Category Archives: Fiction

Fiction, Reviews

‘Gallows Walk,’ by Giles Ekins

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Lately I’ve been spending too much time scrolling through those short videos you find on Facebook and YouTube (I believe many of them originate with Tiktok, but I’ve never dared cross that threshold). I had conceived a fear that, like so many people nowadays, I was losing my ability to concentrate. Perhaps my impatience with the novels I’ve been reading lately arose from losing my capacity to persevere through a book.

Gallows Walk by Giles Ekins relieved my mind greatly. The book has many flaws, but it engaged my interest and kept me reading.

Gallows Walk is the first volume in a series set in the town of West Garside, near the city of Sheffield in Yorkshire, during the early 1950s. Our hero is Detective Inspector Christopher Yarrow. He was a flyer in World War II, but lost an eye, rendering him unfit for duty. He is mourning the early death of his wife. He is an intelligent and sympathetic policeman, annoyed by the laziness and bullying tactics employed by some of the older detectives.

The story involves many subplots, but the main narrative concerns a robbery that goes badly wrong. A career criminal attempts to grab a bag of payroll money being carried by a messenger, but meeting resistance, ends up killing a man with a shotgun and, in his escape, hitting a little girl with his car, causing her death. The criminal goes into hiding, and we follow the manhunt as Inspector Yarrow follows up every clue with frustratingly slow progress, and the criminal discovers how hard it is to keep a low profile in a country howling for your blood.

Author Ekins has an unusual style. He tells the story in an episodic way, pausing now and then to provide historical information that’s not strictly necessary to the story – the sort of thing some authors would put in footnotes. The story moves at a leisurely pace, which readers could find boring. But it all worked quite well for me. I liked the depth of the characters – good and bad – and Yarrow’s sympathetic nature. Some digs are taken at the traditional sexual roles of the time, and I confess I sympathized a good deal with the old guard. Still, by and large I found the book very congenial.

The author has some bad habits. The grammar isn’t always correct, and he has a bad habit of forgetting the initial quotation marks in subsequent paragraphs of an extended speech. He also sometimes forgets which tense he’s writing in.

Nevertheless, I very much enjoyed Gallows Walk, and have bought the sequel.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Hunted,’ by James Phelan

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I bought this book previous to my recent resolution (dropped a few posts ago) to ease back on buying thrillers. Just as I grow older and more mellow in my tastes, the thriller genre is on an increasing trajectory of ever-more-implausible cinematic violence and suspense too intense for my old heart.

James Phelan’s The Hunted isn’t actually all that extreme in those regards, but I had trouble getting into it nonetheless.

As you probably don’t recall, I liked Lee Childs’ Jack Reacher books, but swore off when he made it obvious how much he despises Christian Evangelicals. James Phelan’s Jed Walker is advertised as in the Reacher vein, and his last name’s Walker, so I figured I’d give it a shot.

Jed Walker, former Air Force commando (apparently such creatures exist), former CIA covert operative, is similar to Jack Reacher in size, strength, and fighting skills. Otherwise, he lacks Reacher’s intriguing Zen simplicity. Jed is basically a fairly normal guy, with relationships and everything. A couple years ago he was forced to fake his death and stay dead for a year – during which time his wife grieved and then remarried. He still loves her.

He also has a father, another covert operations type. Jed is searching for him, but not because of filial piety. His father is somehow involved with a project called Zodiac, a planned sequence of terrorist attacks, each to be the trigger for the next.

In his investigations, Jed learns that several members of the strike team that killed Osama Bin Laden have been murdered, all in a short period of time. He believes this is connected to Zodiac in some way. He heads to the Ozarks to locate the one survivor – a wilderness-wise Marine who lives in a remote compound, guarding his family. Jed races with a team of assassins to reach the man first.

On the way he teams up with the man’s cousin – who is, of course, a young, pretty woman who does her best to seduce him (but Jed is admirably resistant – he still loves his wife).

There was nothing particularly wrong with The Hunted. It kept the action going through many very short chapters. The characters were varied and individual, though they never really grabbed me. I thought the villains’ motives were a little muddled, and the climax confused me – though that may have been my fault for not paying close enough attention.

The author has an unfortunate tendency to repeat observational passages, and could have used better editing. He is apparently English, as he occasionally falls into Britishisms, such as “crisps” and “boot” (for a car trunk).

The Hunted was okay. You might like it. I found it a little thin.

Fiction, Reviews

Reasons to Watch ‘Star Wars: Skeleton Crew’

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Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, the latest TV series from a once-beloved franchise, ended this week. It is a space pirate adventure that many compared to Treasure Island, because of a mythical planet loaded with treasure and Jude Law’s character being named (among other things) Captain John Silvo. I watched the show with my oldest daughter, who noticed Silvo’s character arc resembles Long John Silver.

