J.D. Rhoades's Blog, page 45
June 5, 2011
Allison Brennan Hits One Out of the Park
Over at Murderati, Allison Brennan gives an impassioned response to the recent Wall Street Journal Op-Ed slamming a lot of recent Young Adult novels as being "too dark." Read it. Now.
June 4, 2011
Review: A TRACE OF SMOKE, Rebecca Cantrell
A Trace of Smoke by Rebecca CantrellMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
In 1931 Berlin, crime reporter Hannah Vogel discovers her brother's photograph in the police station's Hall of the Unnamed Dead. Her brother, a homosexual, cross-dressing lounge singer, had a number of shady connections and numerous liasons with powerful and dangerous men, and when Hannah sets off to find his killer, she runs afoul of one of the scariest real-life figures of the days before Hitler's rise to power.
This is a great historical mystery. I especially liked the contrasts between the supposedly public morality of late Weimar Germany and the decadence of the underworld in which its movers and shakers played, often openly. The plot moves along well, with unexpected twists and turns and a nail-biting ending. Hannah is an engaging character, tough when she has to be, yet soft-hearted. The bad guys are truly three-dimensional and well-drawn, and even more frightening because at least one of them actually existed (try to imagine a guy that actually worried Hitler).
A fine debut. Can't wait to read the next one.
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May 31, 2011
Review: ARMOR, by John Steakley
Armor by John SteakleyMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
About a week ago, a friend of mine walked up to me and handed me this book, saying "you ought to read this, it's not what you'd expect." Since this was someone whose opinion I generally respect, I took the book home with me.
So...it's an interesting book, and no, not what you'd expect from the cover art or the back cover description. It starts off looking like a military sci-fi novel in mold of Robert A. Heinlein's STARSHIP TROOPERS, but without all the military cheerleading (or as I call it, the RAH rah-rah).
Then, suddenly, we're someplace completely different with a completely different protagonist, the cynical space pirate Jack Crow. Crow's arrived on the planet Sanction with a mission of his own, one he's not completely happy with, but he's got debts to pay.
The story eventually gets tied together when Crow and Sanction's project director start delving into the secrets of the original protagonist's armored battle suit. There are some surprises and reversals right at the end.
The book drags quite a bit in the middle, and the prose gets a more than a bit overheated and melodramatic, but on the whole, I liked it. Didn't love it, but liked it.
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May 29, 2011
Darn - The World Didn't End
Well, they did it to me again.
You may remember how bummed I was back in 2000 when the Y2K bug didn't cause the complete collapse of civilization. I wrote at the time that I'd been getting all psyched up to grab my assault rifle and engage in a grim, bloody fight for survival in the smoldering ruins of civilization. After gearing up for that, it was kind of an anticlimax to just have to go in to work on Monday.
So you'd think I'd know better than to get all psyched up again for the end of the world as predicted by Harold Camping.
In case you missed the story, Camping is a California radio preacher who predicted that the world was going to end last Saturday promptly at 6 p.m. (Pacific Daylight Time). Specifically, at that time, all good Christians were going to be taken up to heaven.
Immediately following this event, we'd have massive worldwide earthquakes that would make the recent Japanese temblors look wimpy, and the entire planet would be plunged into chaos (even more than it usually is), with everything culminating in the destruction of this world, the triumphal return of Jesus Christ, and the establishment of a new heaven and Earth on Oct. 21.Camping claims to have backed this up with biblical passages, combined with actual math. The math part may explain why I found his theory incomprehensible.
Although Camping had previously (and, it appears, incorrectly) predicted the end of the world back in 1994, a startling number of people bought into the prophecy. Some quit their jobs. Some sold everything they owned and gave away their pets. One deranged woman even tried to slit her own throat and the throats of her daughters to keep them from having to live though the "coming tribulation." Fortunately, the kids survived.
Well, 6 p.m. came and went, as did 7, 8, 9, and so on. Everybody stayed put. No earthquakes, no seas turning to blood, no Four Horsemen, none of the stuff that you'd expect to see after even a cursory skimming of the book of Revelations or a few Grade-B horror movies.
