FDR Drive by James Comey

(35. - 1324.) FDR Drive by James Comey - Being a federal prosecutor in New York City has made Nora Carleton acutely aware of “the darkness in the world”. Recently appointed “the Deputy United States Attorney, the number two position in the Southern District of New York” (SDNY), she is taking the lead on a prospective case of terrorism.

The United States Attorney for the SDNY is her friend and colleague Carmen Garcia.

Carleton is a lesbian in a good relationship with Captain Demitria “Demi” Kofatos of the Westport, Connecticut Police Department. 

A staff prosecutor at the SDNY, Sean Fitzpatrick, has come to believe:

“..... that the biggest domestic threat ws no longer Cosa Nostra but what the FBI called ‘racially motivated violent extremists’ - and the most active of these were White people who believed that non-Whites threatened them and the continued existence of the United States of America.”

One of the leaders of the movement is Sam Buchanan, a swift talking podcaster. While banned from the mainstream platforms he makes his way on to the internet through messaging apps, shared clips and a steadily growing email subscription service. He speaks eloquently, no doubt aided by his Harvard education, to the “voiceless Americans of European ancestry”. 

He is following in the footsteps of Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones though his words are more inflammatory. He calls on the patriots of White America to act to defend the nation from the others intent on taking over. He names people he identifies as tyrants. Two have been killed.

Fitzpatrick, as the  Chief of the National Security and International Narcotics unit better known by its acronym, NSIN, wants to investigate Buchanan for “seditious conspiracy”. (The SDNY is an acronym rich environment.) He needs to know if Buchanan has direct links with the killers.

As a precedent the prosecutors look back a thousand years to King Henry II asking his knights who will rid him of the meddlesome Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket.

In the highly polarized America of the mid-2020’s Garcia wants to proceed cautiously.

Assisting Carleton is Benny Dugan, a huge powerful man, who is an investigator for the office. 

Buchanan is portrayed in every unflattering way possible from demagogue to sexual predator. He has not a single redeeming quality. He is a cardboard villain.

While an evil guy I wondered where the evidence would come for a conspiracy involving Buchanan. There is no physical evidence. There is an abundance of Buchanan making vile comments but where is the connection with the killers. There is a mid-plot twist to deal with that issue that felt contrived. The effort to distance the SDNY from the twist supported my feeling.

The pre-trial manoeuvring was well done. Comey knows U.S. Federal Court rules and practice. Legal issues are handled credibly.

I would have said one of the defence lawyers was incompetent and it was not credible that the lawyer represent an accused on a murder charge had I not watched several of the lawyers who have represented President Trump in recent years.

Jury selection is prolonged and challenging for the lawyers as they have to consider which potential jurors will move to becoming jurors as the prosecution and defence use their peremptory strikes.

The trial was interesting. It reminded me of many television shows on trials where the questioning is condensed to just the highlighted issue. The compression takes up fewer pages than a real examination or cross-examination. What is lost is the subtlety of how a witness testifies and responds on cross. The book could be taken directly to a T.V. series or movie. The producers would hardly have to cut any dialogue.

The trial addressed whether Buchanan was a just a loudmouth advocate for his vision of America or inciting his listeners to violence. What was the intent of his words? He never directed anyone to commit violence in his lengthy monologues on his show. What does it mean for a criminal prosecution when he says:

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants, as Jefferson said.

The Anglo-American-Canadian legal systems require accused to be found guilty beyond all reasonable doubt of the charges against them. It is an intentionally high burden. It is difficult to meet that standard on a charge of conspiracy.

While there is a shortage of analysis in the book there is a recognition of perspective with regard to the participants in the January 6 storming of the Capitol and the participants in riots after George Floyd was killed.

There is a conspiracy that has elements of plausibility and improbability.

As often occurs in crime fiction an informant of the State lies to strengthen the prosecution.

The book reminds me of many television shows in that the good people are great and the bad people are wicked. There is barely any gray in the characterizations.

FDR Drive is well written and crisply paced. I find it not possible to discuss a significant flaw in the structure of the book for me because it is too big a spoiler. I think I need to read another of Comey’s books to draw better conclusions about the author. I am sure he can write a book that is not a T.V. show in print.

I am very aware Comey is the former director of the FBI and a continuing target for the Trump Department of Justice. I reached my thoughts for this review without considering his non-authorial life. I may have more to say on the current references to the book in a Department of Justice brief in its effort to prosecute Comey.

