Insomnia File #50: Zola (dir by Janicza Bravo)

Posted on October 25, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable or Netflix? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

If you were having trouble getting to sleep around two a.m. on Monday morning, you could have turned over to Showtime 2’s west coast feed and watched Zola.

Zola tells the story of Zola (Taylor Paige), a Detroit waitress and part-time stripper who is invited to go down to Florida by another stripper, Stefani (Riley Keough). Stefani assures Zola that they’re just going to have a good time and make some money dancing in the clubs. Instead, it turns out that they’re going to Florida with Stefani’s roommate, X (Colman Domingo, showing compelling flashes of charisma and danger), and her simple-minded but loyal boyfriend, Derrek (Nicholas Braun). It also turns out that X is actually a Nigerian named Abegunde Olawale and that he is Stefani’s pimp. It doesn’t take long for Zola to grow annoyed with everyone else on the road trip but, unfortunately, she’s already stuck in Tampa with them. That’s the problem with going on a road trips with perfect strangers. The trip grows stranger and more violent with each passing hour. In fact, it gets so strange that, when Zola eventually tells her story on twitter, the thread goes viral. And then this movie is made, with a disclaimer that states that most of the story is based on fact.

Zola made quite a splash when it premiered at Sundance in 2020. Audiences either loved or hated its extreme stylization and rather crass cast of characters. While the film was originally scheduled to be released in 2020, that release was delayed by the COVID pandemic. At a time when people were scared to go outside and be near even their closest relatives or friends, I guess someone decided that it wasn’t the right time to release a movie about going on a cramped road trip with two morons and a psychotic pimp. The film was finally released earlier this year. It got good critical notices, though audiences seemed to be slightly less enamored with it.

Speaking for myself, I was both impressed and annoyed with Zola. On the one hand, you have to respect a film that’s willing to run the risk of alienating the audience in order to tell its story. Zola is violent, vulgar, and frequently funny. It’s also frequently disturbing, with Zola continually finding herself in a bad situation from which she can’t escape. Taylour Paige brings a lot of inner strength to the role of Zola. When Zola gets annoyed, she doesn’t hide it. When Zola says she’s not going to do something, she means it and she says it with such confidence that even X respects her. She and Stefani also have an interesting relationship, one that will ring true to anyone who has ever had that one friend who simply cannot stop messing up her life. The film embraces its characters and their activities, refusing to pass judgment or to sentimentalize. You have to admire the film’s commitment. At the same time, the film is occasionally a bit annoying. It’s so extremely stylized and Stefani is so loud and crass that it can sometimes be tough to take. This is a film that benefits from being watched at home as opposed to in theater, if just because you can hit pause whenever you feel a migraine starting to come on. (Poor Zola, meanwhile, is stuck in the back of X’s car, listening to Stefani and Derreck and realizing that she’s pretty much stuck with all of them.) Zola was produced and distributed by A24 and it is indeed very much an A24 film, loud, frustrating, paranoia-inducing, and occasionally compelling.

Zola is only 90 minutes long but it packs a lot into those minutes. It’s not a boring film. At the same time, it’s never quite as subversive as something like Spring Breakers. Instead, it’s just an energetic recreation of the road trip from Hell.

Previous Insomnia Files:

Suspense Film Review: Rope (dir by Alfred Hitchcock)

Posted on October 25, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Rope, an odd little 1948 experiment from Alfred Hitchcock, opens with a murder.

Two wealthy young men, Brandon (John Dall) and Philip (Farley Granger), invite their friend, David Kentley (Dick Hogan), up to their apartment. When David arrives, they strangle him and hide his body in a wooden chest. As quickly becomes obvious, Brandon and Philip killed David largely to see if they could pull off the perfect murder. Brandon is sure that they did and, that by doing so, they proved the concept of Nietzsche’s Übermensch, The alcoholic Philip is less sure and starts drinking.

Brandon and Philip don’t just have murder planned for the day. They’re also planning on throwing a little dinner party and, among those on the guest list, are David’s parents, his girlfriend, and his girlfriend’s former boyfriend. Also attending will be Brandon and Philip’s former teacher and housemaster, Rupert Cadell (James Stewart). In fact, Brandon regularly claims that he got the idea to commit the perfect murder as a result of discussing philosophy with Rupert. Apparently, Rupert turned Brandon onto Nietzsche….

AGCK! JIMMY STEWART LEADING YOUNG MEN TO FASCISM!? SAY IT’S NOT SO!

