Vienna Blood -- A Very Short Book Review

Photo: The book's paperback cover.

The sequel to Tallis's slightly better A Death in Vienna, this one is still a success. The Washington Post called it "the first great thriller of 2008." I'm not on top of my 2008 thrillers, but this book is very good.

The mystery is less mysterious than the first in the series, and it shouldn't be hard for the reader to guess the killer. Because there are lots of red herrings, both in the plot and in other characters, the book won't be a disappointment if you correctly guessed the killer. The interesting historical fact this time is that the swastika--forever to be associated with evil and the Nazis--was actually a much older symbol that, ironically, stood for peace and unity. Not anymore, and not ever again.

Which brings up one of the interesting things about Tallis and these books: You learn something. Like Dan Brown's thrillers, you get entertained and you get educated at the same time. I used to sometimes stop reading Brown's books and write something down that I wanted to Google. With Tallis, I've written things down that I wanted to hear on YouTube. Some have been hits, and some have been misses (such as Stockhausen, Studie 1, from a horror novel of his I'm reading now), but I've always been curious and interested. Tallis is more interested in music than in images, like Brown is, and Tallis writes historical thrillers, so you learn about the past--in this case, Vienna in 1902. Brown doesn't do that, as he brings things from the past into his thrillers in the present. But it's all good. As long as you're reading and learning, who cares?

You learn that the main character--and, one assumes, more popular Jews in Vienna, like Freud--were daily victims of bias. For example, both men (at different times) have been the recipient of snide, vulgar remarks about being Jewish, from supposedly learned and sophisticated men. Freud ignored it and Liebermann shrugged it off, but both explained it was a daily occurrence. (On a side note, Freud was apparently a teller of funny, but often crude and stereotypical, Jewish jokes. One of them, about how you could tell Jesus was Jewish, I'd heard before.) There may be a bit too much about the Freemasons of Vienna here, but that's okay, too, and you may think, as I did, that you're learning something new, as they don't seem much like the Freemasons of America I've read about.

Poor Clara is treated a little curtly here, but if you've read the first one, you've seen it coming. She immediately (and a little too patly) recovers, but that was okay with me, because she was likable, and not as dim as Liebermann thought (which he often recognized), and you don't want her to be sad. It wouldn't have worked out with me, either, but I would also have been glad that she was happy. Whatever.

So a very quick read, and worthy of your time if you like historical thrillers. I'm taking a break from Tallis's historical thrillers for now; I'm in the middle of a horror novel, written by him as F.R. Tallis. I'll let you know.

P.S.--For the waltz by Strauss that gives the book its title, click this link to YouTube.

The Phoenix Serial Killer, Trump and the FSU Guy on Bath Salts

Photo: The FSU student who killed a couple at random and was caught eating the guy's face.

Just a few fast random things on my mind:

--Did you see the headline of the FSU student who randomly killed a couple and was caught eating the guy's face? Check it out here if you haven't.  It took four policemen, a canine and a taser to make him stop. He'd been eating breakfast with his family at a restaurant a few hours before, and had left in a huff, apparently yelling about bad service. His family and friends had said he'd been acting bizarrely for about a month. Officials, of course, suspect flakka or bath salts, or similar drugs.

Why do I bring it up? (Besides because of how messed up it is?) Well, I don't want to sound purposely controversial, but a friend of mine said that if the FSU student had been black, and been caught as he had been, by four cops, biting off the face of a dead white guy, he would've been shot immediately. And not with a taser.

I hate to say it, but I'm not sure I disagree.

--Why are people still showing up at Trump rallies? Don't they realize the negativity that says about them? They might as well carry signs that say, I'M A BIGOT AND A RACIST AND I ONLY CARE ABOUT ME.

--There's a serial killer near Phoenix who has shot random people, mostly from his car, though he did walk up to a woman and a couple of girls and open fire on them. Crazy stuff. Read about it here if you're interested.

Why do I bring it up? (Besides because of how messed up this is as well?) Because the police say they're looking for a guy in his early to mid-twenties (based on witness reports) who possibly works at a car dealership (because he's been seen using cars ranging from a Nissan to a BMW and a Cadillac or Lincoln.) The victims are all unrelated, of different races (though most are from the poor neighborhoods of nearby Maryvale), and are shot in their driveways or parking lots, while just talking or just getting out to go into the house. All or most of the killings have taken place between 10 p.m. and 12:30 a.m. (I've read more than just the article linked above.)

