Category Archives: Fiction

Fiction, Non-fiction

Zelensky as the ‘Servant of the People’

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Anthony Sacramone reviews an episode of a recent TV series about a high school history teacher who became president that stars the lawyer-turn-comedian who is the current president of Ukraine.

“In short, no one believes what is in fact the truth: A common man without guile or political experience is now the most powerful person in the country, thanks to a popular assent collated by the internet, the same medium that brings you cats falling off pony walls and Russian disinformation. Can you blame them?”

He says it’s funny, endearing, and probably has more heart than many comedies.

In April 2019, when Zelensky won national election, the BBC summarized his victory.

With nearly all ballots counted in the run-off vote, Mr Zelensky had taken more than 73% with incumbent Petro Poroshenko trailing far behind on 24%.

“I will never let you down,” Mr Zelensky told celebrating supporters.

…

Experts say his supporters, frustrated with establishment politicians and cronyism, have been energised by his charisma and anti-corruption message.

May the Lord give him many years to fulfill this promise.

Authors, Fiction, Goofing

‘A Voice From the Past’

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As a man who likes to work (and needs to work) I’m pleased to say that I’m kind of snowed under these days. Which leaves me little time for either reading (for reviews) or composing those pearls of wit and wisdom that make me so beloved by more discriminating spirits on several continents. So of what shall I blog?

I remembered an old British TV series, “Wodehouse Playhouse,” of which I’ve seen a few episodes. I searched YouTube and found only one — this one, which I haven’t seen. However, it starts well, and it’s a Mulliner story. It’s presented in segments, and (if I understand correctly) you can follow them through the suggested links, collecting them all and impressing your friends.

Have a good evening.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Witnesses,’ by Robert Whitlow

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It’s generally a mistake to look for excellence in contemporary Christian fiction (or any other kind of fiction, to be fair). When excellence does appear, it’s a wonderful gift. One to savor. It behooves a grumpy old reviewer like me to be thankful when a Christian novel is okay.

The Witnesses, by Robert Whitlow, is okay.

Parker House is a young attorney in New Bern, North Carolina. He’s working for a small firm, and his bosses work him pretty hard. But he’s proving a valuable asset (though his bosses won’t admit it yet) because of his remarkable talent for making good guesses.

Parker has a grandfather, Frank, who immigrated from Switzerland after World War II. But he’s mysterious about his origins. He is not, in fact, Swiss, but German. And during the war he was valued by his Nazi superiors as someone able to intuit enemy positions and intentions. And, incidentally, places where treasure might be concealed. Frank deserted at last, but he still bears a weight of guilt.

When a man Frank doesn’t remember, who tells him he saved his life once, shows up at his door, Frank is troubled. He only wants to put the past behind him. Frank’s intuition tells him more is going on than the old acquaintance told him.

Meanwhile, young Parker is being headhunted by a famous trial lawyer, who seems to have sensed his hidden gifts. The lawyer has a beautiful daughter whom Parker falls for, but that turns out to be a complication, as she’s bitterly estranged from her father. She gives Parker an ultimatum: You can work for my dad, or you can date me.

The Witnesses kept my interest all through, though I found the writing fairly flat. The Christian elements approached the awkward sometimes (for me, but I’m sensitive). However, the final spiritual climax was quite moving.

I have problems with the idea of anything like “extrasensory perception” as a gift of the Holy Spirit. The author seems to identify it with the gift of prophecy, but I’m wary of such things. So – at least from the point of view of my church – I’d call The Witnesses iffy on the orthodoxy side.

Your beliefs may vary. Nothing objectionable in the content. I think many of our readers may enjoy The Witnesses.

Authors, Blogs, Socials, Coffee, Tea, Drinks, Fiction, Poetry

Heeding the Dark Side, Janus-headed Poetry, and Serpents in the Classroom

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“Nature’s dark side is heeded now–“

Herman Melville wrote a poem in 1860 of his “Misgivings” before The Civil War.

