Email to A.J. Devlin on Bronco Buster and His Memorable Reply

In my past 2 posts I have put up a review of Bronco Buster by A.J. Devlin and thoughts on poetry in the book and professional wrestling. Those posts and this post are part of a blog tour for the book. (I recommend reading the first two posts and then this post.) For this post I wrote to A.J. inviting his comments on my trio of posts. My email and his reply, in the vivid purple it appeared in my inbox, form this post. His response is remarkable and A.J. deeply moved me with his generous words. I look forward to reading more of his books. He is one of the best young writers in Canada.

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Dear A.J.

At the end of this email are my review of Bronco Buster and a post on poetry connected to the book.

I had lamented to you, after reading Five Moves of Doom, that Hammerhead had become a darker man.

I appreciate Hammerhead has regret over the death he set up in Five Moves of Doom. I equally appreciate Declan has no regret over the killing of a man who was a merciless killer.

Declan declared to Hammerhead:

“Stop beatin’ yerself up, Deartháir Fola”, which was Irish for blood brother. “Ya know if it could be done over, we’d still do it the same.”

My life of almost 50 years as a lawyer has ingrained in me that the Rule of Law keeps our nation a civilized country.

Much as vigilante justice appeals to me I condemn its practice.

Yet we must all move ahead in life. 

I had feared after Five Moves of Doom that Hammerhead was headed to an abyss in his life where he lost hope in the future. I was glad to see him returning from the darkness in Bronco Buster. His wit is encouraging.

I loved the big personalities in Bronco Buster. They added such colour and sparkle to the story. I am glad you let some light into the hard world of Hammerhead. Now, if you could only get Sam and J.T. to add some colour to the noir of their Vancouver.

Hammerhead is rolling along with the amazing characters of the book, working his way back to enjoying life but I see him still deeply troubled over his past vigilante actions. Planning and carrying out a killing takes a continuing toll on a reflective soul. Only the truly twisted can kill without conscience.

When I deal with people who have experienced great trauma whether from family turmoil or spousal conflict or residential school attendance or criminal attack or false accusation or another of the myriad of ways one human can harm another I often recommend counselling. For numerous clients it has helped them move forward.

In books, T.V. shows and movies I often see police officers brushing aside mandatory counselling after undergoing trauma. I have always thought that approach misguided. There is as much drama in addressing a troubled mind as barging forward without help.

I hope Hammerhead seeks out some counselling beyond Declan. His cousin started his recovery in his rough and ready way. Fully facing the conflicts within his mind with a counsellor would be fascinating.

Kooty, the Doukhobor motivational speaker and secular guru, encouraged Hammerhead to embrace his pain and forgive himself. By listening, the massive wrestler showed himself open to counseling.

Self-help remedies are a start. Professional therapy can sustain the healing.

As discussed I will be glad to post your response to this email and my other posts on Bronco Buster. Rollicking action, humour and reflection are a potent combination driving Bronco Buster. I expect it to get Award attention.

As has become a personal tradition I drank a DQ banana milkshake while reflecting on Bronco Buster.

All the best.

Bill

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"Back in the saddle."

That’s the tag line I’ve been running with for Bronco Buster as it features “Hammerhead” Jed’s return to both the wrestling and detective worlds. 

Promotion, event planning, hell I even sign most books “‘Hammerhead’ Jed is back in the saddle — hope you enjoy!”

And while for most folks that might be the take away line, I am not for a minute surprised that it’ s not the one Bill Selnes got out of my latest novel. No, Bill not only zeroed in on the “DO NOT GO GENTLE” Dylan Thomas poetry line — the son of a gun even outdid this author and found an incredible video about how this epic poetic phrase has already been utilized as a showcase for sports entertainment.

If you haven’t seen the 2014 WWE 2K ad I highly recommend it just like Bill as it does something even a bit unusual for wrestling — it focuses on the HONOUR of the wrestlers. 

