Titanium Noir (5+) & The Marlow Murder Club (4+)

Reading & Watching

Recently read a piece on Nicholas Cornwell, writing under the name of Nick Harkaway and also the son of John le Carré. It reported that Harkaway, with a reputation of his own for fiction and non-fictiion, felt ready to write a novel set within his father’s Smiley series: Karla's Choice, published this October. His previous works include two sci-fi novels, the latest (published 2023) Titanium Noir. As the title suggests, it’s indeed noir with the slightly-tilted but piercing approach of William Gibson. Set sometime in the future, it tracks the efforts of a consulting detective investigating a special kind of murder, one the regular police prefer not to touch, the death of a Titan. Titians are the uber-rich who can afford T7 infusions that reset the body’s biological clock allowing them to return to the pristine youth and health of pre-puberty. They undergo a new growth spurt and with repeated treatments can get really old and really titan while fending off old age. (Our present day mega-rich are looking into this.) The technology is controlled by a family that seeks to keep the number of Titans to a few thousand, they who stride across the world above we mere human mayflies. They do not appreciate the murder of one of their own.

The detective, Cal Sounder, is not himself a Titan but he has connections. He follows leads wherever they take him, through a few beatings and bypassing any attractive ladies he comes upon. He is quite likable, except to some of the actual police and most of those he needs to investigate. I read it through in a couple of days and hope Harkaway finds a way to make this a series, definitely a 5+.

The Marlow Murder Club is a new series on PBS written by Robert Thorogood (who also wrote the book of the same name). Thorogood previously created the Death in Paradise series as well as it’s spinoffs. A retired archaeologist – who now sets crossword puzzles – begins to investigate the murder of a neighbor. Along the way she recruits two other women, a vicar’s wife and a dog walker. They at first cross swords with the police but through four episodes, it works out. Samantha Bond plays the retired archaeologist, Judith Potts, as a strong, independent woman determined to let little get in her way. The show’s setting in Marlow, Buckinghamshire, along the Thames, is quite fetching. Judith swims the river (quite tastefully naked), something I did not know you could do. I liked this series more than the Paradise ones and give it a 4+.