The United Nations wants to rein in the Avengers, after the huge damage due to their various battles, notably in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Tony Stark (Iron Man) is feeling guilty about the deaths they've caused and wants to go along. Steve Rogers (Captain America) has grown dis­trust­ful of government agendas and doesn't want to sign the Sokovia Accords. When his old comrade, Bucky Barnes (the Winter Soldier), is framed for a terrorist attack, Rogers and some friends end up outside the law and Stark and others try to stop them.

This …continue.

Spy Sinker, although it was written after Spy Hook and Spy Line as well as the previous Berlin Game, Mexico Set, London Match trilogy, tells the parallel story of how Fiona Samson came to be one of MI6's most effective double agents without her husband Bernard's knowledge. Told from the per­spec­tives of Fiona and of her case runner, Bret Rensselaer, we see her under increasing strain as the date of her “de­fec­tion” to East Germany draws near, which is compounded once she's alone in East Berlin. She never quite cracks …continue.

After the Vengeance of the Hunter, the Anreulag, the creature known as the Voice of the Gods, has gone rogue, waging war on the Adalonian empire that controlled her for centuries. The Order of the Hawks have found the long-hidden stronghold of the elves. The humans of Nivirry and the elves are throwing off the shackles of Adalonia, but the Anreulag has no regard for anyone's lives, human or elf. Faanshi, Julian, and Kestar may be able to stop her but it won't be easy.

A satisfying conclusion …continue.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. is a moderately en­ter­tain­ing action comedy set in the cold war, pos­tu­lat­ing a somewhat unlikely alliance between CIA agent Napoleon Solo and KGB operative Ilya Kuryakin, who team up to prevent a nuclear weapon falling into ex-Nazi hands. It's also the wholly un­nec­es­sary remake of the classic 1960s TV show.

There's decent chemistry between the three stars, Henry Cavill (Solo), Armie Hammer (Kuryakin), and Alicia Vikander (sci­en­tist's daughter), and the glamorous early 1960s are lovingly recreated. The plot, alas, is uninspired and unoriginal and falls rather flat.

Watchable.

Spy Line is the sequel to Spy Hook. Bernard Samson is on the run from MI6 in East Berlin after asking unwelcome questions about a slush fund. Eventually they settle their dif­fer­ences and MI6 sends him on a mission to Vienna, where he learns that his wife Fiona, widely believed to be a traitor who had defected to the KGB, was in fact a double agent. Samson is world-weary but shocked to learn that the truth of his wife's supposed defection had been hidden from him by Fiona and by the handful …continue.

In Kingsman: The Secret Service, “Eggsy” Unwin (Taron Egerton) is a fish-out-of-water recruit in Kingsman, an exclusive private in­tel­li­gence service. The young chav is taken under the wing of Harry Hart (Colin Firth), whose life was saved by Eggsy's father seventeen years ago. After spending half the movie trying to survive Spy Hogwarts, Eggsy goes out on his first mission to stop the mega­lo­ma­ni­ac billionare (Samuel L. Jackson) who is about to cull most of the world's population.

Stylish, hyper-stylized, and violent—as might be expected in a movie adapted from a comic book. The violence …continue.

After the events of Valor of the Healer, the three pro­tag­o­nists went in different directions, but now they must come together again. Faanshi, the former slave girl, is coming into her own as an ex­tra­or­di­nar­i­ly powerful healer with her new people, the elves. Kestar, formerly a Hawk sworn to expunge elven magic, is a prisoner of the Hawks being taken to stand trial. Julian, his lost hand and burnt-out eye regrown by Faanshi's magic, is seeking vengeance against the brother who maimed him. Rumors of Faanshi's power and ac­com­plish­ments …continue.

Good old Bertie Wooster's got a spot of bother and so has his aged relative, Aunt Dahlia. A young lady authoress has grown tired of her tedious fiancé, one “Stilton” Cheesewright by name, and set her sights on our hero. Dash it all, she'd want to improve a chap's mind, when he'd rather take a cigarette for a walk and enjoy Jeeves' cocktails. And Cheesewright's a hulking brute threat­en­ing to break B.W.'s spine in five places. But Jeeves comes through in the end, saving Bertie and Aunt …continue.

Three years ago, in the events that preceded Spy Hook, Bernard Samson's wife Fiona defected from MI6 to the KGB. His position at MI6 barely survived. He's picked up the pieces and moved out to the suburbs with his much younger girlfriend, who's barely older than his children. Now he's in­ves­ti­gat­ing a slush fund that's gone missing and it seems that his questions are un­wel­come—­so unwelcome that by the end of the book, he's on the run in Berlin from the British.

I preferred this book to Winter, which served as a distant prequel …continue.

This book fails both as a Sherlock Holmes pastiche and as an adventure. The story is narrated by Watson, but the pro­tag­o­nist neither sounds nor acts much like Watson. Holmes is elsewhere for much of the book and he is very annoying when present. The plot is a pre­pos­ter­ous mashup of steampunk and occult magick.

As in The Sher­lock­ian, this author does not have the skill to write a convincing Holmes–Wat­son novel. I deducted another half star for the shoddy editing and the comma splices.