Rob Kitchin's Blog, page 195

Review of Money Shot by Christa Faust (Hard Case Crime, 2008)

Angel Dare spent ten years in front of the camera in the porn industry in LA before setting up her own adult modelling agency, Daring Angels.  When she’s rung up by a long time friend and asked to do a scene at short notice with a rising male star almost half her age she agrees to step in front of the camera for one last time.  Only things don’t go to plan when she arrives, with her being beaten, raped, thrown in the trunk of a car and shot.  Left for dead she manages to escape only to find she’s the main suspect in a murder investigation.  Rather than handing herself in, she decides to seek vengeance against those who have framed her, joining forces with an ex-cop turned security guard.  Her attackers might have gotten the better of her when she was unawares, but as a woman wronged she’s a different proposition, prepared to enact her own brand of justice.

In Money Shot Christa Faust pulls few punches; the story is noir to its core.  Set in the porn industry the narrative could have slipped into a moral sermon of sorts or sensationalism, instead Faust portrays the various aspects of the trade in a matter of fact way, including some of its criminal elements such as sex trafficking.  The telling is engaging, with a strong voice and a quick pace.  The characterisation is a little thin beyond Angel Dare, but this is very much her story and she’s a complex lead character: vulnerable and resilient, worldly-wise and naive, forward but self-conscious.  The plot is relatively straightforward with a couple of nice tension moments and the ending is pure noir.  The only thing that didn’t quite sit right was the set-up: the person who is meant to kill her is totally inept and given her own treatment and injuries going on the run rather than to the police didn’t seem to add up and it felt like a plot device.  Other than that, Money Shot was bang on the money. 

Landed the ‘big one’

I’m delighted to say I’ve been awarded a European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Investigator award for my project ‘The Programmable City’, receiving €2.3m over 5 years.  The awards are tagged ‘Europe’s most prestigious grants’ and they’re highly competitive - only 3 or 4 awards per year have been made to date with respect to the SH3 panel (Environment and Society, to which I applied) across the 39 eligible countries.  Since 2008 only 6 such awards have been made across all disciplines/panels to researchers in Ireland.  In other words, I’m really fortunate to be receiving one of the awards.  It will buy me out on a 0.5 basis from my present duties as well as funding two 5 year postdocs, two 4 year postdocs, four 4 year PhD students, one replacement lecturer, and 0.5 admin.  The research institute I run has now secured two such grants: a starting award to Sean O’Riain and an advanced award for myself, which is a great achievement.  The two grants are complementary to an extent so hopefully we can build a really strong team of researchers in the coming years.  I’m now hoping to step to the side from my head of department duties from next August (which I’ll have done for 11 years) to concentrate on delivering the new project as well as continuing my work on existing funded projects.  Really looking forward to it. 

Review of Cadaver Blues by J.E. Fishman (Stonegate Ink, 2012)

Phouc Goldberg runs his own business conducting debt relief negotiation - for a fee he’ll argue on behalf of his poverty-stricken customers with their creditors over outstanding debts that cannot be repaid and help consolidate debts.  Used to being treated like the ‘little Asian guy’ he has anger management issues and little sympathy for his clients.  When Mindy Eider asks him to intervene in the foreclosure on her uncle’s house, he agrees despite his reservations.  His efforts quickly run into a brick wall, but beguiled by Mindy’s beauty and innocence he agrees to play detective.  Mindy’s uncle has vanished, the bank is in a hurry to foreclose, and several parties seem interested in the property.  Something fishy is going on, but getting answers is proving difficult, though there are definite signs of foul play.  Moreover, Mindy acts of kindness to strangers are wearing down his cynicism.  He’s soon out of his depth, but determined to solve the case and get the girl.

Cadaver Blues is a competently written, mildly amusing crime novel.  The narrative is all show an no tell, with the story told through short, snappy scenes.  The characterisation is well realised, with Phouc Goldberg being particularly engaging as a hardnosed cynic - written as a kind of love to hate figure but with a decent, kindness very well buried under his abrasive exterior, and he’s accompanied by some nicely penned supporting actors.  The story is well plotted and unfolds at a brisk pace.  My only reservation is it all felt a bit formulaic, with the story lacking real spark and a captivating hook that raised it up out of the pack, and I never really believed the premise underpinning why the house was being foreclosed or who was behind the mystery.  Nevertheless, it is an entertaining read and the Phouc holds much promise as the lead character in a new series.

