A Triptych of TV Reviews

A Triptych of TV Reviews     While I talk about television here at the blog every so often, I rarely review television or even talk much about what I’m watching. Which is crazy because I genuinely L-O-V-E television. Especially the dramatic stuff—with an eye towards mystery—and the occasional and often crass and utterly classless sitcom. The so-called reality stuff? Nah. So today I’m throwing something new into the interwebs with a look at three series I’ve watched over the past month. And it’s something I may do more of in the future if you’re receptive to the idea. The first, YOUR FRIENDS & NEIGHBORS (AppleTV+, 2025) is a funny and tart dramedy—what a stupid word that is, yeah?—about hedge fund trader Andrew Cooper (Jon Hamm). Coop, which is what everyone calls him, is at a crossroads. His wife Mel (played by Amanda Peet) cheated on him with one of his besties, his son and daughter hate him, he was fired from his job because his boss wanted his clients—and no one will hire him because he has a lengthy non-compete agreement—and Coop has a huge financial nut to cover every month. So Coop does what any good-natured guy living in Westchester County, New York, would do. He starts stealing from his well-heeled neighbors. What Your Friends & Neighbors lacks in originality it makes up for with zest and Jon Hamm’s simple watchability. Coop’s good nature is never overwhelmed by his quiet despair and the story is built with humor. A $30,000 toilet makes an appearance and the trunk of Coop’s Maserati won’t stay shut. Coop is something of a mash-up of Jay Gatsby and Fletch; a combination I liked. As one would expect from a show like this, the actors are all beautiful and there is a bunch of sex. I mean, too much sex for my easily embarrassed self. But boy did I have fun watching this one, even the sex!

LOUDERMILK (Netflix, 2017 – 2020), is a sitcom my wife and I originally watched during that first awful year of Covid. Much of what I watched in 2020 leaves me with a bad taste because it reminds me of how shitty life was and how helpless I felt watching civilization torch itself. And the pandemic was the least of the trouble. We took the risk of watching Loudermilk again and it was just as funny this time as it had been the first. It is centered on the cynical misanthrope and recovering alcoholic Sam Loudermilk, played perfectly by Ron Livingston, as he adjusts to his new post-drinking and -drugging normal. Loudermilk had been a high-flying music critic for Rolling Stone before a drunken automobile accident that nearly killed his then-wife scared him straight. Now Loudermilk makes his living shining a bank’s floors while spending most of his personal time leading an AA-type group in the basement of a local church. Every episode is centered around Loudermilk—he is a glowering and acid-tongued straight man to a litany of wacky side players from his roommates, who are both recovering addicts, to the almost men-only members of his recovery group, to whoever is driving him apeshit in any given episode. There are hipster neighbors, Loudermilk’s deadbeat but likable dad, a possible love interest that Loudermilk can never get right, and a posse of ridiculous and hilarious situations always made more uncomfortable by Loudermilk’s acidity. The series builds on itself over time—there are jokes that pay off in later episodes and the characters, especially the addiction support group members, are fleshed-out over time. But if you like a semi-raunchy Gen-X comedy with good acting and better writing, you won’t have any trouble dipping your toes anywhere in Loudermilk’s too short three season run of 30 episodes.

PARANOID (Netflix, 2016) is a single season British mystery series with a wobbly structure and more than a few unintentional funny moments. Paranoid is a hot mess—but a hot mess I enjoyed watching. When a GP is murdered at a playground in rural Cheshire County—southeast of Liverpool—the evidence and witnesses point to a schizophrenic man that wanders the neighborhood. The local authorities want the case closed quickly and the police are comfortable with their suspect. At least, until they notice someone claiming to be a detective questioning their witnesses and they, the actual detectives tasked with the investigation, receive an envelope from the masked man filled with evidence contradicting their theory of the crime. They give this unknown detective the silly moniker of “ghost detective” and follow the trail from Cheshire to Dusseldorf, Germany, where a pair of German detectives join the chase. The plot is a clunky conspiracy thriller with familial intrusions—one detective’s mother is associated with a rather nasty psychiatrist that seems to be everywhere in the investigation and another gets into a relationship with a wacky witness—an emotionally destructing detective (played by Robert Glenister with a bunch of twitching and without any subtlety), a wildly happy German detective (played charmingly by Christiane Paul), a giant plastic Jesus filled with colorful pharmaceutical pills, a Quaker, and… It just goes on and on. But for all that—maybe because of all that—I don’t regret a single minute spent watching the eight episodes of Paranoid. But your mileage may vary on this one.

