Warm Words & Otherwise: A Blizzard of Book Reviews (21 page)

Motion to Kill

by Joel Goldman

Pinnacle, 400 pages, paperback, 2002

If you don't get further than the first twenty pages or so of this legal thriller ...

Well, the trouble is it's
difficult
to get through those first couple of dozen pages, but thereafter you find yourself reading a moderately enjoyable romp.

Lou Mason is a painfully smart smartass and the most recently arrived partner of law firm Sullivan & Christenson. The firm survives largely on the business brought to it by senior partner Richard Sullivan, so it's bad news all round when he's found drowned – a death soon determined to be murder. Fab babe cop Kelly Holt investigates, and Mason insinuates himself into her investigation partly for self-protection (not only is he a possible suspect but the murderer seems to have lethal intentions towards him, too) and partly in the hopes of insinuating himself into something quite different. He'd been on the point of resigning because he'd realized that much of Sullivan's business was crooked; now it becomes increasingly evident that the corruption extended far further through the firm than he could ever have envisaged. He's teamed up with fab babe lawyer Sandra Connelly – who has never shown much interest before but now seems to be throwing herself at him – to try to salvage as much of the firm as possible, while around them the body-count inexorably rises.

The double dose of fab-babery is a bit hard to credit, especially given Lou's exceptionally rebarbative incessant line of smartasshood – his chat-up lines might have impressed the girls at high school, but a grown-up woman like Kelly would surely have the sense just to smack him one – and elsewhere there are plot elements that strain plausibility more than a trifle, but otherwise
Motion to Kill
is largely fun stuff, and the pages keep turning at a satisfactory pace. In purely technical terms the writing is often somewhat amateurish, with in particular a plethora of unheralded changes in point-of-view making some passages hard to follow. Overall, indeed, what the novel desperately needs is the attention of a good editor; even a good copy-editor would have been useful. Any diligent editor would have done
something
about those opening pages: the opening chapter or two would serve well in a creative writing class as an example of What Not To Do.

If you're looking for another Scott Turow, John Grisham or Marianne Wesson, then you're going to have to look a bit further than
Motion to Kill
. If you're a fan of David Baldacci, though, then you're going to find this – which is, let us remember, Goldman's first novel – at least comparable and probably a step up. Certainly he's a writer who seems worth some investment of a reader's persistence for future, hopefully more polished works: I definitely plan to read his succeeding novels,
The Last Witness
and the forthcoming (February 2004)
The Cold Truth
.

Let's keep our fingers crossed that Pinnacle have given him an editor for those; it is, after all, what publishers are
for
.

—Crescent Blues

The Tarzan Chronicles

Text by Howard E. Green

Foreword by Phil Collins

Hyperion, 192 pages including two 8-page gatefolds, hardback, 1999

For some while now Hyperion have been producing a
The Art of ...
book for each new Disney animated feature, and with their large format, lavish illustrations and generally useful texts these books have become items to be treasured – in some instances, as with
Mulan
, perhaps more than the movie itself.

In this instance it was a foregone conclusion the book would be a delight: the backgrounds in Disney's
Tarzan
are so magnificent that a book devoted to those alone would be an object to adore in its own right. As it is, we have here in addition hundreds of roughs, conceptuals and finished artworks showing all the main characters, either solo or played off against the sumptuous backdrop of the African jungle (or, quite properly, Disney's vision of it – just as Burroughs's Africa wasn't the real Africa).

Perhaps surprisingly for an art book, the text, albeit journalistic in style and treatment, is not just adequate but good – not merely a carelessly thrown-together adjunct to the pictures. Green has clearly had extensive access to the main players in the game, most notably Glen Keane, Supervising Animator on the character Tarzan. Naturally this character is the one treated by Green in greatest depth, but for my money the most interesting section of the book is in fact that on the bringing to the screen of the other characters in the movie, most particularly Jane.

Jane is anyway a fascinatingly realized character: on the one hand plain and on the other attractive; on the one hand resembling Minnie Driver, who voiced the part, and on the other – at least according to Driver herself – "a character that doesn't really look like [me]". These two linked dichotomies make for a screen persona to which one's emotional response is satisfyingly complex. Green is clearly aware of this, and there is the sense in his text that he would have liked to devote rather more attention to Jane than the dictates of space permitted.

