Blood Rites – S.J. Rozan

22 May

Lydia Chin is a Chinese American Private investigator with an ‘occasional partner’ by the name of Bill Smith, a loner, ex-soldier. Chin has grown up under the extended influence of Grandfather Gao in China Town, and is delighted to be entrusted, together with Smith, with the delivery of Gao’s oldest friends ashes back to Hong Kong. Sounds simple? A young boy connected to the family gets kidnapped along with his nanny and the family closes ranks, meaning no police. Then two separate ransom demands arrive…..

Before anyone asks I’ve no idea where that ‘click to look inside’ came from as it wasn’t on the original image. Lunatics and asylum come to mind….

I only discovered after reading this book that it was released in the USA in 2001 under the title ‘Reflecting the Sky’ but Ebury Press are obviously releasing the series over in the good ol’ UK.

I’ll admit I’d never heard of the author, but looking into her she has got a large portfolio. Chin and Smith are an interesting pairing. Her being about a decade younger, him constantly soft-flirting with her, her knocking him back constantly. Add to the fact that Chin’s family hate Smith and it gets a bit complicated. I’m not generally a ‘jump in in the middle of a series’ type person, if I like the sound of something I’ll generally buy the series from the beginning. There’s an element of not knowing what’s gone on before when you should do that annoys me a little, and I’m in that scenario here.

I enjoyed this book, the setting of Hong Kong was a new one to me and I think I’d enjoy reading about these pair in their American setting. That said, I struggled to get into it to start with. That occasionally happens to me when I’ve read a few books in quick succession and I think the problem was more that I’d just read Frank Bills ‘Crimes in Southern Indiana’ on Barb’s suggestion, which is about as cut throat, immediate and brutal as can be. This is a much more sedately paced affair, and reminded me of a comment I read in an agents interview of maybe it would be nice to read a crime novel where everyone doesn’t get killed. Well, there are deaths in this, but it does feel a little like that comment, as though it were from a slower age, which is ironic as it constantly points out how quick life is in Hong Kong. The book is very good in its setting, and captures the atmosphere very well. The dialogue is good although when I was struggling a little to start with I was flicking through and seeing a lot of blocky, long paragraphs that made me wonder whether I’d finish it. Eventually it drew me in, and as I say I think the fault there might be more mine than the writers.

I would read more of Rozan’s work, and I would like to start from the beginning and read it as a series, but whether I’ll ever be in a ‘non cut-throat’ enough mood to do it I’m not sure. I’d recommend this as a good read for those who are after a little less blood and guts and a complex plot, a little sexual tension and a good old mystery. She’s good at what she does.

 

All I did was shoot my man – Walter Mosley

22 May

Seven years ago, Zella Grisham came home to find her man, Harry Tangelo, in bed with her friend. The weekend before, $6.8 million had been stolen from Rutgers Assurance Corp., whose offices are across the street from where Zella worked. Zella didn’t remember shooting Harry, but she didn’t deny it either. The district attorney was inclined to call it temporary insanity-until the police found $80,000 from the Rutgers heist hidden in her storage space. 

For reasons of his own, Leonid McGill is convinced of Zella’s innocence. But as he begins his investigation, his life begins to unravel. His wife is drinking more than she should. His oldest son has dropped out of college and moved in with an exprostitute. His youngest son is working for him and trying to stay within the law. And his father, whom he thought was long dead, has turned up under an alias. 

This was very nearly the shortest review I’d ever written, but I remembered the days when I collected debts for a living and a previous collector had written simply on the notes: ‘attended, actions speak louder than words, paid’…..it didn’t do much to warn you of an impending baseball bat, so elaboration is needed.

Back in the early 90′s, Walter Mosley & James Lee Burke introduced me to crime fiction. I read a novel of each that was given out free with ‘Esquire’ magazine, whilst I was pondering where I would get drunk that night and looking at half undressed showbiz stars. The Mosley novel was either ‘Devil in a blue dress’ or ‘White butterfly’ by memory, and it introduced me to the world of Easy Rawlins.

