JOANNA ELM, Author, Journalist, Attorney
The Pleasures and Perils Of A Writing Life
I just binge-watched the best drama Netflix has brought to viewers this year. Maybe ever. It’s a harrowing eight-parter called Unbelievable. Continue reading “Unbelievable: A Harrowing Tale Of A Serial Rapist’s Victim”
I took a mini European vacation recently — without leaving the comfort of my own home. In between finishing the readable draft of Book3 and starting revisions, I bought a first class seat on a murder mystery tour of Europe.
It’s all easily done if you subscribe to a few of those streaming video services like Netflix or Acorn TV. Good value, I think — even if you are already paying about $200 a month for your bundled cable TV, internet and (useless) landline. Continue reading “Missing Girls & Small Town Secrets In Three Must-See (European) TV Thrillers”
If you haven’t actually watched it yet, you surely have heard something about Netflix’s latest true crime docu-series, The Staircase. And, yes, it is ever bit as riveting as the myriad reviews online and in the mainstream press say it is. I can attest to that since I binge-watched all 13 episodes.
The episodes, amounting to approximately 650 minutes of docu-drama, were edited down from 650 hours of video footage filmed by a French director and his television crew over a period 15 years. The TV crew became virtually embedded with Michael Peterson and his family and legal team of highly-priced defense attorneys after Michael, a 61-year old novelist and former columnist for a Durham, North Carolina newspaper was arrested and indicted on charges of first degree murder. The victim? His 48-year old wife of five years, a telecommunications executive named Kathleen. Continue reading “Who’s The Real Villain In True Crime TV Series, The Staircase?”
If you binge-watched the fabulous true crime drama Mindhunter , and you’re now wondering where your next serial killer thriller fix is going to come from, wonder no longer. A TV series, La Mante (The Mantis) airing on Netflix is equally binge-worthy — even though it’s totally fictional. I hope.
The series is in six episodes, and is subtitled. I read somewhere that a dubbed version is available, but I didn’t check that out. Subtitles don’t bother me. In fact, I could even welcome them for English- language TV shows, given the “mumbly” bad sound of a lot of British and American TV on flat screens nowadays. In any event, the series was definitely must-see TV for me since one of the main characters in the new thriller I’m writing is the son of an executed serial killer. Continue reading “New Serial Killer Thriller Is Must-See TV”