And then there are those backgrounds. Produced using a computer technique called Deep Canvas, whereby fully convincing 3D images can be generated – a sort of turn-of-the-century equivalent of the multiplane camera, and potentially every bit as important – these artworks are nevertheless best viewed as just that: artworks, and exquisite ones. For, although computers have been used in the backgrounds' final manifestation, we mustn't forget that it was human hands and human minds that created the originals, without which the computers would have been useless. The teams led by David McCamley (Supervising Digital Background Painter) and Dale Drummond (Supervisor of "Look Development") should be credited with a very genuine artistry – several fine artists whom I know have rushed out to buy this book purely on the strength of the backgrounds – rather than be regarded as mere keyboard slaves.

The only area in which this book could be said to fall short is in its discussion of the Deep Canvas process itself. Apparently there was more here, but at the last moment Disney became concerned over the dissemination of trade secrets and so text was excised. This presumably accounts for one or two odd design decisions, such as a massive double-page spread showing only a close-up of the upper part of Tarzan's face. But that is a very minor criticism.

The production and design values are first-rate and, just to top it all off, the cover price, although $50 may seem a lot, represents a bargain by comparison with other art books. This is a splendid and extremely beautiful book.

—unknown venue

The Anniversary

by Amy Gutman

Little, Brown, 352 pages, hardback, 2003

Exactly five years ago notorious serial killer Steven Gage was executed. Now three women closely involved in his final days – his ex-girlfriend, the lawyer who tried to get his death sentence commuted, the bestselling writer who built a career on her book about him – receive anonymous notes wishing them a "Happy Anniversary". Soon after, the writer, Diane, is murdered in a fashion somewhat resembling the dead killer's
modus operandi
.

The crime brings together the other two women, lawyer Melanie and ex-girlfriend Laura, now living as Callie and hoping the world has forgotten her past. They recall how Gage, while on Death Row, tutored other prisoners in law, so that some gained retrials – among them notorious serial rapist-murderer Lester Crain, who, shortly before escaping detention, vowed he'd show Gage his gratitude ...

Yet Diane's killing has none of the hallmarks of Crain's handiwork. Even so, there are signs that he is, as it were, in the vicinity of all the goings on, and Callie's suspicions centre on him – even after Melanie has been viciously attacked but, significantly, not killed, and even after Melanie's old friend Mike Jamison, an ex-FBI profiler, points out that the attack on Melanie, with its attempt at a quick kill, could not have been more unlike anything done by Crain.

The notion of the crimes of one serial killer being perpetuated by another after his incarceration or death is not a new one, but then
most
serial-killer-chiller-thriller plots aren't especially original, and that doesn't necessarily stop the resultant novels from doing their essential job of thrilling and chilling. It's what the writer does by way of original development of the well worn premise that can engross us; and, even if that development is itself not particularly original, the writer can carry the whole thing off by creating an appropriately chilling atmosphere or through the manipulation of secondary-level plotting surprises.

Gutman succeeds with the third strategy: several times I was startled by minor twists. Unfortunately, she fails with the first two. For the most part the tale is predictable – e.g., the eventually revealed murderer was my #1 suspect from very early on. But the greater problem is the lack of atmosphere, allied to a failure of her central characters to jump off the page: they
should
be interesting, because she's praiseworthily striven to give them all sorts of characteristics and foibles that ought to make them real people rather than fictional protagonists, but they stubbornly remain two-dimensional. And so I didn't
care
what happened to any of them; several times I had to remind myself that, since I was reading this book for review, I couldn't simply put it aside.

It's a pity, because elements of Gutman's subtext are interesting. She raises important questions – without polemic – concerning capital punishment, and she has some significant things to say on the subject of guilt and self-accusation.

In sum, this isn't a
bad
book. It's just dull where it shouldn't be.

—Crescent Blues

Lost Stories: 21 Long-Lost Stories from the Bestselling Creator of Sam Spade, The Maltese Falcon
, and
The Thin Man

Edited by Vince Emery, introduction by Joe Gores

Vince Emery Productions, 352 pages, hardback, 2005

A good claim can be made – and it is certainly made by both Joe Gores and Vince Emery in this book – that Samuel Dashiell Hammett was one of
the
formative influences on 20th-century (and hence 21st-century) US literature, bringing to American fiction a new clarity and terseness of style, not to mention a whole new range of subject matter. Academic critics might point first to Ernest Hemingway in this role but, as Gores and Emery rightly maintain, it seems clear that it was Hemingway who was influenced by Hammett, not
vice versa
.

