Sometimes somebody has an idea that just works. When an author comes up with a series character who engages mind and heart, and places him or her in stories that mean something to the reader, he’s got gold. James Scott Bell has produced gold in the Mike Romeo series, about a one-time cage fighter and certified genius on a quest for virtue. Romeo’s Rage entertained me and moved me.
Mike Romeo gets a call from a friend, a reformed gang member who now does Christian ministry with urban youth. It’s a hush-hush thing – the friend knows about a “package,” a child being delivered for prostitution purposes. He doesn’t have to ask twice for help in intervening. Mike and his friend execute a professional extraction and get the little girl to an “underground railroad” site.
Then things turn bad. The girl is taken again, and Mike’s friend is killed. They underestimated the bad guys.
Mike was mad about this criminal operation from the start. Now he’s really mad. And they won’t like him when he’s mad.
As Mike makes his plans and implements them, he’s assisted and restrained (somewhat) by his boss, Ira Levin, a wheelchair-bound ex-Mossad agent and current lawyer. Also he’s reevaluating his relationship with his girlfriend Sophie. He truly loves her, but feels her being close to him will make her a target – if not now, someday. If he loves her, he feels, he’s got to break it off.
Of course, Sophie might have something to say about that herself.
I want to be Mike Romeo when I get younger. Romeo’s Rage was thrilling and moving. I shed manly tears. Highly recommended.
Rick Dewhurst, I have it on good authority (Phil’s), is a good guy. He’s also a good – if quirky – writer. And I can only assume he has masochistic side, because he keeps sending me his books to review, even though I can sometimes be hard on them.
His Joe LaFlam series is particularly challenging to me. In the first book, Bye Bye Bertie, we were introduced to Joe as a delusional young Christian man. His real name was John Doe, he didn’t know what city he lived in, and he thought he was a private eye when he was actually a cab driver.
Through his subsequent adventures, he has become Joe LaFlam in fact, and has been united with his real parents, who are billionaires. So as Halo Dolly begins he is living and working in a penthouse (in a big city “a lot like Seattle”), running a detective agency with his friends Alfred (a former hit man, now a Christian) and Abner (a former drunk, now a conspiracy-minded Christian). A beautiful (and rich) young woman named Grace (also a Christian, of course) walks into the office saying she needs protection from a kidnapping threat. Joe immediately takes the job (not unmindful of the fact that Grace is very good marriage prospect), and it doesn’t take long for Grace to be kidnapped from right under their noses. So begins a series of implausible and slapstick developments which lead them to his old menace, the sinister Spelunkers International organization. And to even more evil forces, including demons from the pit of Hell. Or maybe not.
As with Bye Bye Bertie, I was mostly perplexed as I read Halo Dolly. I never know how to take these books. Bertie is less delusional now than he used to be (probably), but the Christian self-talk in his narration makes me uncomfortable. I’m not sure whether I’m supposed to laugh at it. It’s so much like my own self-talk, frankly, that it seems hypocritical. Or else I just don’t get the joke.
I think it may go back to what I call the Aunt Midge Syndrome. That name refers to my own late Aunt Midge, who reacted almost violently once at a family gathering, when the Carol Burnett Show was on. Carol was playing a character with low self-esteem, who talked too much and apologized too much and self-deprecated all the time. I noted that this was precisely what Aunt Midge was like and reasoned, based on her reaction, that people in general aren’t amused by jokes dealing with their own quirks and hang-ups, even ones they’re not aware of. (This is possibly the only insight into human psychology I’ve ever had.) So it may be that I’m just too much like Joe to appreciate the joke.
Anyway, there’s nothing offensive in this book, and much mirth is derived from lampooning popular conspiracy theories – except that they seem to be generally correct here. The joke’s on all of us, I guess.
James David Dickson remembers an old story of something D.C. Mayor Marion Barry Jr. said in front of a gaggle of reporters to make the point that what passes for reporting is largely just repeating what officials or newsmakers have said without comment or reflection.
Headlines like “Except for Murders, City is Safe, Mayor Says” are a credibility killer for the news business.
We expect politicians to be full of beans. We then expect the media to correct them. We don’t expect the press to thoughtlessly print whatever was said.
“Lift High the Cross” sung by the congregation of Lookout Mtn Presbyterian, Lookout Mtn. Georgia
I don’t know how familiar American Christians are with today’s glorious hymn. It was written in 1887 by Englishman George W. Kitchin (1827-1912) of Christ Church, Oxford, as a festival-style hymn, and revised in 1916 by Englishman Michael R. Newbolt (1874-1956) into what we sing today.
