Category Archives: Fiction

Fiction, Reviews

Tale of the Nine-Tailed: A Well-Written Fantasy TV Series

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Recently, a TV adaptation of a popular Marvel comics storyline ended its run by tripping over its feet and kissing the synthetic rubber track. Many superhero fans didn’t even watch, and many others hated their experience (not everyone, just many). The director said he was told not to read the source material and that he didn’t want to make a story that leaned into its own genre, so the show introduced story elements and tone only to set them on the shelf. I don’t know what the producers were expecting. It’s the latest installment of high value entertainment prospects that failed.

If you’d like to watch a fantasy series that is actually well-written and different to most Americans, look up Tale of the Nine-Tailed, a 16-episode Korean series starring Lee Dong Wook and Jo Bo Ah and directed by Kang Shin Hyo. The story focuses on mythological foxes (gumiho), who are traditionally wily and mischievous. The old stories say the nine-tailed fox is seeking to become human by some trial over a thousand years. The main fox of this story was once a mountain god who fell in love with a young woman. When that woman was murdered, he gave up his divine position in hopes of finding her reincarnation one day.

At the beginning of Tale of the Nine-Tailed, Lee Yeon, the fox, is hunting down lesser foxes who are posing as humans and killing them. I forget why he is hunting them, if it’s more than just defending humanity. TV producer Nam Ji Ah is building evidence for her version of X files when she notices Yeon’s distinctive umbrella. Somehow, she ropes him into accompanying her to a remote island village where she hopes to find a clue to her parents’ disappearance (her motive for researching paranormal accounts). In these 3-4 episodes, the show has a horror tone. Traditional Korean shamanism is displayed throughout the series, and you see some of the ugly practices in these episodes. It lightens up after this, leaning first into a romantic storyline and plunging into fantasy for the rest of it. Yeon is plagued by many things, primarily his murderous half-brother Rang, who resembles Loki in attitude and miscreant behavior. The tension between the brothers is compelling to watch.

I mention it here because the writing is strong throughout. Wikipedia credits Han Woo-ri for this. Bravo. Yeon is presented as crafty with great, but not unlimited, knowledge. Many mythological foes come after him, and they never lay a hand on him because he’s an idiot. He works the situation, turning the tables when he can. None of his victories feels forced or as if he has read the script. Once, the irritating trope of loving her so much he can’t tell the truth is used to bridge two episodes, but it’s short lived and nothing else stands out as clichéd.

A second season was released this summer on Amazon. I hope I can find a way to see it.

In other news —

Reviews: Bad reviews can be helpful. “Instead of specialties, we were known by our critical styles: We were the Shredder, the Beheader and the Fredder.”

Funny Stuff: “A sense of humour is just common sense, dancing. Those who lack humour are without judgment and should be trusted with nothing.”

Fiction, Reviews

‘Murder on the Farm,’ by Bruce Beckham

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One does not look for great variety in Bruce Beckham’s Inspector Skelgill novels, set in England’s Cumbria. Skelgill himself is a thoroughly eccentric country detective, not a linear thinker but intuitive, his instincts honed by time spent in nature. Nor do his subordinates surprise us much. DS Leyton, a London transplant, is stolid but loyal and dependable, the Watson of the team. DS Jones, an attractive young woman, is smart and can be expected to rise in the service. There’s also deep but private attraction between her and Skelgill.

In Murder on the Farm, their publicity-hungry superior agrees to lend Jones to a team of television documentarians who are re-examining an old unsolved murder. Back in the 1970s, a young man was murdered with a shotgun while making a delivery to a posh country estate. Later, two local criminals were arrested and convicted in the case. But their conviction has been overturned, based on police misconduct. There is another possible suspect, an unpleasant fellow who served ten years for a later, similar shotgun killing. The star of the documentary team, a celebrity criminologist, is certain this man is the true killer. He has a plan to unmask him in front of the cameras, producing amazement and high ratings.

Skelgill is concerned, first of all, that the criminologist has sexual designs on DS Jones. But more than that, he thinks the criminologist’s scenario is simplistic. He himself perceives deeper and more sinister possibilities and a wider range of suspects.

