GIALLO JULY WRAPUP

BEFORE I KNEW IT, GIALLO JULY WAS OVER!!!

All July long it has been GIALLO JULY -- an event created by Alex the Bookubus over on youtuberz and I've been reading some giallo-type books and watching some giallo-type movies.  Oh, and wearing my GIALLO JULY t-shirt, of course!  I'd like to thank Alex for coming up with such a fun readathon/watchathon; this is only the second one I've ever participated in after OLD SCHOOL APRIL and it was a blast.  Here, of course, are the prompts and they were super-easy to participate in.

By a happy quirk of fate, the three books I read for GIALLO JULY were also buddy-reads with Alex.  This wasn't planned but, after watching her TBR video, those are the books I chose (yeah, I wasn't able to read any more than three books but that's the best I could do this month).  Here are the books & movies I read/watched for GIALLO JULY:

The first book I read was chosen by me deliberately since it was also the first "giallo" book published in Italy by Mondadori:  THE BENSON MURDER CASE by S.S. Van Dine.  This was the very first Philo Vance novel and, I have to admit, I wasn't too thrilled with it.  Vance himself was such an annoying (I know, it was deliberate by the author but still) character that I was hoping someone would murder HIM!  He was much more insufferable than Sherlock Holmes ever was.  The plot concerns a sorta "locked room" murder and Philo Vance snottily tells the police he already knows the murderer right at the beginning of the book.  But he won't tell them; preferring they work it out by themselves.  Never mind that a murderer might go free.  Never mind that someone else might be killed by the murderer who is still running around free.  I would've arrested Vance immediately for withholding evidence.  Anywho, I'll stick to the movies since this novel, anyway, very irritating and underwhelming for me. 

Next up was David Sodergren's DEAD GIRL BLUES and this was the book I enjoyed most out of the three.  Sodergren is a favourite horror author of mine since I read his THE FORGOTTEN ISLAND and loved it!  This novel is a deliberate homage to gialli (right down to the imitation-giallo yellow cover) and it was, unsurprisingly bonkers!  Almost as good as FORGOTTEN ISLAND!  Finally, the last book I read for GIALLO JULY was Mary Roberts Rinehart's THE YELLOW ROOM.  Rinehart, of course, is the author who gave us that perennial favourite THE BAT (which I own but still haven't read yet).  This is the first Rinehart I've read and it was pretty good.  This is a 1940's sorta-cozy mystery which takes place in New England during World War II.  A woman goes to open up the old family house and discovers a corpse stuffed inside a linen closet.  Oh yeah, and the corpse has been set on fire.  This one was, as I say, pretty good if a little slow-going.  I found myself continually asking myself "who's this character again" as a lot of them blended together and I couldn't sort them out.  However, it was still better than THE BENSON MURDER CASE but not as good as DEAD GIRL BLUES.  I'd give it a very soft recommend if you're interested in that kinda thing.  Then, of course, I watched a handful of gialli films -- one favourite I've seen before  (TENEBRAE) and some I've been meaning to watch for a long time and this was the perfect opportunity to get that done.  This was also a good opportunity to move the magnificent Edwige Fenech up up UP on my most-watched star list on letterboxd!  I love gialli and this event was a lot of fun.  I'm already looking forward to next year's GIALLO JULY when I don my black leather gloves and do this all over again!