The 21 tales assembled here are, as is usually the case with collections of this sort, something of a mixed bag. Some are no more than squibs – one is little over 100 words long – and in some other instances it is easy to see why the stories have slipped through the nets of previous anthologists. But some – like "Laughing Masks" (1923) and "Ber-Bulu" (1925) – are of far more substantial interest. The former is a hardboiled tale of the type for which Hammett is best known; the latter is equally hardboiled but set not in grimy streets but on a remote Philippine island. Future anthologists will have good cause to be grateful to Emery's detective work in unearthing these two – as, of course, do readers today.

However, only about half of this book is occupied by the 21 tales. The remainder, aside from Gores's longish and interesting introduction, comprises Emery's contextualizing text. I soon found that this, constituting as it does a biography of Hammett the writer – with plenty also about Hammett the man – was even more interesting than the stories ... which is saying something. Probably because Hammett's later communist activities have encouraged US literary historians to downplay the extent of his influence, we tend to underappreciate how highly Hammett was regarded at the time; further, we're likely to undervalue Hammett's contributions to the Hammett–Hellman literary partnership because Lillian Hellman, in the eyes of today's literary elites, had the "respectability" of being a playwright whereas Hammett was, after all, "merely a thriller writer". Emery quite radically sets us right on both misconceptions, while at the same time being quite unflinching about Hammett's many flaws as a human being.

As if the content weren't enough on its own to make this book a necessary addition to your shelves, it's also quite beautifully produced, with excellent paper, carefully chosen typography, substantial boards covered in what seems to be real cloth, an old-fashioned square backing, and so on. For the first time in my life, I was impelled to go out and buy one of those stretchy cloth book protectors to keep my review copy pristine.

Lost Stories
is essential reading for anyone interested in the development of the crime-fiction genre; as Emery points out, Hammett practically singlehandedly invented the literary style that we now call noir. But even that is to underestimate the importance of this book: it offers a substantial insight into the development of American literature as a whole. Thank you, Mr Emery.

—Crescent Blues

A Caress of Twilight

by Laurell K. Hamilton

Ballantine, 326 pages, hardback, 2002

I have to confess that, the last time I tried to read one of Ms Hamilton's many novels, I got about halfway through and then threw it across the room. The book in question was called
Narcissus in Chains
, and was the umpteenth volume featuring Ms Hamilton's series heroine Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter. I had fought my way through about two hundred pages of badly written soft porn (I have no aversion at all to
well
written soft porn) and had come to a section where various of the loathsome characters were discussing adoringly the genital endowment of a particular historical vampire. This vampire, we were told salivatingly, had been the possessor of a penis so doughty that his erection was a full six inches thick.

That's right:
thick
. Not six inches
long
. Not even six inches
in circumference
. But
thick
.

This reviewer did not, as might have so many other men, rush straight to the nearest mirror to gaze at and weep over his own deficiencies. He did not even accidentally turn the ruler to the centimetre side while frantically checking. Instead he threw the book across the room and then, remembering the principles of academic rigour, asked a couple of congenital experts on matters penile if such a weapon might be of any practicable use other than being waved around proudly to impress the rest of the guys in the locker room.

Gentle reader, they laughed so hard I wondered if I should call an ambulance. And the book stayed thrown.

A Caress of Twilight
is not about Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter. It is the second in a series of novels about Meredith Gentry, a princess of Fairyland who is also a private detective in our own world, it being the rather charming conceit of this series that the USA has offered a home to refugees from the Realm of Faerie. Meredith – "Merry" – is somewhat of a fugitive from the politics of the royal courts of Fairyland, some of whom wish to murder her and with others of whom she maintains at best a relationship of mutual distrust, powerbroking chessplay and hostile alliance. She is guarded by a bunch of other elementals, all male and all of them possessed of six-inch ...

Well, no, not quite. At the start of the book, Merry has just finished a threesome with two of the guards, and as the tale – such as it is – progresses she samples the rest of them, in each instance for several drooling pages. Two of them prove to be endowed with members of such enormity that, while not six inches thick (oddly, Ms Hamilton gives no precise dimensions concerning such important attributes, neither in US Customary units nor in metric), our heroine has, to use technical phraseology, some considerable difficulty cramming the damn' things in.

