Mysterious California

Produced in association with the California Center for the Book, filmmakers Pamela Beere Briggs and William McDonald's Mysterious California intercuts interview excerpts with four California mystery writers together with beautiful still images of the locales central to their fiction. Laurie R. King talks about the San Francisco setting (both early 20th century and modern day) used in her Kate Martinelli novel The Art of Detection (and tells a funny story about freaking out a group of teens who overheard King and writer/friend Val McDermid joking about a good potential weapon for a serial killer). Nadia Gordon talks about the importance of food, wine, and twilight to her Sunny McCoskey mystery Sharpshooter. Kirk Russell discusses the research on abalone poaching that went into writing Shell Games, which features his fish & game detective John Marquez. Finally, Nina Revoyr talks about Southland, a “story of race, love, murder, and history” that started with a series of questions. Mysterious California, while a natural for public libraries, is a bit of an oddball hybrid: the author interviews are only intermittently interesting, while the travelogue material basically serves here as visual dressing, rather than being informative. Still, this is recommended for regional collections, and should be considered a strong optional purchase elsewhere. Aud: P. (R. Pitman)