A bitchy wife won't let you off the hook with a divorce. You meet a stranger in a bar who offers, politely, to bump her off, if you do him a small favor in return – murder his sister. You don't take him seriously of course, but you discover he was very serious and your wife is very dead. In the immortal words of Karl Malden, what will you do, what will you do?

Joey Silvera confronts that dilemma in John Leslie's latest charbroiler, Strange Curves. With generous helpings of Hitchcock and solid acting from Silvera as the victim of circumstance and Scott Irish (the performance of his career) as his antagonist, this is one of those melodramas that gleefully sinks its hooks into you and never lets go. Dare I suggest it doesn't even need the sex to be involving?

But since we're on the subject, Leslie's sexual interpretations fit beautifully into this kind of story: the characters are all strange to begin with, and they all stare down one another in pregnant pauses, allowing their eyes to control the scene. And there's always the plaintiff wail of a jazz saxophone somewhere in strikind distance. No director in the business works that dusky element better.

April West, as always, is luscious. Charli comes on board for a cameo sex scene with Tom Byron that's teasing and pulsating. And long-limbed Kelli Warner joins Leslie's new brunette of the month club in an outstanding threesome with Silvera and Sasha.

Excellent, really excellent adult drama that delivers on all four burners.