I said when I posted a review of the series’ first half that it wasn’t very Star-Warsy, because nothing essential to the story is essential to the core story of Star Wars; but the second half improved on that front. It would be a big spoiler (perhaps the biggest) to give the strongest bit of evidence on this point, but I could note the introduction of a light saber in episode 5 and an important part of Star Wars history comes into play by the end.

We enjoyed it. The children, who are each roughly 13 years old, mature during the adventure–not much, but noticeably. Silvo is the most interesting, because he’s a charismatic pirate of uncertain motivation. Is he a complete villain or is he just greedy or insecure? Will he do right by the kids at the end?

It’s a good show, not a deep one. It didn’t have syrupy morals found along the way and it had a few moments of … peril. But the final episode leaned hard on the logic of a show made for younger audiences. Again, I don’t want to give big spoilers, but I will note that Dr. Doofenshmirtz has repeatedly taught us the value of not building self-destruct switches into your villainous weapons and that applies to other mechanics as well.

Reports says Skeleton Crew hasn’t drawn many viewers, and the critics I listen to blame previous shows for wasting any hopes the fans may still have. A good show, they say, won’t draw anyone back. It needs to be blockbuster. And a TV show probably can’t get there. Maybe later viewing numbers will improve its reception, but the current outlook is that Disney doesn’t know how to tell great stories.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Chaos Agent,’ by Mark Greaney

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I think I’m getting too old for thrillers. I find (somewhat to my horror) that I want more from my reading than explosions and gunfights and chases. Next thing I know I’ll be reading Trollope and Thackery. Shoot me now.

Anyway, Mark Greaney’s The Chaos Agent wasn’t actually that bad, compared to most of the competition. There were lots of fights and murders and our heroes took some damage, but it wasn’t the kind of unbelievable action where the hero suffers broken bones and a concussion, rips the IV tubes out of his arm, and stomps back out to carry on the fight and absorb yet more damage. This book was big and loud without being wholly unbelievable.

In fact, its believability is the most disturbing thing about it.

In The Chaos Agent, Greaney’s continuing hero, Court Gentry, the Gray Man, free-lance operative, is living under an assumed name with his girlfriend, defected Russian agent Zoya Zakharova, in Central America, determined to keep a low profile. But Zoya gets contacted by an old friend, a mentor to whom she owes a favor. He needs her help – a number of computer geniuses around the world have been assassinated recently, and he’s trying to get a Russian genius to safety. Court agrees to help with the operation, but it all goes sideways – they barely survive.

Soon the pair is hip-deep in a deep-cover US operation to find and eliminate the assassin. Only it’s not an ordinary assassin. It’s a coordinated operation by killer robots – drones and armed four-legged machines. What’s worse, the robots’ actions and reactions indicate they are not being controlled electronically, but are actually thinking for themselves. This is high level, untethered Artificial Intelligence, faster and more deadly than any human.

The Chaos Agent is really quite a thoughtful book, underneath all the fight scenes and heroics. Serious questions are asked about the implications of AI, what kind of controls we need – and what kind of controls may even be possible. It’s all pretty scary.

The Chaos Agent is a good book. A good entry in one of the best action series out there. Cautions for violence and language, I hardly need add.

My main complaint is the length. I don’t think a thriller needs to be this long. Keep it snappy, authors.

Fiction, Poetry, Reviews

Sir Gawain: What It Means to Be a Real Man

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I didn’t realize Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was set at Christmastime when I picked it up several days ago, so reading it during the Christmas break was seasonal as well as enriching. It could be the poem for modern men today. It’s focus on chastity in the face of strong seduction would make modern readers heads spin.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight begins with a striking man walking into King Arthur’s court.

“For all men marvelled what it might mean
That a horseman and his horse should have such a colour
As to grow green as grass . . .”

He says he’s looking for sport, which is the feeling of everyone in the court already. Arthur loved hearing the exploits of his men. The green knight offered a challenge: Any man could strike him with a fierce blow if he would agree to seek him out in one year’s time to receive a blow in kind from him. Even though everyone thought such a challenge was madness, they also couldn’t refuse it.

“‘By heaven,’ then said Arthur, ‘What you ask is foolish,
But as you firmly seek folly, find it you shall.'”

Sir Gawain, who is the greatest of Arthur’s knights (in the early tales) and his nephew, is the one to suggest to the king someone else accept the challenge in case it goes the way everyone suspects. No need to lose the king to a jolly green giant.

This is the part of the story you’ve likely heard. What follows is another regular year until All Saints Day when Gawain leaves to find the Green Chapel, because “Why falter I or fear? What should man do but dare?” He searched without any prospects until Christmastime. Then he prays and then comes across “the comeliest castle” that “shimmered and shone through the shining oaks.”