Well, fortunately, the dinner party conversations reveals that Brandon and Philip misunderstood what Rupert was trying to tell them. They assumed, using the same type of logic that currently fuels most debate today, that just because Rupert mentioned something that meant that he approved of it. As it becomes clear that Rupert would not approve of what his students have done and as Rupert himself starts to suspect that something bad has happened at the apartment, Brandon and Philip start to plot against their former mentor….

Now, it can be argued that Rope is not a horror movie. And indeed, if your definition of horror is ghosts, vampires, werewolves, or any other type of paranormal creature than yes, Rope has none of those. Instead, the horror of Rope is the horror of human cruelty. It’s the horror of two privileged young men who have so twisted the words of their mentor that they’ve become monsters. The horror in Rope comes from the fact that, in 1948, Brandon and Philip have embraced the same philosophy that, only a few years earlier, had plunged the entire world into war. While families mourned their dead and Europe struggled to rebuild, Brandon and Philip showed that they had no understanding of or concern for the trauma that humanity had just suffered. And making it even more disturbing is that they found the justification for their crimes in the lessons taught by the epitome of American decency, Jimmy Stewart. The idea of that is more terrifying than any Hammer vampire flick.

Of course, Rope is best known for being a bit of an experiment. Hitchcock edited the film to make it appear as if it was all shot in one take and events, therefore, played out in real time. It’s an interesting idea and, as always, you have to admire Hitchcock’s ingenuity and, even in a film as grim as this one, his playfulness. At the same time, Hitchcock’s technique makes an already stagey story feel even stagier. Some of the actors — like James Stewart, John Dall, and Cedric Hardwicke in the role of David’s father — are able to give naturalistic and convincing performances despite the staginess of the material. Others, like poor Farley Granger, find themselves overshadowed by the film’s one-shot gimmick.

Rope is an experiment that doesn’t quite work but flawed Hitchcock is still a pleasure to watch. The final few minutes, with Stewart and Dall finally confronting each other, are among the best that Hitchcock ever put together. I appreciate Rope, even if it doesn’t quite succeed.

Horror on the Lens: The Lodger (dir by Alfred Hitchcock)

Posted on October 25, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

A serial killer known as “The Avenger” is murdering blonde women in London (which, once again, proves that its better to be a redhead). And while nobody knows the identity of the Avenger, they do know that the enigmatic stranger (Ivor Novello), who has just recently rented a room at boarding house, happens to fit his description. They also know that the lodger’s landlord’s daughter happens to be a blonde…

Released in 1927, the silent The Lodger was Alfred Hitchcock’s third film but, according to the director, this was the first true “Hitchcock film.” Certainly it shows that even at the start of his career, Hitchcock’s famous obsessions were already present — the stranger accused of a crime, the blonde victims, and the link between sex and violence.

Also of note, the credited assistant director — Alma Reville — would become Alma Hitchcock shortly before The Lodger was released.

What Lisa Watched Last Night #216: The Danger Next Door (dir by Bill Corcoran)

Posted on October 25, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I watched the latest Lifetime film, The Danger Next Door!

Why Was I Watching It?

Because it was on Lifetime, of course! It’s been a while since I’ve gotten a chance to watch a Lifetime film on the night that it aired. Seriously, my DVR is full of Lifetime films right now and waiting for me to dig into them come November.

What Was It About?

After getting mugged, pregnant Robin (Hannah Emily Anderson) and her husband, Ben (Jake Epstein) move to a small town. At first, the town seems perfect but it’s hard not to notice that their next door neighbors, Guy (David Ferry) and Sharon (Kyra Harper), are a little bit too friendly. Anyone who has watched a Lifetime film knows that no one that nice can be trusted and that’s certainly the case here.

What Worked?

I always love a good “small towns are evil” Lifetime film so, in that regard, The Danger Next Door delivered exactly what I wanted. The town was pretty, the houses were big, and the melodrama was embraced. Yay!

The film also featured Jake Epstein, playing a sympathetic character for once! Epstein previously played Craig Manning on Degrassi. I’ve seen him in a lot of other movies and shows since then but he’ll always be Craig to me! Craig was one of the best characters on Degrassi, a bipolar musician with drug problems and a habit of breaking everyone’s heart. I always hoped that Craig and Ellie would get together, though I do think Ashley was Craig’s soul mate. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, Jake Epstein was in this movie and it was good to see him!

What Did Not Work?

