Regan MacArthur Writes

  Douglas Kennedy has been selling a lot of books for a lot of years and yet I never knew he even existed until very recently.* THE BIG PICTURE isn't a crime novel but Mr. Kennedy certainly did his homework on how to make a pesky corpse unidentifiable to the authorities.** I doubt I'll ever be able to look at a jewelry hammer the same way again. *He's big in France, naturally. **The book was written in the '90s. DNA wasn't quite a thing yet.

  Two movies. One good, one lousy. (I bet you can guess which is which.) Anyway, it took me a moment but I realized that both films share the same strong thriller premise: An intended murder victim becomes wrongfully accused of the killing meant to take out her or him. The price of the twist is that the protagonist loses all agency in the Third Act and has to be rescued by the love interest. But I might be the only who cares about that.

That carousel sequence in STRANGERS ON A TRAIN taunts me as a writer. Movies will always have the edge when it comes to suspense, but I take some comfort in remembering the times I've been made breathless while reading books by Ed McBain and Ken Follett.

 Damn you, Stark House! Damn you to Hell!

  MONSIEUR HIRE (1989) Context is everything, of course, but who the hell knew tomatoes could be so erotically charged? Not this idiot.

  SHATTERED (1991) There's a special kind of sadness when you figure out the big plot twist in a movie too soon. I didn't mean to do it. The thought just came to me and then I felt disgusted for having spoiled the experience for myself. I've got Richard Neely's original novel somewhere in the lair. I'll give it a read eventually.

  LA CEREMONIE (1995) Yesterday, I lamented on Facebook that I may never get along with the films of Claude Chabrol... Never mind! Sometimes, you can tell you're watching a winner from the first five minutes. I am eagerly looking forward to reading the source novel by Ruth Rendell.

THE CRIMSON RIVERS/ LES RIVIERES POURPRES (2000) The pitch: "It's 48 HRS meets THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS!" It's a fine Hollywood-style entertainment, but what's sticking with me is how the movie diverges from Hollywood. Sure, it's a buddy cop movie...except the mismatched pair 𝑑𝑜𝑛'𝑡 𝑚𝑒𝑒𝑡 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑜𝑙𝑒 𝑓𝑖𝑟𝑠𝑡 ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑟𝑢𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒. I found myself liking Vincent Cassel following the clues on his own. Usually, we see the hotheaded, young detective being mentored by the grizzled veteran. Here, the kid's got to figure things out for himself. It felt fresh to me.

  THIS MAN MUST DIE/QUE LA BETE MEURE (1969) I love poster. Wish I could say the same about the movie itself. This is my third sampling from the career of filmmaker Claude Chabrol and I fear this friendship just isn't going to happen. The film's story was suggested by a mystery novel written by "Nicholas Blake" aka Cecil Day-Lewis aka Daniel Day-Lewis's dad.

  FLIC STORY (1975) Alain Delon smokes 10,000 cigarettes in this police procedural story that you've already seen 10,000 times before. I 𝑑𝑖𝑑 like how the fugitive that Delon's cop is hunting always carries a hand grenade on his person in case the cops get too close to grabbing him.