Buried Deep
An Audible original by the author of a couple other thrillers that I haven’t read but probably will. We begin with the news that a body has been uncovered in Key Largo and it’s the body of the presumed missing (and drowned) model from years past who has gone camping with friends, presumably went swimming in the ocean while drunk and disappeared in the water. The finding of her body, having been buried, clearly indicates that she was either murdered or buried to cover up her death. This reopens the investigation. Our perspective however is from the now wife of the then boyfriend of the dead woman. Twenty years on we see how this news first affects their family as old wounds are opened, and as the “runner up” to her husband’s affections her own sense of insecurity plus guilt for feeling this way come in waves. However, as you can imagine, as she begins investigating a little on her own in order to help clear her husband’s name, more and more inconsistencies in the original story creep in.
So obviously this is a murder mystery with a kind of #metoo flavor to it, but in a different. The nature of truth and memory seemingly are on the docket initially, and then trust and choices become more so as the mystery unfolds. It’s a perfectly solid 2 and a half hours, but it’s the focus on the narrative perspective that keep it from getting out of hand.
Holiday Greetings from Sugar and Booze –
Another Audible original and this one is really bad. You’ll have to forgive my choosing it above another option because it’s about two friends who have drifted apart told through the details of their annual Christmas letters. I thought might be good because it has a really good cast — Ana Gasteyer, Maya Rudolph, Richard Kind, Patti Lupone, Oscar Nunez and others. And the premise is a perfectly good vehicle. But too much of it was both patently ridiculous, but also without being ridiculous enough. If that makes sense at all. But what I mean is that it couldn’t tell if it wanted to be a farce or a lark, and it can’t be either. It’s also chock full of cliches and rehashed and warmed over ideas about the holidays, and worse full of offensive and near offensive moments. What this means is that it’s not clear if Maya Rudolph is playing a white woman or biracial woman, and this may or not matter much until Ana Gasteyer’s character calls her children something like “filthy animals” which definitely changes the context. There’s also a daughter who comes out as gender noncomnforming and while it’s not quite at the level of offensive, it’s something close, and clearly something that everyone is meant to be uncomfortable with. Regardless the offensiveness of this whole thing is how good and talented the group who made this is and how not good this ends up being. Oh well, I should have gotten Peter Pan.
(Photo: https://www.amazon.com/Margot-Hunt/e/B071HKN21K/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1)