The Music of What Happens by John Straley

(34. - 1323.) The Music of What Happens by John Straley - Reading of bitter custody, now called parenting, disputes reminds me of the many cases in which I have represented a father or a
mother or grandparents. They are among the most difficult of legal cases for objectivity is lost. Emotions are dominant. I have not found that either gender is dominant in being irrational.

Cecil Younger, private investigator in Alaska, is working for Priscilla “Cilla” DeAngelo in a battle with Robert Sullivan II over the custody of Young Bob Sullivan that started while he was in the natal ward of the hospital in which he was born.

Priscilla is convinced that State Senator Wilfred Taylor, a friend of Young Bob’s grandfather Old Bob Sullivan, has corrupted the trial judge against her. She storms off to Juneau to confront him. Taylor ends up dead and Priscilla is charged with murder.

Three of the most colourful lawyers I have read about are involved in her defence. 

Dickie Stein is Cecil’s friend. He graduated from Harvard Law at 19 and moved North “disdaining Wall Street to make a name for himself in frontier justice”. He often wears his maroon Harvard sweatshirt. 

Harrison Teller also got his law degree at Harvard. He hates authority and “he would represent you with a depth of passion and vitriol that would garner thousands of dollars in contempt citations with each trial”. Cecil encounters Teller. He is “[A] big man in a heavy wool coat that could have been a buffalo robe”. He has a bushy beard and a wide brimmed felt hat. 

Cecil cannot remember the name of the Associate Public Defender. He does remember meeting the APA in his office: 

His hair had those dirty black horns from where he had been pulling at it all day in court. He was wearing a Blackhawks jersey and baggy black shorts. His tennis shoes were unlaced ….

I doubt I would trust any of the trio with a murder defence.

There is a powerful scene in which Younger accepts he will drown as he sinks down. He feels comforted by knowing “this time I would be the first on the scene and I would know more than the cops, even if I was dead”. When he is unexpectedly rescued he is disoriented.

Younger literally and figuratively stumbles into the investigation. He struggles to make sense of what has happened and is happening.

The setting is so physically different from Saskatchewan. Younger lives amidst the sea, trees and mountains. Only the isolation is the same.

Younger desperately wants to help Priscilla and her sister, Jane Marie, and Young Bob.

While Younger tries to puzzle his way through what is happening he has an amazing experience swimming near a quartet of humpback whales:

Rubbery white fins flashed in front of me. The shadow of something trailing bubbles the size of cantaloupes. The shadow moved slowly but with inexorable force, like a school bus rolling off a cliff. I could never see its entire length in this murky water, but only dim parts of the whole: a shifting of enormous curve and shadow.

Jane Marie is a whale scientist who uses imagination to try to gain abit of understanding of what whales tell each other.

She plays a recording of the whales:

Through the headphones I heard a chorus of sounds: squealing, creaking, and broad sweeping moans.

Younger describes the tape as eerie and beautiful.

While the portrayal of Alaska and life there is brilliant I found the plot somewhat disjointed. It is never going to be easy to describe a fierce custody dispute. Participants too often act illogically. I found it hard to follow the “why”. The senator’s death made it harder.

The conclusion was as dramatic as the opening. It is the middle I found slow going.

I consider The Music of What Happens a good book. I consider the previous two books in the series better.

****

Straley, John - (2019) - The Woman Who Married a Bear and Maureen's Reply; (2020) - The Curious Eat Themselves and Clothes in The Curious Eat Themselves

Prague Fatale by Philip Kerr

(28. - 1317.) Prague Fatale by Philip Kerr - In the summer of 1942 Bernie Gunther returns to Berlin from Prague with SS-Obergruppen-fuhrer Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich, the Reichsprotector of Bohemia and Moravia. Bernie is alive. Heydrich is dead having been assaassinated by Czechs sent from England. Heydrich receives possibly the most elaborate funeral in the history of the Third Reich.

Bernie thinks back to the fall of 1941 when he returned to Berlin from Belorussia where he had witnessed the start of the Holocaust and been involved in the horrific acts recounted in Field Gray. He returns to working in the Homicide department of the Berlin police. Bernie contemplates, even prepares to commit suicide, In the end he goes to unsettled sleep night after night.

