And a fighter by his trade And he carries the reminders Of every glove that laid him down Or cut himThe Fighter: Going Home
In the clearing stands a boxer
And a fighter by his trade And he carries the reminders Of every glove that laid him down Or cut him till he cried out In his anger and his shame "I am leaving, I am leaving" But the fighter still remains --Paul Simon, 1969
The man sat there looking into the fire. When Nick stopped quite close to him he did not move.
“Hello!” Nick said.
The man looked up.
“Where did you get that shiner?” he said.
“A brakeman busted me.”
“Off the the through freight?”
“Yes.”
“I saw the bastard,” the man said. “He went through here ‘bout an hour and a half ago. He was walking along the top of the cars slapping his arms and singing.”
“The bastard!”
“It must have made him feel good to bust you,” the man said seriously.
“I’ll bust him.”
“Get him with a rock sometime when he’s going through,” the man advised.
“I’ll get him.”
“You’re a tough one, aren’t you?”
“No,” Nick answered.
“All you kids are tough.”
“You got to be tough,” Nick said.
“That’s what I said.”
The man looked at Nick and smiled. In the firelight Nick saw that his face was misshapen. His nose was sunken, his eyes were slits, he had queer-shaped lips. Nick did not perceive all this at once, he only saw the man’s face was queerly formed and mutilated. It was like putty in color. Dead looking in the firelight.
“Don’t you like my pan?” the man asked.
Nick was embarrassed.
“Sure,” he said.
“Look here!” the man took off his cap.
He had only one ear. It was thickened and tight against the side of his head. Where the other one should have been there was a stump.
Ever see one like that?”
“No,” said Nick. It made him a little sick.
“I could take it,” the man said. “Don’t you think I could take it, kid?”
“You bet!”
“They all bust their hands on me,” the little man said. “They couldn’t hurt me.”
He looked at Nick. “Sit down,” he said. “Want to eat?”
“Don’t bother,” Nick said. “I’m going on to the town.”
“Listen,” the man said. “Call me Ad.”
“Sure!”
“Listen,” the little man said. “I’m not quite right.”
“What’s the matter?”
“I’m crazy.”
He put on his cap. Nick felt like laughing.
“You’re all right,” he said.
“No, I’m not. I’m crazy. Listen, you ever been crazy?”
“No,” Nick said. “How does it get you?”
“I don’t know,” Ad said. “When you got it you don’t know about it…”
--"The Battler," from "In Our Time," Ernest Hemingway, 1925
Michael Farris Smith has produced his finest and most powerful novel with The Fighter. This novel is a perfect marriage of character, dialogue, place, and plot. Without reservation, Smith has established himself as one of our finest current writers.
In short, this is the story of Jack Boucher, abandoned by his parents at a Salvation Army Thrift Store in the Mississippi Delta. Jack's wearing a diaper at least two changes behind time. Raised from foster home to foster home, Jack finds a true home with a woman named Maryanne. By age eighteen, Jack hits the fight circuit. His name fits. Boucher is French for Butcher.
Jack's story instantly brings to mind Paul Simon's "The Boxer," and Hemingway's character Ad, the Battler. Jack's numerous concussions bring him much closer to Ad Frances who considers himself crazy from taking one too many punches. Jack must write down crucial information in a notebook, reminding him who are his friends and who are his foes. Now he's going home. Maryanne needs him. It will take one last fight for Jack to repay all the love Maryanne gave him when no one else would.
I've much more to say about this book. However, being in the midst of moving from apartment to house, including a library of three thousand books, the finished review must wait. For now, I leave it as a book not to be missed if you appreciate southern literature of the grit lit variety. Comparisons to William Gay, Cormac McCarthy, and Tom Franklin are well deserved.
I offer my sincere thanks to publisher Little, Brown for providing me a copy of this exceptionally good read. I would also be remiss if I didn't thank LeAnne of my beloved group On the Southern Literary Trail who enthusiastically recommended this fine book to me.
From dusk until dawn they have searched all day long But there's too many clues in this room --Gordon Lightf
Redemption Road: Taking the Long Way Home
From dusk until dawn they have searched all day long But there's too many clues in this room --Gordon Lightfoot, 1976
John Hart has the distinction of winning back to back Edgar Awards for Best Novel for two consecutive novels, Down River in 2008, and The Last Child in 2010. That's no mean feat. So, when On the Southern Literary Trail chose Redemption Road as a Group Read for January, 2017, I eagerly scooped up a copy of Hart's most recent novel. Having read it, I was disappointed. For a number of reasons.
