Working hard at translation these days, which is a good thing. I’m doing a promotional project for Saga Bok Publishers in Norway, but I won’t say much about it because I don’t know what their timeline is.

Which means I have to spend some of my valuable reading time actually producing work. Hence the fact that I don’t have a book to review today.

But, as I’ve mentioned, I like to stream Amazon Prime while I’m working. Today I watched an interesting production, more recent than is my usual fare. It’s an Australian movie called Dripping in Chocolate.

At the top of the cast are David Wenham, whom you might recognize (I missed it) as Faramir from The Lord of the Rings, and Louise Lombard, an English actress I haven’t seen before.

Wenham plays Bennett O’Mara, a police detective struggling with personal issues (aren’t they all?). He’s on some kind of cleansing diet, to the amusement of his colleagues. In contrast, Lombard plays Juliana Lovece, who runs a high-end chocolate shop. The camera lingers on her cooking procedures in a sensual manner. Thus are film characters established. When a high-end call girl is found strangled in the street with the wrapper from one of Juliana’s candies on her body, O’Mara goes to see her. As you’d expect, romantic sparks fly between them, though O’Mara’s too buttoned up to do anything about it.

When Lovece’s chocolate wrappers start showing up at other murder scenes, things get complicated – and sometimes not very plausible. However, the likeability of the leads and their excellent chemistry keeps our interest up. The scenery’s nice too. And the final solution surprised me completely.

Dripping in Chocolate has the look of a TV movie, but it’s an enjoyable TV movie. There was sexual suggestion, but nothing explicit. I enjoyed it, and it was a fun break from old black ‘n whites.