It is a difficult time to live in Berlin. Rationing has every common citizen on a diet. Beer, when available, is bitter. Cigarettes have little tobacco. Clothing is restricted. Everything is ersatz. Hospitals are filled with wounded soldiers returned from the Eastern Front to recuperate or die in Germany. I had not thought about the economic consequences on the home front in a great war.

Nazi leadership expects the police to focus on enforcing discriminatory laws against Jews including the requiremenet to wear the yellow cloth star. Crimes such as murder and assault are not a priority. Not surprisingly, Bernie will not overlook murder.

The Gestapo draw him into an investigation of murder. The killer had false ID and may be connected to the Three Kings. They were three Czechs, residents of Bohemia and Moravia if you are a Nazi, who were military officers. They have been conducting sabatoge operations against the Nazis in Bohemia and Moravia and now Berlin. Two have been caught. Pressure is immense upon the Gestapo to capture the third who is known as Melchior.

Bernie makes the acquaintance of a bright and lovely woman, Arianne Tauber, who works at the Jockey Bar. She asserts she is not a “joy girl”. She will accept cigarettes, drinks, perfume, tips and “the odd present or two” for being a good companion to the patrons of the bar. 

Being on the Eastern Front has left Bernie impatient with those unwilling to answer his questions. He is quick to use violence to get answers. Bernie’s connections with Heydrich quell those in the police department from complaining about his conduct.

Heydrich summons Bernie to Czechoslovkia. Even Bernie is afraid of the blonde general:

That’s the only way I know that you can distinguish being brave from being stupid.

The general, as with other members of the Nazi elite, lives in sumptuous luxury. His residence is the Lower Castle at Jungfern-Breschan, a beautiful country manor, that was confiscated from its Jewish owner. Heydrich is attended by SS officers. The heart of darkness is cold and efficient. 

Over a multi-course lunch Heydrich casually discusses his plans for the Czech people:

“People of good race and good intentions, they will be Germanized. Those we can’t Germanize and educate to think differently from the way they think now, we’ll have to put them against the wall. The rest - potentially at least half the population of Bohemia and Moravia - will have to be moved out and resettled in the East, where they can live out their miserable days in Arctic Labour camps.”

Heydrich speaks directly to Bernie after lunch. After a failed poisoning assassination Heydrich wants Bernie as a personal bodyguard. He sees Bernie’s stubborn independence as useful for he can trust Bernie “to tell me those unpleasant truths that others would shrink from”. Bernie’s integrity makes him a fool but “a clever and resourceful fool”.

Danger for Heydrich is not limited to the Czechs. In talking to those around Heydrich, no one is close, who govern the Czechos for him Bernie realizes all are killers:

In a room full of murderers, anything seemed possible.

Heydrich has no inclination to listen to Bernie about his security. His arrogance is immense.

When there is murder at the Lower Castle Heydrich appoints Bernie to investigate with unlimited power to question anyone. Bernie can aggressively question generals to their dismay. 

It is a locked room murder with 31 suspects in the Lower Castle and more not far away.

While Bernie is troubled about investigating the death of a Nazi he cannot conduct a perfunctory investigation. It was impressive to read how he finds and extracts information.

Kerr cleverly has Bernie ferret out little facts that would escape the routine investigator.

As always, witnesses attempt to evade questions but Bernie will not be deterred and no one wants Bernie to tell the ruthless Heydrich that a witness, of any rank, was uncooperative.

It was fascinating reading Bernie’s impertinent, often aggravating, questioning of the Nazis who governed Bohemia and Moravia during World War II. It was like reading the cross-examination of Hitler by Hans Litten in the Eden Palace trial of the early 1930’s.

Heydrich occasionally mentions Hercule Poirot. He appears to have enjoyed reading mysteries. Bernie is dismissive of Agatha Christie.

The last quarter of the book sped by as Bernie gradually put together what happened. I spent most of a sunny Sunday afternoon sitting on the deck under our elm tree finishing the book.

As Bernie contemplates his experiences with the Nazis he realizes that while, as a Berlin homicide detective, he considered himself an expert on the science of murder he is actually a “rather quaint and old-fashioned amateur”.

The twists were striking and convincing. The resolution of the investigation was precisely logical. 

The solution to the locked room was byond clever. I should have had an inkling but failed yet again. Maybe some reading day I will figure out a locked room mystery before the end.