“With shouts of the torrents down the gorges go,
And storms are formed behind the storm we feel:
The hemlock shakes in the rafter, the oak in the driving keel.”

We’ve had storms and rumors of storms for about a month.

This week, the Russian army bombed a large theater in Mariupol, Ukraine, trapping over a thousand people who were sheltering from the siege. Last week, The Guardian ran an article reporting that some believe such destruction is an intentional effort to wipe out Ukrainian heritage and identity, to steamroll their country into Soviet-era sameness with Russia. (via Prufrock)

It’s difficult to take my mind off of the rattling, explosive thunder from the other side of the world. But here are a few other things.

The Complete Review reads The Runes Have Been Cast by Robert Irwin (not a recommendation to our readers, but still of possible interest):

With its colorful characters — notably Raven and Wormsley, but also, for example, Molly (who admits: “I don’t want a happy life. I want an interesting one”) — and a composed-seeming Lancelyn who finds himself coming apart in a world he can not readily categorize and impose an order on, much of The Runes Have Been Cast is tremendous good fun.

Poetry: “De la Mare (1873-1956) was among the first poets I read as a kid. Much of his verse is Janus-headed.” (via Books, Inq)

Coffeehouse Renovation: The Christian Study Center of Gainesville, Florida, is raising funds to renovate Pascal’s, their university community’s coffeehouse.

Education: Thomas Korcok’s Serpents in the Classroom reveals the religious agenda of many who formed how we think of education today. He shows how “these pillars of today’s education rejected Christianity and offered their approach to education as a way to undermine its influence and instill in young people something better.”

Camus: Albert Camus’s The Stranger “was first published in an underground edition in 1942, during the Nazi occupation of France, a time of widespread killing without emotion or remorse. It excited controversy from the start; Jean-Paul Sartre admired the novel but called it ‘unjustified and unjustifiable’ …”

Pilgrim’s Progress: “Bunyan gives us four ways to engage in the mental and spiritual fight. We have to fight thoughts with thoughts, words with words, untruths with truths.”

Photo: Belmont County Courthouse, Saint Clairsville, Ohio. 1995. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Murder Must Advertise,’ by Dorothy L. Sayers

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…the most convincing copy  was always written with the tongue in the cheek, a genuine conviction of the commodity’s worth producing—for some reason—poverty and flatness of style….

All in all, among the delights of Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey mystery series, Murder Must Advertise may be the most perfect specimen. Which is rather odd, to my mind, as it takes Lord Peter generally out of his natural environment (his priceless valet, Bunter, only makes a brief appearance). In Murder Must Advertise, Lord Peter goes undercover as an advertising copywriter, and finds to his surprise that he’s rather good at it. (Author Sayers herself spent some time in that very career – she is credited with coining the phrase, “It pays to advertise!”)

Victor Dean, a young copywriter at Pym’s Publicity, fell down an iron spiral staircase in the offices one day, breaking his neck. A letter to his employer was found among his effects, and that letter said that something illicit was going on among the staff. For that reason, Mr. Pym engages Lord Peter Wimsey to investigate. Lord Peter substitutes horn-rimmed glasses for his usual monocle and shows up for work, easily sliding into the circle of copywriters. He calls himself Death Bredon (these being his two actual middle names). Meanwhile, at night, Death Bredon becomes a habitue of wild parties hosted by a notorious young heiress. Drugs are being distributed at these parties, and somehow the drug network is connected to Pym’s Publicity. Death Bredon charms some people, insults others, and generally stirs things up to see what will happen. What happens is murder.

Murder Must Advertise is about as close as Miss Sayers ever came to full-blown hard-boiled fiction. Lord Peter is very different from Philip Marlowe, but there’s some of the same atmosphere here of mean streets and ruthless criminals. I like it quite a lot, it goes without saying.