I read a lot of Rawlins, there was a lot to read, but after a while, although I stayed with Burke, I drifted away from Mosley. Therefore, somewhere in the house is, I know, a number of unread Mosley novels, particularly RLs Dream. I even wondered whether I’d enjoy reading him again after so many years, the unsaid thought was that I’d done Mosley to death.

I needn’t have worried.

This book is superb, and the pages flew past as I didn’t want it to end. Its like Mosley’s other novels in that it is a complex story with a complex hero. The difference is that whilst Rawlins was compared to Marlow, its difficult to know who to compare McGill to. Easy and Mouse were very similar in ways to Dave Robicheaux and Clete Purcel, Patrick Kenzie and Bubba Rogowski, Elvis Cole and Joe Pike, the sidekick being the crazy/out there accomplice to the morally more upstanding if slightly more troubled main man. Where McGill differs is that he’s closer to a concoction of Clete, Bubba and Joe than the straighter trio of the more main three. He tries to prove it whilst trying to hold his family together and solve  the problems facing him, whilst walking around the city in a one man tidal wave of mayhem and destruction, an ex-boxer still bouncing around the canvas, riding and dodging punches. Whilst saying McGill is more akin to the aforementioned renegade sidekicks, that may well leave his own friend and accomplice, Hush, simply incomparable in his brutality and standing.

McGill makes you think and is complex and educated enough to be a contradiction in terms. To explain, I was reading him as though he was black with a Swedish wife, yet couldn’t definitely confirm his colour until page 240! Whether that says more about me or the speed I was reading I don’t know.

This book deserves to be read, and I’m about to purchase the previous three in the series on the kindle for just under twenty pounds. When he writes like this Mosley is at a level reached by very few, and I could only dream of writing a book like this. Reading this makes me feel like bumping into my first love in a bar years after parting, the crush still there somewhere, just hidden under dust.

Superb. Needs to be read.

Moonlight Mile – Dennis Lehane

23 Jan

A 16-year old girl has gone missing. a girl with a tragic past. A girl who is concealing secrets. a girl who is remarkably intelligent. And investigator Patrick Kenzie is the man who must face unimaginable drama and danger to find her……

I bought this between christmas and new year, already having heard it wasn’t as good as expected. I am, though, a big Lehane fan, or certainly a big Lehane/Kenzie/Gennaro fan. I’d loved all the previous books in the series, and ‘Coronado’ and his recent epic ‘The Given Day’, although I’d never got on with ‘Shutter Island’.

Lehane returns to the scene of ‘Gone Baby Gone’, where Kenzie was left in a moral dilemma when after a number of months he found Amanda McCready in the care of a police officer and his wife, who were trying to bring the child up properly…apart from the kidnapping bit…rather than return her to her natural, crackhead and unfit mother. Kenzie, despite severe reservations, played it by the book and took the child home, resulting in the imprisonment of the child’s uncle and the couple with whom she was staying. Since that day Kenzie has had to live with the knowledge that although technically he was correct, the rest of the world thought he was wrong, indeed it almost cost him his relationship with Gennaro, the two not speaking for eighteen months.

‘Gone, baby, gone’ was made into a film with Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan, that was delayed in the UK due to the similarities with the Madeleine McCann case.

In the present day, Kenzie and Gennaro have a four year old daughter, and Amanda disappears again.

This is a decent novel, if it wasn’t by Lehane. I enjoyed it, but I thought I’d enjoy it more, and therein lies the problem. Fans of the series had always wanted the author to return to the couple, but I think he left it too long. I wondered whether it was a trade off, Lehane being given the time to write ‘The Given Day’ as long as he returned with another Kenzie and Gennaro novel afterwards, but I think they may be different publishers.

