Zodiac, by Robert Graysmith

(pb; 1976, 1986: non-fiction)

From the back cover:

“A sexual sadist, his pleasure was torture and murder. His first victims were a teenage couple, stalked and shot dead in a lovers' lane. After another slaying, he sent his first mocking note to authorities, promising he would kill more.
“The official tally of his victims was six. He claimed thirty-seven dead. The real toll may have reached fifty.

“He was never caught.

“Author Robert Graysmith was on staff at the San Francisco Chronicle in 1969 when the hooded killer's first letter arrived. In this gripping account of Zodiac's eleven-month reign of terror, Graysmith reveals hundreds of facts previously unreleased, including the complete text of the killer's letters.”

Review:

Political-cartoonist-turned-investigative-reporter Graysmith charts the infamous killer's murders and the ongoing investigations resulting from them. According to Graysmith, the murders that could be legitimately attributed to the Zodiac happened between 1966 and 1974, though the killer continued to sporadically send letters to the cops and media long after that.

While the identity of the Zodiac isn't revealed – there were several strong suspects, among the 2500 people investigated – a composite of the killer's personality emerges: he was a movie buff, especially fascinated by the movies The Most Dangerous Game (1932) A Game of Death (1945), and Run for the Sun (1956), which were but three cinematic adaptations of Richard Connell's 1924 adventure story, “The Most Dangerous Game.” Connell's story (and the resulting films) not only birthed the Zodiac's M.O., but the story was referenced in the killer's taunting letters (“...man is the most dangerous animal of all to kill...”).

The killer was a weapons nut, particularly enamored of guns; he also was into diving – his symbol, a cross within a circle (resembling a rifle's cross hairs), was taken from a popular diving wrist watch called the “World Famous Zodiac Watch.” (Zodiac's cineaste leanings are further revealed in Graysmith's follow-up book, Zodiac Unmasked, when Graysmith mentions that there was a 1939 movie which the killer undoubtedly saw, called Charlie Chan At Treasure Island, which featured a character called Zodiac.)

As Graysmith notes, Zodiac displayed little, if any, originality in his cryptograms, varying M.O., or letters. Everything he said and did stemmed from popular items or culture, though his cryptograms were difficult to solve.

This is an excellent book. Graysmith captures well the personalities of those involved in the Zodiac drama, from the victims to the cops to the killer himself, though Graysmith doesn't prove who did the murders. Graysmith does mention a likely suspect, whom many seemed to “like” for the killings – Robert (“Bob”) Hall Starr, not the suspect's real name. The last part of the book sums up why Graysmith thinks Starr is the Zodiac, though there was one big snag: Starr's handwriting, probably not his real handwriting, and possibly written while under the influence of another personality (which could alter one's writing style), doesn't match the Zodiac's.

This is also a landmark book, in that for the first time, Graysmith brought together all the known facts about the Zodiac. Prior to this, many of the facts had been hoarded by jurisdiction-minded police departments. Had the departments been less protective of their legal turfs (Zodiac killed in areas of confused jurisdictions, on the edges of towns), Zodiac might've been caught long before he eventually was.

Check it out.

The PowerBook, by Jeanette Winterson

(hb; 2000)

From the inside flap:

“... Winterson's seventh novel enfolds the world of computers, and transforms the signal development of our time into a wholly human medium. The story is simple: an e-mail writer called Ali will compose anything you like, on order, provided you're prepared to enter the story as yourself and risk leaving it as someone else. You can be the hero of your own life. You can have freedom just for one night. But there is a price, and Ali discovers that she, too, will have to pay it.

“The PowerBook reinvents itself as it travels from London to Paris, Capris, and cyberspace, using fairy tales, contemporary myths, and popular culture to weave a story of failed but requited love.”

Review:

Poetic, romantic, metaphysical, seductive, inventive, word-playful: these are but a few of the phrases that could be used to describe this flow-meld of thematic and emotive elements, as the fictionalized author, Ali, writes about an affair that exceeds its flesh-enhanced truths.

Another distinctive, genre-traversing novel from Winterson. It's not my favorite – I prefer Art & Lies to The PowerBook, as the former book feels more focused – but it's still a mind-bending pleasure.

