It was a weekend of suspense media: Dominik Moll's new film With a Friend Like Harry (Harry, un ami qui vous veut du bien) on Friday night, and then reading Peter Ackroyd's twisted historical thriller Hawksmoor yesterday. WAFLH is wonderfully Hitchcockian, elegantly simple, and leisurely in its pacing. While it doesn't have the kind of clever conceit that drove Memento, WAFLH has wound up lingering my minds eye for much longer than any of the scenes in Memento did. One moment in particular -- a dream of the protagonist featuring a dentist office and a flying monkey -- is simultaneously creepy and delightful. The whole thing will, however, make you reconsider that fantasy of buying an old house in the French countryside to relax in.

I started reading Hawksmoor because Alan Moore cites it as a reference for his Masonic history of London outlined in From Hell. I'm only a few chapters in, but I'm already hooked. Devil-worship and architecture in early 18th-century England: the perfect summer reading, as far as I'm concerned.