He stays there several nights enjoying great and chivalrous hospitality, and that’s when things get weird. The host and all of his men intend to spend the next day hunting, but he urges Gawain to continue resting at the castle, and he proposes this “bargain”: whatever gains they earn in the woods or in the castle will be exchanged. Gawain thinks it’s a great deal.

I found this bargain very strange. What could Gawain possibly achieve within the castle? Spoiler alert: It’s his good host’s wife!

Part three describes three temptations or seductions paired with the exploits of the hunting party. Readers and listeners are meant understand the hunting party illustrates the Gawain’s seduction. That’s the reason I say young men ought to read and talk about this poem. If a woman boldly invited you into adultery, how would you handle it? For Gawain, chivalric manners are high virtue, so he can’t just turn her away. In fact, he seems to agree with her proposal, “but Sir Gawain was on guard in a gracious manner.”

The text seems to say Gawain would not indulge this woman because he is his imminent death at the hand of the Green Knight (line 1285). Maybe that is one motivator, the other and primary one being Christian morality, and if it is factor, doesn’t that strike sparks against modern men who would likely argue the other way. Believing they were about to die, why not take the host’s wife?

One theme we can draw from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a common question that brings out bucket lists: If you knew you were going to die in a year, what would you do? The greatest knight in Camelot not only sought out the man he believed would kill him but also sought every virtue he could recognize.

Why would anyone choose to throw all morality in the bin because he believed he would die in a year? We’re all going to die–this winter or next, this decade or next. Does believing you can see your finish line approaching mean virtue no longer has value? Wouldn’t that argue that you believe virtue has no real value for you now, while your death is still hidden from you?

Fiction, Reviews

‘Murder, Mere Murder,’ by Bruce Beckham

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I had gotten a little behind in my reading of Bruce Beckham’s Inspector Skelgill mysteries, set in Cumberland, which is why I’m reviewing another so soon after reviewing the previous installment. This new one, Murder, Mere Murder, is one of the best of the series, I think.

Buttermere is the lake near which Inspector Skelgill grew up, but he doesn’t get up there much anymore. It’s out of the way, and has no good boat access for fishing – beside which, the fishing isn’t very good anyway.

But one day a couple hobby divers discover a woman’s body, wrapped in plastic, at the bottom of the mere. Immediately Skelgill heads for the area, along with his subordinates, Sergeants Jones and Leyton, to find out whether anybody’s missing. Initially, clues are few. Yet there is no lack of shady citizens who seem to have one or two secrets. A couple local men were having affairs with mysterious women who might conceivably have been the deceased. And there’s a strange lesbian couple, one of them a famous mystery writer, who both show an unexpected sexual interest in Skelgill. Meanwhile, an ambitious police rival is jockeying to grab the case for himself.

There’s a lot of subtle humor here as Skelgill deals with the predatory lesbians, but there’s also well-crafted rising tension and a climax worthy of a movie.

My only quibbles are (as usual) the present tense narrative (though it doesn’t really bother me; I only object on principle), and the fact that the author misuses the phrase, “begs the question.” He should know better.

Quite entertaining. Recommended.

Fiction, Reviews

Star Wars: Skeleton Crew – A Long Way Home

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A skeleton crew (from 1778 military usage) is a term meaning the smallest team needed to do a job or keep the ship running. That and the pirate-vibe skeletons have may be the reason the new Disney+ series has its title. Maybe the four kids teamed with a pirate and pirate-themed droid will accomplish a big job for their civilization; hopefully, the final episode won’t have someone saying, “Look what they accomplished — and with a skeleton crew no less.” Or worse: “We’re a real team now. The galaxy will feel the power of …”

So far, four episodes have been released, and the show isn’t bad. The main actors, who are 13-14 years old, are stretching their skills and performing well. The fast-talking biker girl and the reckless boy who seems to forget their clear and present danger in seconds do get tiring, but unlike many other series, the show has only touched those tropes lightly.

Watch the trailer to see exactly the tone and direction of this show. There’s a moment I enjoyed from the second ep (not in the trailer, but close) where they ask their droid to take them home. The droid doesn’t know of their planet, so he points out the capsule window at thousands of stars and says, “Okay, which one is it?”

At the end of that episode, the kids have been locked up with none of their goods confiscated. They meet Jude Law, the pirate, and he helps them escape. They get through a crowded space port with people who probably would have recognized them from the scuffle that happened an hour or so ago, but hey, are you checking a list of details? Let this one slide. In episode three, they go to a new planet, learn something, and get into a slight scrape with professional space pilots. In episode four, they go to another planet, get into a much bigger scrape, and learn something else. It’s not a bad pattern, but thinking of the sci-fi TV shows of yesteryear, the pattern could be cleaner.

