Getting It Wrong -- A Clockwork Orange

Photo: from the MSN article linked below. You've got to see this movie. A disturbing masterpiece.

I recently read an MSN photoslide article of 40 movies that critics got completely wrong. (Click that to read it.) Some made me so upset that I had to vent--I mean, blog--about them. For example:

“Stanley Kubrick's 'A Clockwork Orange' is an ideological mess, a paranoid right-wing fantasy masquerading as an Orwellian warning. It pretends to oppose the police state and forced mind control, but all it really does is celebrate the nastiness of its hero, Alex.” — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Of all the movie critics I've read over the years, I agreed with Roger Ebert most. (Though I am most frustrated with his review of Dead Poet's Society, but that wasn't one of MSN's 40 here, so that's a blog for another day.)

But he got this one wrong. (See the movie if you haven't.) A Clockwork Orange is not paranoid right-wing fantasy. That's Trump-land, a country that Kubrick would never consider visiting. Though he had his share of really out-there thoughts (and don't we all), Kubrick did not feel Britian's (which is where he lived, let's not forget) police force was in danger of dominating his country with a tight fist.

It is an Orwellian warning, in a way, but not as criticized here. Certainly Orwell's lesson of "beware of who you elect to control you," and, for that matter, "beware of those who you let control you" is in play here--but that's not what the movie is really about.

A Clockwork Orange says to beware of a totalitarian police state (with the emphasis on the police), but it also says that we do need a large and controlling police presence, because human nature sucks, and left to our own devices, chaos will reign. That's the irony Kubrick was trying to show. Kubrick was all about irony, all the time. And so it is here.

Alex isn't the criminal, the movie says. His society is criminalizing, and he is a criminal as a byproduct. Though Alex is individually responsible for his own actions, the bureaucracy that tries to "civilize" him just makes him worse. This movie is definitely an attack of that bureaucracy. Remember the scenes of the guard transferring Alex? Remember the bureaucratic forms that had to be filled out? Remember how long that took, especially that ingenious shot of the guard separating the perforated portion after that's signed? Who wouldn't be driven to anger or mindlessness in that nihilistic setting of dominant mindlessness? When the bureaucracy is all that matters, we're all lost.

The insinuation here is that we are all Alex, or at least potentially so. So the movie doesn't pretend to oppose the police state. It does oppose the police state--as depicted as a mindless bureaucracy. It's not paranoid at all--often, human nature does suck, and at our core, no matter how much we think we're civilized, we're all still baseless and base. (That was the point of 2001, too. Remember the million-year flashforward bone-flip? Despite all our technology, all our civilizations--on Earth and on the moon--we're still just a base, bone-loving species. Some of us are okay with that, but some of us strive to be more than that, a new species, maybe, capable of so much more.) Burgess's novel somewhat says the same thing, and this movie beats it over our heads.

Since we're all capable of being Alex--some more so than others--we do need a heavy police presence. But too large a police presence (and it's mind control) is just as bad, if not worse, as having too many criminals. So it's bad to have, but we do need it, to some degree. What degree is that? Well, in the movie, it was too much. In the beginning of the movie, it wasn't enough. So where's the line? Kubrick didn't know, and he's saying we don't know, either. Recent events in America since Ferguson show we still don't know. (Art imitates life, right?)

And so the movie doesn't celebrate the nastiness of Alex as much as it uses that behavior to prove its point. In very broad strokes, written large, the movie showcases the all-too-human negative "celebration" of the nastiness in us all. Kubrick (and Burgess) say: We're all potentially that nasty. Which is why mind control and a police body politick aren't the answers. The answer has to come from within us, individually. In only that way can we create a "civilized society," which is a Nietzschean umbrella term that really doesn't exist--another point that Kubrick makes here. The movie is all about that irony, painted with very broad strokes to the point of satire and farce--but, let's face it: Isn't civilization, society, and other umbrella terms all a farce anyway?

Look around you. Look at American politics right now. Look at what we call our civilized society--a culture that actually does celebrate the dehumanization of women, minorities, LGBTs and, really, anyone else who is not a self-satisfied, arrogant, pompous, self-loving rich white male. (We don't seem to understand the difference between self-serving "facts" and actual facts, either.) And, by the way, our American society is still one of the best, most stable ones out there in the whole world.

That's the reality right now. It's that million-year bone flip in 2001: Despite our technology, despite what we call our civilized society, we're all still a bunch of bone-wielding, power-wielding, blood-loving savages. And no matter how we're trying to control ourselves--with prisons, politics or mind-control (and those last two are often the same thing, by the way) we're always going to be like that.

Because we're human, and that's our human nature.

That's not a very negative, twisted farce?

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.

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.

The Murder Room

Photo: Book's cover, from my Goodreads page

For a writer like me (whatever that means), this is a great book, a source of story and book ideas for years to come.