Passages: David Housewright's "What the Dead Leave Behind"

 

This tough guy line from David Housewright’s What the Dead Leave Behind (2017), the 14th book in the McKenzie series, caught my eye because of its simple truth. Of course, being a hardboiled mystery that truth is cached in bravado and a promise of violence. But still, it is a truth—bullies break the rules while expecting and using the rules to shackle their victims. A tactic we’ve seen almost daily over the past decade in national politics and one we haven’t figured out, as a society, how to deal with.  *               *               *

I spoke slowly and succinctly. “Pricks like you get away with your bullshit because you refuse to play by the rules, but you expect everyone else to. I’m not that guy. You dare threaten the people I care about? You should have done better research.”

Review: "Death of an Ex" by Delia Pitts

Death of an Ex by Delia Pitts Minotaur Books, 2025     Death of an Ex, which is Delia Pitts’s second Vandy Myrick mystery, is a thoughtful, deliberately paced private eye novel with a rich New Jersey setting and a heaping of emotional healing. A former Rutgers University cop, the middle-aged Vandy moved back to her small hometown of Queenstown and took a job as a lawyer’s “pet private investigator.” Her boss, Elissa Adesanya, is also Vandy’s best friend and the work tends to be low market rackets like divorce, insurance fraud, and process serving. Vandy is thrown into the deep end of the investigative pool after attending a glitzy event at the high-end Rome School—a private boarding school in Queenstown—where her young friend, Ingrid Ramirez, is receiving an award. Vandy’s ex-husband, Philip Bolden, which is a great surname for any character, is at the reception and even after twenty years he still makes Vandy’s pulse rise and her knees weak. A few days later Vandy takes Philip to her bed and for a moment she doesn’t mind being the other woman. That changes when Philip is gunned down a few blocks from Vandy’s apartment and Vandy is left to figure out who did it and why. All while traversing the mine field of Philip’s personal life—he was married with a teenage son and his wandering libido caused nothing but trouble. While also hoping to keep her and Philip’s indiscretion a secret. Death of an Ex, while rightfully a private eye tale, has the atmosphere of an amateur sleuth in a particularly well-done cozy. Vandy’s investigative style is circular and primarily based on emotion rather than the linear style most often used in detective tales. She bumps around the primary suspects, as sneakily as an English Village sleuth, looking for motive and opportunity. A wobbly tactic because of its use of repetition—a repetition of Vandy’s emotions and a repetition of questioning the same suspects over and over—to deepen the mystery, but one that ultimately works since it reveals the illogic and tragedy of murder. But the true charm of Death of an Ex is Vandy’s own struggle with the death of her only child and Pitts’s vivid rendering of a predominately Black New Jersey town.

Check out Death of an Ex on Amazon—click here for the Kindle edition and here for the hardcover.