I just have one quick thing to add, and a slight correction (based on no experience whatsoever). I read somewhere that nobody has reported any cars stolen that may have been used in the shootings. Because of this (if it's true), and because of the time frame of the shootings, and because of the quality of cars used, I'm going to disagree about this killer possibly working at a car dealership.

I'm guessing this guy has prior training, either in the armed forces, or police or SWAT training, because how many killers have shot right in front of the people at very close range? I'm also guessing that he doesn't work at a dealership (How many are open that late, anyway?), but may instead work as a valet for an establishment that men visit, and who won't report a car stolen because it's proof that they've been there. In other words, authorities should be looking for a guy with up-close combat training who works as a valet for an upscale cathouse or gentlemen's club.

How many guys like that are in their 20s, who've been in the armed forces, who work as valets in places like that in the Phoenix / Maryvale area? It's got to be someplace close by, because though the guys will be busy for a specific amount of time, they may also be trying to make it quick to get home, or to the hotel--though the owners of the cars may not be local guys, but may be visiting businessmen. (Have the local or airport Hertz / car rental guys received cars back with dents, marks, etc. that the renter can't explain? Did these guys complain about paying for gas they didn't use?) Still, the shooter will want to bring the cars back before the guy has to wait too long. This may be why there's been 10 shootings in a confined area. The shooter can't stray too far and get the car back in a decent amount of time. Most owners of those cars won't be all-nighters, if you know what I mean.

And I disagree with the idea that the victims are completely random. Something is tying them together in this guy's head. We may not see the connection, but it's there. It isn't just convenience. There would be way too many convenient victims. Why were these particular ones chosen? Could be something as arcane as the name of the street they live on reminding the shooter of somebody...

P.S.--If you live in the area, and you own a garage, get an electric garage door opener and park the car without getting out of it until you're in the garage. Then press the door opener again and wait until it's closed before you get out. And make sure nobody has snuck in your garage as the door's closing.

P.P.S.--Besides the killer, somebody knows who's doing this.

A Death in Vienna -- A Very Short Review

Photo: The book's paperback cover, from a review at The View from the Blue House, because how could you not read a blog with that name?

A rare treat: A fantastically written novel that's also a helluva mystery.

A woman shot to death in a locked room--but no bullet. Vienna at the turn of the 20th Century. Sigmund Freud. Anti-Semitism. Gender bias. Another murder. Cultural references. Schubert and Lizst. Philosophy. The beginnings of modern-day detection. And beautiful writing. What else can you ask for?

All of these come together in A Death in Vienna, one of the better books I have read in some time. So good, in fact, that it makes me want to write (more, or consistently) again, after a bit of a bummer summer. This is indispensible for me, and I am grateful.

And did I mention that the book and its writing are intelligent? You won't feel pandered to or talked down to here. Nothing is spelled out for you, and there aren't any cliffhanger chapters that you or Annie Wilkes would have a problem with. (Well, okay, I didn't like one of them, a misunderstanding between a character and his wife. But, what the hell.)

This book is the first in a historical detective series of six books, the last published in 2012. A pity there haven't been more, but Tallis said he was worried about over-saturation and the books blurring together with nothing new to say. I have to admit: Jonathan Kellerman and, yes, maybe Robert B. Parker fell victims to this. Perhaps Tallis was wise to keep his series short. He has written many other things, and good writing is good writing, and the genre is essentially the same, so check them out, under both of his names. I have just written a note to myself to check area bookstores for all of Tallis's books, written under Frank Tallis and under F.R. Tallis.

You should do the same. Read this one first, as apparently reading them in order does matter for this series.

Very highly recommended, so much so that I have unapologetically written a short, gushing review. This one made me excited about getting back home and finishing errands so I could read more. What better compliment is there to give?

The Killer of Little Shepherds -- A True Crime Story and the Birth of Forensic Science

Photo: The book, from the author's own webpage. Here is an overview of the book itself.

Outstanding book that gives you a real feel for the lives and time of those involved. Written in a newspaper-like fashion, with no author intrusion at all--rare for this genre--and with a distant tone that is just right, almost too-distant, but not quite. Cast of real characters include serial killer Joseph Vacher, the French investigators, lawyers and judges involved in the trial, and his eleven known victims--there may have been as many as 25-30 total. One of my favorite investigators, Alphonse Bertillon, is covered a little. He was a French criminologist, one of the world's first accepted criminal profilers, and he's the author of one of my favorite, true-life quotes: "One can see only what one observes, and one observes only things which are already in the mind." Feast on that for awhile.