Dark Thicket, by Elmer Kelton

(pb; 1985)

From the back cover:

“Young Owen Danforth rides home to Texas as a wounded Confederate soldier, at a time when his home state is as savagely divided as his nation. As a grievously wounded America stumbles towards the inevitable end of the Civil War, secessionist 'home guards' and staunch Union loyalists fight their own bloody battles on a more local scale. For Owen, sick to death of fighting and yearning for peace and recuperation, his homecoming is bittersweet. And when his blood ties force him to choose a side in an unwinnable conflict, Owen begins to wonder if he will ever see peace in Texas again.”

Review:

Unrelenting tension, tight story-plotting, captivating violence, and relatable characters made this damn near impossible to put down. The anger and frustration of many of the characters is tempered by forgiveness and understanding, imbuing its lean 183 pages with a timeless and universal appeal.

One of the best Westerns I've read in a long time, possibly one of my all-time favorites.

Resurrection Row, by Anne Perry

(hb; 1981: fourth book in the Charlotte & Thomas Pitt series)

From the inside flap:

“Accompanying his wife home from Gilbert and Sullivan's latest diversion, Inspector Pitt makes the exceedingly unpleasant discovery of the body of a cabbie – a discovery made even more unpleasant by the fact that the man has been buried and unearthed, and that he is not after all a cabbie, but apparently one Lord Augustus Fitzroy-Hammond Resurof number 12 Gadstone Park, London. The outrage is kept as quiet as possible, and the peer is reburied soon afterward.

“Yet when, beyond all imagination, the man is found unearthed again, Pitt is forced to reconsider the course of his investigation. Who would continue this senseless atrocity, and for what reason? As the gruesome series of grave-robbings takes a new and even more macabre turn, Pitt is brought time and time again back to Gadstone Park, an elegant street that begins to reveal ever clearer glimpses of a most inelegant secret.”

Review:

Worthy fourth entry in the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt mystery series. Author Perry injects enough plot and character variations in Resurrection Row to set it apart from earlier Pitt novels. The tone is lighter than the first three books. There's also less emphasis on the ongoing “hypocritical rich folks hiding secrets” element that makes up the thematic backbone of the series.

Not only that, Emily and George Ashworth, Charlotte's sister and brother-in-law, are barely mentioned in Resurrection Row, aside from one character's noting of their son, Edward, who was born less than a year before – shortly after the finish of the last Pitt mystery, Paragon Walk.

George's Great-Aunt Vespasia, a seventy-year old upper class woman with few pretensions and a long memory regarding her less-forthright neighbors, fills the character void left by Emily and George. Vespasia, introduced in Paragon Walk, was a notable character in that book, but in Resurrection Row, she's essential to the plot.

Another past character, Dominic Corde, Charlotte's widowman ex-brother-in-law (from The Cater Street Hangman), reappears. Corde, who rattles Thomas (given Charlotte's past, schoolgirl infatuation with Corde), provides an additional, welcome tension to the plot.

The true villains of the book – whom may or may not have anything to do with the grave-robbings – are easily spotted, but it was more a matter of form on my part, not a failure of cleverness on author Perry's.

Followed by Rutland Place.

Friday the 13th: Carnival of Maniacs, by Stephen Hand

(pb; 2006)

From the back cover:

“After twenty-five years Pamela Voorhees is back and she's ready to join her son in a rampage of murder. Only Jason is not at home anymore; he's the main attraction in a traveling sideshow. Pamela will stop at nothing to bring Jason back to Crystal Lake, but she had better hurry, because someone at the sideshow is planning to sell Jason's body on an Internet auction site! Who would be crazy enough to want Jason in their own home? Will the FBI step in and put Jason away before the final bid?”

Review:

Jason and Pamela Voorhees (Jason's mother, decapitated at the end of the first Friday the 13th film) – working separately, but psychically linked – go on homicidal wildings when Pamela's head is discovered by a trio of adolescent goths; simultaneously (and coincidentally) Jason's nearby lifeless body is dug up by two tourist-murdering, cannibalistic hillbillies.

Pamela's hatred of procreating camp counselors (two of whom let her beloved Jason drown, in 1957) has sustained her ghost, which allows her to possess the living, resulting in a psychotic quest for her son, who's sporadically engaged in his own kill-fests, when certain situations – which I won't reveal here, but it's really plot-lame – allow.

