I had never heard of the Canadian author Jeff Buick before I picked up One is Evil, the first volume in a prospective series. I’m pleased to report that I was highly impressed.
Bobby Greco used to be an Orlando, Florida homicide cop. Set up by crooked vice cops, he got kicked off the force. But he had friends who owed him favors, and managed to snag a good job doing insurance investigations.
It’s in that capacity that he checks out a claim relating to Alexis Chamberlain, the wife of the highly respected head of a major aerospace technology firm. It’s just a routine job – the company is ready to pay off on the claim. But Bobby has a cop’s instincts, and those instincts tell him something is off about this woman. Looking into her life more deeply, he reaches a startling conclusion – this isn’t the same woman. Somehow, she’s been switched for a duplicate. Which puts an unknown entity within reach of some of the country’s most sensitive military secrets.
That spark sets off an avalanche of consequences. Bobby teams up with an attractive female NSA agent, and before long not only they but their families are under threat – even as the clock is running out for the real Alexis Chamberlain. The action will stretch from the American south to the French Riviera, and on to Siberia.
There were flaws in One is Evil. The Canadian author sometimes gets American diction wrong – the Girl Scouts become the Girl Guides, bars become pubs. Cookies, of course, become biscuits. The prose is effective but not elegant, and there’s an occasional spelling mistake.
But the plot is intricate and beautifully choreographed. The dramatic tension ratchets up mercilessly. Like any thriller, One is Evil was less than entirely plausible, but it was convincing, and I bought into it completely. I also liked and cared about the characters.
One is Evil is a winner, and Jeff Buick is an author worth following.
Today’s hymn comes from a man who is thought to have been one of the scholars behind the Geneva Bible of 1560. He lived for a time in Geneva (overlapping dates with the great John Calvin) and worked on 25 Psalm versifications for an English psalter. This one, derived from Ps. 100, has endured until today and found the most popularity. The tune also comes from Calvin’s service to the church, being attributed to his music director Louis Bourgeois.
“Know that the LORD, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.” (Psalm 100:3 ESV)
1 All people that on earth do dwell, sing to the Lord with cheerful voice; him serve with fear, his praise forth tell, come ye before him and rejoice.
2 The Lord ye know is God indeed; without our aid he did us make; we are his folk, he doth us feed, and for his sheep he doth us take.
3 O enter then his gates with praise, approach with joy his courts unto; praise, laud, and bless his name always, for it is seemly so to do.
4 For why? The Lord our God is good, his mercy is forever sure; his truth at all times firmly stood, and shall from age to age endure.
Speaking of Norway, when I began earning spending money in my late teens, I agreed to receive the initial offer from The Musical Heritage Society. You could receive the monthly featured album (tape or CD) very naturally (they would just assume you wanted it) or refuse it. They sent a small musical review to let you know what you would receive with plenty of time to opt out. That’s how I was introduced to Camille Saint-Saëns’s Symphony No. 3 which added a pipe organ to orchestra. It’s how I fell in love with Dvorak’s Symphony No 9 (The New World Symphony) and judge every other recording of it by the one I played repeatedly in my 20s. I was familiar with “Flight of the Bumblebee” and Scheherazade from the radio, so I bought four tapes of Rimsky-Korsakov’s music, one with the Arabia Nights piece, the other three with several works I didn’t know, like the “Procession of the Nobles.”
The Musical Heritage Society is also how I purchased a tape of Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt, recorded with full choir for The Hall of the Mountain King and a gorgeous soprano for Solvieg’s Song. This recording, which I think only had voices in these two pieces,
I listened to this music so much, I engrained it in my mind. Later I forgot where certain familiar melodies (one or two) came from. I remembered them casually, almost as if I’d made them up, and lo, they were from Peer Gynt. Moments like that make me think I haven’t had an original thought in my life. Maybe all of my ideas are just a snatch of something I heard in the past, ripped from its context, its source forgotten.
We had realized for many months the insecurity of our position in England as there was so much hate growing in the hearts of the general populace. This could be understood because we had many German members; also the pacifism of our English members roused a bitter spirit in nationalistic minds.