Murder on the Farm offers all the usual pleasures of this series: Skelgill’s disingenuous simplicity, political and departmental pressures, Cumbrian food and dialects, wheels within wheels. I enjoyed reading it. No bad words that I recall or gratuitous sex or violence.

Fiction

Classic Reading: Kristin Lavransdatter

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Joel Miller has been reading classic novels this year and reviewed Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter this week.

“If you peel away the layer of ideas and conceptions that are particular to your own time period,” Undset once said, “then you can step right into the Middle Ages and see life from the medieval point of view—and it will coincide with your own view.”

In Sigrid Undset’s skillful hands, it’s impossible to imagine any other outcome.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Poison Path,’ by Solomon Carter

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On the beach at Southend, England, a ragtag group of young “guerilla filmmakers” is shooting a movie, one they hope will lead to their big break. Their “star,” a washed-up, alcoholic TV actor, appears to be dozing by the pier. But he’s not dozing – he’s dead. It looks as if he fell asleep there the night before and froze to death. But the crime scene investigator notices suspicious signs. This brings in the police team – Inspector Joe Hogarth and his younger subordinates, Detectives Palmer and Simmons. Then, when Hogarth’s oldest, greatest enemy appears, a villain who’s now a member of Parliament (Tory, of course), Hogarth’s back is well and truly put up—for better or worse. So begins The Poison Path, by Solomon Carter.

I’ve read one Inspector Hogarth book before. I found it well-written but rather dreary; the hero is solitary, depressed, and has a drinking problem. This is a later book, and he seems to be doing a little better – there’s some subdued flirtation with his female subordinate, Palmer. Still, he remains driven, lonely, and obsessed. He’d fit in well in a Scandinavian Noir story, I think. One interesting and unusual element was that our hero is not always right, like so many fictional detectives. In fact, he’s wrong quite a lot of the time. Mostly, he lets his feelings run away with him.

So, all in all, The Poison Path wasn’t bad. Not my favorite kind of story, but I’ve got no real complaints.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Bull Rush,’ by David Chill

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The Burnside books by David Chill comprise a PI series I’d never heard of. Yet in many ways Bull Rush was exactly what I look for in a detective book.

Burnside (like Spenser he goes by his surname) is a private eye in Los Angeles. An old acquaintance comes to his office to ask him to look for his missing adult son. The young man was once a hot pro football prospect (Burnside himself is a former college player and sports culture permeates the story), but now he works for a slightly shady real estate operation. The young man has had trouble with drugs in the past, so it’s likely he’s passed out somewhere.


Burnside isn’t entirely happy with the job – the father was never someone he liked a whole lot. On top of that, Burnside knows he got the referral from another mutual “friend,” a crooked sports agent who’s always playing the angles. But it’s a legitimate job, and he isn’t in a position to turn it down.

Then, in the course of his search, Burnside stumbles on a murder victim. Now he’ll have to deal with the police. And soon, with politicians and the very wealthy.

What pleased me best about Bull Rush was its traditional qualities. Burnside doesn’t have an ideological agenda. He doesn’t have a kick-butt female partner. He’s not involved in deconstructing or normalizing anything. He’s just doing a human job among human beings. The main way he differs from your classic Golden Age gumshoe is in having a wife and a young son. Oh yes, and a psychotherapist he sees regularly.

The writing in Bull Rush was clean and professional, without either pyrotechnics or illiteracies. The characters were believable, the dialogue sharp. This is honest, meat-and-potatoes detective fiction. I recommend it highly.

Fiction, Reviews

‘After Death,’ by Dean Koontz

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Duty is based on something more profound than hope, on faith that what is too wrong to endure will be made right, rectified by a system of justice that underlies all of nature, far beneath the subatomic level, a system that may right a wrong in a day or through the passage of time or outside of time. The schedule isn’t ours to protest or endorse. His duty is to act with all the skill and wisdom he possesses, not with hope but with conviction.

Rejoice! We have a new Dean Koontz book. He just keeps rolling them out – always good, sometimes exceptional. After Death is somewhat reminiscent of Koontz’ recent series of novellas about a character called Nameless. But it handles similar concepts in a different way.

