Widows by Lynda La Plante

(pb; 1983)

From the back cover

“When a security van heist goes disastrously wrong, three armed robbers are burnt to death─and three women are left widows.

“Then gang boss Harry Rawlins’s wife, Dolly, discovers his bank deposit box. It contains a gun, money─and detailed plans for the failed hijack.

“Dolly has three options: she could hand over Harry’s ledgers to Detective Inspector Resnick; she could pass them to the thugs who want to take over Harry’s turf; or she and the other widows could finish the job their husbands started.

“As they rehearse the raid until it’s pitch perfect, the women realize that Harry’s plan required four people, not three. But only three bodies were discovered in the carnage of the original hijack. So who was the fourth man and where is he now?”

Review

Widows is a good heist story with effective twists, solid characters and pacing and an ending that suggests a possible sequel (but does not necessitate one). It is worth borrowing from the library, owning if purchased for a few dollars.

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It has been filmed three times.

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The first filmic version is a British television/ITV six-episode miniseries that aired in 1983. Ian Toynton directed it, from a screenplay by source-book author Lynda La Plante.

Ann Mitchell played Dolly Rawlins. Maurice O’Connell played Harry Rawlins. Maureen O’Farrell played Linda Perelli. Fiona Hendley played Shirley Miller. Eva Mottley played Bella O’Reilly. Stanley Meadows played Eddie Rawlins.

Michael John Paliotti played Joe Perelli. Terry Stuart played Terry Miller. John Rowe played Brian Miller.

David Calder played D.I. George Resnick. Carol Gillies played Alice. Paul Jesson played D.S. Alec Fuller. Peter Machin played D.C. Robin Andrews.

Jeffrey Chiswick played Arnie Fisher. George Costigan played Charlie. James Lister played Carlos Moreno. 

Eddie Meadows played Eddie Rawlins. Catherine Neilson played Trudie Nunn. Thelma Whiteley played Kathleen Resnick. Judith Fellows played Mother Superior.

Its follow-up miniseries, Widows 2, aired in 1985. A second follow-up, She’s Out, aired in 1995. These sequel “series”─as they’re called in England─cover material not shown in the first book.

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An American remake-miniseries aired in 2002. Geoffrey Sax directed it, from a screenplay by Lynda La Plante. The plot in this version is notably different than its British counterpart.

Mercedes Ruehl played Dolly Rawlins. Brooke Shields played Shirley Heller. Rosie Perez played Linda Perelli. N’Bushe Wright played Bella.

Nigel Bennett played Harry Rawlins. Roman Podhora played Joe Perelli. Neil Crone played Eddie.

Jay O’Sanders played Detective John Maynard. Aidan Devine played Mike Resnick. Jayne Eastwood played Audrey. Colm Feore played Stein.

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The American theatrical film version is scheduled to be released stateside on November 16, 2018. Steve McQueen directed and co-scripted the film. Gillian Flynn was the other co-screenwriter.

Viola Davis played Veronica Rawlins [cinematic stand-in for Dolly Rawlins]. Michelle Rodriguez played Linda. Elizabeth Debicki played Alice. Cynthia Erivo played Belle.

Liam Neeson played Harry Rawlings. Jon Bernthal played Florek. Manuel Garcia-Rulfo played Carlos. Coburn Goss played Jimmy Nunn.

Robert Duvall played Tom Mulligan. Colin Farrell played John Mulligan. Lukas Haas played David. Kevin J. O’Connor played Bobby Welsh.

Jacki Weaver played Agnieska. Carrie Coon played Amanda. Ann Mitchell, who played Dolly Rawlins in the British miniseries versions, played “Amanda’s mother”.

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

(pb; 2009)

From the back cover

“Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in ‘The Satan Sacrifice’ of Kinnakee, Kansas. She survived─and famously testified that her fifteen-year-old brother, Ben, was the killer. Twenty-five years later, the Kill Club─a secret society obsessed with notorious crimes─locates Libby and pumps her for details. They hope to discover proof that may free Ben. Libby hopes to turn a profit off her tragic history: She’ll reconnect with the players from that night and report her findings to the club─for a fee. As Libby’s search takes her from shabby Missouri strip clubs to abandoned Oklahoma tourist towns, the unimaginable truth emerges, and and Libby finds herself right back where she started─on the run from a killer.”

Review

Dark is a fast-paced, mostly well-written and character-true mystery (there are a few transitional what-the-heck moments). It is a solid beach read with a satisfying and protagonist-redemptive finish. It is not as excellent as Flynn’s bleaker Sharp Objects, and it is better than Gone Girl (with its character-false end-twist). Dark is worth picking up for cheap, or borrowing from your local library.

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The resulting film was released stateside on June 18, 2015. Gilles Paquet-Brenner scripted and directed it.

CharlizeTheron played Libby Day. Sterling Jerins played Young Libby Day. Nicholas Hoult played Lyle Wirth. Christina Hendricks played Patty Day.

Corey Stoll played Ben Day. Tye Sheridan played Young Ben Day. Natalie Precht played Michelle Day. Madison McGuire played Debby Day. Sean Bridgers played Runner Day.

Andrea Roth played Diondra. Chloë Grace Moretz played Young Diondra. J. LaRose, billed as J LaRose, played Trey Teepano. Shannon Kook played Young Trey Teepano. 

Drea de Matteo played Krissi Cates. Addy Miller, billed as Adrian “Addy” Miller, played Young Krissi. Richard Gunn played Lou Cates.

Lori Z. Cordova played Magda. Natalie Jennifer Pierce Mathus played Diane. Dan Hewitt Owens, billed as Dan Owens, played Robert.