It's also a great book for its content alone.  Capuzzo's writing took some getting used to, and I really didn't like how he sometimes jumped around, sometimes didn't (It reminded me of a recent time when I told someone that someone else we knew wasn't even predictable in her unpredictability), but the content is so compelling, and the cases so interesting, that you'll read on anyway, as I did.  The writing finally grounded itself about three-fourths of the way through, so that finally became a strength as well.

If you like this stuff--and I mean: investigations, tracking down killers, solving cases, profiling, cold cases, etc.--then this is a must-read.  If you don't, I don't know, because there's a lot of that here, even more than usual for books like this.  Much of it is grisly, and if you didn't have a healthy distrust of strangers before this, you will after this.  (Which is ironic, because the old adage is true in this book: 90% of all murder victims knew their killers well.)  If you can't handle the grisliness and sadness inherent in books like this, don't read this.  (The case of The Boy in the Box will especially haunt.)

The book, which is nonfiction, is about the Vidocq Society, a members-only group of the world's best investigators, morticians, detectives, profilers, crime scene analysts, and everyone else you can imagine associated with tracking down killers and serial killers.  (You need to read this if you don't know the difference between them.)  The group was started by three guys, all of them profiled (pardon the pun) here.

Frank Bender is (or, was, as he's died since publication) a bust-making artist of unparalleled excellence.  He could make a plaster bust of a face where one didn't exist.  He first specialized in time-lapse facial reconstruction.  What would a killer on the lam for 20 years look like since his last photo?  Bender made a cast of the guy's face, using a very old photo and a lot of whim, guessing, and innate talent, and the day after it was shown on America's Most Wanted, the guy was turned in.  Even more impressive: a skull is found with the face completely bashed in.  Using lots of research and a guess at what the partial sinus cavity would've looked like, and therefore the nose, etc., he made a bust that the murdered woman's mom saw and recognized immediately.  Fascinating.  He also had an open marriage and an insatiable drive and desire, not all of it artistic.  In essence, a whirlwind of energy you wish you had, used in ways you wish you could use it.  Bender was a very interesting, knowledgeable and, possibly, clairvoyant guy.  He said he could see and hear dead people in his dreams, and that he could feel the universe flow.  Read this book before you call that crazy.

Richard Walter is a profiler like no other.  Police departments take cold cases to him--and I mean, freezing, like over 50 years old--and he tells them where they went wrong, how they went wrong, and who the killer is.  The book makes it seem like he did this quicker than possible--he has to read case files over 1,000 pages long--but he soaks all the information in and somehow sees through all the wrong turns right away.  I've read a few myself, and I can't keep all the facts, wrong facts, suspects, wrongful suspects, theories, wrong theories, evidence, wrong evidence, and everything else straight in my head, or on paper.  He reads it, disects it, and tells you everything when he's done.  And he's always right.  BTW, the killer has over 90% of the time been questioned by police already, often several times.  Much of the time, the killer is who the police knows him (or, glaringly in this book, her) to be, but they can't prove it.  Often, Bender and Walter tell the police what they need to know so they, the police, can say it to the killer and get a confession.

William Fleisher put these guys together and started the group officially.  He's a well-respected investigator and a very well-liked and well-connected guy.  Elected the group's first president, he seems to be the glue that holds everything, and everybody, together.  He started the group with just these three guys, and now manages 82 (one for every year of its namesake's life) and hundreds of associate members.

As the society's website says, "The Vidocq Society is named for Eugène François Vidocq, the ground-breaking 19th century French detective who helped police by using the psychology of the criminal to solve "cold case" homicides. Vidocq was a former criminal himself, and used his knowledge of the criminal mind to look at murder from the psychological perspective of the perpetrator."  Bender was a former criminal as well.

Some of the many cases covered here are:

The Boy in the Box.  (Warning: This one is very depressing and disturbing.)

A robbery that was actually a planned murder.

A skull without a face.

A psychopathic murderess who worked as a waitress.

A guy who brings his case to the Society at their meeting, and is profiled as the murderer.

A young woman from Phoenix whose remains were found in Colorado.

Three cases over 50 years old.

There's so much going on in this book that it may need a second reading.  As engrossing as it was, I read some parts and I thought, "Yup, I can use that," several times.  So get past the scattered writing at first and you'll be taken for an interesting, chilly, intelligent, unbelievable, and--finally--well-written ride.

Police

Photo: An uncopyedited proof, the type given to early readers, or beta-readers.  And, considering the editing job done on this book (see comment below), it apparently remained uncopyedited.  From crimefictionlover.com.

Very, very, very disappointing follow-up to Nesbo's Phantom, a far superior book, even with the ridiculous passages from the rat's POV.  In equal parts boring and frustrating--but mostly frustrating--Police is a book that could've been, and should've been, much better. 