And HONOUR was one of the themes I wanted to explore in Bronco Buster.

While originally conceived as a trilogy of Cobra Clutch, Rolling Thunder, and Five Moves of Doom with room for future novels, after the threequel it became clear the time was not right to say goodbye to the character of “Hammerhead” Jed Ounstead (for now at least) as this author prepares to challenge himself by writing a new standalone comedic crime caper.

All of this is really a long-winded way of saying that if it weren’t for Bill Selnes, I don’t think I would have prioritized Bronco Buster over my new standalone novel.

Why?

Because Bill is authentic. Bill is genuine. Bill invests in stories and in turn experiences emotions from them. 

Not only did this happen in Five Moves of Doom — I KNOW it was the book that caused Bill — a man of strong faith, character, and integrity — some concern over “Hammerhead” Jed because I had very strategically taken the character to a darker place and possibly sent him on a more concerning vigilante path. And while we may have agreed to disagree on Jed’s actions in book 3, that didn’t make Bill’s feelings any less valid to me. 

In fact, it sort of made me take a moment to reevaluate the series itself. 

Why? 

Because Bill likes Jed. 

Bill cares about Jed.

And when I realized not only where Jed was at by the end of Five Moves of Doom but also the lingering feelings Bill still felt over Jed’s fate at the end of that novel? 

Well that’s when it became crystal clear that my trilogy needed to become a quadrology and Jed had to make a choice — about the kind of detective / wrestler / man he is going to be.

Then and only then would the character be able to be put on hiatus (or perhaps even ride off into the sunset). This coming into his own — this coming home within himself — this is what all of the books have been building toward in this quadrology. It was never about Jed being a wrestler who lost his honour and had to find it again. It wasn’t never about Jed finding new honour in helping people by being a detective. 

“Hammerhead” Jed’s journey has always been about him realizing that whether he is a professional wrestler shining in the limelight or a PI causing trouble and catching bad guys with his cousin — HE IS AN IMPACT PLAYER.

For me, that is what Jed realizes in this novel. That labels don’t matter. But lives do. Jed doesn’t care if people think of him as a wrestler or detective or both — he CHOOSES to be man of honour in order to help folks and save lives the way that only him and his pisstank commando cousin can. And by doing so, after his tragic exit from pro-wrestling before book 1 all the way up to the end of book 3,  I like to think Jed may have saved himself.

And not just his life. Perhaps his soul as well.

Bronco Buster begins with a crass and vulgar move where a wrestler suffocates his opponent with his crotch. Which is why it seems only fitting that it ends with the author referring to Jed’s experience (of solving the real-time rodeo case and making peace with his past) as the sort of “spiritual enema” of the “Hammerhead” Jed mystery-comedy series. 

Two parting thoughts:

1) Yes I did in fact just attempt to link honour and an enema as seen above

2) Many thanks to Bill Selnes and Mysteries And More for another awesome book tour visit

Best,

AJ Devlin

****

Devlin, A.J. - (2019) - Cobra Clutch; (2020) - Rolling Thunder and Stampede Wrestling and and Exchange with Author A.J. Devlin; (2022) - Five Moves of Doom and Discussing Five Moves with A.J.; (2024) - Bronco Buster and Poetry and Professional Wrestling

Poetry and Professional Wrestling

In my previous post I reviewed Bronco Buster by A.J. Devlin. His
sleuth, John Edward “Jed” “Hammerhead” Ounstead is such a character he has two nicknames.

Hammerhead is a professional wrestler and a private investigator. His investigating techniques focus on the physical.

It is patronizing but I admit I had not thought of Hammerhead appreciating poetry. Choosing “DO NOT GO GENTLE” for his new wrestling marketing catchphrase was striking. I found myself drifting once again into patronization with speculation on pro wrestling fans envisioning where Hammerhead would not go gentle. Within his family, while I am confident his Irish cousin Declan, from the land of 20,000 poets, would know the phrase is from the famed poem of Dylan Thomas I am equally sure Declan would, in public, provide a crude and lascivious intent to the phrase.