It’s a good show. So far, nothing has been wasted. I haven’t noticed any turn of events that negates or undermines everything that comes before it. The main question many people have asked it whether it’s a Star Wars story, and I wouldn’t say it is. It’s a fun, side story that doesn’t clash with the Star Wars saga as I know it, except maybe in its use of alien lifeforms. Whenever I see a Hammerhead type walking around like an average citizen, I think that kind of alien should probably be reserved as one of the bad guys. There are many like that. But if Star Wars is essentially about rebels fighting the Galactic Empire or Jedis resisting the Sith, Skeleton Crew isn’t one of those stories. It’s an adventure with kids in space.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Vanishing Kin,’ by Thomas Fincham

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[Since I know you’ve been waiting for news, I’ll just interject a short status report on my surgery, and then move on. I’m always willing to hear about people’s ills, but I’d rather not know the details.

My surgery went by the numbers. Everything seems to be on track. (Special thanks to my friend Mark, who drove me there and back.) The first 24 hours involved certain restrictions on my movements that were annoying, but that has passed. I have blurred vision in one eye and some minor irritation. But I seem on track for a complete recovery – though not a full and useful life – it’s a little late for that.]

I shall review yet another mystery novel here – The Vanishing Kin, by Thomas Fincham. I am given to understand it’s part of an ongoing series about a detective named Lee Callaway. In this story Callaway is contacted by an old man whose son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren disappeared suddenly about 15 years ago. No trace of them has ever been found.

There’s a parallel plot about a female police officer investigating the death of a video blogger who posted short films about living in a van on the road, who has been discovered beaten to death near her van.

I am a longsuffering man. Sometimes I pick up a story that could be better written, but the author seems to be able to tell a good story at a basic level, even if they lack style. I am almost never happy I did that. I wasn’t this time either.

Years ago I took some kind of correspondence writing course where one of our exercises was to cut a long passage down to a short passage. It’s amazing how much any piece of writing can be compressed if you search out shorter words and phrases, more active verbs, fewer descriptors. This author should have taken that course. He’s always piling the information on, to try to make sure we understand his points:

Callaway wasn’t going to tell Joely what he thought. That’s not what a friend would do at a time like this. They wouldn’t try to put salt on an open wound. That would only make the matter worse. And plus, it wouldn’t bring either Rosie or the money back.

Look at that paragraph. Now cut out all but the first two sentences. Would the reader lose anything?

The Vanishing Kin is not a very good job of writing, and I can’t account for all the positive reviews it has gotten on Amazon.

Fiction

M. R. James Ghost Story Performed by Christopher Lee

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Author M. R. James (1862–1936) is known for his ghost stories. The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, where he was director for fifteen years, called him “the originator of the ‘antiquarian ghost story.'” In doing so, he updated such stories for a new generation. He told these stories to friends and students at King’s and Eton Colleges on Christmas Eve, and since we’ve told our own stories in like manner, allow me to share this wonderful video of Christopher Lee performing “A Warning to the Curious” in a setting akin to James’ Christmas Eve parties.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Chalk Man,’ by Adam Lyndon

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I think I’ve reached an age where I’m just going to start avoiding thrillers, unless they’re particularly recommended by some dear and trusted friend. Because it seems there’s a kind of arms race going on among thriller writers, to see how implausibly horrible they can make their heroes’ (and heroines’) plights as they weave their ever-tightening plot nooses. How much punishment can the human body – and mind – suffer without actually killing your hero or wearing out your readers?

Rutherford Barnes, the hero of Adam Lyndon’s The Chalk Man does not actually rip an IV needle from his arm and walk out of an emergency ward with bullet wounds and a concussion (my personal most hated thriller trope), but he and his friends certainly endure a lot more than I found plausible.

Detective Barnes is a policeman in Eastbourne, on the Sussex coast of England. In previous books in this series he apparently suffered the loss of his wife in an auto accident, which he is convinced was caused by a particular crime boss. He managed to get that crime boss sent to prison, and during that incarceration the criminal’s family was killed. He blames Barnes personally and has vowed revenge when he gets out.

When a deadly gas is released in downtown Eastbourne during the height of the Christmas shopping season, it brings all personnel out on full alert. Which means there’s nobody paying much attention when Barnes reports his eight-year-old stepdaughter missing. He certainly gets no help from his supervisor, who hates his guts. So Barnes is on the case alone, his only helpers an Inspector friend (who tends to go missing unexpectedly) and a sympathetic civilian data analyst. And that’s only the beginning of an orchestrated plot that will have Barnes fighting to save his new family and his own life, and to prevent an act of terrorism.

For this reader, it was all a bit much. There was nothing really wrong with The Chalk Man. The writing was good, the dialogue believable, the characters adequate – except for their superhuman resilience. Especially in the case of the two main female characters, who were (as one would expect) spunky and absolutely not to be intimidated. Like all the others nowadays.

Anyway, the book was fine, and may be just what you want for an exciting read. It made me tired.