It seemed a little forced to me. The author rants against modern technology, the era of texting and less conversation and manners. Nothing wrong with that but to me it seems like a protest book in a way…’hey, read this, isn’t our civilisation going to shit’ type thing, further exampled by a real rant on ‘Kenzie’s word is his bond’, presumably pointing out no-one keeps their word any more.

I found Amanda unconvincing. There’s strong and there’s strong, but she’s sixteen! It just lacked a bit of something, as though it was against the authors will, although I’ve heard that Lehane is given a very loose lead on his work.

Lehane is a superb writer, but if you’re going to start reading him, don’t start here.

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The Cold Cold Ground – Adrian McKinty

16 Jan

Spring 1981. Newly promoted and posted to Carrickfergus CID, Detective Sergeant Duffy has hardly had a chance to unpack when he’s landed with two very different cases: what may be Northern Ireland’s first ever serial killer and a young woman’s suicide that may yet turn out to be murder. It’s no easy job – especially when it turns out that one of the victims was involved in the IRA, but last seen discussing business with one of their sworn enemies in the UVF.

For Duffy, though, there’s no question of whose side he’s on – because as a Catholic policeman, nobody trusts him.

Ireland. a confusing place for many people, for its not an easy place to understand. The author himself has said that he’s not sure that Americans like reading about ‘The Troubles’ as it confuses their simple stereotypical viewpoint of rolling hills, rugged coastlines and Guinness, or so he’s been told.

This is not a book about rebels fighting a cause, nor does it go out of its way to damn the ‘invading’ British. This a book about the struggle between a multitude of sides too far gone, who know no difference in life than the conflict they’re involved in, where everyone involved is covered in grime, and at the time there was no end in sight.

I have been a fan of McKinty since chancing upon his Michael Forsythe trilogy, and most of his work is written with his home country as a backdrop. He has been criticised (not by me) as being too violent in the past but this flew past my eyes with more polish than his previous works.

McKinty goes bare knuckle with his characters, loosely fitting them in with existing (if unconfirmed) players in the game, and gets across the dangers of the life that Sean Duffy chooses superbly. When I was a child in the playground and we were inventing various war games there was always a limit to who anyone could be: the Germans were relatively acceptable and the little we knew of the SS were just about okay, the Japanese produced a few sideways glances and looks of distaste, the Apaches even more so, but the IRA? Maybe it was the times we lived in but if the IRA were mentioned there would be a period of silence before we all trooped off to play football….even eight year olds knew not to mess with the IRA! I’m glad I’m not in the playground today.

In truth, with the two projects that I myself have written having exiled Irishmen as the main characters, and in the same time frame, I was always going to enjoy this. What I didn’t expect was not to be able to put this down. Here I was, trying to finish my CWA Debut Dagger presentation and having just finished Patrick De Witt’s ‘The Sisters Brothers’, another I recommend (anybody who’s read it will realise the language difference between the two took a while to get used to) and I finished this book in two sittings. Now even as an avid reader, I don’t tend to fly through a book that quick.

Maybe its because its my era, or maybe because its roughly connected to my own writing, I cannot praise this book highly enough. I find it uncomfortably early to think that will be the best book that I read this year, but I believe that will be the case.

Buy it.

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The Wood – Andrew Richardson

8 Jan

I have just finished reading the horror novel ‘The Wood’ by British writer Andrew Richardson, which is the follow-up to ‘The Shoot’ which I reviewed further down the site.

The book re-introduces the reader to Kath Mahoney and her friend, Pippa. Kath has a book about to be released regarding the truths behind various Celtic myths and for publicity agrees to undertake a role playing exercise with 8 others through an ancient wood. The sacred number of nine is jeopardised by drop outs, & although is restored has set forces in motion that take a horrific turn (which is good as its a horror novel!)