Author Hand is a good writer. There are many flashes of sanguineous-apt wordplay, an impressive focus on all the elements (characters, history, murders) that make up the eleven Friday films – Hand even references the future set-in-outer-space Jason X. Not only that, Hand saturates the original novel's characters and slaughter-ramas (not all of them committed by Jason or Pamela) with a gleefully sleazy and appropriately cheesy jeu d'esprit. Some cool plot-twists, not completely predictable, also grace the trashy narrative, and the novel's title is fitting.

However, this is strictly slash n' hack work. Hand does the Jersey-based series as much as justice as he can, but its plot-thin, film-based elements ultimately sink it, though not as quickly as a certain fictional retarded kid sank, in a flashback 1957.

An obvious guilty pleasure, this: as a Jason fan, I'm glad I read it. Wouldn't want to own it, wouldn't re-read it, but it did turn me onto author Stephen Hand (whose non-Friday novels I may check out), and it did turn me on to other Friday novels (put out by the same publisher, Black Flame Publications ). These books are: Hell Lake, by Paul A. Woods; Hate-Kill-Repeat, by Jason Arnopp; The Jason Strain, by Christina Faust; and my titular favorite, Church of the Divine Psychopath, by Scott Phillips (which I may just read).

Coraline, by Neil Gaiman

(hb; 2002)

From the inside flap:

“In Coraline's family's new flat are twenty-one windows and fourteen doors. Thirteen of the doors open and close. The fourteenth is locked, and on the other side is only a brick wall, until the day Coraline unlocks the door to find a passage to another flat in another house just like her own.

“Only it's different...

“At first, things seem marvelous in the other flat. The food is better. The toy box is filled with wind-up angels that flutter around the bedroom, books whose pictures writhe and crawl and shimmer, little dinosaur skulls that chatter their teeth. But there's another mother, and another father, and they want Coraline to stay with them and be their little girl. They want to change her and never let her go.

“Other children are trapped there as well, lost souls behind the mirrors. Coraline is their only hope of rescue. She will have to fight with all her wits and all the tools she can find if she is to save the lost children, her ordinary life, and herself...”

Review:

Author Gaiman has created a stunning children's book – possibly one of my instant all-time favorites – with Coraline. It's full of childish whimsy, nightmarish (but not too nightmarish) corollaries, excitement and memorable characters, like the “crazy old man upstairs” and his mouse circus, Miss Spink and Miss Forcible (spinster-former actresses who live downstairs), a sarcastic black cat, and her “other” parents (who ooze black-button-eyed creepiness).

This is a lean read, with deadpan-funny lines, inspired descriptions, and riveting situations.

#

The animated film version is scheduled for stateside release on February 6, 2009.

Dakota Fanning provides the voice of Coraline. Dawn French voices Miss Spink; Teri Hatcher, Coraline's Mother/Other Mother. Keith David voices The Cat. Ian McShane voices Mr. Bobinsky. Jennifer Saunders voices Miss Forcible.

Henry Selick, who co-wrote the film, is set to co-direct.

Carpe Demon, by Julie Kenner

(pb; 2005)

From the back cover:

“Lots of women put their careers aside once the kids come along. Kate Connor, for instance, hasn't hunted a demon in ages...

“That must be why she missed the one wandering through the pet food aisle of the San Diablo Wal-Mart. Unfortunately, he managed to catch her attention an hour later – when he crashed into the Connor house, intent on killing her.

“Now Kate has to clean up the mess in her kitchen, dispose of a dead demon, and pull together a dinner party that will get her husband elected to County Attorney – all without arousing her family's suspicion. Worse yet, it seems the dead demon didn't come alone..."

Review:

The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996) plus Buffy The Vampire Slayer (1992) equals Carpe Demon.

Predictable, quip-filled and breezy PG-13 read, this: an amusing diversion to pass the hours away with, whether you're sunning at the beach, or moonlighting in a graveyard.

To author Kenner's credit, her characters are interesting and full of (serial) promise, and the situations, while familiar, have a natural semi-spiky suburban sense of humor, one that maintains a PG-13 rating, but hints at R-rated underpinnings.

Don't expect greatness, just enjoy it for the light-hearted entertainment that it is.

Followed by California Demon.

Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert

(pb; 1969: second book in the Dune Chronicles)

Review

Twelve years have passed since the battle of Arrakeen (Arrakis), the climactic battle in Dune. Paul Atreides, now called Paul Muad'dib (among other things), rules the Fremen empire through a political marriage to Irulan Corrino (daughter of deposed Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV) – she's a “Princess Consort,” not an Empress – and his tight control of the spice.