Looking around the net I found that the WWE had created a promotional video for its WWE 2K 14 video game featuring John Cena reading Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night. It is a powerful video. 

I expect Thomas, an iconoclastic personality, would approve of his words appearing on a promotional wrestling tee shirt for Hammerhead “above my usual logo of a two-by-four piece of western red cedar with a bolt of lightning crackling through the wood”.

I do doubt Thomas, in the writing of the poem, was inspired by the cricket teams he loved.

Hammerhead confirms he is a poetry aficionado when he quotes Oscar Wilde on temptation.

During my internet wandering I found an article on The Conversation website, How Sport and Poetry Make the Perfect Match on T.V. I found the story fascinating.

The video of Serena Williams reciting Maya Angelou’s poem Still I Rise was moving.

Until reading the article I had forgotten that poetry was an event in the original Greek Olympic Games and early in the 20th Century at the modern Olympics.

On a cruise Sharon and I had a chance to visit the original Olympic Games site at Olympia. While the buildings are in ruins you can walk on the pathway the athletes took to enter into the stadium which held 40,000 spectators. I am sure Hammerhead and Devlin would find a shiver go through them as I did when I entered the stadium.

It is the second time this year I have read poetry in a crime fiction novel involving the life of a professional male athlete. In From Sweetgrass Bridge by Anthony Bidulka there is a haunting poem by the missing starting quarterback for the Saskatchewan Roughriders. I quoted that poem in a follow up post to my review and added a poem from Dick Bass, a former football player, coach and executive, about football. I do not have any pro wrestling poetry but I expect some has been written.

The whole poem of Thomas could be an anthem for the sometimes quixotic quests of Hammerhead. He is one of the “good men” and the “wild men” who will:

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Let his time to rage be many books into the future.

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Links to Cena’s reading and the article on sport and poetry are:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6DBGHfWe-g

https://theconversation.com/how-sport-and-poetry-make-the-perfect-match-on-tv-233799

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Devlin, A.J. - (2019) - Cobra Clutch; (2020) - Rolling Thunder and Stampede Wrestling and and Exchange with Author A.J. Devlin; (2022) - Five Moves of Doom and Discussing Five Moves with A.J.; (2024) -
Bronco Buster

Bronco Buster by A.J. Devlin

(51. - 1234.) Bronco Buster by A.J. Devlin - Jed “Hammerhead” Ounstead returns to the squared circle of professional wrestling with the Bronco Buster move,  visually striking while deeply unsettling, which:

 … required me to throw him into a corner turnbuckle, leap on his face, grab the top ropes on either side, and bounce up and down on his smug mug while he appeared to “suffocate”.

Jed is wearing “an old pair of black, Speedo-style shorts from my WWE days”.

Hearing “a blood-curdling scream” unconnected with any spectator’s opinion of the Bronco Buster, Jed swiftly pins his opponent and heads to the lumberjack contestant area where he sees a new friend in the loggersports pit:

The axe embedded in the sunken dead man’s head had been thrown or swung with such force it nearly split the back of the lumberjack’s skull in two, no small feat. The long hatchet’s handle breached the surface of the water.

His sabbatical from private investigating is over and I took a reader’s breath from the action.

The murder takes place at the Colossal Cloverdale Rodeo and Country Fair in a southeastern suburb of Greater Vancouver.

Jed and Declan, his rough-edged former IRA cousin, had met the deceased, Jasper Adams, over multiple pints of beer at the Fair saloon the previous night. Jasper, a mountain of a man, had recounted the joys of “competitive wood chopping” and the “love from the Axe Cats” (loggersports groupies).

Declan may be the most unique sidekick in crime fiction. I am confident there is not a sidekick who is more outrageous, profane, lewd, insulting, entertaining, eloquent and cringey. He had to be inspired by someone. What surprises me is that he survived The Troubles in Northern Ireland. He would have provoked fellow IRA, the Loyalists and the English army equally.