I read a bit of horror/fantasy although obviously my main genre is crime thrillers, & I thoroughly enjoyed & would recommend this to anyone looking for a bit of Celtic shock. Having agreed to read it I thought I’d get a few chapters out of the way friday night after work before writing something myself, & then struggled to put it down until sunday morning (there was losing money on the FA Cup involved here as well, I’m not that slow)

Highly recommended, as are the rest of his books, & writers who write outside of the day job deserve & need the support

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The Grind

8 Jan

Personally, I’ve found it quite hard to get going again in the new year. I’d got high hopes of pushing on with the new novel over the xmas & new year break & whilst some got done, not enough as far as my hopes were concerned. The break was certainly welcome though, & the batteries are recharged to an extent.

I hadn’t pushed my latest novel, ‘Walk of the Navajo’ much before xmas, having only sent it to about 6 or 7 agents. Then there was the normal hanging around to hear absolutely nothing in most cases, before planning on who to send it off to next. I’d got into the ‘tinkering’ zone which is generally also the ‘if I don’t send it then it can’t be rejected’ approach….but then if you hear nothing then does it count as rejected? Its a hard game & everybody does their best its said….apparently. In fairness I suppose if agents only received what they consider a certain standard of work then arguably they could & should reply, & I know a lot of writers see no replies as ignorant & bad manners at best. There’s always 2 sides to every story though & it can’t be easy, there’s a lot of manuscripts out there flying around & a lot of would be authors trying to make the grade, & the recession hits everybody so its not as though these agencies are overstaffed. This isn’t a knock at agencies, they do a necessary job in being a sifting process for publishers, its just pretty demoralising at times, but we’ve heard all this before…..

So, first plan of the year is to enter ‘Navajo’ into the Crime Writers Association Debut Dagger award. closing date isn’t far away, January 21st to be precise. Its exciting in a way as its not something I’ve done before, but I feel the time is right. It’s hard to actually tell yourself you have a chance of winning, but you certainly don’t if you don’t enter. I’m happy with & proud of ‘Navajo’ so we’ll give it a go & see what happens, & just a mention would be worth the entry fee of £25. I did wonder about the fee to start with, but I guess its just big enough to stop people sending any old rubbish (not for me obviously, maybe I’m actually rich & no-one’s told me) So in a way its providing another sifting filter.

The plan after that is to submit the novel to agents in a preferential list (the format of which will remain a closely guarded secret, a bit like Granny’s sticky sauce) If nothing has happened after that then I’ll probably look to go down the kindle route, probably somewhere between 8 & 9 months time. I like the kindle, & I feel it will also act as another sifting process for the publishing industry, but I’m not sure I like some of its side effects. Its a great way of reading new authors, often at a cheap price, but personally I think you can see the difference at times. The amount of books I’ve read on there recently that have been full of great idea & characters, yet I’ve finished & thought ‘that could have been a great book if it had been edited properly & looked at with a trained eye.’ Now I’m certainly not suggesting that my eye is trained, & my books might end up being thought of the same for all I know (time will tell) but I think you can definitely see the difference between a well planned book by an experienced writer who describes at his own speed whilst keeping the pace alive, and an inexperienced writer who seems to rush towards the ending at breakneck speed. Action scenes & the like, of course, do move quickly, but the whole thing doesn’t have to remind you of the Keanu Reeves & Sandra Bullock movie ‘Speed’ & never throttle back after that. In a way of explanation, after half an hour of ‘I am Legend’ I was thinking ‘what a great film this could be, an epic of about two hours’. After the film finished after 90 minutes I was left thinking ‘what a waste’.

So I guess I’ll put my money where my mouth is & keep soldiering on, & hopefully Jez Kennedy from ‘Navajo’ will be available to his intended audience soon, followed by Ady Killarney in his lifelong adventures in the debt collecting industry.

Here’s hoping…….

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C’mon Ricky….mate!

20 Nov

Ricky Ponting summoned all of his powers to somehow deny the obituary writers and finish unbeaten on 54 overnight, having played with a straighter bat than has been seen for some time….ages in fact. No century for close to 2 years, & no fifty since early in the Ashes, he & Usman Khawaja neutralised the Amla/De Villiers stand by compiling their own of 122. Khawaja’s maiden fifty augur’s well for the future, ironically potentially mimicking the turnover of life and death in a batting order.