It is my custom, every May 17, to make some kind of mention of Norway’s Constitution Day, celebrated each year on this date. I’ve told the story of the holiday many times – this year I’ll restrict myself to saying that Norway celebrates its Constitution Day as its major national holiday because of a historical anomaly – we had a constitution for almost a century before we got independence. So Constitution Day became the traditional patriotic holiday.
The video above is rather nice – lots of natural beauty, in which Norway is excessively rich. If you’d like a translation of the lyrics, you can find it here.
The Syttende Mai present I received today was a good writing session. I actually gave myself the shivers reading the current draft of The Baldur Game. I suppose that’s insufferable, like comedians who laugh at their own jokes. But writing at my level offers few tangible rewards. And finding the same exhilaration in your own writing that you get from your favorite authors’ is as delicious as it is rare.
To make things even better, I had a thought today – not as common an occurrence as you might imagine. (G. B. Shaw once said that he’d made an international reputation by thinking once or twice a month.) I can’t remember what provoked the thought (perhaps it was the creative thrill I described above, but I’m not sure). But it suddenly appeared, fully formed in my head, and even after several hours I can find no fault with it. It goes like this:
No work of art is ever fully original, nor should it be. Art is a multimedia matrix of interactive themes and influences — all hyperlinked, in a sense. Taken all together, great art participates in an infinitely greater tapestry.
Detective Comrade (seriously, that’s his name!) Flynt is part of the police force in a small, fictional California city. He is known to the other cops as “the leprechaun,” because he’s short, ugly, and his red hair is always unkempt. He was traumatized in a bad shooting some years ago, and his old partner covered for him ever since.
But his partner is dead now, and as Micheal Maxwell’s Dead Beat begins, Flynt is partnered with Lieutenant Noah Steele (Flynt and Steele, get it?). Steele is an up-and-comer, and their commander has tasked him, among other things, with finding a reason to fire Flynt, whom he considers (not without cause) dead weight.
But then they’re called to investigate the murder of a teenage drummer from a punk rock band, found stabbed to death with his drumsticks in a storage locker. As they proceed, Steele gradually discovers that, in spite of his partner’s eccentric and even repulsive personal habits, he has genuine gifts for investigation. And they start to form a bond.
When I find an ineptly written book these days, my inclination is to drop it quietly without ragging on the author. But author Micheal Maxwell describes himself as an “Amazon bestselling writer,” and that annoys me in a petty way. The fact that this kind of writing can generate bestsellers is painful to contemplate for someone who’s worked hard to improve his skills.
What was wrong with Dead Beat? Let me list some of the problems:
The prose was awkward – a representative line runs, “She was both maternal and attention-starved at the same time.” Or, “A mad array of pushing and shoving…”
In describing life in a Catholic orphanage, the author indulges in extreme stereotyping: All the nuns are cruel and abusive. Even as a Protestant and a well-known misogynist, I find that implausible. Women, in my experience, tend to be pretty sympathetic people – I find it hard to believe that, in any group of women, every single one could be a sadist.
In general, the writing here is amateurish. The author describes his characters to us (at excessive length), rather than revealing their personalities through their actions – and their actions, in fact, seem inconsistent and pretty much random.
I found an odd continuity problem in one particular scene, where the characters are described getting ready to sit down in a room, and then suddenly they are back in the hallway, walking toward the room.
Police procedures (I won’t describe them in detail) seemed implausible and unprofessional.
And finally, the big, brilliant deduction that impresses everybody at the climax turns out to involve a very obvious technical matter that I’m certain any crime scene technician would recognize in a minute.
In short, Dead Beat was a book that any pulp publisher back in my day would have shot back to the author before he’d finished reading the first page. I do not recommend it.
The Conversion of Saint Paul – painting by Spinello Aretino (Spinello di Luca Spinelli) (MET, 1975.1.11)
It is, I think, a function of my essential pessimism that I worry too much about celebrity conversions. Celebrity conversions, I’m sure, ought to be treated like any other conversions. Good news. Pray for them. But do not impute to them too much significance. In the parable of the sower, for instance (Matthew 13), only one seed out of four survives to bear fruit. And that, in my experience, is a pretty fair (possibly generous) rule of thumb.