Michael Mace was dead, and is alive again. It wasn’t a miracle in the religious sense, but it still may change the world. Michael was head of security at Beautification Research, a company that was ostensibly a cosmetics business but actually did top-secret genetic and nanotech research. When an accidental leak kills everyone in the building, Michael dies with all the rest. But then he wakes up. And now he’s changed. He has new powers that give him mental access to all the information on the internet. No firewall can stop him.

The first item on his agenda is to help a single mother named Nina Dozier and her son John. Michael’s best friend and co-worker Shelby was very fond of them, and probably would have courted her if he’d lived. They’re in danger from John’s natural father, a gang lord who’s decided it’s time to claim his son and make him his successor. Nina will have to be taught a lesson too, for dissing him.

But there’s a larger danger than that. It comes from the Internal Security Agency, the corrupt law enforcement body that supports the corrupt bureaucracy now running the country. Their chief agent is a psychopath named Duran Calaphas, an efficient killer but increasingly delusional. He takes Michael’s appearance as a personal sign for him, giving him a worthy foe he must destroy in order to achieve his grandiose personal destiny. Without loyalty to anyone or anything but himself, Calaphas will stop at nothing, destroy anything, to kill Michael Mace. And his companions.

Koontz hits every note precisely, manipulates the reader with the deft hand of a master. It’s beautiful to behold. Especially delightful (for me) was one amazing plot twist unlike anything I’d ever read before (it involves storytelling). A delightful moment.

My only quibble (spoiler alert) was that I thought the ending might have been too good to be true. But that’s no great failing in a book. No failing at all, actually. We’re allowed a happy ending from time to time.

Highly recommended.

Authors, Fiction

James Scott Bell interview

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Above, an interview — a few years old — with author James Scott Bell. Among the topics touched on are whether writers are born or made, and if a series character can have a character arc.

He mentions his blog, Kill Zone, which I wasn’t aware of. You can find it here.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Up Close and Fatal,’ by Fergus McNeill

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‘More and more, people tend to confuse “understanding” with “agreement”,’ he said, leaning forward in his chair, and resting his elbows on his knees. ‘If you say you understand something bad… like a racist or sexist comment, for example… then people accuse you of being racist or sexist. They deliberately confuse understanding with agreement….”

Two “gripping” novels in a row that were actually gripping. I’m on a roll, I guess. Up Close and Fatal, by Fergus McNeill, was a fascinating, sometimes creepy ride.

Tom Pritchard is an Englishman living in New York City. Once a successful journalist, his career is on the skids now. He’s divorced and guilty about neglecting his young son.

One day he gets an envelope in the mail. Inside the envelope is a numbered list. There are names next to some of the numbers, next to others are blank lines. There’s also a driver’s license belonging to a woman, one of the people named on the list. A quick web search shows that the woman is the victim of an unsolved murder. In fact, all the people named have been murdered, but in widely separated locations, and nobody seems to have guessed at a link.

Tom calls a police detective friend to tell him about it. The friend is intrigued, but says this material by itself isn’t enough to take to his superiors.

Soon Tom gets a phone call from the sender. This man, who call himself J, tells Tom he’s been killing these people, because the world is a better place without them. He’s read Tom’s work and was impressed by it. He wants to tell Tom his story, so he can write it the right way.

This gets Tom a meeting with the police, and they agree to give him protection and a tracking chip so he can be bait in their trap. But when he arrives at the rendezvous point, a remote spot upstate, J never appears. However, when Tom gets home he’s attacked, tazed, and dumped in a car trunk.

J still wants Tom to write his story. But he wants him to understand it from up close – through accompanying him on his pilgrimage of murder as he completes his list. And if Tom interferes, J has arranged for his son to be murdered.

It gets worse when they encounter an innocent witness. What will Tom do to prevent J killing her to shut her mouth?

Up Close and Fatal was a well-written book (American location, English orthography) that kept the dramatic tension dialed all the way up. The social awkwardness of enforced socialization with someone you despise, who can nevertheless be charming or even thoughtful at times, compelled my interest. Also, there was a great twist at the end. I was highly impressed.