It fails because it's all over the place with its plot and story, and because it doesn't focus enough on its characters.  Nesbo said in an interview that he essentially wrote Phantom and Police as one book, and it shows.  At over 1,000 pages combined, it seems like Nesbo couldn't wait to finish with the ending, that even he became bored and frustrated with it.

How else to explain the inexplicable demise of a major recurring character?  How else to explain how the killer could've had the time to draw and quarter this well-liked character while on the run from everyone?  Could the killer really have chopped off her arms and legs and head in (seemingly) minutes?  Then stash them all in different bags and deposit them in the trash just in time for the trucks?

What?!?  And, by the way, didn't this character deserve so much better?  She's rarely considered for the rest of the book--though everyone was sure not to sit in her chair--and it's never explained why she was done away with when other characters were not, even when we were tricked into thinking they would be.

And that was another thing.  Way too many cheap tricks, like making us think a character's young daughter was in danger when her father calls her friend Emilie's house to inquire about her sleepover.  Turns out, she was at the sleepover after all--just at a different girl's house...another girl in the same class, also named Emilie!!!  Ugh...

Another time a character looks like she's about to get it, but it was just another character sneaking up on her.  She even says that, hey, you're not John Doe--but it turns out he was.  She just meant that he wasn't acting like himself.  Please...

Another time a very distraught father was acting strange at the scene of his daughter's death, just after a character in the previous section said that murders were committed by someone distraught about love, and at the death scene of those he loved.  Turns out, though, that this guy was actually just in grief about his daughter dying, one year to the day...Argh!

The real bad guy is a case of who cares.  The ones you wanted to be guilty--two REALLY bad guys--lose an eye and gets his face burnt off, apparently without too many aftereffects or problems.  They go out in public and live their lives as if nothing happened.  Must've been a great surgery for the guy who lost his eye, though the guy who did it was never a doctor or surgeon, or in any health-related field at all.

And who was that body in the hospital all that time?  Not who you think, but considering how Phantom ended, you couldn't be blamed for not knowing.  Turns out, a character from that book hadn't died after all!  How could the reader have known?  Well, you couldn't, but that's the way it is, anyway.

And where's the REALLY, REALLY bad guy everyone spends most of the book looking for?  Nobody ever says.  Wait for the sequel, I guess.  The only intriguing character is a very beautiful, and very unbalanced (Isn't that always the way?) young woman who does something very touching--and out of character--at the end.  You won't believe it, just like I didn't.

Very cheap.  Very lazy.

And really disappointing, because I like the series and I like the writer.  In fact, I was just thinking of incorporating a technique of his that he uses at the end of every book--what some writers have called his "set pieces," which they essentially are, in a play kind of way.  I now realize that these have to be exquisitely staged and described because a) they end every book; b) they're the resolution of the action / mystery / who-dun-it? / police procedural; and c) they're actually the climax, if you combine them with the next book, which I realize is how Nesbo actually writes these.  So they serve a ton of functions.

But, because of this, they have to be perfect.  Great when they are, as most of them have been.  Really bad when they're not.  And when you combine that with everything I've described above, and throw in a lousy editing job (this could've easily been a few hundred pages shorter), you have a real clunker.

And what he did to that recurring female character--chopped her up into many pieces, without mentioning how important she'd been to the series, or her now-orphaned young son--and throw in the fact that she was apparently alive during most of the chopping up...Indefensibly awful.

So bad I'm driven by it to work on my own book, and to treat my characters much better.  Bad things will still happen to them, but they won't be (or remain) unexplained.  And I'll treat them, as I hope I always have, with much more respect.

So frustrating because, again, Nesbo is a good writer, and though the tricks in this book are cheap, they work because you turn the pages.  You want to figure everything out.  You want to see what happens.  You want to see it all unravel.  And in that sense this book isn't awful, exactly, because I read its 550 hardcover pages in about 24 hours or so.

And I'll read the next one, too.

But...

Phantom--Book Review

Photo: Jo Nesbo, from crimefictionlover.com.

This one took a little while to get going, but of course was well worth it.  Harry Hole is back from self-isolation in Hong Kong because the son of the love of his life has been accused of murder.  Helping Hole to hopefully set this boy free are his usual suspects, though they're mostly given short shrift here.  They pop up essentially to help out and then they disappear again.  I would've liked to have seen Beate some more, but I admit that there wasn't enough in the plot to place her there more often without making it look forced.  So...maybe later.

At any rate, the crime itself again isn't a mindbender.  An experienced reader will know who done it, though, again, the proof is hard to come by.  Watching Hole figuring it out and gathering it is why we read these.  But it shouldn't surprise you.  Also not much of a mystery to me was the identity of the old man who keeps showing up.  It probably won't be for you, either.  The italics portions struck me as unnecessary, but it was different for Nesbo, and so maybe that's what he was looking for.  It also provides a decent book-ending to it all, so okay.  I guess.