Towards the end of the movie, there were a few plot twists that demanded a lot of suspension of disbelief, even for a Lifetime film.

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

I have never been mugged but, when I was 16 years old, the house that I was living in was burglarized. My mom, my sisters, and I woke up one morning to discover that the garage door was open, the microwave was missing, and someone had emptied out my mom’s purse. Even more than that, though, they stole our feeling of being secure in our home. I had nightmares for weeks afterwards and I even took to sleeping with a baseball bat next to my bed. However, the bat was a bit heavy so, after a few days, I switched it out for a golf club.

One night, I thought I heard someone creeping outside my bedroom door at 3 in the morning. I got up, grabbed my golf club, and creeped over to the door. I took a deep breath, raised the club over my head, threw the door open, and swung at the first dark shadow that I saw.

“What the Hell, Lisa Marie!?” Erin exclaimed, as she (rather easily) avoided the club.

Looking back at it, I’m glad that I didn’t hit my sister in the face with a golf club. I would have felt bad about that. But there’s no worse feeling than having some stranger invade your personal safe place. All these years later, I’m still a fanatic when it comes to locking all the doors, checking all the windows, and making sure I’ve got a golf club near the bed.

The movie did a good job of capturing that trauma. I could definitely relate to Robin’s fears.

Lessons Learned

Never move to a small town. No matter how bad and scary the city gets, it’s still safer than living in a small town.

The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977, directed by Don Taylor)

Posted on October 24, 2021 by Jedadiah Leland

After the ship that he’s working on sinks, engineer Andrew Braddock (Michael York) washes up on an uncharted island. It’s a beautiful island but it quickly proves dangerous as another survivor of the sinking is killed by wild animals. The injured Braddock passes out and when he wakes up, he’s being cared for by a mysterious scientist named Moreau (Burt Lancaster).

Braddock discovers that the island is populated by creatures that are half-human and half-animal. Led by the Sayer of the Law (Richard Basehart), these creatures are the results of experiments conducted by Moreau and his assistant, Montgomery (Nigel Davenport). Moreau’s experiments are expected to obey Moreau’s laws. Should they fail, they will be taken to the House of Pain and punished. When Baddock objects to Moreau playing God, Moreau plots to reverse the experiment on Braddock and turn him into an animal. Even as he falls in love with a former cheetah (played by Barbara Carrera), Braddock realizes that he must escape the Island of Dr. Moeau.

This is the forgotten adaptation of H.G. Wells’s classic novel, as well as being the most faithful. The Island of Lost Souls, from 1932, is considered to be a classic. The third version, directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer, is a legendary disaster. This version, though, is usually overlooked. It’s also my favorite of the three but that might be because it was the first version that I ever saw. It’s a straight-forward version of H.G. Wells’s story of science gone mad with director Don Taylor not wasting any time getting the action started. Michael York, always an underrated actor, convincingly portrays Braddock’s outrage and his struggle to maintain his humanity after Moreau starts to experiment on him while Carrera is beautiful and mysterious as Maria. Probably the film’s biggest surprise is Burt Lancaster, who turns out to be ideally cast as Moreau. More subdued than either Charles Laughton or Marlon Brando, Lancaster plays Moreau as a brilliant but callous man who is too arrogant to realize that he’s become as much of an animal as those he claims to be perfecting. What makes Lancaster’s Moreau so disturbing is that he doesn’t have the excuse of being insane. Instead, he’s just too stubborn to admit that he’s potentially made a huge mistake.

It may be forgotten but this still the version of The Island of Dr, Moreau that I would recommend.

(Trailer courtesy of Classic Movie Reviews)

Horror on the Lens: Samson vs. The Vampire Women (dir by Alfonso Corona Blake)

Posted on October 24, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

If a group of vampires are determined to ruin your night, what should you do? Well, according to the classic Mexican film Santo vs. las Mujeres Vampiro, your first move should be to call a wrestler.

What to know more? Well, you can read my full review of the film by clicking here!

And you can watch the movie below because it’s today’s horror on the lens!

The TSL’s Grindhouse: Parents (dir by Bob Balaban)

Posted on October 23, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

An odd little film, 1989’s Parents is.

It takes place in the 50s of the pop cultural imagination, with neatly laid out suburban neighborhoods and perfectly mowed lawns and big cars driving down the street. Nick (Randy Quaid) and Lily (Mary Beth Hurt) seem like the perfect couple. Lily stays at home and spends a lot of time in the kitchen. Nick is an engineer who works for a company called Toxico and who is helping to develop what will become known, during the Vietnam War, as Agent Orange. Nick and Lily are friendly, well-mannered, and they love to eat meat. Lily explains, at one point, that she didn’t really love to eat meat until she married Nick and he showed her how wonderful it could be.