Once again, I felt a little let down. I didn't totally believe Camping, of course. And let's face it, it's not that I, heathen that I am, was expecting to get taken away Saturday if the whole thing was true. But there was a part of me that was looking forward to a lot of free stuff lying around.When the Final Hoedown didn't begin as scheduled, you'd expect the "prophet" who originally predicted said Apocalypse to mumble some vague excuse, grab the collection box and hop a plane to someplace with no extradition treaties. This is not, however, how a pro like Camping plays the game of big-time preaching. When he gets caught, he doubles down.
After some time in hiding — sorry, meditation — Camping announced that the Day of Judgment actually had come and gone on the 21st, but it was a "spiritual judgment," unseen by humanity, and performed, as it were, behind closed doors. The end would still come as scheduled on Oct. 21. Perhaps more time was needed for all the heavenly department heads to sign off on the final paperwork or something.
I'm sure Pastor Camping has read the Bible more times that I have. I've only read it cover to cover twice (I know, that surprises a lot of people). Well, I confess, I cheated a little and skipped all the "begats" the second time. Which is why I'm somewhat bemused to find that I apparently know some Scripture that the good minister seems to have missed.
Passages such as Matthew 25:13: "Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of Man comes." Or this one, from Paul's letter to the Thessalonians: "For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night." And then there's this, from Matthew 24:11: "And many false prophets shall arise and lead many astray."
But perhaps the most appropriate quote comes from the Book of (P.T.) Barnum: "There's a sucker born every minute."
May 24, 2011
Target Fixation
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said Monday that if Congress passes an emergency spending bill to help Missouri's tornado victims, the extra money will have to be cut from somewhere else.
"If there is support for a supplemental, it would be accompanied by support for having pay-fors to that supplemental," Mr. Cantor, Virginia Republican, told reporters at the Capitol. The term "pay-fors" is used by lawmakers to signal cuts or tax increases used to pay for new spending.
I've heard that fighter pilots have to beware of what's called "target fixation": they get so intensely focused on one thing, like a target they're firing at, that they literally fly into the ground. I think the GOP's got a bad case of it. They're so focused on spending cuts that they forget that there's a time to put that aside and get relief to victims of disasters without worrying about who to take money away from.
RUNNING COLD, Harry Shannon
Running Cold by Harry ShannonMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Counselor and former TV shrink Mick Callahan attempts to help a client resolve a gambling debt with some seriously bad people. It goes badly. Mick starts to investigate, with an eye toward payback. But the situation's more complicated than he expects, and pretty soon he's up against someone a lot more dangerous than a sleazy bookie. The dead client's son, who blames Callahan for his dad's brutal death, complicates things even further.
Mick's got a few demons of his own to battle along with the bad guys, including some hefty anger and addiction issues. If you like your heroes flawed, complex, and multi-dimensional (and I do), Mick Callahan's right up your dark alley.
Harry Shannon's tight, clean prose keeps the story moving quickly, right up to an ending with enough double crosses, surprises, and gunplay to satisfy the most jaded thriller fan. A great read.
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May 22, 2011
Wow, That Was Quick: The Newtster Implodes
Thousands of political humorists were plunged into near despair last week as real estate mogul and reality TV star Donald Trump announced that he would not, after all, be seeking the Republican nomination for the presidency.
It's true that the move was not totally unexpected. After the cornerstone of Trump's candidacy (pandering to the birther lunatics) was dealt a mortal blow by the release of the president's "long form" birth certificate, one might expect he would have quietly folded his tent and slunk off in shame.
But let's face it, a guy with hair like that doesn't have much of a sense of shame. Plus, The Donald still had his special appeal to that breed of so-called "conservative" whose sole political principle is "whatever upsets liberals is good," and who also suffer from that weird cognitive defect that causes them to mistake "highly amused" for "upset."