What will be a surprise, however, is the ending.  Rather infamous now, as this review comes a few years too late for the surprise ending, and since the tenth book, Police, has been out for awhile now.  If you haven't read this one, I won't spoil it for you, but...yeah, there's been a sequel, so...

And, yeah, I know I'm reading the Harry Hole books out of order.  I don't have them all, so bear with me.

The best part of these books, to me, is the honesty in which Nesbo writes them.  He doesn't shy away from the depressing, bottom-line truth of things.  The ending of Phantom is yet another, and perhaps the most glaring, example.  I had that part figured out because that is the way of these types of things, as Nesbo shows time and time again in this book.  It really couldn't have been anyone else, for any other reason, at the end.  Mattress Girl, in my soon-to-be-finished ms., can attest to that.  It is what it is.  Let's deal with the what-is before we try to make it the way we want it to be.

Police Log--Paranoia and Brazen Honesty

There's still two weeks to enter my free contest and win stuff.  To do so, please go to this link, or just scroll down to the previous entry.  Thanks.

Until then, I thought I'd pass this along.  This is a snippet from my local paper's police log, where some very wacky people do some very wacky things.  And in Warwick, R.I., no less.  If this stuff is happening here, ca you imagine the shenangigans happening in L.A., NYC, Chicago, Boston, etc.?

From the Police Log (and from the Warwick Beacon's address):

PARANOIA

Officer [   ] reported he was doing a fixed traffic post around 4:40 p.m. on Feb. 4 when a man approached him and told him it felt like people were following him. [The officer] said he talked with him some more and learned the man thought every car that was driving past was following him and looking at him and told [the officer] that he should know because [the officer] was one of the people investigating him. He said the man claimed he spoke with numerous lawyers and they all confirmed that he was being investigated. [The officer] said he asked him who was investigating him and he said the police, although he did not know where he was or who he was talking to but he knew that Warwick Police were investigating him. He said the man was alternately excited and calm and inquisitive. He said he called for another car and patted the man down. [The officer] said he was nervous about the way the man’s hands would go into his pockets and then into a bowling bag. He said he had no weapons on him but did have what looked like $1,487 worth of gold Teddy Roosevelt $1 coins. [The officer] said he also found a prescription bottle in the bag and the man said, “That is Adderall.” He said the man claimed he had a prescription for the drug but the particular pills [the officer] was holding belonged to his sister. He said he and a sergeant discussed what to do with the man and they decided he needed professional psychiatric help. [The officer] said he confiscated the pills but did not arrest the man because Kent Hospital does not do psyche evaluations on people who have been arrested. He said they took him to Kent, where the staff began to explain how the evaluation would proceed and he became impatient and belligerent and turned and said, “[Expletive] it, you are just going to have to arrest me for the Adderall.” He was taken to headquarters, where he was charged with possession of a controlled substance and held for the bail commissioner. [The officer] said they learned that the man, who earlier said his name was Kenneth [   ], was in fact Giovanni [   ], 25, of [   ] Ave., Pittsburgh, Pa., and that he was staying at a local extended-stay motel. [The officer] said he asked the man why he had so many presidential coins, 54 identical rolls of Roosevelt $1 coins, and [the man] told him he was a collector but there as nothing else in the bag to indicate it was a collection. He said they did run a check on [the man] and discovered numerous arrests and convictions for robbery, burglary, fraud and receiving stolen goods in several states. [The officer] said a Google search turned up an account of $2.4 million worth of presidential coins were stolen from the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia in 2011. [The officer] said there was enough probable cause to believe the coins were stolen and that the Secret Service, who were investigating the heist in Philadelphia, be notified of the arrest.

(Me again.)  Now that's messed up!  How does a heavily-medicated, homeless paranoid schizophrenic man from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, get to Warwick, Rhode Island with 1,487 Teddy Roosevelt $1 coins in a bowling bag?  What?!?  Loved his response, too: He's a collector!  He probably sounded offended while he said it, too.

I couldn't make that up.  Or this:

Det. [   ] reported that a woman who was asked to come into headquarters about some fraudulent checks she’d cashed and quickly learned that it was about a purse that was stolen from a customer at Sullivan’s Publick House on Dec. 13 of last year. [The detective] reported that they had surveillance of the woman taking the purse and leaving by the back door but had more evidence that she used the credit cards in the purse at several places in Warwick and other places, but, under the circumstances, he welcomed her candor in regard to the fraudulent checks. She claimed she was cashing five checks worth $1,270 over the past week for a friend of hers and she only got $20 for one check but got a cup of coffee or a pack of cigarettes for the others. She said her friend was stealing the checks from an 80-year-old Warwick man who trusted her.

