The Adventures of Lord Iffy Boatrace, by Bruce Dickinson

(pb; 1990, 1992: prequel to The Missionary Position)

From the back cover:

"When the ancestral fortune dries up, there's only one solution for Lord Iffy Boatrace, destitute, transvestite Laird of Findidnann, and his faithful butler, Butler. A wheeze to squeeze every last drop of cash out of those old school chums who'd done everything they could to forget him. . .

"Come in Brian Taylor and your voluptuous, insatiable wife; yucky yuppy perfect couple Mark and Cynthia; bumbling beefcake bozo Roderick Morte D' Arthur Tennison!

"Upper class twits, the lot of them. Ripe for the picking. And drawn by the short and curlies to Findidnann Hall. . ."

Review:

This manic-paced, audaciously lusty and zany-literate sex romp is one of the funniest books I've ever read; there are so many off-color quotable lines that I was laughing at pretty much every page of this 150-page novel.

Politically correct folk will want to avoid this out of print book, which sports a Sir Arthur Conan Doyle/The Hound of the Baskervilles plot structure: Boatrace unabashedly and pithily skewers music critics, English aristocracy, feminists, racial stereotypes, vegetarianism, and other social elements.

While reading this, I imagined this as A Shot in the Dark-era Blake Edwards film (whose screenplay was co-authored by William Peter Blatty): this book is that erudite and uproarious.

Worth owning, if you appreciate raunchy, quick-witted and -plotted humor, and/or Dickinson's heavy metal endeavors.

Followed by The Missionary Position.

Legion by William Peter Blatty

(pb; 1983: sequel to The Exorcist) 

 From the inside flap

"A young boy, a deaf-mute, is found horribly murdered in a mock crucifixion. The kindly, aging detective assigned to the case sees it not only as a crime -- one that calls for all his skill and intuition as an investigator -- but as part of a a larger and more baffling mystery: whether or not a good god can exist if He tolerates such monstrous evil. Is the murderer the elderly woman who witnessed the crime? A neurologist who can no longer bear the pain life inflicts on its victims? A psychiatrist with a macabre sense of humor and a guilty secret? A mysterious mental patient, locked in silent isolation? 

 "As Lieutenant Kinderman follows a bewildering trail that links all these people, he confronts a new enigma at every turn. Why does each victim suffer the same dreadful mutilations? Why are two of the victims priests? Is there a connection between these crimes and another series of murders that took place twelve years ago -- and supposedly ended with the death of the killer?" 

Review

Twelve year after the events of The Exorcist -- Regan MacNeil's little-known demonic possession; the murder of Burke Dennings; and Damien Karras's suicide on the steep M Street/"Hitchcock Steps" -- multiple homicides rock the Georgetown area. The murders are beyond-bizarre weird in their one-killer-consistent M.O.s; a gleefully-macabre wit is at bloody work here. Even more bizarre, their M.O.s are almost dead-on replications of the Gemini (read: Zodiac) Killer, who died years ago. The more Lt. William Kinderman (still ruminating long on Natural, philosophical and religious tangents relating to the nature of evil) learns about the murders, the more they become linked to the Dennings/Karras deaths, cases that were filed away, but never officially solved: these new victims were not chosen at random, it seems. 

 Father Joseph Dyer, friend of Karras and Kinderman in The Exorcist, indirectly aids Kinderman in his investigation. As Kinderman closes in on the killer, the more dangerous -- and crazier -- his life gets, as do the lives of those around him. Blatty once again has crafted a novel that is landmark in its execution. Interplays of warmth (especially relating to Kinderman's interactions with others) dispel much of the cold, alien darkness of the murders, past and present. A sly, macabre wit not only informs the killer's M.O., but the novel itself . 

One nit: Kinderman's ruminations run overlong at times. These ruminations relate to the events of Legion, lending often intuitive and key points (and Kinderman's personality) to the mood of the novel, but a lot of it could've been trimmed, without hurting the overall effect of the novel. That minor nit aside, this spin-off novel not only continues the story begun in The Exorcist, but fully mutates into its own, distinctive work -- an equally-excellent, equally-shocking-blow-to-the-plexus sequel that is ultimately a crime and redemption tale. 

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Novel-author Blatty directed and scripted the resulting film, The Exorcist III, released stateside on August 17, 1990.