Kerr was a brilliant writer. His depth of understanding of what happened in Germany during World War II is breathtaking. He has helped me understand the psyche of Germans, especially non-Nazis, during the war better than any work of non-fiction.

****

Kerr, Philip – (2004) - Dark Matter; (2016) - March Violets; (2016) - The Pale Criminal; (2016) - A German Requiem; (2016) - Berlin Police and the Holocaust - Part I and Part II;  (2016) - Comparing Serial Killers in Three Totalitarian States; (2023) - The One From the Other; (2023) - A Quiet Flame; (2024) - If the Dead Rise Not; (2026) - Field Gray

Under Occupation by Alan Furst

(32. - 1321.) Under Occupation by Alan Furst - A tour de force but for the end.

Paul Ricard is a 40 year old French writer of “detective and spy fiction”. In the fall of 1942 in Paris he is knocked down by a fleeing man. As the man recovers and tries to run he is shot. Instinctively, Ricard goes to help him. The dying man gives him a sheet of paper. It is a German “engineering schematic” for a detonator.

Ricard, not a resistante, reaches out through a lover, Romany, to a loyal retired French officer to find a way to contact the Resistance.

At the same time he is working on his next book. Ricard does much of his plotting while he walks the streets of Paris. 

His latest book Midnight in Trieste reflects his style:

The cast of characters was the usual in such novels, secret police informants, spies, ruined aristocrats, sinister Balkan types, and, lithe exotic women with shadowy pasts. Traveling with them, the hero, the foreign correspondent Claude Verbain, a committed anti-fascist who smoked little cigars and wore tinted eyeglasses. 

As with many who get involved in espionage it does not end with a single participation.

Ricard wants to resist the Occupation but:

With a caustic eye, he looked back at Ricard the writer, who should have kept intrigue confined to paper.

How far can a man go to effectively pretend he is eager to help the enemy while remaining a patriot. A double agent has a challenging life.

In Furst’s previous book, A Hero of France, there is a German SD (Intelligence officer) who performs his duties methodically but without zeal.

In Under Occupation, Major Erhard Geisler, a German SD major is a part of a German effort to take over French cultural life.

Ricard meets the urbane Major von Lobau who decides if a French citizen can be given a pass to go to Germany. He gives Ricard permission. Clearly impressed by Ricard he offers Ricard money if he will report to Von Lobau on what he hears going on in Paris.

While Ricard and Kasia are traveling to Germany their train is attacked by British planes. My usual perspective of such attacks was video from an attacking plane. I had not thought about how terrifying it was to be on a train with bombs bursting about it and the train being strafed.

While slowly writing another spy novel Ricard is drawn deeper and deeper into British schemes.

Ricard, the writer, is carrying out the type of espionage actions about which he writes.

I can see Furst as Ricard living out his imagination. 

The ventures become more sophisticated and more dangerous.

Ricard also enjoys reading spy fiction. In the summer of 1943 he is reading, for the third time, A Coffin for Dimirios by Eric Ambler. Furst, in a Reddit string, said it was one of his favourite spy novels.

The premise of the espionage writer who becomes a spy in the same era, World War II, in which he lives and writes is brilliant. If it was not Furst consciously recreating himself as the writer spy Ricard, I would be surprised. I have not been able to find anything online concerning this theory.

The connections between writers and imaginations in Under Occupation are wonderfully intertwined.

As the book neared the conclusion the narrative became somewhat disjointed and was confusing in timing. It felt like the ending had been written in some haste and lacks the polish of Furst’s earlier books and the first part of this book.

Overall it felt like Under Occupation was the final book in the Night Soldiers series. It was published in 2019 and there has not been another. Furst has not published any books since 2019.

****

Furst, Alan - (2002) - Kingdom of Shadows; (2004) - The Polish Officer; (2010) - Spies in the Balkans; (2012) - Dark Voyage; (2013) - Red Gold (1999); (2013) - Alan Furst's Quiet Heroes; (2014) - Mission to Paris; (2017) -Midnight in Europe; (2026) A Hero of France

A Hero of France by Alan Furst

(26. - 1315.) A Hero of France by Alan Furst - In March of 1941 Mathieu, almost 40, is in a network transporting downed English pilots and air crews through France to Spain. It is dangerous. It is the start of the French Resistance. Mathieu felt he had to do something to oppose the Germans arrogantly dominating France. 