The mathematics are that Australia need 168 more runs whereas South Africa need 7 more wickets. The key could turn out to be the run out of Ashwell Prince, or Khawaja’s departure from the penultimate ball of the day from Imran Tahir. My money has been on South Africa all along, and remains there, even when I had a chance to lay off on Australia when they touched 9/1 earlier (when will I stop looking at it as sport & more as a transaction at this stage, doh!)

If Australia get home, I will say fair play, for I feel that Punter must score a century for it to happen. He is joined by Pup Clarke in the morning, and then there is Mike Hussey, both perfectly capable, but after that come the under pressure Brad Haddin & Mitchell Johnson. Yes, Punter was/is also under pressure, but he can build & craft an innings as an artist can. Haddin & Johnson are quick scorers, ultra attacking players, granted both with test pedigree & centuries, but its a brave man that hits himself home in this type of situation. A silly shot from one of those two, costing the series, & in Tony Grieg’s immortal words, its ‘Goodnight Charlie!’

Ponting is batting for all of us that approach the end, that rail against the fading light, that know not when they are beaten. Stubborn? Stupid? Take your pick. Brave is too contentious a word when we’ve just celebrated Remembrance Sunday, but you get the gist.

Australia’s period of dominance owed so much to the days of Allan Border as he marshalled a young team through defeat after defeat, yet he was axed whilst debating whether to carry on. The feeling is that the selectors want Ponting to go, but now the injuries to Watson & Marsh complicate the issue with the New Zealand tests so close. I said I would love to see Ponting ‘do a Nasser’, score a ton & walk away on his own terms, & whilst I stand by that, I don’t see him pulling the plug himself. Whatever happens in the morning, if he plays against New Zealand then, if everyone’s fit for the start of the Indian series, he will go through the whole drama again. As I said, heroe’s don’t deserve that type of thing.

Walk tall Ricky.

Johnson must go, surely. As well as Cummin’s bowled, Johnson was the supposed attack leader, yet has taken 2-168 off 46 overs in a low scoring match, together with only 1 wicket in the first test. People call him a match winner, & a leader, yet he doesnt even lead the attack. He is talked about as something he is not.

Yet my biggest problem with Mitch Johnson, is having been a captain & felt the pain of relegation & sitting in the car park alone for half of the night as a lower team celebrated promotion, is that he consistently lets down his captain when he needs him.

Whilst we’re on the subject. I like Ponting because he’s class, one of the greats. yes he’s got black marks on his record, particularly as a captain, but he wants to fight on. I sympathise with that. Two years ago, facing relegation with two games to go, I had two drop outs on a bank holiday monday game, yet the two players I tried to take up from the 2nd team refused to play for me. We lost, although we probably still would have anyway, but I swore that day that after the final do or die game (we lost, obviously) I would never captain the club again (this probably wasn’t a universally unpopular statement lol)

What I did swear, though, that as long as I played, I would never retire from 1st team cricket, or as high in the club as I was needed. if I play until I’m 55 (unlikely I assure you) then if I am needed, I will play. This is probably the only comparison with Ricky Ponting’s career that I can manage.

The difference with the South Africans though, is that seemingly as soon as they are dropped from the national side, they sign for a county or some other side as a Kolpak player, therefore making them ineligible to return for their country. To me it would mean everything. Maybe I’m being unfair & obviously I accept that families & security etc come into these things, but personally I’ve never understood it.

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‘The Shoot’ – Andrew Richardson

19 Nov

British horror writer Andrew Richardson has had an erotic novel released called ‘The Shoot’ through Eternal Press.

He described it to me as F/F erotica, which is new to me I’ll admit, but I’ll also have to admit that I actually enjoyed it, and its well worth a look.