Review of A Dark Place to Die by Ed Chatterton (Arrow, 2012)

When Stevie White returns to Liverpool, the city where he was born shortly before his mother emigrated to Australia, he never expected to be tied to a scaffold pole, tortured and burned alive on Crosby beach, a new addition to Antony Gormley’s art work ‘Another Place’.  DI Frank Keane is first to the scene, quickly joined by the ambitious DI Emily Harris.  Somewhat awkward collaborators, they both sense the murder is the work of one of the city’s notorious drugs gangs but have little evidence to go on.  As they slowly try to solve the case on the other side of the world Keane’s former boss, Menno Koopman, is enjoying retirement with his partner, Zoe, running a coffee business on Australia’s east coast.  He has no desire to return to Liverpool, but Stevie is Koopman’s son, the product of a teenage fling and he feels compelled to travel back and seek justice.  Keane is conflicted between helping his former boss and keeping him at arm’s length, but Koopman’s presence in the city has started a chain-reaction he can’t control both there and in Australia.

A Dark Place to Die has four standout strengths.  First, the characterization is excellent, with even the minor characters having a well-defined persona.  Second, there is a vivid sense of place both with respect to Liverpool and the various locations in Australia.  Third, Chatterton provides realistic and compelling contextualisation with respect to the drug gangs and trade in both locales.  Fourth, the story is for the most part nicely plotted and well paced, managing to keep two parallel but intertwined plotlines unfolding in sync throughout the book.  As a result, even though the tale is complex and layered it is straightforward to follow.  There is some graphic violence in the telling, but it is necessary to the story.  Despite the positives, the story does start to unravel a little toward the end, with at least one too many plot twists for my liking (in a tale full of twists).  Nevertheless, A Dark Place to Die is a strong start to a new series.  As a final aside: I have no idea why the cover shows a dungeon, or why the tag line is ‘no escape, no rescue, no mercy’; they totally fail to capture the essence of the book.  The Australian cover which uses a Gormley statue, with the tagline ‘killing the messenger was only the beginning’ is much more appropriate. 

Lazy Sunday Service

It's been quite a while since I've spent part of a weekend writing a lecture, but this week coming is jam-packed so I've spent a couple of hours putting together some slides on the rural economy pre- and post-crash Ireland.  I'm now going to get back to reading Money Shot by Crista Faust, which is way more interesting than agricultural policy and zombie hotels, being an entertaining, pacy, racy noir.


My posts this week
Review of Slaughter's Hound by Declan Burke
Stiffed to be published by Snubnose Press
Family lines
Review of Even Flow by Darragh McManus
Google Scholar and finding useful stuff
The captain has switched on the seatbelt sign

The captain has switched on the seatbelt sign

‘Are you okay?’

‘Never been better.’

‘Why do you insist on having a window seat if you hate flying?’

‘So I can see what the hell’s going on.’

‘As if that’s going to make a difference.  If this baby hits the ground from 35,000 feet none of us are getting out alive.’

‘You’re not helping, Ross.’

‘The only thing between us and certain death is a couple of millimetres of aluminium and the laws of physics.’

The plane dropped violently in the turbulence.

‘Oh god.’

‘There should be a sick bag in the seat pocket ... shit, not over me!’



A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words

Google Scholar and finding useful stuff

I have a healthy scepticism for 'key performance indicators' and seem to spend half my life trying to work against the neoliberalizing processes reshaping the higher education landscape.  And I understand all the various issues concerning the interpretation of citation scores, etc.  Nevertheless, passing the 5,000 mark on Google Scholar earlier this week gave me a little smile.  It seems that some folk find some of the stuff I write useful (or at least cite it) and that total has the feel of some kind of landmark number even if it is completely arbitary.  I created the profile because I had to supply citation data in sum and for individual papers for a grant application I was writing and it was straightforward to use.

Where I'm finding it most useful, however, is with respect to the recommedations that it provides about papers it thinks I will find interesting based on my publication profile (what I'm writing about and who I cite).  Just this morning I discovered Jeremy Crampton et al's 'Beyond the geotag?' paper, that I now plan to read in the next couple of weeks (you just click on the 'My Updates' to see the latest suggestions).  I'm now discovering a whole rake of useful material in a timely fashion that I probably wouldn't have come across otherwise.  Might be worth checking out if, like me, you don't get to browse the literature as much as you'd like.