Their son, ten year-old Michael (Bryan Madorsky), is a bit less conventional. He’s a quiet boy who never smiles and who, when asked to draw a picture of his family, freaks out his school’s guidance counselor (played by Sandy Dennis). Michael has frequent nightmares. Michael doesn’t like to eat meat and, in fact, it’s hard to think of a single scene in the movie where Michael is seen eating anything. Michael is haunted by the sight of his parents making love in the living room. He’s also haunted by a growing suspicion that his parents are cannibals.

Are they? Perhaps. It’s hard to say. The first time you watch the movie, it seems deceptively obvious that Nick and Lily are exactly what Michael says they are. The second time, you start to notice a few odd things. For one thing, we never see Michael actually going from one location to another. Instead, he just seems to magically show up wherever he needs to be to hear something that will confirm his suspicions. When his teacher and his guidance counselor discuss his home life, Michael just happens to be in a nearby closet. When his mother is preparing something that looks like it might be a human organ, Michael just happens to be standing in the pantry. Are we seeing reality or are we just seeing what Michael thinks is reality? When Nick starts to threaten Michael and later claims that there’s no way Michael is his son, is he really saying that or is Michael just imagining his fatherr confirming all of Michael’s insecurities? How much of the film is real and how much of it is in Michael’s head?

It’s an odd film, Parents. It’s also the directorial debut of character actor Bob Balaban. Balaban has spent the majority of his career playing shy, slightly repressed characters. Parents, with the withdrawn Michael as the main character, is a film that feels autobiographical. That’s not to say that Balaban’s parents were cannibals but the scenes where Nick goes from being a loving father to an abusive monster are too intense and suffused with too much pain for them to be anything other than personal. Balaban’s direction is heavily stylized. At times, it’s a bit too stylized but ultimately, it works. The final 30 minutes of the film feel like a nightmare that has somehow been filmed.

A satire of conformity and suburbia, Parents is also a portrait of an alienated child struggling to figure out where he fits into his family. He’s given the choice of either indulging in his family’s sins or living life alone. Except, of course, it really isn’t a choice. Nick expects Michael to do what he’s been told, no matter what. Randy Quaid and Mary Beth Hurt are both terrifying as the parents but, at the same time, Balaban makes good use of the fact that both of those performers — at least at the time this movie was made — were naturally likable. You want Nick to be the perfect father that he pretends to be and you share Michael’s anger and disillusionment when he turns out to be something very different.

Parents may be a strange film but it’s not one that you’re going to forget.

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 10/17/21 — 10/23/21

Posted on October 23, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Here’s a few thoughts on what I watched this week!

(How’s that for a detailed intro?)

Allo Allo (Sunday Night, PBS)

This week, yet another attempt to smuggle the British airmen out of France failed. As usual, the plan was too complicated to succeed and the British airmen themselves remained cheerfully oblivious to the danger that they’re putting everyone else into. (“I say,” one of them said after missing his chance to get smuggled out on a fish truck, “When’s the next fish truck?”) This episode’s highlight was Crabtree getting to speak perfect English to all of the British airmen who had gathered in Rene’s Cafe before then switching back to his usual mangled French to speak with Rene. Episodes of Allo Allo are not particularly easy to describe but they almost always make me laugh.

The Bachelorette (Tuesday Night, ABC)

I don’t know. Going straight from one season of the Bachelorette to Bachelor in Paradise to another season of the Bachelorette is a little bit too much. It works better when there’s some downtime between the seasons. I have to admit that I was pretty bored with the premiere of the new season. I mean, the first episode wasn’t even over and already, I was having to listen to all of that crap about whether or not the men were there for “the right reasons.” The whole thing with Ryan getting kicked off the show felt very staged and pre-planned and Michelle seems like she’ll be canceling a lot of cocktail parties to get right to kicking people off the show. I think I’ve just been oversturated with this dumb show for the past few months.

Baywatch (Friday Afternoon, H&I)

H&I has changed up their schedule. Instead of daily showing of Baywatch, they now air a five-hour block on Fridays. I watched two episodes. They were both from the 2nd season and I remembered them both from when I binged the show a few months ago. The first episode featured Eddie trying to clear his name after being accused of assaulting a teenager. The 2nd was yet another episode where a mysterious woman stayed with Mitch while someone with a gun hunted for her. This seemed to happen quite frequently to Mitch but he never commented on either the strangeness or the familiarity of it all.