[A different detective] reported that he was there when [the first detective] was asking “the suspect in a stolen purse caper from Sullivan’s” and took the opportunity to ask her about charges made on her sister’s credit cards last November and about her sister’s laptop that went missing in December and charges on her debit card in March. He said she admitted using the debit card but denied stealing the computer. By the time the interview was over, [   ], 44, of [   ] Ave., Warwick, was charged with five counts of felony fraudulent checks, three counts of fraudulent computer access and larceny for the stolen purse that reportedly contained $140 in cash along with the credit cards.

(Me, again.)  It's hard to tell with writing from reports, but I do believe there was a little tongue-in-cheek with the underlined sentence above, as it seems a bit too dry and straightforward to me.  "He welcomed her candor," indeed.  Sounds like the first detective waved the second one over not because he feared for his safety, but because, "Hey, Harry, come here, you gotta hear this."

And this is all in one day, in one police blotter.

So let me know what you think, and maybe I'll offer up more of this stuff.

Perfect Murder, Perfect Town by Lawrence Schiller--Book Review

Photo: Paperback cover of the book (I read the First Edition hardcover) from harpercollins.com

Incredibly dense and thorough chronicle of the JonBenet Ramsey investigation, from the POV of almost everyone involved, from reporters to DAs to police detectives--and everybody in between.  If you're interested in what happened to that little girl on December 26th, 1996 (Could it have been that long ago?!?) then this is mandatory reading for you.

Like the case itself, it is a complicated maze to read, and you may, like me, forget momentarily who somebody is.  There's a character page in the back to help you with this problem.

Schiller doesn't pull any punches and immerses you in everything for the sole purpose, as he says, to chronicle what happened for anyone interested in the case.  It reads like a 579-page report.  There are no writers' tricks here, and no embellishments.  Schiller does an amazing job of organizing all of this stuff into one (mostly) seamless flow.

What does it show?  Oh my goodness, it shows how very thoroughly and completely the D.A.'s office, the Boulder Police Department, the witnesses, the suspects, and the media all worked together to screw up this case beyond repair.  Like the research into AIDS in the early-80s, when American and French scientists fought each other over copyrights and egos and countless people died, so too did the Boulder PD and the D.A. office fight each other over supremacy, evidence and theories.

And we know what happened.

Nothing.

Nothing at all.  A grand jury failed to indict anybody in 1997, and here afterwards have we sat. (Though to be more concise, the grand jury found that there was enough evidence to proceed to trial, but the D.A. did not proceed.  He refuses to this day to give his reasons.)

As detailed in this book, this case never had a chance.  Evidence was immediately trampled upon.  Both Ramseys, and their son, Burke, took leave of the police for a very long time upon the arrival of the first cops.  The crime scene was not controlled and it became very, very compromised.  And the Ramseys somehow were allowed to not be thoroughly interviewed until four months after the killing.

And the police bungled evidence and interviews that anyone who's ever seen an episode of Law & Order could have done better.  The D.A. turned down help from the FBI, whose officers had investigated and tried tons of murder cases against children.  How many had the current D.A.'s office tried?  Zero.

You may imagine yourself, as I did, screaming at, and shaking, some of the well-intentioned but hopelessly inept people involved in this case.

And that's just the beginning.

But, sadly, there's nothing much to add since.

Patsy Ramsey has died.  Nobody's ever been brought to trial.  It may seem there's nothing more to say.

But there is.  Schiller takes pains to try to remain unbiased with his book, and largely he succeeds.  But his one-page epilogue gives him away a little bit, as does the preponderance of the evidence he allows the real people to supply here.

Ultimately the reader has to make his own decision about who did it.  Was it the Ramseys?  Any of them, in the murder and / or in a cover-up?  Was it an intruder?

You'll have to decide.  I have, I think, for the most part.  Maybe I'll write about it in my blog one day--keeping in mind, of course, that many of the people are still alive.  And able to file lawsuits for slander.

But still a riveting read.  If this case interests you, read it.

Damned If You Do--Book Review: If You Read It, You're [see title]

 Photo: Book's hardcover, from robertbparker.net. 

The real title is Robert B. Parker's Damned If You Do, but if you read my reviews, you know how I feel about using a name as part of the title, especially if he's dead, so I won't further go at it here.  But...argh...

And that's pretty much what I have to say about this book itself, as well.  This is a giant step back from the other two Brandman novels, neither of which were exemplary to begin with.  What a horribly written story!  The dialogue is wooden and preposterous.  The story is tired and distant.  It's told and not shown.  And it's got little writer edits at the end of some sentences, like Brandman's explaining it to us.  (Note to Brandman: Mystery and procedural readers like to remember such things for themselves.  Even if they're unimportant--because you don't know until the end what was important and what wasn't, right?)