Cautions, American readers, for a lengthy chapter involving a cricket game. Most of you will be as at sea in that environment as I am.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Fatal Sisters,’ by W. Glenn Duncan

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Speaking in general terms, hard-boiled mysteries written before the turn of the millennium tend to be a good bet for me. A little more modern than the classics (which I also like), but before the explosion of Wokeness that has fatally infected so much recent literature. Jack Lynch’s Bragg books are a good example.

So I tried out W. Glenn Duncan’s Fatal Sisters, part of his Rafferty series. The intention seems to have been to produce something reminiscent of Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novels.

Sadly, it didn’t quite work for me. But read on. You might like it better.

Rafferty is a private eye in Dallas. Like Nick Charles and Spenser, he has a steady girlfriend (though because of the time of writing, the author didn’t feel it necessary to make the girlfriend a two-fisted martial artist. And that’s always nice). Rafferty operates alone, but has a dangerous friend called “Cowboy” who backs him up when things get hairy.

In Fatal Sisters (I haven’t figured out yet what the title means. Probably missed a clue), Rafferty gets a call from Patty Akkister, a fairly ordinary young wife. She says her husband Sherm is missing. But it’s all hush-hush, because, she says, Sherm is actually a spy, off on one of his secret assignments. He’s been gone so long, though…

Rafferty has run into situations like this before. Clearly, old Sherm is having an affair, and using the spy story to explain his absences. Rafferty takes the case, in the hope of catching Sherm and talking him into going back to Patty.

Unfortunately, Rafferty’s wrong. Sherm’s no spy, but he is involved in some very dangerous business. And before he’s done, Rafferty will find himself dodging bullets and protecting people – including Patty – from serious mayhem and murder.

I’m not entirely sure why Fatal Sisters didn’t work for me. Rafferty was an okay character, though he never really came alive in my mind. He’s a wisecracking PI, which is a great tradition, but it seemed to me his dialogue never quite hit the target. The book was interesting enough, in a “something to read while waiting for a plane” sort of way. And there was a pretty good surprise at the climax.

On the language side, the profanity quotient was much lower than we get in our decade. So it had that going for it.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Yesterday is Dead,’ by Jack Lynch

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I like the late Jack Lynch’s Pete Bragg series of hard-boileds, starring Pete Bragg, better and better. Yesterday is Dead was right up my alley.

Pete Bragg, you may recall, is a private eye in the San Francisco area. But his origins are in Seattle, where he grew up and was a newspaper man for a while. He doesn’t have a lot of fond memories, though. Somehow, he says, nothing ever worked out for him there.

So it’s been a while since he’s been in touch with his best old friend up there, Benny Bartlett. Benny is freelance journalist, and a really nice guy. He works on human interest and feature stories. Woodward and Bernstein he’s not.

So why is somebody threatening him over the phone? There have been a couple strange incidents, too, which may have been attacks. But Benny’s not sure. The police aren’t impressed. But Benny’s worried about his family. Would Pete come up and look into things?

Of course Pete will. About the time he shows up in town, the danger to Benny becomes undeniable. But even more disconcerting is that Pete runs into his ex-wife, Lorna. Their relationship was complicated, and when she left him, it hurt. Now she seems interested again. Can Pete take another chance on her? Or should he be faithful to his California girlfriend?

Yesterday is Dead is classic hard-boiled, even down to Pete getting taken for a ride and given a professional beating. My only real complaint is a lingering one with this series – Pete’s judgment and ethics in dealing with women are pretty bad (and they’ve got to be bad when I can tell). But I guess that’s part of his character.

Recommended.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Targeted,’ by Stephen Hunter

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The shooting stopped not out of mercy or rationality, but out of ammo depletion. Each automatic and semiautomatic weapon came up dry at almost the same second. Anyone whose eardrums had not been shattered by the ruckus would have heard an anvil chorus of clicks, snaps, slams, curses, and chunks as, momentarily drained of IQ, the troopers decided that if they pulled real hard the guns would start shooting again.

