The Crimson Field: Episodes 5 & 6

This is the conclusion of the reviews for the mini-series The Crimson Field. By the conclusion of these two episodes, most everyone's secrets will be revealed to the audience if not to other characters.

Episode 5

This is the episode in which secrets are revealed for better or worse (for some it is definitely for worse). Major Ballard is a rather unpleasant man with a secret that jeopardizes both his life and the men he serves with on the front lines. Luckily the matron easily ferrets it out and turns him in to Lt. Col. Brett to confirm it. Meanwhile Ballard rather enjoys taunting the matron in order to tease out her secret that was alluded to in the last episode by Sister Quayle. Sister Quayle is mercifully absent throughout the episode having been suddenly and unwillingly dispatched back to England for a breather a.k.a. some soul searching to determine whether she can continue to serve under Matron Carter. (If Sister Quayle cannot serve under matron without undermining her authority, matron says Quayle will be transferred; I vote for a transfer to the casualty hospital where Major Yellin is now serving, preferably before the bomb I ordered drops on it.)

In the wake of Kitty's ending of her romance with Gillan before it even began, Gillan has decided that Kitty is too much drama and gives her the cold shoulder throughout the episode. Kitty guesses Nurse Livesey's secret and confronts her about it only to warn her to be careful. And then Livesey's attempts to receive news of her loved one results in the worst possible person discovering it. I don't know how this ends, but it won't end well.

Episode 6

It turns out that Livesey's secret is a German fiance who now serves (reluctantly?) for the German military. His escape, aided and abetted by Livesey, means (really) bad things for Livesey, Lt. Col. Brett, Matron Carter, and the whole hospital encampment. As Livesey's trial commences, Brett receives devastating news regarding his son serving on the front lines. Meanwhile, Livesey's trial pits friends on opposite sides of controversy. Also the colonel or whoever he is running the trial is callous, insensitive, and clueless.

Sister Quayle, called back to the encampment early by her new BFF the supply quartermaster who also incidentally discovered Livesey's secret and turned her in, returns in time to possibly destroy Lt. Col. Brett's career with her hidden piece of evidence. And yet despite her perfect opportunity to do so, Quayle instead inexplicably decides to hand over the piece of evidence to Matron Carter for destruction, accept the matron's terms and conditions of continuing work in the encampment, and puts the screws to the quartermaster for a cut of his black market sales.

My thoughts

Major Ballard can join Yellin (and Quayle) at the casualty hospital please.

The quartermaster and Sister Quayle deserve each other; also I'm sure the man will rue the day (if he doesn't already) of trying to forge an alliance with Quayle.

Sister Quayle has an inflated sense of her own intelligence and importance; and she's blind to the fact that this is one of the many reasons that she was passed over for promotion.

--Reviewed by Ms. Angie

How To Be A Heroine: Or What I've Learned From Reading Too Much by Samantha Ellis

I feel as if I could write a book subtitled "What I've Learned From Reading Too Much" except all my lessons would be culled from Greek mythology, the Babysitters' Club, the lives of British queens, crime mysteries, suspense thrillers and celebrity and entertainment gossip. I first ran across How To Be A Heroine by Samantha Ellis in an ad in BookPage. The title sounded intriguing and once I looked it up on Amazon, I was in for reading it. It reminds me of the literacy autobiography writing assignment that I had in one of my English composition classes in college--except this is the literacy autobiography on steroids. The premise of this book is that the author revisits the seminal texts that she read in her youth by examining the lessons and impressions of the novels that she had upon her first readings when she was younger. Ellis has then re-read the novels as an adult specifically for the writing of her own book to see if the novels hold up to her original i

Heat Lightning by John Sandford

I'd previously read John Sandford's first Virgil Flowers novel, Dark of the Moon , a few years back and found it to be a quick, well written read. Recently I discovered he has since written three more Flowers titles and decided to start with the second title and read through to the fourth and most recent one. Heat Lightning is the second Flowers installment. The darkness of the crimes committed that must be solved in the novel are leavened by the lighter presentation of Flowers and the story. It works well together--a dark crime doesn't always need dark prose to back it up. Virgil Flowers is Lucas Davenport's go to man in the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension when there's a sensitive, tough or otherwise puzzling case to solve. Flowers has a high clearance rate and can often turn around a case in about a week. This particular case is especially perplexing with quite a few red herrings thrown into the mix to throw everyone--Flowers and the reader in

The Whisperers by John Connolly

If there was one thing Jimmy didn't care for, it was competition, ... There were some exceptions to that rule: he was rumored to have a sweet deal with the Mexicans, but he wasn't about to try to reason with the Dominicans, or the Columbians, or the bikers, or even the Mohawks. If they wanted to avail themselves of his services, as they sometimes did, that was fine, but if Jimmy Jewel started questioning their right to move product he and Earle would end up tied to chairs in the [bar] with pieces of themselves scattered by their feet, assuming their feet weren't among the scattered pieces, while the bar burned down around their ears, assuming they still had ears. from page 86 The Whisperers is John Connolly's newest Charlie Parker installment in which some beloved characters reappear and in which previous characters from another Parker installment reappear to shed further light on the big baddie that may or may not be coming for Parker in the future. This newest inst

A Series Of (Un)Fortunate Reviews

Search This Blog