Jed is grieving his lost love, Rya Shepard. She is still furious with him over his last case.

Jasper is equally sad over a broken relationship with Kelly Lewis. To the mutual surprise of Declan and myself it turns out Jasper was gay.

Out of all the possible undercover roles in the world I would not have foreseen Jed becoming a rodeo clown to question Kelly. How he performed in the rodeo ring had me smiling.

Hammerhead and Declan roam the grounds of the Fair in their investigation of Jasper’s death with Declan consuming and crushing cans of Harp and other brands of lager.

The great characters keep coming. The comely Georgiana “Annie” June Tibbs and her father run the rodeo events. There are immediate sparks between Hammerhead and Annie.

Annie is amused by Declan’s deep and abiding fear of peacocks. He cannot stand the “creepy tail feathers”.

She is also a talented rodeo competitor with impressive roping skills.

Prominent Vancouver bookmaker Sykes returns to the series managing the Agri-Zone, an area of “critter attractions”. He walks about in a three piece white suit with a dachshund and a goat on leashes. (One of his ventures involves goat yoga.)

A Doukhobor inspirational speaker, Jim “Kooty” Kootnekof, with profound empathy realizes Hammerhead has a troubled soul.

The action scenes are amazing including wrestling in a terrarium filled with snakes, a rodeo girl who can rope and hogtie in an instant and a breathtaking ride on an ostrich. 

Bronco Buster inspired me to write this review, an email to A.J. and a reflection on a poetic tee shirt. 

The whole book proceeds at a frantic pace with murder, investigation and resolution taking less than a day. It took me longer to read the book than it took for Hammerhead to solve the murder.

(This post and the two additional posts about the book I will be putting up over the next week will be part of a blog tour A.J. has organized for Bronco Buster. Please see his instagram, Facebook, Twitter and website for more participants in the tour.)

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Devlin, A.J. - (2019) - Cobra Clutch; (2020) - Rolling Thunder and Stampede Wrestling and and Exchange with Author A.J. Devlin; (2022) - Five Moves of Doom and Discussing Five Moves with A.J.

Rumpole of the Bailey on The Murder Wheel

I, Horace Rumpole, had been discussing trials a few weeks ago with visiting Saskatchewan colleague, William A. Selnes, K.C. - barristers love to exchange their experiences within the courtroom - when he mentioned he had recently read Mr. Tom Mead’s account of the infamous Ferris wheel murder. I instantly procured a copy of The Murder Wheel and was reading it late into the night when my wife Hilda commanded me to stop reading and come to bed. As I have learned through the decades of our marriage it is best to do as ordered by She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed.

The next day I had a satisfactory day at the Bailey. I successfully defended Hugh Timson on a burglary charge laid by Inspector George Flint. As with most members of Scotland Yard, Flint is a man of rectitude but not an investigator with imagination. He has always been prone to accepting the word of those who would condemn a man with a criminal record.

I have always emphasized it is critical in trials to study witnesses. I noted in the Timson case, during cross-examination, that the main witness, who was not wearing his glasses, was squinting at me. He confidently asserted to me he needed glasses only for reading and was not wearing them when he saw Timson exit the burgled home. I raised my hand near my head while I asked him if I was wearing my glasses. He equally confidently declared they were upon my nose. When I plucked them from the vest pocket of my waistcoat I heard the jury chuckle and his smile evaporated.

After court I retired to Pommeroy’s Wine Bar with my copy of The Murder Wheel. Over 3 or 4 or 5 glasses of plonk and a series of small cheroots I finished the book. I enjoyed the book.

I was eager to read The Murder Wheel as I had been a young barrister in 1938 when the murders upon the Ferris wheel and in the Pomegranate Theatre took place. I recalled the official dispositions of the murders but had always doubted over the decades what the authorities proclaimed.