Paul's empire is a troubled one, largely because of political infighting between the Bene Gesserit (still smarting from their Kwisatz Haderach backfire), the Spice Guild (who resent Paul's control over the spice, which allows them to travel through, or “fold,” space), and the Tleilaxians (who can change physical form, and manipulate genetic technology).

And now the aforementioned political groups have secretly come together, with the aid of a certain Princess Consort.

A more personal issue haunts Paul. His beloved Fremen consort, Chani, who fought beside him in Dune, is unable to bear the children they want. They are not the only ones who want children; so does Irulan, whose desire is purely political, untempered by love.

Cruel, heart-breaking ironies and intentions dictate the tone and events of Dune Messiah, which is notably shorter than its source novel. The intellectual warmth is still there, with familiar characters mingling with new characters in an interesting fashion. (One of the most fascinating characters is Hayt, a Tleilaxu ghola – a cyborg made from the original flesh and memories of its source person, in this case loyal Atreides follower Duncan Idaho – who's been sent to destroy Paul.)

This is a worthwhile read, followed by Children of Dune.

Jackal by John Follain

(hb; 1998: biography) From the inside flap: “On an August night in 1994 French counterespionage officers seized the world's most-wanted terrorist from a villa in the Sudan. After more than two decades on the run, Carlos 'the Jackal' had finally been caged. For years he had murdered and bombed his way to notoriety, evading capture thanks to powerful backers and the blunders of Western secret services. Jackal is the definitive biography of this self-proclaimed 'professional revolutionary,' ladies' man, and cold-blooded killer. Setting his story against the larger political picture of the time, it exposes how the Soviet bloc and certain Arab regimes sponsored terrorist actions for their own ends during the Cold War. The tale of Carlos's exploits, including his most daring coup – the kidnapping of eleven OPEC oil ministers in Vienna in 1975 – crackles with suspense, deception, and violence to rival the best-selling fiction of Le Carre and Forsyth. Tracing Carlos's evolution from his childhood in Venezuela to London, Moscow, Paris, East Berlin, and the Middle East, Jackal uses previously untapped sources, including the archives of the East German secret police and the files of France's judicial investigations into Carlos's crimes, to tell his fully story for the first time. “Jackal reveals the web of intrigue, blackmail, and fear that guaranteed Carlos's survival, the helping hand of Colonel Qadhafi, and the true nature of the 'Kremlin Connections.' John Follain shows how the CIA and French intelligence issues their agents a license to kill in their efforts to stop Carlos; how his bravado, combined with events leading up to the fall of the Berlin Wall, forced him out of the Communist fold; and how betrayal and revenge sealed in a secret pact between France and his masters brought about his downfall...” Review: Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, born October 12, 1949, in Caracas, Venezuela, became famous in 1975 when a reporter, investigating a Rue Toullier apartment (where Sanchez had lived, and later shot three cops, killing two, wounding the third), noticed one of the novels sitting on a bookshelf: Frederick Forsyth's 1971 thriller, The Day of the Jackal. Sanchez had already been using the nom de guerre Carlos, as suggested by one of Palestinian employers, since 1970, but it wasn't until that 1975 attack that Ramirez became known to international security services, and the public as “Carlos the Jackal,” as he was named by that sharp reporter. Carlos's career as a “revolutionary” officially began in December 1973, when he bungled the ordered assassination of Joseph Edward Sieff, a prominent London Jewish businessman – Sieff was wounded, but survived. Prior to that, Carlos, son of a revolution-minded father and an intensely Catholic mother, had spent a year or two in Palestinian training camps, learning how to build bombs, use various guns, and utilize psychological terror. Follain's succinct yet descriptive writing and characterizations of the events and players in Carlos's life keeps the true-life tale moving along briskly. Near the end, the pace slows a bit as the author reveals details about Carlos's trial (which focused on the infamous 1975 Rue Toullier shootings), but it's still semi-interesting. Worthwhile read, especially if you're fans of Robert Ludlum's Bourne trilogy (Ludlum's Carlos, though notably fictionalized, still bears a faint thematic resemblance to the real-life Carlos), or Frederick Forsyth's The Day of the Jackal.