Yes, one of the biggest mistakes a legal thriller can make is to leave too many clues in the room. Hence, the quote from Gordon Lightfoot's song from the 1976 record album "Summertime Dream."
To Hart's credit, Redemption Road was five years in the writing. Hart didn't crank out this long and winding road of a book on the heels of his Edgar winning successes. However, the length of time in writing did not solve the problems apparent in this book.
In 1926, the English author, John Masefield wrote an odd litle novel, Odtaa.. The title stands for "One Damned Thing After Another." And, as in that obscure little book, one damned thing after another happens in Redemption Road. That Hart can heap so much misery on the major cast of characters in this book is enough to make the reader cringe.
The goodreads summary, an apparent publisher's summary sets out the basic premise:
Imagine:
A boy with a gun waits for the man who killed his mother.
A troubled detective confronts her past in the aftermath of a brutal shooting.
After thirteen years in prison, a good cop walks free. But for how long?
And deep in the forest, on the altar of an abandoned church, the unthinkable has just happened…
This is a town on the brink. This is a road with no mercy.
After five years, John Hart returns with Redemption Road, his most powerful story yet.
Well that's the tip of the iceberg in this tedious tale riddled with incredulous subplots. Throw in a crooked warden and his henchmen in search of a lost treasure. Yep. Throw in the troubled detective being investigated for shooting the two kidnappers of an eighteen year old girl who was raped and tortured by said kidnappers. Eighteen times. Yes, that's right. Eighteen times. Call it overkill. Considering that an officer carries a semi-automatic pistol with NINE slugs in the clip, whoever done it had to drop one clip and slam in another to dispatch the bad guys.
Hart paints his female protagonists as victims of sexual assault. I'll give Hart credit again. He's got the dynamics of survivors of sexual assault down to a "T." However, the manner in which his female characters are painted makes one wonder whether these two can ever be anything other than damaged goods.
Call me jaded. Having been a career prosecutor for twenty-eight years, handling far too many cases of child abuse and the sexual assault of both children and adults, Hart telegraphed the identity of the true serial killer far from the ultimate reveal.
I'm no published author. I doubt I will ever publish a bestselling novel. But Hart wrote a novel so flawed in Redemption Road, I'm hard pressed to understand the hoopla his latest has generated. But as one of my good reading friends who was also less than impressed said of this book, "But what do I know?"
John Hart was a practicing attorney before becoming a published author. With Redemption Road, Hart quit his day job to write full time. I hope he puts his time to good use. If you're going to read John Hart, don't begin with this one. Skip it....more
Rene Denfeld has written a compelling novel regarding the moral question of capital punishment in her novel The EnchaThe Enchanted: Living in Darkness
Rene Denfeld has written a compelling novel regarding the moral question of capital punishment in her novel The Enchanted. Denfeld is an author who writes what she knows. She is a death penalty investigator who works on cases of the condemned, reviewing their cases to assess whether an inmate's sentence was properly imposed. Her findings may lead to a new trial for her clients. Or an inmate's conviction may be upheld and the ultimate punishment may be imposed.
Not only does Denfeld address the lives of those on death row, she reveals the darkness of prison life. Those inmates, not on death row, but who are the "shot callers" on the prison yards, brutal human beings her exercise power over those weaker than themselves. Here are the inconvenient truths of prisoners improperly classified, thrown in with more hardened men who repeatedly use the weak for their own sexual pleasure. Corrupt guards who turn a blind eye to violence and male rape. The receipt of heroin and marijuana into prison populations. Corrupt administrators who become rich by promoting the trafficking of those drugs.
In such a nightmarish world, one does not expect to find the beauty Denfeld is able to depict through the narration of a nameless inmate, a fallen priest who administers to the condemned, and "The Lady," an unnamed death penalty investigator. But it is here. There is a terrible beauty that permeates this painful story of broken individuals. Yes, there is enchantment here, as hard as it is to conceive it might exist. It is a world of imagination, especially portrayed through the eyes of the nameless inmate who words alternate with chapters devoted to the work of "The Lady" and the Priest.
This is not an easy read. It can be an especially painful read. Denfeld, without resorting to lengthy legal descriptions of the arduous appellate process in capital cases, portrays the hopelessness of inmates on death row. There is York, to whose case the Lady has been assigned. York has lived on death row for so long he has lost any hope. He prefers that the Lady not pursue his case. He is ready to die. The certainty of his death is more comforting to York than the interminable passing of time.