Edmund Ibbs, the just qualified solicitor at that time, is and was a good friend. He was helping defend Carla Dean against the murder charge that she had shot and killed her husband, Dominic Dean, while in a Ferris wheel compartment. Indeed, I had been mentoring him.

Mr. Mead aptly describes the youthful Edmund:

“Though a lawyer by trade, Edmund Ibbs was also an enthusiastic amateur magician. Or, to use the appropriate term, an illusionist”. 

Edmund’s favourite quote, too often repeated to me, was from The Master of Manipulation:

The art of magic, he read, lies in the manipulation of perception. Most people will look exactly where you want them to; all you have to do is tell them. It is simply a matter of guiding their attention in the correct direction, so that they are never looking at the trick as it is being worked.

Edmund and I discussed several times the public conception that all barristers are illusionists spinning word tricks. I vehemently disagreed with that canard. I said lawyers dispel the illusions created by witnesses who are selective with the truth in their evidence.

Edmund challenged me that barristers often focus on small, even minute, discrepancies and contradictions in the evidence of a witness seeking to cast doubt on credibility.

I replied with some force, some might say blustering, that it is rare a barrister can succeed by identifying slight errors in evidence.

Mr. Selnes and I, in our conversation this year at Pommeroy’s, also turned to the subject of illusion. We found common ground that barristers must direct juries to concentrate on important evidence and not get caught up in the illusions of minor issues. 

It was our joint conclusion that juries are better at seeing through word illusions than audiences are at piercing stage illusions because of the able assistance of barristers.

Were barristers present in theatres exhorting audiences not to be distracted by the diversions of magicians, illusions would be much more difficult.

Returning to the Ferris wheel murder Edmund consulted me on the defence of Mrs. Dean while we shared glasses of plonk at Pommeroy’s. Even decades ago it was an esteemed establishment.

I implored Edmund to follow my personal principle of never having a client plead guilty. Such an approach demands defence counsel examine, test and reflect on every bit of evidence to avoid distraction.

I believe my advice was the key to young Edmund ultimately solving the Ferris wheel murder though his sound conclusion confounded me.

As to the resolution of murder at the Pomegranate I appreciate the rigorous deductions of Joseph Spector. If he would forsake the Black Pig pub for the charms of Pommeroy’s, I daresay we could spend an enjoyable afternoon discussing illusion.

*****

Mead, Tom - (2023) - Death and the Conjuror and Hercule Poirot Discusses Tom Mead's Sleuths Joseph Spector and George Flint and (2024) -The Murder Wheel

The Murder Wheel by Tom Mead

(47. - 1230.) The Murder Wheel by Tom Mead - A reward of two
thousand pounds is being offered by The Daily Chronicle to the person who can solve the Ferris Wheel murder which has captivated London.

Young solicitor, Edmund Ibbs, is helping defend Carla Dean. She is facing trial, charged with murdering her husband, Dominic Dean, high above the ground in a Ferris wheel compartment.

No one else was in the compartment. The gun used was her husband’s revolver. Powder burns upon the husband demonstrate the revolver was fired at very close range. Her fingerprints alone are upon the revolver. There is no powder residue upon her hands. What explanation is possible beyond Dean shooting her husband? Ibbs is determined to find an alternative.

Two witnesses testify as to a mysterious limping man near the Ferris wheel at the time Dean is shot

Days later, Ibbs is at the Pomegranate Theatre watching the magic of Professor Paolini when a body, wearing armor, falls out of a crate instead of the expected Sir Lancelot. The body is Miklos Varga, the man who operated the Ferris wheel when Dean was shot. No one at the theatre saw Varga placed in the crate. The man moving the crate says only the man portraying Sir Lancelot was in the crate when he was wheeling it.

There is yet another murder in a locked room at the theatre. Ibbs, having been knocked out, finds himself in the room with a body in the corner and a revolver, recently fired, glued to his hand. The deceased is Paolini who was about to tell Ibbs everything about Dean.