Review of Even Flow by Darragh McManus (2012, Roundfire Books)

Wilde, Whitman and Waters are the three members of the 3W gang in New York City.  Inspired by feminism, resistance and art movements, they have turn vigilante, administering justice to misogynists and homophobes - what they call ‘enforced karma’.  The gang video their exploits and send them to a local TV station.  They pass the first tape on to the police and the case is assigned to Detective Sergeant Danny Everard, a gay cop who is going through a messy break-up.  As Danny tries to track the gang members, they become more daring, and their exploits start to gain notoriety as they’re leaked on to the internet and to other media stations.  Whilst he has sympathy with the their message, Danny can’t condone their approach, and a cat-and-mouse chase ensues. 

Even Flow is difficult to categorise - it’s kind of a political, screwball noir.  It took me a chapter or so to get into the story, but once it clicked into place the pages just flew-by.  The second half of the story is especially strong as the action, dialogue and politics all get ratcheted-up, and it has a very nice noir ending.  It helped that the cultural references were of my generation and that the gender and sexual politics of the gang are ones that I share.  Interestingly, the text is broken up by photo-dialogue pieces, newspaper articles, emails and art.  The characterisation is a little thin, but what makes this a fun and engaging read is the plot and politics.  I’d recommend it to anyone who likes their noir to have a deeper message.

Family lines

I spent part of the weekend taking a look at the family tree.  My dad has been working on it for a few years and has made a lot of progress.  There’s now 1,447 people in the tree.  He’s got back 13 generations on one line to 1660 and most others to early 1700s.  On my direct descendent line (excluding all the sibling lines - aunts, uncles, cousins, etc) there are 136 folk.  This part of the tree is complete back to my 4th great-grandparents.

The thing I find interesting about both elements of the tree (my direct line and in general) is the lack of mobility and mixing.  On my paternal side my grandfather’s line is from west Cumberland and grandmother’s line from Bucks/Northants.  On my maternal side my grandmother and grandfather’s lines are from the West Midlands.  There are only a handful of people not who were not born or died in those areas, including the few that emigrated to Australia or the US.  On my direct descendent line there's only one person not born in England: Francis Higgins, born in 1785 in Ireland, who moved to Cumberland and married Ann from Gosforth, and whose granddaughter, Isabella, married John Kitchin in 1860 (my 2nd great-grandfather).  With the exception of the small number born/lived overseas, there are very few people born elsewhere out of the 1,331 other people in the tree - 6 in Ireland, 3 in Scotland, 2 in Wales, 1 in Germany.  Pretty much everyone married someone from within a few miles of where they grew up and lived there their whole lives.  Seems stasis is something of a family trait.

Stiffed to be published by Snubnose Press

Yesterday I received the countersigned contract from Snubnose Press for the publication of my novel, Stiffed.  I'm delighted to be joining a great set of writers at an up-and-coming press run by the good folk who produce Spinetingler Magazine.   

Stiffed is a fast paced screwball noir set in a small town in New England.  Here's the tagline and working back cover blurb.

Tagline 

Friends help you move … true friends help you move bodies

Blurb: 
Tadhg Maguire wakes to find himself spooning a dead man.  The stiff is Tony Marino, lieutenant to mobster Aldo Pirelli.  It doesn't matter how the local enforcer ended up between Tadhg’s sheets, Pirelli is liable to leap to the wrong conclusion and demand rough justice. 

The right thing to do would be to call the cops. 

The sensible thing to do would be to disappear.  Forever. 

The only other option is to get rid of the body and pretend it was never there.  No body, no crime. 

What he needs is a couple of friends to help dispose of the heavy corpse.  Little do Tadhg’s friends know what kind of reward they’ll receive for their selfless act – threatened, chased, shot at, and kidnapped with demands to return a million dollars they don’t possess. 

By mid-afternoon Tadhg is the most wanted man in America.  Not bad for someone who’d never previously had so much as parking ticket. 

If he survives the day he’s resigned to serving time, but not before he saves his friends from the same fate.
Now onto editing, tweaking, proofing, etc. as the book moves toward publication.