The Brady Bunch (Sunday Afternoon, MeTV)

I watched three episodes on Sunday while working on my Cry Macho review. The Brady kids were so self-centered that Alice quit. Greg conspired to make Marcia the head cheerleader. Marcia fell in love with a much older dentist and decided she was too mature to go on a date with a classmate. The Bradys were the worst.

Court Cam (Wednesday Evening, A&E)

I watched two episodes when I got home from work on Wednesday. One episode featured a loser who was arrested several times for pretending to be a traffic cop. Maybe he wanted to get on Parking Wars. Regardless of his motivation, everyone he stopped could tell he wasn’t a cop and no one treated him with the respect that he very loudly demanded. That was kind of fun to watch.

Day of the Dead (Friday Night, SyFy)

I finally watched last week’s premiere on Thursday and I reviewed it for the site.

Fear the Walking Dead (Sunday Night, AMC)

I reviewed the season premiere here!

Friday the 13th: The Series (YouTube)

Once Horrorthon is over and I have the time, I’m going to go back and binge this entire series.

Hunter (Weekday Mornings, ZLiving)

I watched two episodes of this surprisingly violent 80s cop show on Friday. I was also working at the time so the show mostly served as background noise. (I find having the TV on helps me to focus, oddly enough.) From what I did see, it seemed like an awful lot of people ended up getting shot. In fact, Hunter’s main personality trait appears to be that he’ll shoot anyone. (The second episode featured Hunter blowing away a psycho motorcyclist played by Don Swayze.) One thing I will say about the show, though, is that I love the propulsive music that plays over the opening credits.

King of the Hill (Weekday Afternoons, FXX)

I watched two episodes of Tuesday. In the first one, Bobby became a peer counselor and quickly started to abuse his position. This is actually one of my favorite episodes, even though Bobby definitely owed Stacy an apology. The highlight of the episode was Stacy singing, “I’m your Stacy in a bottle.” The second episode featured Hank visiting the Platter Ranch in Montana and discovering that Henry Winkler was refusing to allow the ranchers to herd their cattle across his land. Yes, that Henry Winkler.

The Office (Saturday afternoon, Comedy Central)

I watched some classic episodes from season 5. Dwight and Michael conducted corporate espionage against Prince Family Paper. Pam and Michael hit the lecture circuit. Stanley had a heart attack. Michael’s golden ticket promotion blew up in his face. I always say that this show started to go downhill after the third season but Season 5 was actually pretty good.

Open All Hours (Sunday Night, PBS)

This week’s episode was actually kind of charming, as it featured Granville dancing in the rain while holding a mop. For a second, it seemed like Granville might be something other than incredibly depressed. It didn’t last long but it was still good to see him vaguely smile. Of course, once the rain stopped, it was time to go back to plotting Arkwright’s death.

Saved By The Bell (Sunday Morning, MeTV)

I watched two episodes on Sunday morning. The first one featured Zack launching a hostile takeover of the student store and then secretly photographing all of the girls for a calendar. That was kind of icky but at least Kelly got a modeling career out of it. She even went to Paris, something that was never mentioned in subsequent episodes. This was followed by the infamous Running Zack episode, in which Zack learned he was Native American and Jessie demanded that Lisa forgive her for being from a family of slave traders. The important thing is that Zack was able to compete at the track meet. So cringey!

Silk Stalkings (Weekday Afternoons, ZLiving)

Agck! Where are Chris and Rita!? It’s been over a month since I last caught any episodes of this 90s cop show. I watched two episodes on Friday and Rob Estes and Mitzi Kapture were gone! Apparently, they left the show and were replaced by two other cops who had the exact same backstory as Chris and Rita. What a coincidence! Anyway, the show still featured the same mix of murder, sex, and attractive people getting undressed but these new detectives just didn’t have the same chemistry.

That said, both of Friday’s episodes were enjoyably sordid, featuring a lot of sem-clad, attractive rich people doing a lot of very bad things. It was fun! I may have to start binging this show.

Survivor (Wednesday Night, CBS)

I wrote about the latest episode of Survivor here!

Talking Dead (Sunday Night, AMC)

This week’s episode was a bit by-the-numbers. Even Chris Hardwick seemed to be struggling to pretend to be interested in either Fear the Walking Dead or Walking Dead: World Beyond, which was odd since both of those shows were fairly good this week.