Werewolf, by Peter Rubie

(pb; 1991)

From the back cover:

“Something is prowling the streets of World War II London. It goes hunting during the fires and turmoil of the Blitz when most people are dodging Nazi bombs. But this creature isn't deterred by the destruction or the carnage. As its victims start turning up shredded and gnawed, the East End community of Smiths Common become terrified of what might be preying on them. Only the gypsies will give it a name: werewolf.

“Detective Sergeant George Llewellyn's assignment is to restore order to the chaos of the war, and solve a series of brutal child slayings. A victim of his own abuse, Llewellyn is disturbed by the killings. As the pieces of the case begin to come together, he is forced to confront his own rage and fears, something he must do before he can stop the ravages of war and the beast...”

Review:

This intimate gem of a horror novel gripped me from its first word to its last, with its intense focus on character (each character, particularly the leads, read like real, multi-dimensional people), mood – much of it grim, given the death and destruction brought about both by werewolf and German bombs – and violence, which is grisly, while reflecting the personalities of those inflicting it (German bombs notwithstanding).

Memorably great lycanthropic read. If I ever abandon short story writing for novel writing, I hope my work is this intense and character-true.

Among The Missing, by Dan Chaon

(pb; 2001: story anthology)

Overall review:

Chaon captures well the emotional fragilities and curious minitiae of his characters' lives and surroundings; there's a quiet, underlying confidence to the writing, though a few of the stories come off as half-baked, with limp endings that just don't work.

Recommended, with the aforementioned reservations.

Review, story by story:

“Safety Man”: Sandi, a widow, struggles to deal with her husband's recent death, and the fears it raises within her. Her semi-disconnection from the world around her (she's steady, functional in daily life) is reflected in the emotionally-removed tone and exact language of the piece. Solid, this.

“I Demand To Know Where You're Taking Me”: Decent tale about a woman who's offended by the foul-mouthed presence of her brother-in-law's macaw (her brother-in-law is in jail, convicted of rape). The ending, while not completely abstract, is too oblique and inconsequential to be effective.

“Big Me”: Strange, warm-fuzzy entry about an imaginative child who grows up to be an imaginative man. Reminiscent, tone-wise, of Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird in some spots.

“Prodigal”: A young father ruminates on the dark and sometimes sentimental intricacies of the parent-child relationship, and the vagaries of perception that develop over time. Tragic, introspective and insightful: one of my favorite stories in this collection.

“Passengers, Remain Calm”: A man (Hollis) tries to fill the void left by his supposedly more-reliable brother (Wayne) when Wayne disappeared, leaving behind an eight-year old son (F.D.) and a wife (Jill). Focused on F.D. And Hollis's relationship, this is another introspective dream-piece, exploring the notions of self, and one's role in the world. Sublime pleasure, this.

“The Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Animal Kingdom”: Half-baked tale about a sperm donor who ponders possible children he might have fathered, and what appears to be an otherwise empty life. A vague, unsatisfying ending further ruins the tale.

“Among the Missing”: A suicide-murder prompts a man (Sean) to wonder about his mother's suppressed inner life, certain family traumas, and the nature of relationships between the sexes. Masterful pseudo-twist finish. One of my favorite stories in this collection.

“Prosthesis”: A woman considers alternate lives and other lovers she might have known, had she not wound up with her real-life husband. Her alternate thoughts are salted with memories of another real-life ex-lover as well. Beautifully emotive and prose-transcendent, it's marred by an abrupt, ambiguous (and thrill-less) denouement.

“Here's A Little Something To Remember Me By”: Decent, semi-creepy tale about a man (Tom) who's forced to constantly remember a childhood friend (Ricky), who disappeared when they were fourteen years old. Predictable, disturbing (it deals with sexual perversion), with an effective title that's meaning-laden.

“Late For The Wedding”: Trent, a bartender in his mid-twenties, is living with Dorrie, who was once his college instructor (before he dropped out). Now, her raw-humored son (David), who's a couple of years younger than Trent, is coming to visit, and it's stressing Trent and Dorrie out – will their affair survive David's visit?

Solid work, that builds towards an equally-solid, if expected, finish.

“Falling Backwards”: An emotionally-distant woman's life is viewed in an episodic, first-person narrative from age forty-nine to age seven. Good story, with an ending that simultaneously foreshadows and looks back.

“Burn With Me”: A young punk rocker and his forty-two year old father revisit the father's hometown, and relatives who live there. The writing, as always, is solid, but the tale runs longer than it should.