Tag: Jeff Mariotte

As he did with his love letter to hardboiled fiction, “Hollywood Noir,” Jeff Mariotte lets his passion for bloodless British mysteries show in “Solitary Man” (December 2003) – but in a different way. He invents Mildred Finster, a woman in the mold of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple or “Murder, She Wrote’s” Jessica Fletcher – at least, that’s how she sees herself. As the story begins, Mildred finishes reading the last of the 79 Christie books, then tells her cat that she’s going to become a detective herself.

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Jeff Mariotte recaptures some of the hardboiled style from “Hollywood Noir” in “Sanctuary” (April 2003), which has a straightforward mystery that all takes place in one night. It’s also an excellent character piece for Fred – marking one of her rare early ventures outside the Hyperion Hotel – even though she spends most of the book chained to a radiator as the kidnap victim that Angel and company must retrieve.

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You can rarely go wrong with a Jeff Mariotte Buffyverse novel, but some go more right than others, and “Stranger to the Sun” (July 2002) isn’t one of his elite efforts. His second book set in “Angel’s” second season is quite readable, but it’s pretty obvious where every plot thread is going right from the beginning. On the other hand, it’s a decent character piece for Wesley – even though he’s asleep most of the time.

Continue reading “‘Angel’ flashback: ‘Stranger to the Sun’ (2002) (Book review)”

On my first reading of the “Angel” novel “Haunted” (February 2002), I probably wasn’t thrilled with the reality-TV focus. That was the era when a lot of good shows were being canceled to make room for cheaper and more profitable reality TV. Such fears seem silly today when there are more good scripted shows than ever.

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