It remains under copyright, so I’ll link to the song sheet so you can read or sing along with the orchestra in the video above.
Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory begins in a Mexican state that has outlawed the church and attempted to drive Christianity out of its culture. Priests have been executed. Churches have been repurposed or destroyed.
The first section contrasts two priests. Both are despicable, but one deeply believes God made him a priest and that duty is irrevocable. Even when he wants to run away to save himself, he turns back at the call of duty. The other, Padre José, is a priest in name only.
In one scene, José is walking alone between grave stones and interrupts a family burying a child. “They had been quite resigned until he had appeared, but now they were anxious, eager.” They are familiar with and resigned to the patterns of death, but when they see José, they remember their hope. They beg him to pray for their daughter, saying he could trust them not to say anything to the authorities.
“But that was the trouble–he could trust no one.” He fears one of them will naturally tell someone else, and he will be found. The family has more faith than he does. All he can do is tremble in the grip despair has on him.
Believer, it doesn’t take a murderous state to press you into fear that sharing or expressing your faith publicly will get you condemned. Mere criticism can do that, but God is greater and calls us to overcome the world and our own pride by being transformed by the knowledge of him.
Photo: B.P.O.E. Elks Lodge, Alturas, California. 1991. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
If the originator of the insult failed to respond to the challenge to fight he was considered an unmanly, false and unreliable coward. The punishment for that was to be outlawed, which meant that anybody could take his life without having to pay a fine. If the offended party declined to fight, the penalty was less severe, but he had lost the trust of society and could no longer speak at the ting or swear an oath.
Now and then a book comes along in the field of popular Viking studies that makes me want to stand up and yell, “Hey! Read this one!” to my fellow reenactors. Such a book is Vikings at War by Kim Hjardar and Vegard Vike (both of them Norwegian scholars. Hjardar is also a reenactor). Vikings at War is a great big book, and it’s packed with stuff you’ll want to know if you’re into Vikings.
Various sections of the work cover: 1. The Vikings (that is, who they were and where they came from), 2. The Art of War, 3. Viking Fortifications, 4. Viking Ships, 5. Viking Weapons, and 6. Viking Invasions (covering the various theaters of action in which the Vikings fought, from the Middle East to America).
Embarrassing as it is for an old know-it-all like me to admit, I learned a lot from Vikings at War. Particularly interesting (to me) was the examination of the Vikings’ activities in France, where their infamous depredations were often carried out at the invitation of the French nobility, who enlisted them as allies in their internecine fights.
Long ago, on my web page, I wrote that too much had been made by 20th Century scholars of Vikings being essentially peaceful. That they had their peaceful side I had no doubt, but I felt the theme was being oversold. If the recent movie, “The Northman,” hadn’t already convinced me that this is no longer a problem, Vikings at War would have done it. Hjardar and Vike understand that being a merchant doesn’t necessarily make you peaceful (especially when slaves are your major merchandise), and that a Viking man, whatever his occupation, was always prepared to defend his honor with the weapons he carried at all times.
Every student of the Viking Age will find things to quibble with here, as in any book. The description of the “incident” at Portland which opens the book is imaginative, and includes details which (I think) are not necessarily supported by the record. Viking feminists will find fault with the authors’ reluctance to wholeheartedly embrace the idea that shield maidens were a common phenomenon in the Viking Age (I agree with the authors). Although the authors cite one of the books written by Prof. Torgrim Titlestad (for whom I’ve translated), they don’t entirely endorse his theories.
But there’s a treasure trove of information here, which will make every reader richer and wiser in knowledge of the field. This is a book that belongs on the Viking shelf of anybody who has a Viking shelf. A magisterial work. Well written and highly recommended.
The Flensted Viking ship mobile (smaller size). Like the creative process, a thing of grace. Mine is dustier.
I have a vague idea that, in the happy long ago of this blog, I sometimes did journaling posts on the writing process. If that’s true (I could be wrong, and the early blog posts, on another host, are lost to history), this will be another of the same.
If not, this is an innovative new idea.
I’m in the throes of Early Novel Ecstasy just now. It’s a little like first love – your emotions run high; wonderful discoveries rush in; all around you, the world seems to organize itself to facilitate happiness and success. You know that down the road there will be disappointments, frustrations, despair and (possibly) failure. But right now it’s fun, and why waste the joy? Having a less good time today won’t buy me insurance against next month’s tailspin.