There are too many examples to cite them all.  There were so many that I had to put the book down and do something else.  I actually groaned and complained out loud.  And I can't find the one now I really wanted to put here, so...From page 247, after Jesse Stone saw a character, who he'd liked, die: "He hoped that the scotch would accomplish what he was unable to achieve himself...He wanted it to erase the haunting look in her dying eyes from his mind and his heart."

First, that's just bad writing.  Second, that's telling, not showing.  Third, if you've read Parker's--and even Brandman's--Jesse Stone works before, Stone (and the 3rd person narrator) would never think or speak like this.  Fourth, we all know why people drink after they've seen someone they like die.  Fifth, we all know why borderline alcoholics (or former alcoholics, which Stone is) drink after such an event.  Sixth, that last sentence--melodrama, anyone?  And Stone, and Parker--well, they're so anti-melodrama that this is just blasphemy, in of itself.  And I know that comparing Brandman and Parker is unfair because they're different people--but Brandman is so obviously trying to emulate Parker's sparse style, and failing so miserably at it, that the comparison is just here.  I feel certain that Parker would be upset with this book.

And the action sequences are just as bad.  This from page 239: "Suddenly everyone was on the move.  Chairs scraped loudly and tables were overturned as people began to anxiously respond.  There were shouts of panic.  The crowd began a confused surge towards the exits."

Again, this is just bad writing.  The word "suddenly" was used tons of times in this book.  That's bad.  When chairs scrape, it's loud.  So that's redundant--and it tells.  And it overuses adverbs, which I learned in high school and college is bad to do.  When people are "on the move," what is that, exactly?  When settlers are on the move, they're just walking along, and slowly.  There's probably lots of dust.  And when there are "shouts of panic" and scraping chairs and overturning tables--that's not how people "anxiously respond."  That's chaos.  Stuttering is anxiously responding.  And notice the word "began" is used twice in this one short paragraph.  Nobody begins to do something.  That's a huge pet peeve of mine, and it's used a million times in this book.  You're either doing that thing, or you're not doing that thing.  In this image, the people were well beyond the "began to anxiously respond" stage, whatever that is.  They were panicked and running over each other.  By definition, a surge is an action in progress, so there's no "began" there, either.

Literally almost every sentence and every paragraph has an instance of lazy writing, bad writing, passive writing, and...Oh, man, it was just plain horrible.  What a disappointment!  I don't want the reader to think I'm just nitpicking here, or in a bad mood, or whatever.  I'm telling it straight--the writing of this book is that bad.

So bad I was shocked at its badness.

So bad it gives hope to all unpublished writers out there--if this can find its way into Barnes & Noble, your book can, too.

So bad I pictured Parker rolling over in his grave.

So bad it was a blight on all the Jesse Stone books I've bought and read before--all in hardcover, too.

So bad that if someone else hadn't bought this book for me for Christmas, I would've stopped reading it.

So bad that I can't even say to save it for bathroom reading, which is the advice I usually give for bearably bad books.  But this isn't even bathroom reading--unless you need to use its paper.  Which you probably should.

This is so bad that it reminded me of Dorothy Parker's quip: "This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly.  It should be thrown with great force."

By the way, the characters and story are bad, too.  Stone, a police chief, tells a mass murderer that he feels "surprisingly comfortable" that he's watching his back.  I'm not kidding.  I actually disliked Stone at the end.

The best things about this book are the title, and the cover.  And that it ended.

Skip it, even if you have all the others.  It is worth having a hole in your collection so you don't have to put yourself through this.  It is that bad.

Don't even buy it in the remainder bin.  Don't start off the new year with this.  Don't do that to yourself.
   

The Conjuring House

Photo: I took this pic of an open crypt door at a cemetery near The Conjuring House.

After watching The Conjuring (my movie review, here), I decided to take a trip to Burrillville, Rhode Island (about half an hour away) and see the house it's based on.  My intention was to just go for a nice drive with my dog and to get out of the house for awhile.  If I could inobtrusively get a glimpse of the house from the road, fine.  If not, I'll just drive by and see what there was to see.

I want to make it clear that I do not condone anyone going to the house and loitering around.  There's an old couple that lives in there now, and they have a right to their privacy.  Having said that, I won't be a hypocrite, and I'll admit that I took a few pictures from the street of the house's front door (that's all of the house you can really see; it's not at all like the one in the film) and of the nearby barn, which I thought looked creepier than the house.  I was hoping for a glimpse of the lake in the backyard; the house is in a management area, so there's a real possibility of such a thing.  But, alas, no.  Anyway, I do not condone or advise for anyone to do what I just said I did, even from the street, and I'll explain why.  But before I do, ask yourself: Do you want a crowd of people congregating in the street, gawking at you and your home, and taking pictures of your house and barn?  One of the women I met there even told someone she was going to go up to the door and knock on it, or ring the bell.