We witness the progress of The Lady's work on York's case through her exploration of York's past. As in many cases like York's, evidence of his damaged childhood might have been presented at his trial during a sentencing hearing. However, the comptetency of his appointed lawyers, nicknamed Grim and Reaper, represent those lawyers who rarely delve into an inmate's past that might have lead to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
Alternately, the nameless inmate, listens to The Lady's conversations with York, revealing a multidemnsional picture of the investigative process. This inmate's reality is distorted by his escapes into his imagination, his perception of a fantastical magic, yet whose observations are unerringly true. The tragedy of our nameless narrator is he is incapable of speech.
The reader should never think that Denfeld perceives her clients as blameless, or innocent. It is clear from her very balanced portrayal of death row inmates that, indeed, as John Steinbeck said in East of Eden, "There are monsters among us...and to the monstrous, the norm is monstrous."
This is a book that deserves to be read. Even though its contents may challenge your core beliefs. The Enchanted is a book that remains with the reader long after turning the final page.
Is this a book for everyone? I think not. I do not recommend it for survivors of victims of violent crimes. I believe it just might be too hard to take. It is a work that is capable of challenging anyone's emotions and beliefs.
This Reader's Personal Reflection
For almost twenty-eight years I was a career Prosecutor. The most terrible duty I was charged with was to try Capital Punishment Cases. I am among those lawyers whose job is not addressed in Denfeld's novel. I found that surprising. Yet, I am mindful of the reasons Denfeld wrote this book and the manner in which she chose to tell it.
Death Penalty cases, over the years in which I tried them, became a danse macabre. In many ways it is an arduous responsibility that diminishes the spirit of the Prosecutor and takes an emotional toll that we in that profession rarely speak of. These are cases of hypertechnical issues that result in an eerie pavane of dance steps that must be made.
At the same time, we live with the hearts and minds of the shattered survivors of the victims. Those left behind by the brutal murders hold on to the belief that justice will bring closure in a reasonable period of time. It never does. As I write this, a Defendant who murdered his son the day before the child was to be christened on Easter Sunday, remains on death row after sixteen years. I was the lead trial lawyer in the second trial of that case many years before. The child's mother and other family still deal with a baby's death more than twenty years afterward.
Over the years since I have retired in 2006, The United States Supreme Court has issued multiple rulings on various issues regarding capital punishment cases. Decisions changing previous precedents. The result has been a killing of the imposition of the death penalty by inches. Rather than biting the bullet and having the political courage to end Capital Punishment in America. You see, the Death Penalty is a very political issue that is too hot to handle. It is an issue that reflects on political partisanship by members of a United States Supreme Court shaped by the appointment of Justices during Republican administrations.
The costs of enforcing the death penalty now outstrips the cost of keeping a convicted inmate in prison for the rest of his natural life. So for me, one the outcome of the Presidential Election of 2016, will be who fills the current vacancy on our Supreme Court and any future appointments.
Surprising thoughts from a man who devoted his professional life to prosecution of our criminal laws? I think not. None of us should be unaware of the presumably guilty on death row who have been found innocent by means of DNA evidence and other means. It is time we reconsidered whether the death penalty should be preserved any longer.
The Power of the Dog: Machismo, Madness, & Morality
Don Winslow has written the epic "Dope" novel in The Power of the Dog. It is a mean, dirty story whThe Power of the Dog: Machismo, Madness, & Morality
Don Winslow has written the epic "Dope" novel in The Power of the Dog. It is a mean, dirty story where it is not always easy to tell the good guys from the bad guys.
This is not a mere cop and crime story. Winslow goes much deeper than that. While not strictly historical fiction, because Winslow tends to change the names to protect the guilty, and omit the names to blur which Presidential Administration particular acts may be attributed to, consider this a sweeping look at "The War on Drugs" from the founding days of the Drug Enforcement Administration in the mid-1970s to the end of the Nineties.
Winslow's protagonist is Art Keller, a Vietnam Veteran. More fitting for having been an intel operative in the Phoenix Program during the Vietnam War, the program for the assassination of suspected Viet Cong leaders. Keller is not regular army. He is CIA.
When the Drug Enforcement Administration was founded in the Seventies, many former Vietnam vets found themselves recruited into DEA ranks, including former CIA operatives. They found themselves on the outside, at odds with other law enforcement who had not been recruited from the Vietnam experience. Known as "Cowboys," they were spurned by their civilian counterparts and locked out of intel and operations when possible.
