This is a trailer for a new documentary coming in March. It’s called “I Hate You But It’s Killing Me,” about the problem of dealing with personal hate. It’s directed by Lukas Behnken, (son of an old friend), who also directed the “Mully” movie I reviewed some time back. Looks impressive.
‘Corpus Delicti,’ by Stephen Penner
David Brunelle is a prosecutor in the D.A.’s office in Seattle. He is, we are given to understand, intelligent and experienced.
You wouldn’t guess that from his conduct in the novel, Corpus Delicti. Even to me, whose legal expertise is mostly gleaned from novels and TV shows, he seemed like kind of a moron.
David is hard-working – too hard-working. He recently broke up with his girlfriend, under circumstances that did him no credit. Now even his best friend, police detective Larry Chen, is keeping his distance. But that doesn’t stop Chen from calling David in when he interviews a witness with an unusual story to tell.
Linda is a prostitute and a drug addict. But she’s worried about her friend Amy, another prostitute. Amy disappeared, after her pimp had publicly threatened her. Linda thinks Amy is dead – but she says she won’t testify to anything.
After David goes to visit Amy’s parents and learns that she hasn’t been back in some time to visit her little girl, who lives with them, David makes up his mind. Amy is dead, and her murder must be prosecuted just like anyone else’s.
His problem is that he has almost no corpus delicti.
“Corpus delicti,” the author explains, is not what most people think. We think it means the body of a murder victim (which does happen to be missing here), and that’s how it’s popularly used. But legally the term means the whole “body” of the evidence – all the verifiable facts that make up the prosecution’s case. And David’s got diddly in that regard. But that doesn’t stop him from proceeding.
He will have to deal with a series of preliminary judges of varying degrees of intelligence and competence. A very smart and savvy defense attorney. And sketchy witnesses who have little to say, and don’t want to say that.
Reading Corpus Delicti was frustrating for me. Again and again, David took actions that seemed to me obviously boneheaded, and they generally were. He even got somebody killed. One can argue that this is all good character development – David is feeling guilty and isolated, and is working too hard. But he’s still doing dumb legal work and it’s hard to sympathize with that.
The moment a prosecutor says, “This guy is really evil, and I’m going to get him convicted, with or without evidence,” he’s crossing a vital line. Sure, this guy is a scumbag. But what if the next guy’s innocent; just somebody a prosecutor doesn’t like? Abuse of power is a seductive thing, and corrosive to society and the law.
Also, it’s unrealistic. District prosecutors have budgets; their superiors won’t let them waste money on quixotic fishing expeditions.
I will admit that David pulls a smart trick at the end. I appreciated that. But all in all, I wasn’t impressed with him as a legal hero.
Another gripe: Almost nobody is physically described in this book. It’s the second novel like that I’ve read recently. Is this the new thing? Some way to avoid accusations of racism in the age of Woke?
Also, cautions for language. The prose wasn’t bad in general, though.
‘The Case of the Missing Faces,’ by Michael Leese
I’m not a huge fan of the Roper and Hooley autism/police procedural series, written by Michael Leese. I find the whole concept of autism fascinating (being on the spectrum myself, I strongly suspect). But I find Jonathan Roper, the autistic English detective in this series, somewhat annoying to read about (which is probably just authorial verisimilitude). Still, the writing isn’t bad, and I bought a set of four books, so I carry on.
Shortly after The Case of the Missing Faces opens with a horrific murder, London detective Brian Hooley is reunited with his partner Jonathan Roper. Roper has been reassigned to a high security national intelligence facility. It’s a center of geekery, full of young geniuses and computer experts, most of them on the autism spectrum themselves, so it was assumed Roper would fit right in. And he did at first, becoming something of a star for his unorthodox but fruitful logical processes. Only lately he’s been having trouble. The official opinion is that maybe he needs the influence of Hooley, with whom he’s comfortable, and with whom he’s worked successfully in the past. So Hooley gets reassigned, and for a change he’s the one who doesn’t fit in.
For a while Roper stays stuck in spite of Hooley’s arrival. He’s certain there’s something important happening that he just can’t see. Something sinister.
Meanwhile, back in London, their colleagues are investigating the deaths of a couple computer experts found murdered in bizarre circumstances, their faces flayed off.