Last night I went to sleep thinking about a character in the book (Saint Olaf, if you must know). What made him tick? What kind of personality would account for his (sometimes bizarre) personal decisions?
This morning I woke up knowing a little more about him. As I floated into consciousness, I found myself constructing a couple snippets of dialogue that reveal part of the “real” man (as I imagine him).
Moments like that, in my experience, are one of the great pleasures of being a writer. It’s like grace; it’s a free gift and you can’t force it.
As I sat up to say my morning prayers, I looked up at the pictures hanging on the bedroom wall. There are three. I hung them years ago. Over the years, two fell down, and I was too lazy to re-hang them. This past weekend, I did re-hang them. Because my spirit was renewed.
On the left is a publicity still, in black and white, of Clint Eastwood as Josey Wales. Because, in its day, that movie spoke to me as no other ever had.
Next to it is another Western-themed photo taken around the same time, but it’s personal. It’s one of those studio photos that you used to be able to get at fairs and places like that – you dressed up in period garb and had your photo taken in front of a period backdrop. The camera was an antique, the picture a certified counterfeit. This was a picture of me and my college roommate, dressed up as desperadoes, displaying our Colt revolvers. We had it taken ceremonially, to mark the parting of our ways when we broke up the living arrangement .
I learned last week that this old friend is now institutionalized in another state, suffering from morbid depression. I won’t tell you his name, because he’d hate that. But you might pray for “Lars’s friend” if you think of it.
I realized, when I heard this, that somehow, at some time he’d dropped off the list of friends I pray for in the morning. Perhaps the fact that his picture had fallen down behind my dresser was a contributing cause. But the picture’s back up now, and I won’t forget again.
The third picture is a photo of C. S. Lewis, to remind me of my ambitions as a Mythopoeic writer.
Another small restoration in my life is that I mounted my Viking Ship mobile again yesterday. There’s a Danish company called Flensted that makes all kinds of lovely mobiles. I first saw their Viking ship mobile in my dentist’s office when I was a kid, and loved it. Years later, when I was in exile in Florida, I bought one to nourish my fantasies. I had it in my office in the library, but hadn’t put it up in my home since I retired. Wasn’t sure how to do it, as I didn’t want to put a hole in my ceiling. I finally bought a wall mount and got it set up yesterday. A lovely little thing, and very conducive to the writing state of mind.
Oh, that reminds me. I need to get back to the book.
This will be a scene in the new book, The Baldur Game.
I am excruciatingly aware that I’ve kept my fans waiting far too long for my next book. I just got a reminder on Basefook the other day, showing me a post I’d put up ONE YEAR AGO, saying I’d finished another draft of the new book (to be called King of Rogaland), and hoped I’d have it ready soon.
This is way too slow. I need to purge my life of some lazy writing habits.
In any case, I can now announce that King of Rogaland is finished. Wrapped up. In the can. It’s in the hands of my long-suffering publishing facilitator, who’ll be getting the e-book up on Amazon as soon as he can. However, he’s got stuff on his own plate right now (really important stuff, by the way), so I can’t promise when that will be.
Sorry. It’s coming. I promise.
In better news, King of Rogaland went off Saturday. On Monday I had a… revelation, or something.
I know now how the next book will go. It’s a stylistic departure for me, taking my work up a level (I hope).
The title will be The Baldur Game. It will be big. It will be epic. It will be the climax of the series.
One of the rare real pleasures on TV in recent years has been Amazon’s Bosch miniseries, in which Titus Welliver perfectly embodied the spirit of Michael Connelly’s driven LA police detective. Because of the character’s age in the books, they had to update everything, and they made some major character changes. Nevertheless, the project as a whole was very true to the atmosphere of the stories.
Now Netflix has taken on Connelly’s other major series character, Mickey Haller, in its The Lincoln Lawyer series (in the books, Mickey is actually Harry Bosch’s half-brother). Haller (turns out it rhymes with collar; I always assumed it rhymed with pallor) is a younger character than Bosch, so less radical changes were necessary in cast and setting. All in all, I was pretty pleased with the production.
There has been a Lincoln Lawyer movie already, starring Matthew McConaughey. McConaughey gave an excellent portrayal (in my opinion), but he didn’t look like the character. In the books, Mickey Haller is half Mexican, and dark-haired. Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, who plays him here, is a better physical fit. I didn’t entirely like his portrayal, though, I’ll confess. He sometimes has a mumbling way of speaking – I’m not talking about his slight Mexican accent; there are lots of very articulate actors with accents. Instead, the indistinct delivery made him seem kind of diffident to me; and Mickey Haller hasn’t got a diffident bone in his makeup. I don’t think any good criminal attorney does.