Art Keller finds himself "Locked out" by his supervisor Tim Taylor who has stationed him in Mexico to shut down the heroin trade. But Keller has something going for him Taylor hasn't counted on. Keller's mother was a Latina. Essentially abandoned by his gringo father as he grew up in the barrio, Keller understands what it means to be Mexican. By apparent luck he finds himself in the boxing ring as the sparring partner of Cesar Barrerra, managed by brothers Raul and Adan. Keller is accepted. And wouldn't you know it, Tio, Uncle, Miguel Angel Barrerra, is a ranking Mexican police official who leads Keller to credit in shutting down the heroin traffic in Mexico and killing the heroin kingpin.
Here's the complication. Tio has a motive. Keller was actually a tool. Tio Barrerra establishes a Federacion to distribute cocaine the up and coming drug to the streets of the United States. Enter the Columbian Drug Cartels. Enter the Mafia Connection. Oops. Enter the Contra Connection. Uh-oh. Enter the CIA support of the Contras who are under indictment for Trafficking Cocaine.
Faster than you can say Ollie North, here portrayed as Major Scott Craig, Art Keller finds himself caught between the CIA and the Barerras fighting the good fight in the war on drugs. However the Barrerras are always just one step ahead of him.
The key to any good narcotics investigation is the development of intel. Best source? Informants. However, now one tips on the Barrerras. It will get you killed. Keller gets antsy and practical. Following Tio Barrerra, he discovers Tio has taken a young lover and an apartment as a secret love nest. In a "Say it ain't so Keller" moment, Art plants an illegal bug. The intel is golden. On the basis of information received from a "reliable confidential informant" Keller begins to do serious damage to the Barrerra Operation.
Keller has two partners, one, Ernie Hidalgo, kidnapped by the Barrerras. Hidalgo is brutally tortured to discover the identity of Keller's informant. Of course, Hidalgo doesn't know. In the process of the torture Hidalgo dies.
What results is the ultimate vengeance tale. Keller is out to get the Barrerras. The Barrerras are out to get Keller. At the same time there are forces at work to shut Keller up as well. For reasons having nothing to do with his mission to avenge the death of his partner.
Winslow will keep you on the edge of your seat. He provides you with a cast of characters and story reminiscent of The Godfather, but with the intensity of Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone.
This is the thinking reader's dope novel. It is a novel of morality, ethics, and the ease with which those essentials may be lost. Save us from the power of the dog.
14 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.
15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.
16 For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.
17 I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me.
18 They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.
19 But be not thou far from me, O Lord: O my strength, haste thee to help me.
20 Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog.
Although written back in 1997, years before the plight faced by Syria's refugees, author Peter Robinson pInspector Banks Among the English for England
Although written back in 1997, years before the plight faced by Syria's refugees, author Peter Robinson penned a novel concerning national pride cloaked in vicious racism and intolerance. James Flood is found beaten to death in Banks' never peaceful Eastvale.
After the battered corpse is identified by Forensics, young members of Eastvale's Pakastani residents are prime suspects. Flood had a run in with George Mahmood at a local pub. He didn't take kindly to being run into by a G..d....d Paki.
Banks may have racial tension on the rise. It won't do. It's just not PC, nor good for the town's image.
Worse, James Flood was the technical Guru for a Neo-Nazi crew, the Albion League, headed up by a smooth talking chief, Nevil Montcombe, who not only has the ways to attract the local disaffected young to his growing ranks, but the money to pay the best Solicitors and Barristers to protect his interests.
While Banks is dealing with sticky political wickets on the job, his personal life is on the skids. He and wife Sandra have split.
It's enough to put Banks deep into his bottles of Laphroaig Scotch. It's bloody Hell when Chief Superintendent Jimmy Riddell suspends Banks for not properly investigating the Flood case when Banks own subordinates find an easy solve to the murder. Case closed.
Or is it? Banks may be suspended, but he's not a man to leave loose ends hanging. Especially when his experience tells him the evidence doesn't add up.
Robinson continues to write at the top of his game. Banks continues to develop as an increasingly complex man, torn between duty and family.
Bank's ninth appearance is a cracking good read. Robinson writes another first rate police procedural. This series just grows stronger with each successive entry. Excellent. Read it....more
In short, this is Banks' best outing in the series I have encountered. Peter Robinson departs fInnocent Graves: Banks at the Bar
Full review to follow.
In short, this is Banks' best outing in the series I have encountered. Peter Robinson departs from his usual plot line. For in this novel, the murder of a sixteen year old girl in a country churchyard leads to the arrest and trial of a small college English teacher. The suspects abound. However, the presence of convincing forensic evidence leads to a fascinating trial of the hapless suspect. This one is not to be missed. Robinson has outdone himself in Innocent Graves....more
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