Vacher was a psychotic, narcissistic, borderline schizophrenic vagabond who killed ten little shepherd boys (and one or two girls) and one old lady. He sodomized and brutalized the bodies after death. What made him unique amongst killers of his type, besides for how long he got away with it, and the list of ineptness he festooned in others who associated with him, was that he was one if the first to declare himself not responsible for his crimes due to insanity. The prosecution disproved this by showing that his MO was so consistent that the perpetration of his crimes must have taken some thought, and forethought. They also showed that his talent for leaving the area quickly to avoid capture showed that he could rationalize--otherwise, why go to such consistent lengths to avoid capture?

The author concludes that his case is also unique because he was declared fit to stand trial (therefore, sane), and responsible for his crimes (so, not insane), and yet also clearly had at least one mental illness--paranoid schizophrenia, with a healthy persecution complex and fits of sexual mania. Therefore, it's possible that he was responsible for his crimes, yet also classifiably mentally ill. The author says he believes Vacher would also be found guilty today, just as he was in the late 1890s. But this reviewer is not quite so sure.

Photo: Joseph Vacher posing in prison after his capture in 1897. From the book, and this New York Times Review website for the book.  Vacher said that the hat symbolized his purity, and the keys, which he borrowed from a prison guard, symbolized the keys to heaven that he'd receive. Vachon believed he was protected by God and doing God's work. Just in case you were wondering

Certainly this case highlights the question of how much a mental illness can be said to make someone responsible, or not responsible, for his crimes. In today's heavily-diagnosed America (Donald Trump has been said lately to be harboring a potent textbook narcissistic disorder, and one wonders how fit he is to be President because of it. Look up the symptoms and I think you'll agree.), in which it seems that more people than ever may be diagnosed with a mental illness (and I mean that seriously and without judgment), this is a real question for our time. If a great many people are a classifiable something, how much does that make us culpable for our actions?

An interesting philosophical thought came up while I was reading. Another questions posed: If someone is guilty of murder (as Vacher was, and he was guillotined), and if that someone is responsible for his crime, yet is also suffering a mental illness that maybe helped instigate those crimes, can that person receive capital punishment? Again, where is the line drawn? Someone who is against capital punishment, as I am, would say No, no matter what the variables are. But those not against it, or even those on the fence, may use what I'll call the Rabid Lion Theory.

It goes loosely like this: If a lion is charging at you, obviously intent on killing you, don't you have the right to defend yourself and shoot it? If the answer is yes, what does it matter if it has rabies or not? You still have the right to kill it to defend yourself. But let's say it's foaming at the mouth and obviously has rabies. It's therefore, in a way, not responsible for its actions, as maybe it doesn't want to kill you, but the rabies is controlling it. (We can call this the Cujo Theory as well.) But even so, don't you have the right to defend yourself and kill it anyway, even if it's not responsible for its own actions?

Now, you're French society (or any society, including this one), and the rabid lion is Joseph Vacher (or any serial killer who has frequently escaped and who will obviously kill again). Don't you, as the society, have the right to defend yourself against the rabid killer, even if he's not responsible for his actions?

A real slippery slope, especially in these heavily-medicated times. And it's not going to get easier.

But I digress, a little. This book is more a history of really bad rural police work, really shoddy asylum practices, and a completely disorganized system of law if the murderer has the intelligence, good fortune, or whatever, to kill people in more than one jurisdiction. Surprisingly, this is still a big problem today (especially in these United States, and for a great number of reasons), but it was a catastrophic issue in the days before Interpol, before anyone thought to write down similarities of crimes committed across a large area over a number of years. Simply stated, nobody communicated well with each other, across provinces, just like today, where communication between departments, jurisdictions, states, and federal and regional agencies are slipshod and often testy.

This should sound very familiar for those who read about crime. Remember JonBenet? The local cops in Denver and the state and federal people were stepping on, over, and through each other immediately, screwing up the crime scene, the evidence, the witnesses, the testimonies, and every procedure and law, known and unknown to them, beyond repair. One of the guys in charge said the whole thing was botched beyond repair within a few hours of the reported crime.