That’s not to say that Garcia-Rulfo gives a bad performance, as such. He was watchable and sympathetic all the way through.
As the series begins, Mickey, formerly an up-and-coming lawyer, is stuck. He was injured in a surfing accident and got hooked on pain medications, which killed his practice. But suddenly he learns that a friend of his, a very successful defense lawyer, has been murdered, and has left his entire practice – all his cases – to Mickey. Knowing that this is his one big break, Mickey pulls his team together (including his second ex-wife and her boyfriend, a biker-cum-private eye) and jumps in cold, sometimes showing up in court without even time to prepare. In one of his first cases, he gets a female client off entirely, and she agrees to pay his bill by driving him around. (If I remember correctly, she was a guy in the book, but here she’s a lesbian, so I suppose they split the difference.) Mickey likes to do his thinking while working in one of his Lincoln cars, hence the title. I think the Lincolns were big, white sedans in the books, but here he alternates between a red convertible and a Navigator. The scenes where he talks to his driver in the car provide great opportunities for dramatic exposition.
His big case, the make-or-break one, is the matter of Trevor Elliott, a hotshot Silicone Valley game developer who’s charged with shooting his wife and her lover to death. Unfortunately, all Mickey’s predecessor’s files have disappeared, so he has to improvise, hunting for weaknesses in the state’s case. Most annoying is Elliott’s insistence that he doesn’t want a continuance, he wants a quick trial – to clear his name before a big business deal goes through. The time pressure is immense, and Mickey is sometimes tempted by his old addiction.
The main weakness I saw in the script was as it was leading up to the “big surprise,” when Mickey finally explains the most damning piece of evidence in the state’s case. Unfortunately, I knew what was coming before I was supposed to (granted, I’ve read the book, but I’d forgotten that particular point).
Nevertheless, overall, the storytelling in The Lincoln Lawyer was outstanding. The dramatic tension constantly ratcheted up, and the characters engaged me.
As an extra-special treat, there was a not-so-subtle poke at bullying Wokeism toward the end. And the final scene involved a Christian reference – even better, the doctrine was entirely correct.
Recommended. Cautions for language, violence, and sexual situations.
I am and mean to remain a big booster of the author John D. MacDonald, especially his Travis McGee novels. That doesn’t mean, however, that I like all his books equally well. The Crossroads, published in the Murder Room series, is not (in my opinion) one of his stellar achievements.
Back in the early 20th Century, old Papa Drovek, cheerful and parsimonious, invested every dollar he could save up in buying land along the highway. In time it became a major intersection. He built a gas station. Then a café. And as the crossroads experienced increasing traffic, his little empire grew – a truck stop, hotels, strip malls. Today he’s retired, still living in his little cottage, keeping an eye on his beloved children as they carry on the business. He’s old school in his habits, and keeps his money in cash, in a safe deposit box at the bank.
But his children are not entirely happy. His oldest son Charles (Chip) has a good head for business, and is ambitious and hard-working. But his home life is tragic. The woman he married is now a barely functioning alcoholic. Chip loves another woman, but the doctors have told him that any major change in his wife’s situation will certainly lead to her rapid decline and death. So he sticks.
His sister Joan is equally smart and energetic. But she married a drone who seems content to go fishing and live off her money.
Their youngest brother, Pete, has never grown up. Given work in the company, he soon loses interest and turns his attentions to golf. He married a pretty girl, a former model, who shows no sign of any brain wattage whatever.
What none of them knows is that they have an enemy. A man with a deep grudge and a twisted plan to get his hands on Papa Drovek’s money. The plan will involve taking a couple lives, but that’s a sacrifice he has no trouble making.
The Crossroads seemed to me essentially a tragic soap opera. There are no real surprises in the story, and no real hero. Just fairly ordinary people making fairly ordinary mistakes and – in the end, if they’re lucky — learning from them. I’m afraid I found it all kind of dreary.
One thing I noticed in this book – and I probably should have noticed before in reading this series – is that it’s set up in British orthography. “Gas” is always “petrol.” “Gray” is spelled “grey.” “Dispatch case” is “despatch case.” Turns out the Murder Room series is published by an English company, and they must be using text from English editions of the books.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It just makes the American dialogue awkward at times.