George C. Scott played Lt. William Kinderman. Ed Flanders played Father Joseph Dyer. Brad Dourif provided the voice for The Gemini Killer. Jason Miller, who played Father Damien Karras in The Exorcist, played Patient X. Nicol Williamson played Father Morning. Scott Wilson played Dr. Temple. Don Gordon played Ryan.

The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty

(pb; 1971: prequel to Legion) 

Caveat: possible spoilers in this review. 

Rhythmic tappings are heard in actress Chris MacNeil's Washington D.C. house, at first in the attic, later in different locations. A short while later, Chris's twelve-year-old daughter, sweet-natured Regan, begins acting rebellious and verbally abusive as if she were another person. (None of the many medical and psychiatric "specialists" who examine Regan can figure out what's wrong with her.) Then Burke Dennings, Chris's current, raconteur-when-drunk film director, is found dead at the bottom of the steep steps leading up to Chris's house, a direct fall from Regan's window. It seems Burke died when his head was turned all the way around -- backwards -- on his body, then flung onto the steps: the steps couldn't have done that sort of damage... 

Enter kind, middle-aged, garrulous, cinema-loving Lieutenant William F. Kinderman, who's investigating Burke's murder, but only knows that Regan is bed-ridden and "sick," and Damien Karras, a middle-aged psychiatrist-priest who's wracked by doubts regarding his dual professions and grieving for his recently-deceased mother. Karras has been hired to try and help Regan. When she shows signs possibly indicating demonic possession (speaking in foreign tongues, telekinetic ability, wallowing in her own filth, verbal and physical abuse of those around her), Karras calls on an additional person to help them. 

Enter Lankester Merrin, an old priest who once, in his younger years, exorcised the demon (Pazuzu) who has taken over Regan. 

Exorcist is a compelling, intricate and landmark novel. Blatty's writing is thick with facts and potentially miasmic ruminations, leavened with often-drark wit, ever-present humanity and hope. The characters are distinctive and memorable, the book's scenes of bodily waste and shocking blasphemy equally so. This is one of my all-time favorite horror novels. Followed by Legion.

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The film version was released stateside on December 26, 1973. William Friedkin directed it, from a screenplay by novel-author Blatty.

Linda Blair played Regan. Ellen Burstyn played Chris MacNeil. Kitty Winn played Sharon Spencer. Jack MacGowan played Burke Dennings. 

Lee J. Cobb played Lt. Kinderman. Jason Miller played Father Karras. Max von Sydow played Father Merrin.  

Zodiac Unmasked, by Robert Graysmith

(pb; 2002: non-fiction)

From the back cover

“In the 'provocative' (San Francisco Chronicle) true-crime classic, Zodiac, Robert Graysmith tracked the violent path of a sadistic sex killer whose true identity was shrouded in mystery. Now, after twenty-five years, Graysmith unmasks the killer...

“Between December 1968 and October 1969 a hooded serial killer called Zodiac terrorized San Francisco. He claimed responsibility for thirty-seven murders. His actual death toll may have reached fifty. All the while, he manipulated the media with depraved cunning, inundating the San Francisco Chronicle with warnings, dares, and tantalizing cryptograms that baffled the brightest FBI code-breakers. But as suddenly as the murders began, they stopped. Zodiac disappeared into the Bay Area fog forever and was never brought to justice.

“Now, through painstaking research and exclusive interviews, Robert Graysmith closes the last chapter on America's greatest unsolved mystery. Accumulating overwhelming evidence, Graysmith, who was on the staff of the San Francisco Chronicle when Zodiac's first letter arrived, finally exposes the elusive killer's true identity, reveals the twisted private life that led to the crimes, and provides startling theories as to why they stopped.

“With never-before-published photos, a complete reproduction of Zodiac's letters, incriminating envelopes, confidential notes, secret messages, and puzzles, Zodiac Unmasked is an important and fascinating coda to one of the most notorious crime sprees of the twentieth century.”

Review

Author Graysmith concludes the real-life Zodiac drama in his follow-up to Zodiac.

Robert (“Bob”) Hall Starr, not the man's real name, had been named as the prime suspect in the Zodiac killings near the end of Zodiac. Many cops “liked” him for the murders, but there was that can't-match-his-handwriting-with-Zodiac's snag they couldn't get around.

Graysmith, armed with a plethora of new leads, proves that Starr, whose real name was Arthur Leigh Allen, was the killer. It was a teenage boy who led the authorities (and Graysmith) to Allen in 1987.