I advised her not to do so.  Not only is it loitering and trespassing, but, also, according to the true story, that's the same front door that the evil spirits banged on relentlessly.  This latter part worked.

So I started off from my house with my dog and my directions.  Driving up there was very easy.  I got a little lost from poor signage, but I found the house in question, no problem, and even drove past it and soon entered Massachusetts.  I pulled over beside a large local cemetery (of course), and I let the dog out in some nearby grass away from the cemetery.  (People who let their dogs go to the bathroom in a cemetery at all, especially if they don't clean it up, are committing a blasphemy of some sort.)  Unfortunately, the dog did #2, so I double-bagged it and then threw that into a Dunkin' Donuts paper bag, so at least it didn't smell, and later I threw it away in a garbage can at a nearby gas station, much to the cashier's dismay.  I also entered the cemetery on my own and saw four other people also in it, which is rare.  I looked around very quickly for any stones from real-life people mentioned in my research, but I didn't find any.  I did not look very thoroughly, to be honest, and later I realized it was a waste of time, anyway, because I was now in a small town in Massachusetts, which people living in a house in a small RI town would not be buried in.  Didn't quite think that through.  A few pictures of this cemetery follow:

So I turned back around and headed to The Conjuring's house, which is mostly hidden behind some tall, thick trees, not far from a main road (for Burrillville, anyway) without a breakdown lane.  I saw six other people come out of an SUV and just stand, mostly out of view from the house, so I stepped out of my car.  I noticed the barn, quite a bit away from the house, so a few pictures were taken of that.  I did not want to spend time in front of the house, as I felt very strongly that the homeowners would be ready for that, and would be very unamused.   But I stepped out when I saw the others, and we talked about where they were from, and how long it took to get to this house.  Schenectady, and almost three hours, as I'd mentioned.  I took a couple of pictures of the front door through the many trees, had time to realize that the real house looked nothing at all like the movie's house (it's a lot smaller, and not as obviously old), and a woman next to me swore, and that's when I saw the swirling lights of the police car.

I walked slowly back to my car before he even stopped out of his.  The cop was very, very stern-looking, a countenance that he must practice in the mirror every day.  Nobody is that serious and stern, I swear.  But I'll bet that he gets a lot with that look, so that he doesn't have to say anything, or threaten anyone, or anything.  In fact, he didn't say a word to any of us, and we all went back to our cars immediately and drove away.

I doubt it was the first time he was at that house (it was about one pm when I got there) and I doubt it'll be his last.  In fact, I was surprised not to see a sign of any kind at the house.  I'll bet there'll be one there soon.  I drove away feeling very sheepish.  I mean, I wouldn't be happy if lots of people even drove slowly past my house, never mind actually stop, get out, gawk, and take pictures.

So I feel badly about it all, which is why I won't post pics of the house and barn here.  But, like I said, you're not missing much, as there wasn't much to see to begin with.  On the way back I stopped at a lake and waterfall, pictured here:

And after I left there, I went sight-seeing for a little while, and drove by two or three local cemeteries on both sides of the narrow road, so that it seemed like I was surrounded by them, which I was.  When I saw the open crypt door, I knew I had to turn around and take a picture of that for something I'm writing--a novel that mostly takes place in TB-infested Rhode Island of the 1880s and 1890s, and is told from the third-person limited POV following the doctor of Rhode Island's most famous example of vampire folklore, Mercy Brown (blog entry here).

So I took some pics of that open crypt door, and the very cool rusted-iron Victorian fence that surrounds some of the gravestones, pictured here:

And that's it.  That's my story of traveling to The Conjuring's house.  Truth be told, the lake, waterfall, crypt and cemeteries were more interesting, and much easier to take pictures of.  And I regret not opening that metal door on the inside of the crypt, with the diamond shapes.

What's your favorite recent (or not-so-recent) horror movie?  Have you ever visited the real-life place, or researched the real-life subject matter or story, etc. of that horror movie?

And would you have gone inside that crypt's open door?

The Rapture of Mystery: Stephen King's The Colorado Kid

Photo: Paperback cover from the book's Wikipedia page.

I read this one in a couple of hours, just after finishing Stephen King's Joyland.  They're both published by Hard Case Crime, and they both have covers of big-breasted, younger dames--covers of a scene you won't find in the story itself.  I don't know why I'm okay with that, and yet why I'm not, at the same time.

This mystery is sort of the idea of this book itself.  An actual mystery that, like most of life, you can't explain.  This is not a Sherlock Holmes locked-room mystery, nor is it an Agatha Christie trapped-on-an-island mystery.  It isn't either of those because this one is unsolvable, and purposely so.  The story isn't the case, or the mystery, but the three characters telling the story.