The only oddity was when Tom and J are riding around in a big SUV and the author keeps talking about its trunk. What’s with that?

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Nice Guy and the Devil,’ by Tom Trott

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If your great complaint about the world of thriller novels is that they all tend to look the same (and it’s often a valid complaint ), Tom Trott’s Cain novels might just be what you’re looking for. I’m not sure The Nice Guy and the Devil was my cup of tea, but it was definitely original.

Harrison Byers (known as “Cain”) is a Canadian, a former CIA operative (not sure how that works). He’s in Nice, France, enjoying the weather, when he notices a small, unprepossessing man asking clumsy questions about his “missing sister.” Cain figures him for an amateur trying to be a private eye. But when he notices the woman the man described sitting alone in a café, he can’t help introducing himself.

They make a date, but the unprepossessing man shows up at Cain’s apartment and commits suicide in front of them. The police come and arrest both him and the woman, and when they’re finally released they spend the night together. She asks him to accompany him to her daughter’s wedding the next day, and he figures why not? Little do they expect that the reception will be attacked by terrorists, one person kidnapped, and several others murdered. Cain sets off in pursuit, soon teaming up with a young Interpol agent who’s the daughter of an old friend.

The most surprising element in the story is Cain himself. He’s not your bog standard thriller hero. He’s middle-aged, bald and overweight (he actually wears a toupee and a girdle). But he still has his shooting skills and his fighting instincts, along with (sometimes insane) nerve. The story is packed with suspense and danger, the big twist at the end comes at you out of left field, and the conclusion is satisfying.

What annoyed me was the author’s habit of not describing characters until they’ve been on stage for a while. This is particularly aggravating when he fails to tell us the character’s race, and then makes race an issue. It’s as if he’s first saying, “Look how colorblind I am,” then turning and saying to the reader, “Why were you so racist as to assume they were white?”

On the other hand, there’s a devout Christian character in the book, and his faith is treated respectfully.

The Nice Guy and the Devil was a very neat thriller, capably plotted and written. I didn’t love it, but it was professionally done.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Murder At the Bridge,’ by Bruce Beckham

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Skelgill reels in and turns his boat. He takes a bearing off Skiddaw Little Man; keeping the false summit dead astern will send him arrowing into Peel Wyke, the tiny hidden wooded inlet that has echoes of the wild oarsmen that once ruled these parts, literally the ‘Wyke-ings’, the Norse ‘baymen’, who left their mark on today’s maps with descriptions that abound, like beck and dale, fell and pike, gill and skel.

The snippet above features one of those not infrequent references to the Vikings of Cumbria that add to the appeal of the Inspector Skelgill books (for me). Skelgill is an odd sort of policeman, operating primarily off his instincts as an outdoorsman and fisherman. In Murder At the Bridge, he actually discovers one clue by following a literal scent in the air, like a bloodhound.

Kyle Betony is an “outcomer” to Cumbria, a brash go-getter who fits in poorly with the other members of the Derwentdale Angler’s Association (of which Inspector Skelgill himself is a low-key member). But he managed to get elected to the board of directors anyway. When his body is found, dressed in evening clothes, floating in the River Ouse, it could mean he accidentally fell from the bridge, but indications on the body, as well as the river currents, suggest foul play. Betony had been attending the annual banquet of the DAA board that night. An old photograph has been stolen from the wall of the inn where the banquet was held. It was a group photo, including the image of a man now a fugitive murderer. Was the man in the photograph the man who was now calling himself Kyle Betony? Or did Betony recognize that man and get murdered for his knowledge?

Murder At the Bridge was largely what I’d call a “shoe leather” mystery. Most of the book is taken up with interviews with various suspects and the comparison of alibis. This lowered the level of suspense until the very end, when things picked up nicely. The conclusion was satisfying, and provided a clearer confirmation of Skelgill’s relationship with his female subordinate, DS Jones, than I think we’ve had before.

Murder At the Bridge was far from my favorite book in the Skelgill series, but it’s worth reading. One nice element is the creative circumlocutions the author employs in order to avoid actual profanity.