The latest celebrity conversion I’ve been hearing about is the English actor, comedian, and media personality Russell Brand. I knew nothing about him before this news, aside from hearing his name and seeing his face online. He seems, according to Wikipedia, to have had a troubled life (imagine that – a comedian with a troubled life!), and has experienced drug abuse, sexual promiscuity, and dabbling in various religions. But now he’s been baptized, and he claims to truly believe.
I’m all for him. Less promising converts have proved out to be great blessings. John Newton, for instance, was a foul slaver, insufferable even to other foul slavers. But God took hold of him, and he ended as a minister and a powerful abolitionist. He left us with the hymn, “Amazing Grace.”
I’ve reminisced about the 1970s before, the heady times we called the Jesus Movement. They made a movie about the Jesus Movement not long ago, starring Kelsey Grammar. I couldn’t get excited about it, though, because my memories of that time suffer in retrospect. Of all the people I prayed and evangelized with in those days, only one or two (out of my own circle) have persevered in anything that looks to me like the same faith.
As a cultural phenomenon, the Jesus Movement seems to me almost a complete bust. No doubt it suffered from the biblical illiteracy and theological ignorance of a bunch of young people gushing about their “experience.” In the long run, my perception is that the Jesus Movement simply got swallowed up in the wave of subjectivity that is still washing the pilings out from under our civilization.
In my mind, the Jesus Movement was too cool, too popular for a season. Luke 17:20 says that the Kingdom of God does not come in ways that can be observed. Which means (as I see it) that it doesn’t come in any way that we see coming. Jesus Himself didn’t come as expected. The stone that the builders rejected becomes the cornerstone (Psalm 118:22). God loves to blindside us.
I’ve seen lots of celebrity (and other) conversions in my time. The most promising often fell short. The least promising sometimes amazed us. Russell Brand could go either way. It’s not up to me, and it’s not my place to judge.
The most remarkable celebrity conversion I’ve observed was the one I expected the least from. I remember reading about Charles Colson’s conversion back in 1973, while I was in college. I think I read about it in Time Magazine. Congressman Albert Quie, who came from my home area and to whom I have family connections, helped lead him to Christ. Colson said reading C. S. Lewis had influenced him greatly.
“Oh great,” I said at the time. “That’s just who we need on our team. Colson.”
Chuck Colson was one of the most hated men in America in those days. Beyond the general contempt being rained on President Nixon, there was special derision for Colson, “Nixon’s hatchet man,” the guy who’d said he’d run over his grandmother for political advantage. I remember a college teacher bringing it up in a class, and I cringed on behalf of all Lewis fans.
But what do you know? Colson rang true. He served his sentence. He devoted himself thereafter to self-sacrificial ministry. He always spoke honestly, and he cared for the lost and the least.
There were plenty of people who never stopped hating him, of course, and he acquired new enemies as he went on. But he was a blessing, and he walked the walk.
In other words, let’s pray for Brand and wait and see.
Detective Chief Inspector Thurstan Baddeley (hero of The Box, which I reviewed a while back, and which takes place later in his career) has just taken over the Major Crimes unit on the Liverpool police force, as The Road to Eden Is Overgrown begins. A recent widower, he gets on well with his colleagues, and is excellent at his job.
Meanwhile, there’s a killer out there. His name is Nickson (“Nicks”). He’s smart, professional, and efficient (and, like Baddeley, a recent widower). He only hits selected targets – the worst of the worst, depraved criminals who, for one reason or another, the police can’t touch. Serial murderers, sadists, child abusers, human traffickers. He gets his assignments from a shadowy organization with the influence to cover up his killings and facilitate movements and false identities.
DCI Baddeley’s job is to find and arrest Nicks. But he isn’t terribly broken up about the death toll among psychopaths.
Nicks always seems to be one step ahead of the police. But he’s never come up against a cop like Baddeley before. He may have met his match.
I am still at a loss to understand my fascination with Daniel Wheatcroft’s novels. His prose is nothing special, occasional shoddy (we’re told a character “reversed back” in his car, and he has trouble conjugating the verb “sat”). The Road to Eden Is Overgrown seemed to me less complex than the other Wheatcroft novels I’ve read, which I appreciated, though I still had some trouble keeping plot threads straight (not unusual for me). I think I like the characterizations best. The characters drew me in.