Members of the Resistance use their Resistance names when talking to each other. Through the book they have only first names.

Furst is a master of evoking the spirit of the era.

Paris, the city of lights, is now dark during the Occupation. Vehicles and buses are not running. There is a curfew. It is a silent city through the night. Birds singing can be heard through the city. Parisians can star gaze from their apartments.

In a time of constant shortages a grand present is a “big wedge of some kind of Brie” brought from a farm.

Documents dominate life in wartime. You cannot travel without the proper documents. Creating a physical disguise for an airman is straightforward. Creating credible documents requires a sympathetic member of officialdom or a skilled forger.

The Resistance needs a constant flow of money to finance escape networks.

Mathieu receives money from Max de Lyon, a Polish Jew, who is running a club. His patrons in the Occupation are the German military, colloborationists and the Parisian underworld. They have the money for clubbing.

Mathieu is aided by Chantal, an elegant woman of the upper bourgeoisie. 

Annemarie, a member of an aristocratic family, is recruited by Chantal to join the cell. She is a beautiful young woman.

It is a delicate process travelling in Occupied France with someone who cannot speak without betraying he is English. It becomes simpler to travel in Vichy (Unoccupied) France.

Mathieu encounters Klara Zeller at a restaurant. They had been young lovers. She was an ardent Communist from a well-to-do family. They meet. He ends the assignation when she tries to recruit him for the Communist cause.

Even at the beginning the Resistance is complicated by the separation of Communist and non-Communist groups.

Furst explores an issue seldom addressed in my reading involving the French Resistance. How much should they trust British intelligence? How much direction should they accept from Britain?

Mathieu has an innate suspicion of an upper class Englishman, Edouard, sent to meet with him.

Running an escape line is expensive and money is limited in France. British intelligence has lots of money.

While I would have thought the modest number of English airmen being returned to Britain by the Resistance too few to draw Nazi concern, they were very concerned. Bombing Germany had infuriated Hitler prompting all Nazi ministries to publicly intensify the hunt for British airmen in France.

Senior Inspector, Otto Broehn, of the Hamburg police is “asked” by the Foreign Ministry to work with the German military police, the Feldgendarmie:

Operating against resistance in occupied countries they were known as the Heldenklauer, hero-snatchers but that was better than working with the Gestapo.

Speaking French he is sent to France to pursue heroes.

He will be diligent unlike the French police who capture the airmen and couriers who have the misfortune to be revealed at checkpoints but make only perfunctory inquiries to identify networks.

Every organization is at greater risk from turncoats than from investigators searching for them. While Mathieu’s network began with people he knew its expansion means he must trust people he does not know well. Recruitment is necessary but the Resistance lacks resources to vet potential members especially when the approach is made by the aspiring Resistant. As the network has expanded so has the risk of a traitor.

There is great drama on a personal scale in the book. Furst has a knack for rendering characters with a hidden aspect to them. 

The constant tension in the book is excruciating. The stress of being a member of a Resistance escape line cell was unrelenting.

Furst is so talented at causing anxiety in the reader on whether the heroes will survive. He had me racing through the final pages to find out what happened.

**** 

Furst, Alan - (2002) - Kingdom of Shadows; (2004) - The Polish Officer; (2010) - Spies in the Balkans; (2012) - Dark Voyage; (2013) - Red Gold (1999); (2013) - Alan Furst's Quiet Heroes; (2014) - Mission to Paris; (2017) -Midnight in Europe

On Writing - A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King (Part II)

(25. - 1314.) - On Writing - A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King (Part II) - In my last post I started my review of On Writing. This post completes the review.

Writing his first novel, Carrie, King was unhappy with the first few pages and threw them in the wastebasket. His wife, Tabby, resurrected them and encouraged him to keep writing. He realized a “writer’s original perception of a character may be as erroneous as the reader’s” and “stopping a piece of work just because it’s hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea”.

Life changed when the paperback rights to Carrie sold for $400,000. (He received half.)

King has an addictive personality - smoking, alcohol, cocaine - until given an ultimatum by his wife. He realized that the “idea creative endeavour and mind-altering substances are entwined is one of the great pop-intellectual myths of our time”. Reading and writing appear to have become his dominant addictions.

He tells of the basics, learning grammar and style. 

