Book reviews
Coppola’s absolutely astonishing 1992 Bram Stoker’s Dracula for a similar seriousness of intent, this Dracula could be a bit of slog (the 1992 film, as well as the even better 1921 Nosferatu, are available on Amazon and also at Aro Street Video in Wellington and Alice’s in Christchurch).
As the bloody Count, Danish actor Claes Bang doesn’t quite bring the charisma or likeability that Benedict Cumberbatch pollinated his Sherlock with, but he does have an oleaginous menace about him that suits the writing well, while John Heffernan (Luther) is hypnotically wretched as the captive Jonathan Harker.
And then both are knocked right off the screen by Dolly Wells (Can You Ever Forgive Me? )as agnostic nun Agatha Van Helsing.
As everyone knows, anyone from the Van Helsing hapu¯ is set to cause all sorts of mischief in the Count’s KPIs. Dracula is a startlingly goodlooking, very well-performed and a seriouslyminded good time. As long as your attention span can allow for the world-building and back-story that must occur before the sun sets on the who-letthe-dogs-out finale of the first 90-minute episode, I reckon you’ll be along for the entire ride.
$33) by Chris Hauty (Simon & Schuster,
Chris Hauty’s first book, Deep State ,isan appallingly written, completely improbable novel, filled with two-dimensional characters
– but it is suspenseful and perfect for summer reading.
Hauty, the cover biography informs us, is a screenwriter who lives in California with ‘‘his feral cat and a Triumph motorcycle’’. His movie credits often have the number 2 in their titles. Despite this, there are pleasures to be had in Deep State.
Twenty-five-year-old Hayley Chill, is a military veteran. Enlisting straight after her highschool graduation, her army career was a way out of the poverty of Lincoln County, West Virginia. She is fit, a compulsive exerciser, and a competitive boxer. Now, leaving the army, her destination is to be an intern in the White House.
Surrounded by staffers with attitude and other interns from privileged families, Chill is subjected to many petty humiliations, personal and professional.
She is housed in a former janitor’s storage room to provide secretarial and back-up services to President Monroe. Her ally in the intern pool is gay Luke Charles, the son of a ‘‘fantastically wealthy hedge fund manager’’.
President Monroe, a handsome former army officer, initially bears no resemblance to President Donald Trump, the current incumbent, just as the novel’s setting bears no relationship to present-day America. Despite office politics, President Monroe chooses Chill to issue papers at his daily briefings.
Chill has also caught the eye of a man, Scott Billings, who she assumes is secret service. By simply being in the right place, Chill and Billings efficiently bring down a pair of armed White House trespassers.
There is an erotic charge between them which penetrates Chill’s reserve and practical sexuality.
But while delivering early morning briefing-papers to the White House chief of staff, Chill discovers the man dead in his own home kitchen. She also finds one small clue that indicates that the event is not the natural heart attack it appears.
Chill decides to keep her information to herself until she knows just who is involved. The plot of Deep State accelerates. It appears there is a deeper state involved in secret and sometimes murderous manipulations in the higher echelons of government.
No-one is who they seem to be, perhaps even including Chill, herself …
Deep State is strangely compelling. Bad writing and bald scripting have their own pleasures. Chill is a character for an era of women’s empowerment. The plot of the novel is propulsive. Suspend logic. Leave disbelief at the door. Enjoy.
by Karina Sainz Borgo translated by Elizabeth Bryer (HarperCollins, $35)
Many of us are aware that Venezuela, once one of the richest countries in South America, has descended into crisis and is now one of the world’s most corrupt, most violent and mostpoverty-stricken countries, with the world’s highest inflation rate. But not so many of us have had an insight into how deeply that crisis affects its citizens in their day-to-day lives.
In her powerful debut novel, Karina Sainz Borgo, a Venezuelan journalist before her family fled to Spain a decade ago, brings to life through her characters the sheer terror, hunger and violence of it all, where it is everyone for themselves, and any thoughts of courage turn quickly to self-preservation.