And so it was with Vacher, until three guys started paying attention to some unsolved crimes, all of which involved the killing of young shepherd boys and girls, in the middle of rural nowhere, with the same MO (attack from behind, cut the throat, drag the body behind bushes or trees, sodomize and butcher the body quickly, change out of your clothes into clean clothes, and walk quickly away, often for a great many miles) and with the same descriptions of a vagabond seen in the area (short, bearded, scarred, gave off a dangerous vibe, couldn't talk correctly, and swelled foully because of yellow pus that drained from one ear). Sounds like something that anyone would put together, right? But with all the crimes happening all across very rural, nowhere France, before computers or phones, and with no system to keep track of such things, and no way to communicate?

So the history of forensics and crime is covered here, and it's all very informative and interesting.

Reasons Not to Vote for Donald Trump

Photo, from Trump's Wikipedia page, after someone asked him how many minorities he liked.

Just kidding. But the photo is from his Wikipedia page. Click on the link; it's informative.

This is the first in a series of blogs about [see title]. Each will list reasons (in no particular order) not to vote for Trump, with maybe a sentence or two for each. I consider this a public service, since I believe, like never before, that this particular candidate is an actual national and worldwide disaster waiting to happen, and is therefore a serious danger to America and to the world at large. I do mean that seriously. (Full disclosure: I'm a registered Independent, but have always voted Democrat. I was eligible to vote for the first time for Clinton's first term.)

All of these points occurred before December 11, 2015.

Can you believe that? There's been so much more to go over since then! This blog's bulleted points all come from the this YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37zvOZ17eSE 

You should check it out. Open it in a separate tab or window, if you'd like to read this and refer to that. [Warning: YouTube videos often have inappropriate comments. Read those at your own risk--but feel free not to read them at all. The videos I link here may have such inappropriate comments. Consider this my disclaimer of such comments.]

1. He has clear and obvious bias towards foreigners. In this case, Mexicans: "When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best . . . They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists." (Seconds 1-31 of the video.)

NBC and Univision both severed their business relationship with Trump and his Miss Universe Organization, which put together his televised beauty pageants.

For those who think he's a great businessman, remember that. (More on his businesses in a later blog.)

2. He has equally-bigoted and biased staff, one of whom says to an American citizen: "It's not about you . . . Get out of my country." (32-116)

3. He mocks all sorts of people. This time, a reporter with a disability. (117-246)

4. Again, he has clear and obvious bias towards foreigners. This time, Muslims: "Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States . . . These are people only believe in Jihad. They don't want our system . . . They have no respect for human life . . . " (247-345)

5. He attacks anyone who disagrees with him, even war heroes in his own party. In this case, John McCain. [Disclosure: I voted against McCain in Obama's first term, but I don't dislike McCain personally. I liked him when he told his own supporters that Obama was not a terrorist, though it would have been in his best interest to fan those flames. Trump would've. And, yes, McCain actually is a war hero.] "He's not a war hero . . . He's a war hero because he was captured. I like people that [sic] weren't captured . . ."

P.S.--Rick Perry, who once had the most disliked video on all of YouTube (it was pulled when it reached one million "dislikes") when he published an ad blasting "gays," forcefully denounced Trump's statements. (The video linked here is the same video, but with comments allowed. Notice the "dislikes" on this one.) When you're being called to the carpet by Rick Perry, you have seriously hit rock bottom.

6. He blames the press for things he says, even when he is quoted verbatim.

Photo: Trump holding babies. The biggest baby is the one in the middle.

7. He has clear and obvious bias towards women. As Megyn Kelly points out, he has called women he doesn't like (i.e. Rosie O'Donnell) "fat pigs," "dogs," "slobs," and "disgusting animals."

8. He mocks all sorts of people. In this case, a woman who disagrees with him. Besides questioning her ability to do her job during his interview with her, he, of course, said about her that "she had blood coming out of her eyes, out of her whatever."

9. Like an immature child who lacks self-discipline, he uses Twitter as his soapbox, and, when referring to Kelly, said on it that "we can gut her."

10. As in the above example, he seems to advocate violence towards people he dislikes. (More later.)

11. Like all narcissists, he talks almost completely about himself, and about those who are against him. Where are the issues?

12. When Rand Paul hits a home run against you, like he does starting at 8:33 in the clip, you're in trouble. He correctly pointed out Trump's lack of verbal self-control, his lack of leadership qualities, and his overall immature behavior. Take a look.

More to come . . .