonzalez.

In Plain Sight

tags: magic, paranormal, runewright, urban fantasy, YA

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Goodreads

When a magical plague is released in a Depression-era New York soup kitchen, private detective Alex Lockerby finds himself in a desperate hunt to catch a madman before he can strike again.

His investigations lead Alex to a famous thief, a daring heist, and the search for a mythic book of ancient magic, but none of that brings him any closer to finding the man responsible for the massacre.

With the police and New York’s Council of Sorcerers desperate to find the culprit, Alex becomes a suspect himself, thanks to his ties to the priest who ran the soup kitchen.

Now Alex has his book of spells, a pack of matches and four days to find out where the plague came from, or that authorities will hang the crime squarely on him.

The book is free to borrow from Amazon Prime. I believe this is under YA category but I find it okay for adults who like reading urban fantasies, magic, private detectives, 1930s noir, mystery, etc. 

Alex Lockerby is a Private Detective occasionally working with NYPD using runes he writes and gets paid for it. The book has 3 different cases that are tied to each other. The first is a man-made bioweapon that killed a priest and several poor people his mission feeds everyday. The priest is like a father to him. He took Alex in as a child until he was of age. The second case involves the murder of a man who worked at a warehouse for imports, and the last one is a missing person who is also an amateur runewright. 

Alex helps solve the crimes with his cop friend, Danny Pak (a Japanese with a Korean name and explained later why), some FBI agents whose leader is a beautiful sorceress, and his landlord, a British doctor who is in his 70s and also knows runes and magic.

This is the first book in Arcane Series by this author. The writing is very simple, probably for young adult readers. I don't mind as long as it tells a good story, doesn't have sex scenes and bad language, and highly entertaining. 

Highly recommended.

The Ordinary Jackpot

tags: Korean dramedy 

ongoing Monday and Tuesday

Things rarely change, but everything began to change. Eun Tae, who has been working as an ordinary employee, is burnt out from everything that happens to him. Everything from work to relationships with others, his life is filled with boredom. Suddenly, he becomes a lottery winner and gets 1.3 billion won. While it is a huge amount, realistically, it is hard for him to even purchase his own house in Seoul. After reviewing everything, he decides to live his life as he used to, but with a somewhat different mindset, as he has "insurance" that he can depend on.

This new Kdrama is different from the typical romcom dramedy. It looks like there won't be romance. Thank you writers. 

The lead male is getting fed up with being a salaryman. He was promoted to his position as team manager and the more senior and older employee resents him for it. The coworker is disrespectful and ignores him everyday and doesn't include him to have lunch with the group. 

Eun Tae, the team manager does his work diligently. He is the first to arrive at work and the last to leave. Even his own family takes advantage of him always asking for financial help. He did not complain when his laundromat guy lost one of his shirts without offering compensation. In other words, he is a pushover.

He went to buy beer but the convenience store's credit card machine was not working and didn't have change. The clerk suggested to get a lottery ticket instead. He reluctantly accepted because there is nothing he can do about the situation. He asked himself when was it that he stopped getting mad. He is worried what the consequences would be if he doesn't control his anger and he couldn't afford to lose his job. He won the lottery. 

I thought this will be a revenge or a scenario of getting fed up and destroy his place of work and beat up his colleagues. It turned out it's going to be a good feel dramedy. Instead of retiring from an unhappy work environment, he decided to continue the good work he was doing but will not be a pushover anymore. He wants to make the company a better work place. He is also thinking $800,000 is not enough to retire.

Only 2 episodes are out. The drama started airing this past Monday and Tuesday. I don't know how many total episodes. I like it already. I first saw the actor Lee Jun-Hyuk in 2011's City Hunter with Lee Min-ho. He hasn't aged a lot since then. What's his secret? LOL

Lee Jun-Hyuk

City Hunter trailer with Lee Min-ho as City  Hunter. Lee Jun-Huyk is City Hunter's nemesis and appears only at the very end of the trailer. Jun-Hyuk was excellent as the relentless cop pursuing City Hunter. The series is going to be shown on Netflix soon.