Once Roper realizes that these crimes have to do with national security, he’ll begin to see what’s really going on. But can he figure it all out before he himself falls victim to a brilliant but increasingly unstable serial killer?
I’m not in love with this series, but The Case of the Missing Faces kept me reading. There’s a twist at the end I saw coming pretty far off. There were some conventional references to the dangers of extreme right-wing groups in the US, but (spoiler alert) they came to nothing, so the book wasn’t very political in the end.
I’ll keep reading the series.
‘Run For Your Life,’ by C. M. Sutter
It’s a general, but not inflexible, rule of mine not to read action novels written by women, even if the hero is a male. Somehow I made the choice to download Run For Your Life, by C. M. Sutter, who turns out to be a female writer (the fact that the book was free probably had something to do with this). As is often the case with woman writers, Sutter doesn’t really get male characters right. For one thing they’re too verbal here, gabbing about relationships rather than ball games or weather. And our hero kisses his pet dog on the head. Has any straight guy ever done this? But that weakness ended up not being my biggest complaint.
Mitch Cannon is a Savannah, Georgia police detective. He’s obsessive about his work, and doesn’t date much. But he recently met a woman who’s attractive and just a little crazy, and he’s looking forward to her invitation to participate in some kind of secret “raffle” for the benefit of police.
Then Mitch’s sister is kidnapped, and he has to change his plans. His partner Devon agrees to fill in for him at the raffle. Mitch is nearly insane with fear for his sister’s safety, and it gets worse when Devon and his girlfriend also fail to appear the following day.
And the whole thing ambles along to the showdown and ultimate revelations. I figured out the big final twist quite early on, and other aspects of the story disappointed me too. The dialogue was clunky and unnatural in many spots. At one point Mitch briefs his superiors on events we readers have just observed, and the author rehashes his briefing. This could have been covered by just having him say, “I told them about what I’d been doing.” Less boredom for the reader.
Another annoying element was that almost nobody in this book is described in any way, except to say how attractive one girl is, and that Devon is a little overweight.
There were also fact and logic problems. One character runs from captivity after being restrained in a kneeling position for more than a day. Would a person even be able to walk without a recovery period, after that much cramped immobility? And somebody says that nobody spends just two years in jail for murder – what country are they living in?
I must mention, in the author’s defense, though, that she has her characters pray quite often. I appreciated that.
But overall I wasn’t much impressed with Run For Your Life.
Sunday Singing: Fairest Lord Jesus
This month, I plan to post hymns focused on Christ Jesus. “Fairest Lord Jesus” was written anonymously and set to a Polish folk tune. Franz Liszt used the tune in a crusaders’ march in The Legend of St. Elizabeth, which is apparently the most concrete thing that can be said about its origin.
1 Fairest Lord Jesus, Ruler of all nature,
Son of God and Son of Man!
Thee will I cherish, thee will I honor,
thou, my soul’s glory, joy, and crown.
2 Fair are the meadows, fair are the woodlands,
robed in the blooming garb of spring:
Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer,
who makes the woeful heart to sing.
3 Fair is the sunshine, fair is the moonlight,
and all the twinkling, starry host:
Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer
than all the angels heav’n can boast.
4 Beautiful Savior! Lord of the nations!
Son of God and Son of Man!
Glory and honor, praise, adoration,
now and forevermore be thine.
Games Tell Stories Too, Some Author’s Birthday, and Who Needs Editors?
Games can hit all the marks of story, even when it isn’t a storytelling game. The basic conflict between sporting teams can feel like a good story without the themes and only light characterizations. A good ball game can be more epic than the average thriller.
History-based board games can give you the feel of playing within a historic novel. I enjoyed putting several hours into Avalon Hill’s Kingmaker, an old game set in England during the War of Roses. The pathos you feel in a game like that could be a spark of humanity or megalomania.
I’m thinking about this because on Thursday I finished playing for the second time Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It’s a compelling, open world adventure that gets close to having an epic feel, but doesn’t have the depth of character for that. The gameplay is a ton of fun. The environment and main characters are marvelous. It’s comparable to your favorite light-weight fantasy novel with that immersive quality of moving the story forward by your own efforts.
But enough about me. What else do we have?
Translation: A plug for the English translation of a couple more authors.