 

Review: "The Blue Horse" by Bruce Borgos

The Blue Horse by Bruce Borgos Minotaur Books, 2025   Bruce Borgos’s third Sheriff Porter Beck procedural, The Blue Horse, opens with a pop and a wow—a BLM (Bureau of Land Management) wild horse gather, also known as a roundup, is interrupted when a helicopter crashes while pushing a herd through a narrow canyon in Beck’s Lincoln County, Nevada—but ends with a shrug and a sigh. Beck, who was watching the gather from the back of his own horse, locks down the crash site almost immediately. And in no time at all Beck and his deputy, Tuffy Scruggs, determine it was no accident. The pilot was shot by a sniper and they even find a spent shell casing atop a blue plastic toy horse. The primary suspect is Etta Clay, the leader of a wild horse advocacy group called CANTER. The local Nevada ranchers, and the BLM’s leadership, think CANTER is fanatical since it has compared the removal of wild horses from Nevada’s rangeland to genocide. But Beck isn’t so sure of Etta’s involvement in the killing or that CANTER is wrong about the way the horses are managed on public lands. Then Lincoln County is shocked by another brutal murder and while the two killings are different in style, Beck figures they must be related. The Blue Horse has a complex plot with angles and nuance—the Montreal mafia plays into it, as do ranchers, modern mining, Beck, who suffers from night blindness due to a congenital disease called retinitis pigmentosa, and, since the action takes place in September 2020, so dies Covid. Not to mention, Beck’s sister goes missing in a national park. While the complexity adds drama, it lessens the impact of the action and makes the climactic clash a little ho-hum. The villains are nasty, but (especially in the last third of the narrative) are cartoonish and have all the subtlety and competence of clowns. With that in mind, Beck is solidly drawn and likable, the setting is vivid, and the didactic discussion about wild horses is interesting as heck. If you like Craig Johnson’s Longmire, you’ll enjoy The Blue Horse, but all the while wish it had that same richness as Borgos’s previous novels.

Check out The Blue Horse on Amazon—click here for the Kindle edition and here for the hardcover.

 

Review: "The Frozen People" by Elly Griffiths

 

The Frozen People by Elly Griffiths Viking, 2025     Elly Griffiths’ latest mystery, The Frozen People—which is scheduled for release on July 8—is a likable first in a new and wholly original mystery series. In fact, it is a hybrid of sorts, since Ali Dawson, part of a secret cold case team with the meaningless title of the Department of Logistics, is tasked with solving cases so cold they use a new, and not completely understood technology, to travel back in time and gather evidence. The team’s operating procedures are simple: watch, bear witness, don’t interact, and stay safe. To date these rules have been easy to follow since the time jumps have been reasonably short and the people being watched were unable to see Ali. But things change when the politically connected Isaac Templeton—a Tory MP and the boss of Ali’s son, Finn—asks the Department to travel to the Victorian London of 1850 to clear his ancestor, Cain Templeton, of the suspicion that he killed three women. Isaac believes the whispers about Cain has sullied his family’s name and that Ali and the Department can clear it. Ali takes the challenge. With the help of an expert, she studies the era, readies the proper attire, and, not completely successfully, attempts to adopt the meek attitude of Victorian women. Of course, things go wrong quickly, the natives can see her, Ali gets stuck in 1850, and her son, Finn, is accused of murder back home in 2023. The Frozen People is a solid traditional mystery with an original concept and enough personality, in the form of Ali, to give it zing. While it starts slowly—the confusing number of characters introduced early-on is the primary culprit—the narrative picks up quickly when Ali jumps into the past. The Victorian London setting, from the attitudes and clothing to the colder than expected weather, is splendid. Ali is beset by one catastrophe after another until it seems her plight, and that of Finn, is doomed. And the time travel element? What isn’t great about a detective solving multiple murders across nearly 200 years?

Find The Frozen People on Amazon—click here for the Kindle edition and here for the hardcover.