I always wonder (with anticipation) what stunt Stephen Hunter will pull to squeeze one more story out of the Bob Lee Swagger franchise. When you’re writing an action character who ages in real time, and you’ve gotten him up to his mid-seventies, generating drama turns into a real challenge. Generating plausible drama would seem nearly impossible.

And yet Hunter pulls it off again in Targeted. I won’t say the story is quite plausible, but it’s carried off with such style and verve that it works, in the grand tradition.

In our last story, old Bob Lee saved the country from a major terrorist plot with a near-impossible rifle shot. In the grand tradition of American politics, the reward he earns is a congressional investigation, led by a predatory old congresswoman who may, or may not, be based on a living person. Oh, we have nothing but respect for you personally, the investigators say (they are lying), but we need to seriously consider the procedures and protocols that led to your action. Were anyone’s civil rights violated? Did systemic racism inform the operation in any way?

Just when things look very bad for the old sniper, the whole thing gets turned upside down by the arrival by a group of mysterious convicts who take everybody hostage. Bob, plastic-cuffed to a wheelchair, is in a poor position to save the day, but a surprising ally will appear.

Lots of action, a good dollop of political satire, and one of the most dependable action heroes out there. I got a kick out of Targeted, and recommend it highly.

Fiction, Reading

‘Renegade Swords III’

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This is not a review, but a promotion. I have a story in the recently released anthology, Renegade Swords III. I was approached by the compiler, who paid me a small fee for rights to the story. It was originally published long, long ago in Weird Tales (I was delighted to get into Weird Tales, once upon a time the home of Robert E. Howard’s Conan).

The story is called “Magic’s Price.” It’s about a wizard, berserkers, and a bereaved husband. I know nothing about the other stories, or the authors. But my story alone makes the book worth having. It goes without saying.

Had a melancholy reading experience today. I picked up a bargain e-book, and it started out really well. The prose was excellent, and I liked the characters. I was interested in them. The story drew me in.

Then I came up against the Agenda (or, as you may prefer to put it, my bigotry). The central problem of the story involved a homosexual being blackmailed, back in the early 1950s.

I always cringe when they bring in “gay” themes. Aside from my beliefs on sexual morality, male homosexuality gives me the willies. I think that’s true for all “straight” (what we used to call normal) men, if they haven’t been brainwashed. But I could put up with it as a realistic plot element.

However, that wasn’t enough for the author. He had to make it an issue. Had to preach repeatedly on the importance of normalizing homosexuality, of bringing it into the mainstream.

So, sadly, I put the book aside unfinished.

But it was good enough that I think I ought to at least mention it here: Murder by the Book, by Eric Brown. As I mentioned, the writing was very good. You might enjoy it, if you’re more enlightened than I am.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Sierra Six,’ by Mark Greaney

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Mark Greaney’s Gray Man series, about Courtland Gentry, renegade former CIA assassin, continues with Sierra Six, which combines a contemporary story with flashbacks to his first assignment, twelve years ago, as part of a CIA kill team. The two threads intertwine, more and more tightly as the story goes on, coming finally to a crashing double point.

We start with the flashback, where young Court’s talents as a fighting man are recognized, and the CIA decides to add him to an action team. He’ll be the “Six,” the point man, replacing a string of other sixes who’ve been killed on recent missions. Court is not a team player by nature – it’s hard for him to coordinate with others. Even harder for him to trust others. In training, he keeps messing up. In early missions, he makes costly mistakes. But his sheer talent persuades his superiors to keep him on the team – though his team members don’t like him one bit.

In the present, working as a freelance, he gets hired for an operation in Algiers. In the course of the action he glimpses the face of a man he thought was dead – a terrorist he came up against on that old, first mission. Court has a personal score to settle with that man. And, incidentally, that man is going to murder millions of people if he isn’t stopped.

Sierra Six was a tight, taut thriller that never let up. The action was pretty cinematic – a little implausible, but compelling. I don’t have the tolerance for such stories that I used to have, but I can’t deny it was well done. And I do keep reading the books.

Recommended, for those who like this kind of story. Cautions for what you’d expect.