The story centers on David Burroughs, a father serving a life sentence for the murder of his young son. Although he was convicted of the crime, David maintains his innocence. His world changes when evidence surfaces suggesting the child may still be alive. Determined to uncover the truth, he sets out on a dangerous search that pulls him into a web of hidden connections, long buried secrets, and unexpected revelations.
I binge watched yesterday this 8 episode drama series based on Harlan Coben's novel I Will Find You. I read it in 2023. I enjoyed the Netflix series regardless of already knowing the who and why.
As in most TV series adaptations from books, there are a few changes in some characters which are okay and make for great viewing: the lead FBI agent is changed from a male to a young Black female whose father is also an FBI agent played by Chi McBride whose funny one liners give a lighter tone to the tense scenes; the rich matriarch grandma is replaced by the mother; additional police characters and their stories.
Highly recommended specially for viewers who haven't read the book.
Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2016. When a small-time criminal and gun dealer is shot down in the street, all signs point to Tomas Gomez, a quiet man with a mysterious past—and deep connections to a notorious gang—who has seemingly vanished into thin air. Other murders soon follow, and it appears Gomez is only getting started. Meanwhile, Bob Oz, a down-and-out suspended police officer with a dubious past of his own, becomes fascinated by the he is obsessed with the notion of hunting down a serial killer who only he can understand, a killer with a story as tragic as his own.
Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2022. An enigmatic Norwegian man with ties to Minneapolis—a self-described crime writer—has traveled to the United States to research the Gomez case, in the hopes of writing a book about it. But as his investigation progresses, the writer’s seemingly neutral position reveals itself to be more complicated than the reader is initially led to believe.
I can't believe I gave a 1-star rating of a book written by one of my favorite authors. It is hardly a thriller. The title is not even relevant to the story because it is not about El Lobo, the Hispanic thug who is a minor character in the book, only appeared once to slaughter a family eating in a restaurant where only the father survived. Anybody with normal understanding of the text will be able to guess who the vengeful murderer is from the characters being introduced in the story. It's not very subtle and seems to be written for idiots.
The story is incoherent and reads like Nesbo made a check list of things that he doesn't like about the USA and ticked them off one by one, then wrote a dull book. I specially hated that Nesbo is now praying at the altar of Saint George Floyd. Giant eye roll here. It was not necessary to include this incident but you see, Nesbo hates the USA, guns, and police. Nesbo even defended the fraudulent Somalis and made one Somali character a very good cop. [I guess Nesbo missed the news when a Somali cop for no good reason shot dead an Australian female who reported a possible assault near her house.] This heroic portrayal of a Somali did not age well because of the recent billion $ fraud committed by mainly Somali immigrants in Minneapolis, aided and abetted by democrat politicians.
The book was written mainly to criticize guns in the USA. Nesbo should stay out of American politics because he revealed his ignorance and contempt for Americans and should just continue writing fiction that are about crimes in Norway because he knows his own country and its criminals.
Recommended only for woke leftists who hate America. Not recommended for normal people.
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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 except one male. They lived alone for between 7 and 20 years. It's like Roommate 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 from this show that he had thyroid cancer 3 years ago. 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 although 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 30 minutes 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..
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.
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, FoolMe 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.
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.
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.
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.
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