Booked (and Printed): June 2025

 

Booked (and Printed) June 2025   June was a challenging month. It was hot, humid, and the daylight hours—just like they are every year at this time—were too long. According to the weather folks, 15 hours and 29 minutes passed between sunrise and sunset on June 21, but predawn added at least another hour of light. Oy vey! I’m glad the days are getting shorter. Unfortunately, just like May, I had trouble with eye fatigue. And my reading suffered for it. I read only two books—both novels—and four short stories, which is the least productive month I’ve had in decades. Although, my generous wife read a couple books and a short story to me at bedtime: Joyland, by Stephen King (2013), Grave Descend, by Michael Crichton (1970), and “DEATH ROW,” by Freida McFadden (2025). The McFadden was an odd duck with an ending that was less surprising than confusing. My wife, who has read a bunch of McFadden’s tales, said, “it’s not her best.” And I truly believe her. But JOYLAND, which is among my favorite of King’s novels, was as much fun this second time as it was the first. A carnival setting, murder, a haunted scare ride, a wunderkind, and King’s talent with creating living, breathing characters—what more does a reader want? You can read my 2015 review of Joyland here. There’s nothing fancy about GRAVE DESCEND, but the plotting is solid and the Caribbean setting is nice and comfortable. While I enjoyed Grave Descend, I’ll admit I remember liking it better the first time I read it. I thought I had reviewed it back then, too, but when I looked, it turned out to be a phantom memory. But take my advice and if you’re going to read Joyland and Grave Descend back-to-back—read Grave Descend first because Joyland is a tough act to follow.   As for my solo efforts—NIGHT ON FIRE (2011), which is Douglas Corleone’s second Kevin Corvelli novel set on Oahu, is a fun legal thriller with a backsliding hero and a solid mystery. And the setting is perfectly Hawaiian. You can read my detailed review here. I don’t read many modern thrillers, but on a whim (and because it was the large print edition and I figured it would be easier on my eyes) I picked up Brian Freeman’s THE BOURNE VENDETTA (2025) from the library. The twentieth book in Robert Ludlum’s Jason Bourne franchise, The Bourne Vendetta was surprisingly good. The plotting was tight, the pacing brisk, and Freeman’s style is so much more readable than Ludlum’s ever was. I should also say, the last Bourne novel I read and finished was the first, The Bourne Identity (1980), and so a bunch has happened to Jason Bourne in the intervening eighteen books, but I had no trouble figuring out what was happening and I’m pretty sure you won’t either.

All four of the short stories I read in June are from Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.  The first two—“The White Door,” by Stephen Ross, and “Little Old Ladies,” by Simon Brett—were part of the May 2010 issue. The second two— “The Dilmun Exchange,” by Josh Pachter, and “File #11: Jump Her Lively, Boys,” by Joe Gores—were in the July 1984 issue. Stephen Ross’s “THE WHITE DOOR” is a sparkling Hollywood tale about a perfect murder. Jack Gloucester, a Hollywood screenwriter, hesitantly accepts to help an actress plan the demise of her movie producer husband. On its face, Jack’s decision seems bad, but he figures to play it out and see what happens. The hardboiled narrative is sharp, the Hollywood of the early-1950s is captured nicely, and yeah, there is a nasty twist that made me smile. “LITTLE OLD LADIES,” by Simon Brett, is another gem. This traditional English village mystery is almost perfect with its subtle humor, sneaky amateur detective, and ironic and surprising ending. You can read my complete review here. Josh Pachter’s “THE DILMUN EXCHANGE” is a solidly good traditional whodunit with an exotic setting—a market in Bahrain during an annual sale—about a policeman, a jewelry heist, and the thief’s puzzling escape. Concise, witty, and with clues enough for the reader to solve, “The Dilmun Exchange” is good, happy fun. I have consistently struggled reading Joe Gores—which makes me sad because he is well liked by critics and readers alike—and his “FILE #11: JUMP HER LIVELY, BOYS” was no different. This DKA (Dan Kearny & Associates) private eye tale about agent Patrick Michael O’Bannon’s attempts to either collect back payments or repossess a city-owned fire engine is less story than it is vignette. There is some humor, a sneaky move or two, but there is no mystery anywhere. In fact, it seemed like an amusing anecdote that would be told on a golf course or in a pub. As for my favorite read of the month? I’m going to break all the rules again and choose Joyland, even if I’ve read it before. It’s just that good.  Fin— Now on to next month…