I was more interested when he recommended a daily reading / writing program of “four to six hours, every day”. To King you cannot be a writer unless you are an avid reader. 

When young people ask me about being a lawyer I ask them if they are prepared to spend 8 hours a day reading. If they flinch or hesitate or look away I say if you do not enjoy reading all day every day it is best to find another profession.

King writes every morning, holidays included, stopping when he has written 2,000 words. He recommends writing in a room where you shut the door. He directs the writer to avoid distractions though what is a distraction is flexible. He writes while listening to “hard rock” music.

For new writers he suggests 1,000 words a day with one day off a week.

On the creative process he states:

The situation comes first. The characters - always flat and unfeatured, to begin with - come next. Once these things are fixed in my mind, I begin to narrate. I often have an idea of what the outcome may be, but I have never demanded of a set of characters that they do things my way. On the contrary, I want them to do things their way.

He thinks:

The most interesting situations can usually be expressed as a What-if question

He highlights the importance of description which he describes as a learned skill. I have spent 51 years in a law office describing events in cases and 48 years describing sports events, principally football games. I find the amount of description needed is a matter of feel for me. If it feels right it is probably a good description.

He assesses, rather brutally, the academic industry of creative writing - lectures, workshops, seminars and classes.

The last section of the book is about his recovery and return to writing after a horrific accident in which he was struck by a van. I found the section moving.

I am not sure why he described On Writing as a short book when it is 288 pages in length.

I was struck by how often he cursed and swore as he wrote about writing. It felt discordant for the other two books I have read about writing by P.D. James and Gail Bowen had nary a swear nor a curse. I know it was not affection. I expect it reflects his everyday language.

I have never read any of King’s fiction. I have avoided reading him as I do not read horror.  I did enjoy and learn from On Writing. King is a skilled writer on writing. I will refer back to his principles and be more conscious of unnecessary words.

****

King, Steven - (2026) - On Writing - A Memoir of the Craft - Part I 

On Writing - A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King (Part I)

On Writing - A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King (Part I) - In showing how he became a writer King tells stories of his youth. He was imagining at 2. I have only vague memories until I was in Grade One. The episodes of his earliest years are vivid especially on getting his ear drum repeatedly pierced. I do not have any dramatic early memories. 

He recounts that at 6, he missed so much of Grade One because of illness that he was held back. While ill he did read “approximately six tons of comic books”. I was an equally avid reader at 6 but my access to comic books was limited to what I could read at the Red & White General Store in Meskanaw while my Mom was shopping for groceries. 

I think a key difference between us was that King started writing stories as a child with the encouragement of his mother who paid him a quarter for each of four stories. They were “about four magic animals who rode around in an old car, helping out little kids”. I did not create stories at 6. Even as a child King heard in his head the voices of characters.

King, as with myself, was of the last generation to start to read before television was in the home.

By the time he was 12 he submitted a science fiction story to a magazine. I was most impressed that he typed it on a Royal typewriter he was given at 11. I was well into my teens before we had a typewriter and I could never do more than hunt and peck until I was in university.

He illustrates the point that “good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere” by how his first original story on counterfeiting coupon stamps came from his mother musing about how many more stamps she needed for a lamp and showing him that her tongue was green from licking many many stamps.

He got his first of years of rejection slips for the “Happy Stamps” story but kept writing and submitting. 

I had no literary interests as a teenager but continued to read and occasionally wrote down what I had learned about countries. I was fascinated by geography. King does not talk about reading encyclopedias for fun. I loved encyclopedias.

He was a movie aficionado, especially horror movies. Living on a farm I had rare access to a movie theatre.

What was clear to me was King’s imagination as a child, teenager and adult was never at rest with regard to fictional stories. My imagination focused on geography and history, imagining places and events far from the farm.

In high school he wrote a horror story plagiarized from a movie. It was a best seller among his classmates but resulted in confiscation by the school administration and return of sales. What he remembered best was the feeling of shame when he was asked why he wanted to write such “junk” when he had talent. He says every writer has had someone make a comparable comment to them.

From a small town newspaper editor for whom he was writing stories on spors he learned the essence of editing:

“When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story,” he said. “When you re-write your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story.”

From a university workshop group which included his wife-to-be, Tabitha who is a poet, he confirmed his “belief that good writing can be simultaneously intoxicating and idea-driven”.

