I was trying to figure out why I feel so depressed today, and then I remembered that Al Franken is going to be my new senator.

In related news, the official Minnesota State Accessory is now the red rubber clown nose.



I decided to try reading a mystery by Steven Saylor on the recommendation of James Lileks (not, I probably ought to add, a personal recommendation, but one heard on the Hugh Hewitt Show). I’m glad I did, and I’ll be reading more. But they’re odd books.

The hero of The Venus Throw is Gordianus the Finder, an established private detective in Rome in the time of Julius Caesar. This story takes place in the year 56 BC, and is based on actual events.

Gordianus is visited, unexpectedly, by an acquaintance from the past, an old Egyptian philosopher named Dio, with whom he used to have informal dialogues when he lived as a young man in Alexandria. Dio explains that he is part of a delegation from Egypt which has come to petition the Roman Senate. One by one or in groups, most of the original 100 emissaries have been murdered or scared off. Dio asks Gordianus for just one favor—to do a sort of security check on the house where he is staying, so that he can eat the food without fearing poison.

Gordianus, very regretfully, has to refuse. Not only does the case involve political risks, but he is leaving on a trip to visit his oldest stepson (a soldier of Caesar’s in Gaul) the next day.

On his return from Gaul, Gordianus learns that Dio was murdered that very night. Continue reading The Venus Throw, by Steven Saylor →

I raised a small controversy in this space a little while back, when I gave a less than enthusiastic (though positive) review to Athol Dickson’s The Cure.

I liked his Winter Haven considerably better, though I still have a couple reservations.

I criticized The Cure for offering a weak sister protagonist for whom I found it hard to root. No such problem with Winter Haven. The protagonist here is Vera Gamble, a Texas accountant whose nearly obsessive-compulsive passion for numerical balance drives her to go to any lengths to rectify the imbalances in her own life. She has lost her mother (to cancer) and her autistic brother (he just disappeared one day), and finally her father, whose abusive religious teachings drove her to never, never, never ask God why He let anything happen. Now she’s received word that her brother’s body has washed up on a beach on the Maine island of Winter Haven. When she makes her way there to take him home, she discovers that, although thirteen years have passed since his disappearance, he looks precisely the age he was when he ran away.

The story unfolds in the classic manner of a Gothic novel (and a good one). The island residents seem oddly hostile, and they are greatly disturbed when their (unwritten and unexplained) rules about where she may go and what she may do are transgressed. A handsome sea captain who lives alone in a crumbling mansion is the one who discovered her brother’s body. He has recently announced the discovery of Viking artifacts, which (trust me on this), if verified as being discovered on this island, would mean a huge historical breakthrough. But is his story true? Why won’t he show anyone where he found them? What is he hiding? And what is the strange, inhuman voice that Vera hears everywhere, speaking almost-intelligible words?

I found the mystery fascinating. Winter Haven is a genuine page-turner.

Maybe it’s just me, but I thought Dickson tied everything up a little too neatly at the end. The theme of answered questions, and mysteries explained, is central to the book, but I (personally) find too much resolution a little unbelievable. In my own books, I like to leave a few threads untied, because life’s like that.

But that’s my only quibble. I recommend Winter Haven.

A while back I made an attempt to write a novel in which one main character was someone who (like me) suffered from Avoidant Personality Disorder.

I wrestled with that book for months before finally giving up on it. I realized at last that the character was so timid and passive that even I—who was him, more or less—didn’t care what happened to him.

That was kind of my problem with The Cure, too. I’m not saying it’s a bad book. I recommend it, especially as compared to most Christian Booksellers Association fare. But I had trouble, especially with the main character.

The Cure concerns the town of Dublin, Maine. Homeless people have been collecting in Dublin in unusual numbers, because of a rumor that’s gotten around that somebody—no one is sure who—in Dublin has a cure for alcoholism. The town’s economy is bad, and an influx of non-productive visitors is the last thing it needs.

Among these homeless is Riley Keep, who grew up in Dublin. Once he was a pastor here. Once he taught at a nearby college. From here he went to Brazil as a missionary.

But a tragedy in Brazil (explained to us gradually, in flashbacks) broke his heart and most of his faith. He became an alcoholic, abandoned his wife and daughter, and went on the road. He’s only come back now because he has a friend who won’t last much longer without the Cure.

Riley’s ex-wife is mayor of Dublin now. But nobody recognizes him at first.

Then one day he wakes up in an alley, his hunger for alcohol completely vanished. In his pocket he finds a small packet of powder, along with a note explaining its use, and a chemical formula.

He gives the powder to some others, and they are immediately healed. Then everybody finds out about it, and the others want the Cure too, and Riley is attacked by a mob. That’s only the beginning of the trouble, as the army of the homeless becomes a genuine civil threat, and powerful people who want the Cure start pressuring Riley and everyone he cares about.

It’s a good idea for a story, but (in my opinion) the execution here could have been better. Riley Keep is essentially a passive guy, and he deals with all crises by taking the line of least resistance. This provides an excellent moral object lesson, but makes a story that might have been very gripping, just irritating in places. A better protagonist, I think, would have been the mayor, Riley’s ex-wife, who has some spirit. It would have called for some re-plotting, but I think it would have made for a more compelling narrative.

Another flaw is that what is supposed to be a big revelation toward the end was telegraphed miles off, because the author falls into a much-overused character stereotype.

Dickson is Dickson, and he’s not capable of producing a really bad book.

But I wanted to like The Cure more than I did.

The infiniteenth installment in John Sandford’s “Prey” series finds Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension officer Lucas Davenport butting heads with his superiors over security preparations for the Republican National Convention (which pretty well fixes the story in real history). Davenport keeps telling them that they need to take terror threats seriously, while all his superiors seem to be able to reply is, “Bush is an [expletive deleted].”

This is about as profound an observation on Minnesota politics as I’ve ever read, and I give Sandford full marks for it.

But that’s not what the main plot of Phantom Prey is about. The main plot concerns Alyssa Austin, a wealthy recent widow, whose daughter, Frances, has recently disappeared. The police don’t seem to be giving the case a high priority, so Davenport’s wife Weather, a friend of Alyssa’s, asks him to look into it.

Very quickly Lucas gets shot in the leg by a man accompanied by a mysterious, unidentified, beautiful woman. And people who knew Frances, largely members of the “Goth” community, start showing up murdered, often after being seen with that same woman.

About half-way through, we discover who the murderer is, and then tension rises through watching Davenport try to put the pieces together in time to stop a killer who’s gone completely out of control.

I liked this book better than some of the recent entries in the series, which have dwelt unnecessarily (I thought) on kinky and sadistic sex practices. There was plenty of sex and depravity (and bad language) in this book, but they were kept more offstage. Also one scene took place in Cherry Grove Township, near Wanamingo. This should have been “near Kenyon” (my home town), because Cherry Grove Township is generally considered a Kenyon township rather than a Wanamingo one, but I always enjoy a reference to my childhood stomping grounds under any circumstances.

Also it was a great relief that the New Age religious adherent in the book was not portrayed as wise and possibly in touch with vast, glorious spiritual resources. The New Ager in this book is just plain wrong, and there’s a (faint) suggestion that Christianity might be a whole lot better choice.

So I liked Phantom Prey. A solid, page-turning entry in the series. Recommended for adults.