Political Divide: “Stories are critical starting points for civility. If we understand one another, we are more likely to see each other as fellow human beings and fellow citizens rather than opponents or even worse, enemies. If we know each other’s stories we are more likely to trust one another.” (via RealClearBooks)
Happy Birthday: Charles Dickens (1812-1870) has a Toronto-based fan club that has been celebrating his birthday (February 7) since 1905. They also hold a Dickens-themed Christmas tea. “This is not a scholarly society.” (via ArtsJournal)
Video: How would each of the Southern states prepare a meal for you?
Editors: Do copy editors crush young words beneath plodding feet? “One man’s infelicity is another man’s favored choice of expression. And there’s neither romance nor adventure without some inconsistency.”
Image by Edwin Francisco from Pixabay
Dean Koontz interview
Our friend Dave Lull kindly shared this link, where the Lit Hub blog interviews him (about half an hour) about his latest novel, The House At the End of the World. Contrary to the title, he doesn’t actually explain how to sell 500 million books. I would have noticed.
I didn’t like the book as well as I hoped to, but I concur that the very important themes the author talks about here are highlighted in it.
Gregg Hurwitz and Jordan Peterson
This is cool. Turns out Gregg Hurwitz, of the Orphan X books, is a student, friend, and collaborator with the noted Norwegian-Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson.
I did not know that.
Lots of talk about good writing too.
Podcast plug: ‘Sithrah’
My friend J. S. Earls is involved with a podcast called ‘Sithra.’ It’s an adaptation of a graphic novel presented in radio drama form. I’m pretty clueless about podcasts, but apparently you can access it on Spotify here. Also available, he tells me, on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and “most anywhere podcasts are heard.”
I listened to Episode One. Engaging story, well produced.
Black and white movies: ‘Behind That Curtain’
Good news. Translation work has shown up. I dare not hope it means the drought is over; it’s the same project that I worked on a month ago. But we live in hope. So what shall I write about tonight, children, in haste as I am?
As I told you, I’ve been watching a lot of old black and white mysteries. I find myself – to my surprise – somewhat fascinated by the Charlie Chan series. It has its objectionable sides – most particularly in its racial portrayals (though Mantan Moreland was a genius). And sometimes they’re pure B-movie cheese. But occasionally they display some qualities of style and intelligence.
But the film that particularly fascinated me was a 1929 release called Behind That Curtain (based on a novel of the same name by Earl Derr Biggers, though it seems to deviate heavily from that source). The movie is memorable for two or three reasons. The main one is that it’s – technically – the very first Charlie Chan movie. But it’s an awkward fit with the rest of the series.
The thing is, the movie as it turned out isn’t really a Charlie Chan story. He’s mentioned near the beginning, and he shows up near the end, as a secondary character. In this story, he appears more similar to the real Honolulu policeman Chang Apana, whom Biggers credited as the inspiration for the character. (Though the wiry Apana was a far more hardboiled guy than the portly, cerebral Chan of the movies. He was known for using a bullwhip.) In this movie, Chan is a tough cop, a tad trigger happy. No apparent mastermind. He’s played by a roundish Korean actor named E. L. Park.
The story of the film involves a young English woman, Eve Mannering (Lois Moran) who defies her loving guardian to marry the shady Eric Durand. They move to India, where Eric turns out to be a feckless, unfaithful rotter. Eventually the English detective Sir Frederick Bruce shows up to interrogate Eric over an old crime, and Eve, having learned enough about her husband, flees to Honolulu (San Francisco? I forget). There Eric locates her at last, and there’s a decisive showdown at a lecture being given by Eve’s true love, the explorer Col. John Beetham (Warner Baxter).
Aside from the early, clean-shaven and actually Asian Charlie Chan we encounter in this movie, there are other points of interest. One is Col. Beetham’s taciturn Indian servant, who is played by a young Boris Karloff.
The other notable aspect, more literary, is the actress Lois Moran, who plays Eve. She was very pretty, even to modern eyes, and is remembered in real life for being the mistress of F. Scott Fitzgerald, who based the character of Rosemary Hoyt in Tender Is the Night on her.
That’s a lot of freight for one B movie to carry. The film itself is so-so. Standard early sound stuff, where everything moves really slowly, and everybody overacts.