The Thousand-Dollar Tan Line

The Thousand-Dollar Tan Line by Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The case of a girl gone missing over spring break gets darker - and more personal - than private detective Veronica Mars ever expected.

Ah, Veronica Mars. My absolute favorite blonde detective (and I grew up reading Nancy Drew, though Nancy's hair is technically "titian" or "strawberry" blonde, bless her).

The first season of Veronica Mars was everything I wanted in a mystery series - smart, funny, dark, cynical, angsty, with compelling story arcs and interesting side characters. Also, it helps that the leads are all incredibly sexy, together and apart, with mad chemistry. They are epic. (Then the show got Pizzed on in Season 3 and cancelled. But I digress.)

Both so lovely. Amirite?

The Thousand-Dollar Tan Line is a novel that picks up where the Kickstarter-funded movie left off, with Veronica on her first major case since returning to Neptune, California. For super fans like me, it's a pleasure seeing Veronica navigate her old stomping grounds again. As a stand-alone novel, those not familiar with the series may be left in the dark. There's a lot of backstory there from three seasons of television, which thankfully the writers remember, plus you'll meet all your favorite characters again. (Except there's one detail overlooked by both book and series that has always bothered me: the check Veronica's mom stole. I mean, a missing $10,000 never gets mentioned again? Keith and Veronica never go after Lianne to reclaim the money? C'mon.)

A few new details keep it the Mars world fresh: while taking notes during interviews, Veronica mostly sticks to snarky asides about the interviewees, since her memory is excellent. She remains our morally tarnished but true-hearted heroine, a twist on the Sam Spade character. She is weighing her radical decision to return to Neptune instead of making big bucks as a lawyer, a choice that has strained her normally close relationship with her father.

And the story? It's Neptune's usual mixture of drugs, sex, and too much money, sprinkled with a generous heaping of police corruption thanks to the new Sheriff Lamb (who manages to make his deceased little brother look like a supercop). Ultimately I can't be objective about this book - I was just too happy to get back to Neptune to watch Veronica work her black magic.

There is a second book in this series, Mr. Kiss and Tell, to be released in late October. I've already pre-ordered it, and plan on reading it instantly with the deep hope that there is more Logan drama in store. I dig the naval dress whites, but the bad boy's still in there too, right?

Spoilerish: The wrap-up is smart and cynical, true to the V. Mars franchise. I for one appreciate seeing Veronica's empathy and sense of justice, though I have always been interested by the consequences of the vengeful side of her nature. I also love when the seemingly stereotypical poor innocent female victim is shown to have a lot of agency of her own.

My Top 5 All-Time Favorite Suspense Movies

The weather's starting to turn on us, so it's time to think about indoor activities like watching great films. I have many favorites, so it's going to take me multiple lists to break them all down for you.

This list will be focused mainly on what I'm going to call "suspense" (though action, mystery, and noir are all represented). These are the movies I return to time and again when I want a great story told by gifted directors, actors, and writers.

1. The Maltese Falcon
Humphrey Bogart is one of my top two all-time favorite actors (the other is in the second movie on this list), and it's mostly because of this movie. He's the quintessential noir detective, Sam Spade, troubled by dames who bring violent thugs and nosy cops to his seedy little shop. He's quick-witted but not overly kind as he helps Mary Astor track down either her sister or her lover or possibly a plain black statue.... Sydney Greenstreet is here as the jolly but sinister Gutman, and Peter Lorre plays a petulant crook who favors gardenia-scented calling cards. Everything is spare with just the right amount of detail. Falcon is one of the best noir films ever made.

Humphrey Bogart

2. Notorious
I recently rewatched this Alfred Hitchcock-directed gem, and was again awed by the perfection of Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman as they portray love tenderly disguised as disdain. Ingrid Bergman is a good-time girl named Alicia Huberman whose father just went to prison as a traitor. She, however, is a patriot, which is why CIA agent Devlin recruits her with a delicate assignment: he wants to use her to infiltrate a group of her father's Nazi cronies - which may require Alicia to seduce her old beau, Alexander Sebastian (Claude Rains, who you may remember from Casablanca as the charmingly corrupt French police chief).

Everyone is at the top of their game here. So much is left unsaid between the two lovers, shown only with looks and long kisses. There are the usual fantastically tense sequences Hitchcock is known for, and Grant and Bergman smolder in their scenes together.

Rains, Grant, and Bergman

3. L.A. Confidential
I can put this movie into the DVD player and watch it on repeat. The plot is complex and there are three incredible leading men, each with his own storyline that slowly feeds into the main narrative. Bud White (Russell Crowe) is a cop whose quick temper and brick-like build have relegated him to roles that require more brawn than brains, but he knows he can do more. Ed Exley (Guy Pierce) is an ambitious new cop who wants to maintain his integrity and climb to the top of the deeply corrupt LAPD. Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) is a Hollywood hanger-on who likes the perks of cop life more than the mission.

James Cromwell (left),
Pierce, Crowe, and Spacey

The story begins when a high-level mobster gets arrested, leaving a vacuum in the crime world that leads to massacre, corruption, high-end prostitution (Kim Basinger, in a role that won her an Oscar), and the darkest guts of Tinseltown. There are very few movies that offer this much story and compelling characters.

4. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
This slyly self-aware film marked Robert Downey Jr.'s pre-Iron Man comeback role and it pays homage to the trashy pulps that inspired The Maltese Falcon and L.A. Confidential. Harry Lockheart (Downey) is a small-time crook who lucks into a movie role (they happen to need a crooked type, and he nails the audition with some Method acting) and is sent to Hollywood. As research for the part, he is paired with detective Gay Perry (Val Kilmer, who gets some of the best lines and delivers them to perfection). But a girl from Lockheart's past (Michelle Monaghan) shows up with a big problem, so he pretends to be a detective to impress her. Then real corpses start appearing in odd places, and the hapless Lockheart needs all the help he can get to stay alive and out of prison.

I'm telling you, watch it.

5. In Bruges

This foul-mouthed gem is one that may have easily slipped under your radar, but fans of Harold Pinter's play "The Dumb Waiter" will recognize some of the setup. Two hit men with very different personalities hole up in the medieval Belgian town of Bruges, waiting for their next assignment. Ken (Brendan Gleeson), the senior of the pair, is charmed by the attractions of scenery and art. His impatient partner, Ray (Colin Farrell), is not. At all. And he goes out looking for trouble, which ought to be hard to find in such a sleepy place....

Gleeson and Farrell

Farrell shows that he's more than just an action hero, playing his deeply immature character with a seemingly effortless combination of humor and pathos. Gleeson is the film's solid heart, and Ralph Fiennes almost steals the show as the hit men's hilariously obscene - yet deeply principled - boss. It's a violent film, completely un-PC, with more F-bombs than you can count (one of the special features on the DVD is a supercut of all the obscenities uttered by the characters - a solid minute and a half). So don't say I didn't warn you, but you should really check out f***ing Bruges.

(Side note for fans: it's by the director who did 2012's Seven Psychopaths starring Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, and Christopher Walken.)