Everything matches. The dates of Zodiac “inactivity” (the lapse in murders and letters) stem from a prison stint Allen was serving for molesting two prepubescent boys (1974-1978); the murders declined about the same time that Allen started encountering health problems; Allen was a cineaste, particularly obsessed by the movies A Game of Death (1945) and Run for the Sun (1956), as well as the story that spawned those movies, Richard Connell's “The Most Dangerous Game.”

Also, Allen's hobbies coincided with the Zodiac's: skin-diving (explaining why Zodiac utilized the Zodiac SeaWolf watch logo as his own); Allen hated women, especially his mother, and was a pedophile; like many serial killers, Allen had applied to a police academy, only to be rebuffed, therefore fueling his hatred of cops; like his father, Allen had been in the Navy (Zodiac displayed Navy knowledge and references in his techniques and cryptograms); Allen was hyperthymic (highly emotional), as was Zodiac in his letters; Allen was a mechanic (Zodiac, in trying to lure his victims to him, had tinkered with their cars); Allen knew a hippie named Robert Emmett Rodifer, which linked him to the “ROBERT EMMETT THE HIPPIE” cryptogram in one of Zodiac's early media letters; Allen intentionally misspelled words in letters to friends, many of the misspellings similar to Zodiac's (e.g., eggs = “aigs”); Allen's birthday (December 18) coincides with Zodiac's, as well as one of the Zodiac's victims, S.F. cabbie Paul Stine (who was shot in the back of the head).

As for the handwriting snag, Allen's handwriting, both real and altered (he was ambidextrous), was also matched to the Zodiac's, as was his DNA (though the DNA evidence was kind of sketchy).

Before the cops and Graysmith could prove Allen's guilt, Allen died of a heart attack on August 26, 1992.

Zodiac, along with Jack the Ripper, has the distinction of spawning stylistic, stated copycats.

In 1990 (and later in 1994), Zodiac II (as he was called by the press) appeared in New York, shooting people with a zip gun. Heriberto “Eddie” Seda, whom the cops had also dubbed “The Vampire,” was arrested on June 18, 1996, after a shoot-out with New York's finest, and subsequently revealed to be Zodiac II via Seda's confession, and numerous Zodiac II-consistent weapons in his apartment.

Zodiac III (as he was called the press) struck in Kobe, Japan in March 1997, beheading a retarded neighborhood boy. On June 28, 1997, a fifteen-year old boy was arrested and convicted of attacking five kids, two of whom died.

This teenager, Zodiac III, had been emulating a murder he'd seen in the 1990 film, The Exorcist III, which was based on William Peter Blatty's 1983 novel, Legion (book sequel to Blatty's novel, The Exorcist). In one of his 1972 media letters, the original Zodiac had found the (1973 wide-release) film to be “the best saterical comidy that I have ever seen.” [misspellings intentional]. Eleven years later, in a nod at Zodiac's mention of the film version of The Exorcist, William Peter Blatty modeled his Gemini (originally called Zodiac) killer in Legion after the original, real-life Zodiac.

Author Graysmith ends his two-book serial-killer odyssey in dovetail fashion by mentioning new evidence linking Allen to the first stated Zodiac casualty, Darlene Ferrin. (Zodiac had killed two people before Ferrin, but only later took credit for their deaths.) It's a fitting finish, bringing the real-life drama back to the Ferrin murder, which began the first book, Zodiac.

As necessary as its predecessor, this is as perfect a close as one could hope for. Definitely worth reading.

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Zodiac Unmasked, along with Zodiac, is the basis the film Zodiac. Released stateside on March 2, 2007, it was directed by David Fincher. James Vanderbilt wrote the screenplay.

Jake Gyllenhall played reporter/author Robert Graysmith. Robert Downey Jr. played Paul Avery. Mark Ruffalo played Dave Toschi. Anthony Edwards played Bill Armstrong. Brian Cox played Melvin Belli. Clea DuVall played Linda Ferrin. Donal Logue played Ken Narlow. Dermot Mulroney played Captain Lee. Chloë Sevigny played Melanie.

Other films inspired by the Zodiac murders include: The Zodiac (2005); Dirty Harry (1971); Zodiac Killer (2005 – most reviews I've read about this film have said this film was horrible, as in badly-made).