Bright Shining as the Sun by John Farrow

(30. - 1319.) Bright Shining as the Sun by John Farrow - An articulate well-spoken career criminal confuses police. I would be equally surprised. They are few and far between in my experience.

Douglas Michael (he insists on the full names to distinguish himself) Sykes, is wounded in the thigh, in a biker bank - an apartment for counting money - with three other people dead is being charged with murder. He says he is the fourth victim. Sykes insists on talking to one man, Emile Cinq-Mars, a retired Montreal police officer recovering from a bullet wound. 

Sykes explains why he will not trust a former partner of Cinq-Mars:

“I’ve been found guilty by association in my life when that was dead wrong. I understand it: People had no way to decide so they went by association. You want me to find you worthy by association. Like the judgement of those who put me away, that could be wrong.”

Sykes requests police protection fearing he will be killed in a Montreal hospital.

Frederick “Mittens” Gregoire, another aging career criminal, is clinging to his leadership of a biker gang while serving a life sentence. It was his bank that was hit. He gives a bi-lingual order - Ghost Sykes tout de suite.

Lest “Mittens” be thought of as an unlikely nickname for a mobster, the real life bikers of Quebec have often used unexpected nicknames. A ruthless leader was Maurice “Mom” Boucher. He may have been an inspiration for Farrow. As with “Mittens”, “Mom” had sons and a daughter involved in crime, continued to direct his biker chapter from prison and survived assassination attempts in jail. 

Organized crime in Quebec has become more complex as in the rest of North America. Where Armand Gamache in Louise Penny’s Three Pines series takes on the traditional Italian mafia, the Montreal police in Bright Shining as the Sun are dealing with the Hell’s Angels. 

The challenge for the killer, “Raccoon”, contracted to ghost Sykes is the police officer outside Sykes room. Because of the direction in the order for swiftness there is little time for preparation.

Raccoon is clever and cold blooded.

The resulting police reaction is brutal. I hope that I am correct that Montreal police of the 21st Century in real life do not beat suspects in interrogation.

For the opening 100 pages Sykes is the lead character. Cinq-Mars barely appears.

He is slowly recovering in hospital from the combined effects of being shot and getting a blood infection. His mind is clear.

The unusual duo of Sykes and Cinq-Mars, both recovering from gunshot wounds in the present, met 40 years ago. Cinq-Mars gave him a break partly because of his age. Another factor was Sykes’ intellect. At 15, this teenager who grew up in a working class Montreal neighbourhood, was reading “Hemingway, Camus, Sartre, Dos Passos”.

At their current meeting Sykes, a greater realist than many criminals, explains his motivation to talk to Cinq-Mars:

We say: I can do five years standing on my head with my head in a bucket. Touch the ceiling with my toes. Entertain myself walking that way, walking on the ceiling. We say those things horsing around, figuring life out ….. But there’s a cutoff. Comes in about eight years. I’ve done the calculations. Nobody in their right mind gets into double digits …. Wherever you leave off from, 10 years later nothing exists …. That’s how the honest wretchedness in life passes you by when you pull steady time.

Sykes is facing far more than ten years.

As I noted above, an eloquent criminal is unusual. Intelligent conversation between police and criminals is equally uncommon in crime fiction. Cinq-Mars and Sykes engage in a battle of the minds. For Cinq-Mars to learn what has happened decades before and in recent days he must determine the motivations behind secrecy and honour.

Intelligent conversation between Cinq-Mars and his wife, Sandy, was less of a surprise. She understands aspects of the psyche of Cinqu-Mars better than himself.

In Sykes, Farrow has created a fascinating villain. He has  the intelligence to achieve greatness. Instead, his life was spent in the lower echelons of crime. Cinq-Mars pursues the question with Sykes that was in my mind. Why did he not use his fine mind to lead a productive life? The answer was sad and believable.

Farrow keeps the plot moving quickly. His dialogue is impressive. While written in English Farrow effectively conveys that French is the dominant language of Quebec.

The ending was breathtaking. It is dramatic without relying on a heavy dose of violence. It is credible. It is satisfying as well as brilliant. It blindsided me.

I regret I had not pursued the Cinq-Mars series sooner. I will be reading more of the bright French Canadian detective and his “garguantan” nose. 

****

Farrow, John (pseudonym for Trevor Ferguson) - The Storm Murders