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

(pb; 2006)

From the back cover

“Fresh from a brief stay at a psych hospital, reporter Camille Preaker faces a troubling assignment: she must return to her tiny hometown to cover the murders of two preteen girls. For years, Camille has hardly spoken to her neurotic, hypochondriac mother or to the half-sister she barely knows: a beautiful thirteen-year-old with an eerie grip on the town. Now, installed in her old bedroom in her family's Victorian mansion, Camille finds herself identifying with the young victims—a bit too strongly. Dogged by her own demons, she must unravel the psychological puzzle of her own past if she wants to get the story—and survive this homecoming.”

Review

Sharp is a hard-to-set-down, tightly-penned crime thriller whose female-centric energy is dark, cruel and sometimes shocking. Eagle-eyed readers may spot the villain ─ or villains ─ early on, but for this reader it is not a criticism. This is an excellent page-turner, a bleak-twist read for a lazy afternoon.

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Created by Marti Noxon, the resulting eight-episode miniseries of the same name is scheduled to premiere on HBO on July 8, 2018. It was directed by miniseries creator Marti Noxon, from teleplays by various writers.

Amy Adams played Camille Preaker. Patricia Clarkson played Adora Crellin. Eliza Scanlen played Amma Crellin.  Henry Czerny played Alan Crellin.

Miguel Sandoval played Frank Curry. Barbara Eve Harris played Eileen Curry. Matt Craven played Vickery. Chris Messina played Det. Richard Willis.

Elizabeth Perkins played Jackie. April Brinson played Jodes. Violet Brinson played Kelsey. Taylor John Smith played John Keene. 

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

(hb; 2012)

From the inside flap: 

"On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne's fifth wedding anniversary.  Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick's clever and beautiful wife disappears from their rented McMansion on the Mississippi River.  Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn't doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife's head, but passages from Amy's diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge. Under mounting pressure from the police and media - as well as Amy's fiercely doting parents - the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior.  Nick is oddly evasive, and he's definitely bitter - but is he really a killer?

"As the cops close in, every couple in town is soon wondering how well they know the one they love.  With his twin sister, Margo, at his side, Nick stands by his innocence. Trouble is, if Nick didn't do it, where is that beautiful wife?  And what is in that silvery gift box hidden in the back of her bedroom closet?"


Review:

I loved parts of this book and hated other parts of it - and by "hate," a word I rarely use in writing book reviews, it's not because the author (in this case Flynn) did her job right.  It is not because she made me form attachments with her characters before she started doing horrible things to them; it is because her writing sports some serious mistakes.

The cons of Gone.

The first hundred or a hundred and fifty pages of this four hundred and five-page novel are unnecessary and ultra-chatty, like a Ritalin-addled schoolgirl prattling on about things of little importance (it should be noted that Flynn cuts between Amy's diary and Nick's point of view in this section, but the result is the same: a better writer would have established true-to-the-characters voice variation and important detailed plot points - which do pop up, on occasion - in fifty or twenty-five pages).

I normally give a novelist twenty-five to fifty pages to impress me with their writing.  The writing can be flawed, but there has to be something to keep me turning their pages.  In this case, I only stuck with Gone for a hundred or so pages because an acquaintance - an excellent writer himself - suggested that I do so.  The end-twist, he proclaimed, was memorable in a great way.  (More on that later.)

There's a few I'm-so-clever-gotcha moments in these initial pages that were telegraphed in clumsy, voice-true fashion, but again, a better writer would have not made them read like hackwork.  So: points to Flynn for the voice-veracity element, but her gotcha-hackery. . . no.  Not good.

The ending fits the black-as-a-pulp-noir tone of Gone, but Nick - whose character has matured in the course of the excellent middle section of the novel - suddenly reverts to plot-convenient lazy-noirish stupidity, making a decision that he more likely would have made in the beginning of the novel not the end.  Nick's key stroke-forced, unlikely actions near the finish don't ring true, given all that Nick has gone through prior to the novel's denouement. 

The pros of Gone.

It is clear that Flynn worked out the twist 'n' turn OCD details of Gone.  Once Flynn has passes the awkward and overly long set-up of the first hundred or so pages, the middle section is explosive with pitch black, effective pulp-noir.  The writing gets tighter and the chapters shorter, and the book becomes difficult to set down, taking Gone into intriguing, if still-familiar territory.  Not only that, but Flynn does role-reversals well in this stretch, made me like a character I normally would, as she puts it, would like to "punch in the face."

Overall review

Check Gone out from the library or buy it used, at an ultra-cheap price.  Flynn is a writer with great promise - that middle section is proof of that - but the overly chatty hackery she evidences in with Gone shows that she has a ways to go before she could be called a great, or even a good, writer.  Or don't read Gone at all, and watch the film version, which hit stateside movie screens on October 3, 2014.

David Fincher directed the film from Gillian Flynn's screenplay. 

Ben Affleck played Nick Dunne. Rosamund Pike played Amy Dunne. Neil Patrick Harris played Desi Collings. Tyler Perry played Tanner Bolt. Carrie Coon played Margo "Go" Dunne. Kim Dickens played Rhonda Boney. Patrick Fugit played Officer Jim Gilpin. 

David Clennon played Rand Elliot.  Lisa Banes played Marybeth Elliot. Missy Pyle played Ellen Abbott. Emily Ratajkowski played Andie Hardy. Casey Wilson played Noelle Hawthorne. Sela Ward played Sharon Schieber.  Scoot McNairy played Tommy O'Hara.