Mystery Book Movie Charade

 The best Hitchcock movie that Hitchcock never made

Reminder:  Mystery Books will be showing the movie "Charade" on Monday, May 18th at 10:00am on Zoom.  Check OLLI Weekly for access information.  The movie is about 2 hours long.

Stanley Donan was the director. One of Donen's most praised films was Charade (1963). Donen said that he had "always wanted to make a movie like one of my favorites, Hitchcock's North by Northwest" and the film has been referred to as "the best Hitchcock movie that Hitchcock never made."  Donan passed away in 2019.

For a preview of the movie and more information use the link below or access the Mystery Books Blog under the 2020 Movies tab.

All OLLI Members are welcome.

https://ollirenomysterybg.blogspot.com/p/2018-mbg-movies.html

Previous Phillip Kerr Author Video

I uploaded a previous author video from November 2015 of Phillip Kerr.  At the time we were reading his book, "A Quiet Flame."

If you are interested, you can access it from the link below or view it on the Mystery Books Blog under the tab Author Videos.

Hope see you in June with a new video of Phillip Kerr.  Thanks for watching.  Stay healthy.

https://youtu.be/o_-2HRrzPfA

Virtual Book Discussion - June 8 - Prussian Blue

Prussian Blue by Philip Kerr

When his cover is blown, former Berlin bull and unwilling SS officer Bernie Gunther must re-enter a cat-and-mouse game that continues to shadow his life a decade after Germany’s defeat in World War 2…

The French Riviera, 1956: Bernie’s old and dangerous adversary Erich Mielke, deputy head of the East German Stasi, has turned up in Nice–and he’s not on holiday. Mielke is calling in a debt and wants Bernie to travel to London to poison a female agent they’ve both had dealings with. But Bernie isn’t keen on assassinating anyone. In an attempt to dodge his Stasi handler–former Kripo comrade Friedrich Korsch–Bernie bolts for the German border. Traveling by night and hiding by day, he has plenty of time to recall the last case he and Korsch worked together…

Obersalzberg, Germany, 1939: A low-level bureaucrat has been found dead at Hitler’s mountaintop retreat in Bavaria. Bernie and Korsch have one week to find the killer before the leader of the Third Reich arrives to celebrate his fiftieth birthday. Bernie knows it would mean disaster if Hitler discovers a shocking murder has been committed on the terrace of his own home. But Obersalzberg is also home to an elite Nazi community, meaning an even bigger disaster for Bernie if his investigation takes aim at one of the party’s higher-ups…

1939 and 1956: two different eras about to converge in an explosion Bernie Gunther will never forget.

What Decades of Reading Scandinavian Crime Fiction Can Teach You

Obsessions are by nature individual, and difficult at times to communicate to others. Even popular manias can seem obscure to those not in their grip. So when Wendy Lesser dives deeply into a world of crime fiction in her new book, “Scandinavian Noir: In Pursuit of a Mystery,” she acknowledges on the first page that its mission is “eccentric and personal.” Lesser isn’t here to win converts, but even those unmoved by its subject will thrill to the book, a beautifully crafted inquiry into fiction, reality, crime and place.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/books/review/wendy-lesser-scandinavian-noir.html?campaign_id=69&emc=edit_bk_20200505&instance_id=18237&nl=books&regi_id=54036904&segment_id=26652&te=1&user_id=3e18596589d1920511159741a93374e1

Monday, May 11 @12:00 - Virtual Book Discussion - The Widows of Malabar Hill

The Widows of Malabar Hill  (A Mystery of 1920s Bombay, 1)  Sujata Massey, 2018
1920s India: Perveen Mistry, Bombay’s first female lawyer, is investigating a suspicious will on behalf of three Muslim widows living in full purdah when the case takes a turn toward the murderous. The author of the Agatha and Macavity Award-winning Rei Shimura novels brings us an atmospheric new historical mystery with a captivating heroine.

Inspired in part by the woman who made history as India’s first female attorney, The Widows of Malabar Hill is a richly wrought story of multicultural 1920s Bombay as well as the debut of a sharp and promising new sleuth.

Perveen Mistry, the daughter of a respected Zoroastrian family, has just joined her father’s law firm, becoming one of the first female lawyers in India.

Armed with a legal education from Oxford, Perveen also has a tragic personal history that makes women’s legal rights especially important to her.

Mistry Law has been appointed to execute the will of Mr. Omar Farid, a wealthy Muslim mill owner who has left three widows behind. But as Perveen examines the paperwork, she notices something strange: all three of the wives have signed over their full inheritance to a charity.

What will they live on?

Perveen is suspicious, especially since one of the widows has signed her form with an X—meaning she probably couldn’t even read the document. The Farid widows live in full purdah—in strict seclusion, never leaving the women’s quarters or speaking to any men.

Are they being taken advantage of by an unscrupulous guardian?

Perveen tries to investigate, and realizes her instincts were correct when tensions escalate to murder. Now it is her responsibility to figure out what really happened on Malabar Hill, and to ensure that no innocent women or children are in further danger.