Walking Dead: The World Beyond (Sunday Night, AMC)

This week’s episode was actually pretty good. It still feels like Christopher Pike’s The Walking Dead (or maybe Saved By The Dead) but this week’s episode actually did a good job of capturing the contrast between wanting to be a teenager while, at the same time, having to survive in a world that leaves you with little time to actually grow up.

Horror Novel Review: Witch by Christopher Pike

Posted on October 23, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First published in 1990, Christopher Pike’s extremely weird YA novel Witch tells the story of Julia Florence and her friend Amy.

Basically, Julia is the latest in a long line of witches. She has the power to see the future and to heal people, with the only problem being that, when she heals them, she takes their illnesses and injuries into her own body. So, if she heals someone who is on the verge of death, that means that she’ll be the one who dies. That’s what happened to Julia’s mother and Julia’s determined not to let the same thing happen to her. It seems like the simple solution would be to just not heal anyone.

But then her friend Scott gets shot during a convenience store robbery. Scott is in a coma and is going to die unless he gets some supernatural healing. Julia can either heal him or she can buy a gun (?), use her abilities to see the future, and go all vigilante in an attempt to take out the robber who shot Scott. Julia goes for the latter but then Amy discovers that the robber has a weird, kind of out-of-nowhere connection to a girl who was previously healed by Julia’s mother. And, she also discovers that there’s a coven of witches searching for Julia because …. well, who knows?

Anyway, it all comes down to whether or not Julia will risk her life to save Scott. Scott is an aspiring director and kind of an annoying guy, to be honest. But everyone is charmed by how annoying he is and he has a great future ahead of him, unless he dies.

Whatever will Julia do!?

This is a weird one. Between the witchcraft, the healing, the psychic visions, the high school drama, and the vigilante action scenes, one gets the feeling that Pike just threw random darts at a bunch of story points that he had taped to the wall and he pretty much just went wherever the darts led him. And don’t get me wrong. It is a little fun to see just how many different genres and plot elements that Pike could stuff into one book but the story itself is still a bit of a mess. There’s a lot in here and not all of it really comes together.

Plus, this is yet another Pike novel to end on a downbeat note. R.L. Stine wrote some pretty morbid books but he always ended with a joke. Pike’s books, on the other hand, always seem to end with the message that there is no such thing as a completely happy ending. Normally, I’m all for a book that ends on a down note but this time, after all the messiness that came before the ending, I really could have used a Stine-style one liner. Sometimes, the best way to deal with an existential crisis is to laugh your way through it.

Book Review: Encyclopedia Mysteriosa by William L. DeAndrea

Posted on October 23, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This is a fun book that I came across at Half-Price Books two Decembers ago. It went right on my Christmas list and, ever since then, it’s a book that I’ve found useful many times.

As you can probably tell, it’s an encyclopedia, one that is devoted to detectives. You can’t have a good mystery without a good detective and this book proves that, with entries for fictional detectives, their creators, and the TV shows, movies, and books in which they appeared. It’s all written in a concise and lively manner, which is another way of saying that it’s a fun read. That’s especially true if you’re a fan of mysteries, as I am.

Now, I should mention that this book was originally published in 1994. Another edition came out in 1997. As far as I can tell, that was it. As such, a lot of the information in the book is a bit of out-of-date. Authors who have passed or who have retired are still listed as being very much alive and active. More recent detectives are not mentioned. (Sorry, Mr. Monk.) The original Magnum P.I. and Hawaii 5-0 get entries but not the reboots. There’s no mention of CSI and Thomas Harris’s entry is rather small, with no mention of the post-Silence of the Lamb Lecter films, largely because they hadn’t been made yet. You get the idea. But, even with that in mind, this book is still full of useful information, especially if you’re into the older, classic detectives or if you’re a history nerd like I am. (Trust me, if you have to choose between Wikipedia and reading a book that was actually written during the period in which you’re interested, go with the book every time.) What it doesn’t contain about recent detectives, it makes up for with information on Poirot, Holmes. Philip Marlowe, Mike Hammer, Sam Spade, and many others.

If nothing else, Encyclopedia Mysteriosa is a good starting point for those looking for a good mystery! And, if you’re looking for a little inspiration to maybe write a mystery of your own, this book may provie you with exactly the inspiration you need. There are several copies for sale on Amazon, all reasonably priced.