 Kath Mahoney only attends her friend’s first glamour photo shoot because Pippa needs someone to drive her there. Kath expects to find the day boring, but her interest is stirred when the photographer, Rob, turns out to be a sexy, blonde, former glamour model called Robyn. 

Kath allows herself to be talked into posing with Pippa. She warms to the sexy poses, and enjoys the photographer’s attention. When Robyn invites Kath back for a solo shoot, Pippa is crushed. Even before Kath steps into the studio, though, Kath suspects that neither she nor Robyn will be particularly interested in taking photographs.

The book itself is a prequel to his newer book ‘The Wood’, which is from the same publishers. I’m yet to read the sequel but ‘Shoot’ is well worth a read, even though it was a bit off the beaten track for me.

I recently did an interview with the author himself, regarding writing, styles and the trade itself. Here’s what was said:

1: Instead of the normal question of where do you get your ideas from, which do you find is the stronger source of inspiration in your writing: non-fiction & fiction books, TV, radio, films, real life?

Mostly non-fiction books.  I’ve had a fascination for history for as long as I can remember and tended to read every history book I could get my hands on.  History plays a big role in most of my work.  Usually the historical element is obvious – a story may be set in the past, or have a supernatural element that is based on an ancient sprit.  Sometimes the link can be tenuous, with a character who has a degree in archaeology.  They say to write what you know, and I feel more comfortable writing something with a historical basis.

I’d also have to throw in fiction books – but that’s another question coming later!

2: What is your writing routine? Any special potions or anything magical?

The routine is to write whenever I can!

The aimed at bonus of not working is more free time, and the ability to set a schedule.  I’ve always limited myself to the number of words I write, and spent the rest of my writing time trying to improve my drafts, not in churning our more low quality work.  More time means more self-editing and so better quality – at least, that’s the plan!  More time also means more critiquing, blogging, researching, and other writing-related jobs that tend to be lower priority.

3: Who are your favourite authors and how do you believe they help mould your writing?

I’ve read horror since I was a teenager and read just about every horror writer the local library or second hand bookshop cold offer.  I didn’t decide to write until some years later, but horror was an obvious genre because I knew from all my reading how horror novels are structured, and the different elements that are needed. 

It was when I discovered Richard Laymon that I found someone who really helped mould me.  He has (had, sadly; R.I.P) a sparse style that suits me and which I’ve copied.  He’s particularly good with descriptions – you realise you know his characters intimately, despite him never describing them in a technique that I can only describe as brilliant.  He also taught me a lot about pushing boundaries and what you can get away with.  My subject matter differs from Laymon’s, but he’s still easily my greatest influence.

4: Do you think self-publication on Kindle is the way forward for unpublished authors? If this becomes more commonplace do you think it will affect the standard of writing available due to it not going through the agent/publisher sifting/critique stage, & do you think there will be a time when people will see it as a ‘first call option’ without bothering with the traditional avenues?

I think electronic publishing in general has been great.  It’s meant cheaper reading, and has allowed more publishers to spring up.  It’s also meant good but not outstanding authors who wouldn’t previously have been picked up have get a chance to get published and learn the trade with the smaller press. 

The flip side is that of course it’s become easier to self publish.  Everyone has a right to self-publish, but the reason most do – as far as I can see from reading blogs and the like – is that they’re not good enough to be picked up by a publisher.  This watering down of quality does concern me.  I’m particularly worried about it becoming a first option, because the need to polish before sending to a publisher wouldn’t be there. 

At the moment there is a stigma attached to self-publishing – and rightly so in most cases, I think.

 

Thank you, Andrew

Truth by Peter Temple

19 Nov

Inspector Steve Villani’s job as the head of the Victoria Police Homicide Squad is bathed in blood and sorrow. Incapable of constancy as a father and husband, damaged as a son, his life is his work. It is his identity, his calling, his touchstone. Now, over a few sweltering summer days his soul is about to be laid bare.