Inspector Flint of Scotland Yard calls upon the old conjuror, Joseph Spector, to aid him as the good inspector is a solid man but these locked room crimes bedevil him. Spector is a master at dissecting illusion. With not one, not two but three impossible murders to be solved there is an abundance of illusion. 

I came close on one but never figured out any of the murders.

Mead is a clever author. The story lagged a bit for me in the early going at the theatre but it steadily picked up momentum. I was grateful for the diagrams. It would have been too difficult to keep track of the settings and multiple characters with words alone. I look forward to reading the third in the series.

For the first book in the series I had Hercule Poirot provide his thoughts on the detective skills of Flint and Spector. In my next post Horace Rumpole of the Bailey considers illusion.

****

Mead, Tom - (2023) - Death and the Conjuror and Hercule Poirot Discusses Tom Mead's Sleuths Joseph Spector and George Flint

Bad Boy by Winona Kent

(49. - 1232.) Bad Boy by Winona Kent - In the fall of 2018 Jason Davey / Jason Figgis has returned to London after a tour with his mum’s band, Figgis Green. He is rehearsing with his jazz combo who have a permanent residency at the Blue Devil in Soho. He sums up his approach to music: 

I’m notorious for my everything-goes-audio-fusion. You can do it with food, so why not with music?

As a rehearsal winds down he gets a call from Marcus Merritt who wants him to sign a band program and hire him as a private investigator. Davey has gained some fame for solving mysteries. He is uninterested until Merritt mentions the meeting has to do with the composer Elgar. With his interest tweaked they meet at the top of The Shard. (The soaring spike, “soulless” to some, of a building appears on the front cover.)

I was equally caught up in what kind of mystery could involve Sir Edgar Elgar the long deceased, great modern classical composer.

The book shifts from light to dark in a stunning moment. Marcus hands him a book of band memorabilia and then takes “a run at the window at the southeast corner of the floor” and raises himself up over the open glass wall top. He looks at Jason and lets go falling 800 feet to the ground.

Inside the book is a train ticket and directions to go see Judy in the village of Newlydale. He finds Judy Galpin. She has more directions for him from Marcus. She surprises Davey and myself when she advises Marcus was her ex-husband.

Kent is deft at startling readers.

Judy takes him to Tissington, 20 minutes away, where Davey finds a nice bowl and instructions from Marcus to find the folder containing Elgar’s “original sketches, drafts and revisions to one of his best-known works, the Enigma Variations”. Marcus had stolen the folder and wants Davey to find it and offers a clue:

A courtesan skilled in the culinary arts. Ask for Tricia.

Determining the clue is a cryptic crossword type of clue Davey identifies the answer as Bakewell tart and pudding.

Marcus sends Jason on a journey for a folder containing Elgar’s “original sketches, drafts and revisions to one of his best-known works, the Enigma Variations” .

Marcus had a devious, clever, witty mind. His directions, actually puzzles, lead Jason on in his search, actually a quest, deep into the English countryside and back into the heart of London.

The buildings of Soho which were occupied by those making and selling popular music for over four decades are major characters. They are somewhat forlorn as the music trade has moved on except in the memories of those who once worked and sometimes lived in them. Jason has a vivid recall of the days of glory in Soho.

The light hearted nature of much of the questing contrasts so sharply with the suicide of Marcus and the involvement of the underworld, both English and foreign.

Jason is a bright man. He is a sleuth with whom the reader is comfortable. Once engaged he is a persistent investigator. As with myself the suicide of Marcus left Jason unnerved and unable to shake the image of Marcus sliding away to his death.

Despite the suicide in the back of my mind I enjoyed Jason’s quest, especially the historical music exploration. Kent has an impressive knowledge of popular music going back decades. Equally impressive is her knowledge of Elgar and his music.

I did find the resolution predictable rather than unexpected.

The story is crisply told in 214 pages.

Bad Boy is a good book. I am glad Winona sent me a copy.