This book is the first in a trilogy called “Leveller.” I’m going to read more.
Oh yes, there’s a mention of the Narnia books, almost always a good sign.
I don’t preach very often, but I was invited to do so yesterday, at Faith Free Lutheran Church in Minneapolis. The sermon has been posted on YouTube, and can be viewed above. I fumbled the service itself a bit (the Prayer of the Day, which I couldn’t find, was actually in my suit coat pocket, mistakenly put away with other papers I thought I didn’t need. That’s how my efforts at efficiency generally work out.) But the sermon itself, I believe, went okay.
This is a sermon I’d delivered before, in a slightly different version, at the Free Lutheran Bible College chapel. I think it’s not entirely contemptible.
Today’s hymn is by German lawyer and hymnist Johann Jakob Schütz (1640-1690). The recording above has only two verses, and the second isn’t copied below. Perhaps it’s another translation.
“The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end” (Lamentations 3:22 ESV).
1 Sing praise to God who reigns above, The God of all creation, The God of pow’r, the God of love, The God of our salvation; With healing balm my soul He fills And ev’ry pain and sorrow stills: To God all praise and glory!
2 The angel hosts Thy praises sing Around Thy throne in heaven. On earth and sea, O mighty King, All praise to Thee is given. Let all who ‘neath Thy shadow dwell In hymns of praise Thy wisdom tell: To God all praise and glory!
3 What God hath wrought to show His might, He evermore sustaineth. His eye is o’er us day and night, His mercy never waneth. Thro’out His kingdom’s wide domain His works are right, His judgments plain: To God all praise and glory!
4 I cried to God in my distress, His mercy heard me calling; My Savior saw my helplessness And kept my feet from falling; For this, Lord, praise and thanks to Thee! Praise God most high, praise God with me! To God all praise and glory!
5 Ye, who confess the Savior’s name, To God give praise and glory! Ye who the Father’s might proclaim, To God give praise and glory! Let idols under foot be trod! The Lord is God! The Lord is God! To God all praise and glory!
6 Thus, all my gladsome way along, I’ll sing aloud Thy praises, That men may hear the grateful song My voice unwearied raises; Be joyful in the Lord, my heart, Both soul and body, bear your part; To God all praise and glory!
For Bond, the casinos at Beaulieu and Le Touquet were less ostentatious and more welcoming. He was comfortable there. At Monte Carlo, he always felt as if he were auditioning for a part in a play he would never actually want to see.
I recently reviewed a book by Anthony Horowitz, an author I’d never heard of. Turned out that just showed my ignorance. Horowitz is quite a big noise in the world. He created Midsomer Murders, and has written bestselling Sherlock Holmes novels in addition to series of his own. He’s also done authorized James Bond books. I got a deal on Forever and a Day, a Bond prequel, and purchased it out of curiosity.
Full disclosure – I’m not a great James Bond fan. The movies have occasionally been amusing, if you didn’t think about them too much. I’ve read two or three of the novels, and I can take them or leave them. I find the literary James Bond hard to care about.
I have to say, though, that I did care about Anthony Horowitz’ Bond.
The book is written in period – it’s shortly after World War II. James Bond is a veteran spy, now an assassin for the British government. We observe him in Stockholm, cleaning up some leftover trash from the war – killing a Norwegian resistance traitor who thought he’d gotten away with it.
Back in London, he’s informed he’s been selected for the coveted “00” designation, the license to kill. Agent 007 has been murdered in Marseilles. Bond is to go and find out who’s responsible, and to complete his mission – looking into the activities of a Sicilian gangster who controls the drug traffic in the south of France. He is permitted to take over the 007 designation.
All the elements are present here for a classic Bond adventure – a colorful supervillain (actually, two), a mysterious, beautiful woman who may or may not be friendly, a casino interlude, fights and torture scenes.
But there was some quality in Forever and a Day that I never found in Ian Fleming’s books. Horowitz’ Bond is recognizably the same man, but he’s somehow more human. I could relate to him (to the extent that I can ever relate to somebody brave and handsome).
I must confess I saw the big twist at the end of the book a mile off. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the ride very much. I need to check to see if there are any more of these books in the public library.