I wasn’t handed this book to review by ‘Mean Streets’, I’ve had it sitting on my shelf for a good twelve months now and it had got partially buried by new stuff that I’d accumulated, but it hadn’t been reviewed on here and presumably it wasn’t going to be at this late stage. I dug it out from memory on seeing that Temple has his fourth ‘Jack Irish’ novel being re-released around now at an absolutely absurd price on Kindle.

I am a fan of Temple, let me say that from the outset, and what drove me to review this was partly because I’d decided to talk about it on my own blog, and partly because it had received mixed reviews, indeed on Amazon it had received all the marks from 1 to 5.

The ‘Jack Irish’ novels are superb, as are the stand alone novels such as ‘In the Evil Day’ and ‘The Broken Shore’. I haven’t read much other Australian crime fiction, so can’t really compare this bloke to his countrymen, though I have a feeling it would be a hard task looking at the awards he has received in his own country.

‘Truth’ has won the Miles Franklin award, which I’ll admit means nothing to me, but the book itself certainly did. Some reviewers called the book ‘grim’, some ‘hard work’, but I found it neither. Once I started it drew me in, hook, line and sinker. The author’s description of its setting superb. He uses language in its most descriptive form, as one reviewer pointed out some sentences bordered on long in their wording, but Temple always gets the point home, and from a writer myself that detests editing to a large degree, this is polished to perfection.

The longer sentences I didn’t notice and had to be pointed out, it was more the short, almost staccato lines that really took me into the story. Almost Ellroy-esque (who I’ve always enjoyed but not read for a long time) but without the racism controversy. The dialogue is crisp, almost fatalistic between the police in their daily grind, and the feeling of almost being swept away with the tide is superbly put across.

Villani is a minor character in the ‘Irish’ novels, and also ‘The Broken Shore’, whose lead character, Joe Cashin, used to be a colleague. He is a complex character, not a true hero in the sense of the word in any way, which also interested me as it is a similar trait to a character I am writing a book on currently. Another writer once told me that it was very hard to create a flawed hero, somebody that is touch and go whether he can be loved, but if it is done well then he is a very strong focal point. That is Villani to a tee. Indeed I could argue that the real hero in this book is the understated, coloured ex-federal detective returning to duty after being shot, by the name of Dove, who has to overcome all prejudices set in his path.

Villani’s marriage is falling apart. His wife works away and he is convinced that she is having affairs. He doesn’t particularly moralise on this point as he himself is adulterous, but until his eyes are opened he does blame her more for the children’s problems, one of whom he is convinced isn’t his anyway. The marriage has been a sham for some time, just ships passing in the night, his children knowing he is wrapped up in his work, not really listening or paying attention to them.

He blames his poor parenting qualities on the lack of his mother being around, and the fact that his ex-soldier father would work away all week, leaving him, at twelve years old, to look after his two younger brothers. He never felt loved, compared to the other two, never felt he got the credit he deserved. He slowly realises that his people skills are shot, something he blames on his father who seems to resent him being a cop, and he detests the fact that he can’t live up to his fathers demands, seen through both their eyes.

His superiors play politics above him, warning him away from certain lines of enquiry on a murder case that arrives on his desk in a prestigious new building. He has to make choices, whether to further his career or to stand against the corruption spiralling around him. Whilst this goes on, bush fires surge towards his fathers farm, threatening to extinguish all life in their path. Villani struggles to comprehend all this as his marriage continues to disintegrate and one of his daughters turns against him.

The pace and helplessness that surround Villani and lead him towards his inevitable doom, as his world crashes around him brick by brick, are astoundingly put into words. Anybody who is a parent will feel a chill go down their spine as they see this man stripped naked against the storm that engulfs him, facing every parents worst nightmare, as he struggles to walk on into the wind. All he has left is that he is a man, nothing more.