The story is, in fact, the story itself.  It's about being curious, about always questioning, always asking "Why?"  At my job, my little cohorts are always asking me why I ask "Why?" so much.  And I'm always asking them why they don't ask "Why?" enough.  (I suspect it has something to do with television, gaming and computers, as these things make us do, and watch, but not really think for ourselves.  Or am I getting old?)

But you sort of die when you stop asking "Why?"  And when you stop caring.  The thing is that you can't allow yourself to be put off by the inevitable "I don't know."  Where did we come from before this realm?  "I don't know."  Where are we going?  "I don't know."  You may have a religion that teaches you what to believe, but that's why it's called "belief."  Believing is not knowing.

And so this is the root of this short (especially for King) book.  The story isn't the mystery, per se, but is instead the wonder of "mystery" itself.  It's what keeps life interesting, right?  And a lot of things in life really don't have a clear-cut beginning, middle and end.  Where did we go wrong?  "I don't know."  Why did she change so much?  Maybe she was always like that and I didn't realize it?  "I don't know."  Some mysteries don't have answers, such as why an advertisement artist from Colorado suddenly had to feverishly catch a jet to Bangor, Maine, and drive hell-mell to middle-of-nowhere Maine and to die suddenly and inexplicably on a small beach.  Who knows?  It's cases like this that haunt real-life police detectives, I'm sure.  Drives them crazy.  But that's what life is--a series of inexplicable mysteries that you're wise to consider, but unwise to expect an easy answer--or an answer at all.

Sometimes there just isn't one.  And, if there is, it's often above our comprehension.  (That's what religion's for, I suppose.)  But this short book ends with the essence of all that: a ballfield full of players and umpires, looking up in a fixed rapture of confused wonder.

That's what this life is.  Rapturously confused wonder.

You'll appreciate The Colorado Kid if you get that.  You won't if you don't.

It's Been Awhile

photo: from the show's Wikipedia page



It's been ten days since the last post, and the reason for the absence, bottom line, is that I'm on vacation, so not spending too much time in front of the computer screen.  But now that I've had a moment, let's see what else has been going on:


--"Blade Runner" went from feel-good story to Batman villain faster than you can say, "Holy spring blades, Batman!"  I know that in America you're innocent until proven guilty, but, damn...and he's in South Africa, anyway.  I truly hate it when people you root for end up being like this.  Makes you cynical, and cynicism is not something I need more of.

--I was the host of a meeting with a few people and my councilman, of Ward 5.  Very interesting stuff, and I seem to be the de facto secretary of this group.  No problem.  Hey, at least I'm not the leader.  Nobody wants that.

--Lots of personal changes around here.  You'll just have to sit and wonder about that. Or not.

--I got another short story published, this one my first non-genre piece, which is really exciting.  It's not completely official, so more on this in a future post.  There was a very cool compliment given along the way, too, so more on that later, as well.

--It finally climbed above thirty-two degrees here, so the feet of snowdrifts can melt.  Can you say "coastal flooding?"  I knew you could.  But not here (knocks on wood).  I'm perched atop a hill.  And, no, it's not because I look down on everybody.

--Jackson, the Wonderdog, seems to have gotten a bit better.  We'll find out for sure during the appt. on Thursday.  (Knocks on wood again.)

--A sad note: a member of my former (?) writer's group very suddenly passed away in his sleep a few days ago, age 62.  A very good writer of nonfiction, a la Russell Baker, and a quiet-spoken guy who apparently had done a lot of things with his life.  I didn't know him extremely well, not well enough to know if he had any health issues, but still...You just never know.

--On the flip side, Spring Training started, and all players have now reported.  Soon the ballplayers will waste about a month of their time so that southern cities and towns can make mucho dollars off of them.  This time of year is only necessary for veterans to get back into shape (which they should've been in already), and for rookies and mid-level players to show their stuff in hopes of making the team.  For the established stars?  Not much to do.

--Of course, I'd drive down there right now to just play in an intra-squad game.

--Walking Dead has returned, and it has not disappointed thus far.  I'm still trying to figure out how they're getting away with so much language, violence and gore on a channel that's not a pay station.  And I'm looking forward to seeing it in black-and-white.

--The Following isn't bad, either, though the acting and directing probably make it better than it really is.  I mean, how many times can Ryan go back into the house of a witness as that person is being attacked by someone nobody knew was a follower while the entire police department mills around uselessly outside?  This show will decline rapidly if it doesn't start showing why some people become followers of such a person to begin with.  And it's not a good sign when the scariest villain is a young woman, who sorta looks like a guy, and who weighs maybe 70 pounds while holding a 50 pound weight.