Now, I wouldn't want to give the impression that this book is nothing but nonstop writhing. There's a plot as well. It's rather problematic to remember what the plot actually is, because it appears only intermittently among the couplings, among lengthy and tedious character descriptions, and among interminable scried conversations with various royals that seem to have little point except to show what complete bastards they all are except our Merry – who might well be just as much a bastard if she could ever stay upright long enough, but that's only a wild speculation on this reviewer's part, you understand.

Lemme think, now. The plot has to do with a criminal investigation that Merry and her studs are attempting to carry out. There's this ex-goddess of Fairyland who decided years ago to come to Hollywood and be a screen goddess in the human world instead. Someone's out to get her. Someone's also mass-murdering people in all directions, and the police – one of whom, the lieutenant in charge of the case, is really, really stupid and doesn't think Merry and her pals will be at all helpful, whereas we wise readers know of course that she's the only hope – the police, as I say, are getting nowhere. The screen goddess wants to have a baby by her mortal husband, but he's at death's door so Merry and one of her gang have to do some detailed proxy banging for the luckless couple. Someone in Fairyland has let loose an ancient terror which is responsible for all the bad things that are going on.

Case solved, out with the measuring tape and back to the fun.

Merry is not the only fun- and dimension-lovin' female in the book's cast, although she's the only one whose fun is described in gratuitous detail. Here's a sample of one of the others being unusually subtle:

"I also never thought you'd be so blessed down below." [The Queen] sounded wistful now, like a child who hadn't gotten what she wanted for her birthday. "I mean, you are descended from dogs and phoukas, and they are not much in that way."

"Most phoukas have more than one shape, my Queen."

"Dog and horse, sometimes eagle, yes, I know all about that. What does that have to do ..." She stopped in mid-sentence, and a smile crooked at the edges of her lipsticked mouth. "Are you saying that your grandfather could turn into a horse as well as a dog?"

He spoke softly. "Yes, my Queen."

That's in fact one of the better-written parts of the book; elsewhere we find such delights as "He had managed to keep just enough cover over his groin so that he was covered", to isolate just one. Late in the book we encounter the minor character Bucca, who is supposedly Cornish; in order to prove that he's Cornish his speech is rendered in dialect that veers excitingly between Irish, Scottish, Yorkshire/Lancashire and who knows what else. And so on.

There are also, unless this reader is being even stupider than usual, some puzzling inconsistencies. To select a single example, on page 25 we're clearly told that the penalty for a Raven (a member of the Queen's personal guards) who touches – I assume this is a euphemism – any woman other than the Queen is death by torture, yet this is clearly forgotten later on when there is no thought of making it secret from the Queen that our Merry discriminates not one whit against the Raven seconded to her personal entourage.

As stated at the outset, this reviewer has no particular prejudice against reading soft porn (so long as it's well or at least competently written). There is a point of unease, however, when one begins to sense – probably completely incorrectly – that a text has teetered from consciously created erotica (or attempted erotica) into the writer's personal masturbatory fantasies. Within fantasy, one strikes that point frequently when reading some of Anne Rice's early, pseudonymous, overtly erotic novels, such as her
Sleeping Beauty
sadomasochistic cycle; one runs smack into it as into a brick wall in the works of John Norman; and one encounters it again here. It is almost certainly, as noted, a misleading sense, but that doesn't make the reading experience any more pleasurable: one squirms not with lasciviousness nor even a delectable feeling of minor guilt, but with sheer embarrassment, as if a stranger had just asked you to fumble through their used underwear.

What, leaving such considerations aside, of the status of
A Caress of Shadows
as a straightforward fantasy? Well, of course, there's not much room for yer actual non-erotic fantasy in among all the rest, and most of what there is is pretty mundane stuff: you've read these imaginings many times before, drawn as they are from the genre-fantasy writers' common stockpot. That initial conceit, however – that the denizens of Faerie are the new refugees in an alternate-reality USA – is genuinely a pleasing one. It's a great pity the rest of the book can't live up to it.

But then that is perhaps not the purpose of Ms Hamilton or her publishers.

—Infinity Plus