In reality, I can see why ‘Truth’ has received mixed reviews, as I think it is different things to different readers. To me it is a battle for the man of our times. Temple’s publishers compared the book to JM Coetzees ‘Disgrace’, which one reviewer ridiculed (I haven’t read it) but it is a book that makes you think when you put it down, ‘what if?’ Surely that’s what its all about? I would say that anyone disliking this book has more problems recognising the human frailties involved, than having problems with the book itself.

I can give this book no higher review than ‘superb’, and I would recommend it to anyone, though for anyone that ever feels they’ve let their children down, read it with nothing stronger than a glass of water.

 

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Oh, Ricky…..

19 Nov

Firstly, as a ‘Pommie’, I’m not supposed to like Ricky Ponting. He’s been a thorn in the English sides for many years, and is second only to Tendulkar in test hundreds. By playing in the current series against South Africa away from home, he’s drawn level with Allan Border’s Aussie appearance record, and no doubt he wants to continue to hold that record alone.
He doesn’t deserve to be remembered as the man who lost three Ashes series, two in England, he is a much better player than that. He doesn’t deserve to be remembered for some unpleasant instances whilst captain either, he deserves to be remembered as one of the greatest batsmen to walk to the crease.
That is why it’s a shame to watch him struggle for runs as he desperately wants to continue playing.
He averages only 25 in his last few appearances, and his last test hundred was well over a year ago, yet he still believes, quite rightly so when you look at his fielding. Yet those who watch him closely will tell you of him looking more and more like an lbw candidate, of looking as though he’s trying just that bit too hard.
As I write, as rain and bad light brings day 3 to a close with De Villiers and Amla guiding South Africa to a lead of 190-odd with 7 wickets to fall, Ricky Ponting must be thinking of the battle ahead in the final 2 days. Being the type of man that he is he will be thinking of how to win the match and save the series, but there must be a chink of weakness in the resolve of his own position. He is hardly alone either. Brad Haddin received horrendous flak for his part in last weeks 47 all out, and it has already been proven that he has a quality young understudy. Mitchell Johnson, now 30, still letting captains down when they need him most. A proven match winner? Occasionally. A liability too heavy to carry? Definitely. There aren’t many attack leaders that are allowed not to lead the attack. Mike Hussey is in danger as well, although for my money he is the likeliest of the four to survive.
Australia play New Zealand next, in only ten days time. Two years ago the Aussies were tempted to allow Brett Lee to prove himself against their local rivals and he took 9 wickets, only to be blasted into semi retirement as an ODI player by South Africa in the next series. I don’t see those temptations being allowed to conquer again, as the Aussies are in youth mode and will bed players in the upcoming series. Indeed, in a situation made worse by Shane Watson’s inability to bowl, their hopes of survival hang very firmly around Pat Cummin’s neck, a promising rookie in only his fourth first class game.
On a wicket that’s showed signs of up & down bounce, Australia are likely to have to try & chase down something like 350, & although 290-odd has been chased down by Australia themselves on this ground, it was not this Australia, far from it.
Ponting will walk to the crease believing he can do it, believing he can turn the tide, and many romantics will also hope he can, hope he can do a ‘Nasser’. I am one of those romantics, even one with money on South Africa, but as I approach the end of my own (certainly 1st team) career, wondering whether its right to or even worth going on, I feel his pain. There is still the belief of being the best man for the job, having the most fight, being the last to fall, but in the end is the snarl enough and who is kidding who? Those that stand along side start whispering, or its imagined that they do, and although their best wishes and intentions aren’t doubted, the resolve starts to weaken.
Australia are like cockroaches, they don’t know when to die, but even cockroaches get old & pick a fight too many. They won’t get the 350 I believe they’ll be asked to chase. They’ll try, oh they’ll try, and no one harder than Pup Clarke in his desire to save his predecessor.
Maybe one man will try harder. Maybe we’ll be left with the unedifying spectacle of a fading champion battling against the fading light, being the last to be shown the truth…..
They’re coming for you Ricky, heroes don’t deserve to be pushed.

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