By JAMES D. WATTS JR. Scene Writer on Jul 18, 2008, at 2:18 PM Updated on 7/18 at 2:18 PM
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A great many things must work together properly for an airplane is ever going to leave the ground.
The same thing is ...
Tulsa Ballet’s “Off the Floor: Creations in Studio K” continues through this weekend at the company’s headquarters, 1212 ...
As far as the Tulsa Artists Coalition is concerned, today is May 5.
The TAC has traditionally opened its most popular ...
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I received a press release announcing the offering for PBS' "Masterpiece Mystery" season for 2009, which states that Agatha Christie's two most famous characters will return in new episodes -- David Suchet again portraying Hercule Poirot, and Julia McKenzie as the latest incarnation of Miss Jane Marple.
But the real news is that Kenneth Branagh will star in a series of films based on the novels of Henning Mankell.
Mankell is a Swedish novelist whose novels about Kurt Wallander, who operates in the small town of Ystaad, kick-start the current boom in Scandinavian mysteries. Wallander is a fascinatingly complex, and yet recognizably down-to-earth character, and Mankell's novels manage to capture the often crushing routine of police work while never losing narrative momentum. Mankell is one of those authors who is very good at creating a sense of dread -- we vividly remember passages of "The Fifth Woman," in which you know various hunters and their prey are all converging in one place, that were almost unbearably suspenseful.
I wasn't terribly impressed with what Branagh did with his recent "re-invention" of Anthony Shaffer's "Sleuth," but for the most part I've found his work to be worthwhile, from the mini-series "Fortunes of War," to his great Shakespeare films ("Much Ado...," "Henry V," "Hamlet") to his turn as an American private eye in "Dead Again."
The series will feature adaptations of "Sidetracked," "One Step Beyond" and "Firewall" -- novels that are in the middle of the series -- and will air on PBS in the summer of 2009.
Fortunately, there are 10 Wallander novels available in English in the U.S. Now's the time to start reading....
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