(I've often wondered what watching a comedy show with people like that must be like: "Look! That man is scaring those people!" "Um, no ... he's a comedian. They're laughing at him." "No, no, they're terrified!" But I digress.)
Anyway, there was still some hope that Trump would stay in and keep the laughs coming. Unfortunately, the lure of TV money from "The Apprentice," not to mention the cachet of working with stars like Gary Busey and Meat Loaf, turned his head away from the path of public service and low farce. Things looked dark for a little while there.
And then along came Newt.
No sooner had the former speaker of the House announced his candidacy than it began to implode. He started off by calling for something that sounded a lot like the Obamacare individual mandate: "We ought to have some requirement that you have health insurance, or that you post a bond, or show in some way that you're accountable."
Then he really stepped in it by criticizing the budget plan of the tea party's new fair-haired boy, Congressman Paul Ryan. Ryan, who's being touted as if he was the Second Coming of St. Ronnie Reagan, drafted, and the Republican-controlled House voted for, a plan to dismantle Medicare and replace it with a voucher system.
Gingrich, like a lot of Americans who've been giving their congresspeople an earful recently, called the plan "too radical" and "right-wing social engineering."
Ryan immediately fired back, asking, "With allies like that, who needs the left?" House Speaker Eric Cantor called the remarks a "misspeak" and noted that "I think that many have said now he's finished." Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer was one of that many. "He's done," Krauthammer said unequivocally.
In a video seen across the Internet, an angry man walked up to Newt as he was campaigning in Iowa, called him "an embarrassment to our party," and told him "get out before you make a bigger fool of yourself."
After that, the Newtster did the only thing a shameless political hack such as he could do: He began backpedaling so fast he left skid marks. He called his comments a "mistake." He denied supporting an individual mandate. He publicly apologized to Ryan.
Then he went even further by going on Greta Van Susteren's show on Fox and warning Democrats not to use his own words against him. "Any ad which quotes what I said on Sunday is a falsehood," he said, "because I have said publicly those words were inaccurate and unfortunate."
Yes, that's right. Gingrich actually said that accurately quoting what he said, on camera, for all the world to hear, would be "a falsehood." But you know what, Newt? That's OK. Because "any ad which quotes what I said is a falsehood" is a much better quote for Democrats to use than anything you could have said about Ryan.
Actually, though, I'm thinking of using this tactic, which I've started calling "Newtralization," in my own life. "Any statement that quotes me as saying I was at work rather than enjoying a few cold ones at the bar is a falsehood, because I've now said publicly those words were inaccurate." The possibilities are endless.
I just hope Newt doesn't crash and burn too fast, like Trump. I want him around, twisting and turning and tossing off glorious gaffes (or as I call them, "column material") for a while. But if he does go away, I've learned to have faith. The Lord, as they say, will -provide. And if the Republican presidential field is any indication, he's got a fine sense of humor.
May 21, 2011
I'D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE, by Laura Lippman
I'd Know You Anywhere by Laura LippmanMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
22 years ago, Eliza Benedict became briefly famous as the only one of serial killer Walter Bowman's victims to survive. Now, Bowman has contacted Eliza through an intermediary and says he wants to meet her. Laura Lippman deftly sets up this chilling premise within the first few pages, and the rest of the book is a steady, inexorable tightening of the tension towards Eliza's confrontation with the man who so irrevocably altered her life.
The premise of a serial killer manipulating someone from inside prison walls inevitably invites a comparison to Thomas Harris' Hannibal Lecter books. But quiet, apparently contrite Walter manages to be creepy in a much more subtle and ultimately more disturbing way that the more lurid fictional serial killers. I can put down Harris and breathe easy in the belief knowing a real criminal super-genius like Lecter doesn't exist outside of fiction; I know Walter Bowmans exist in the real world.
Which brings us to another great thing about this book, and about Laura Lippman's work in general: her mastery of the small, mundane details of modern American middle-class suburban life and how she juxtaposes the everyday with the horribly out-of-joint to make the evil seem even more unsettling. Stephen King does this a lot as well, but unlike King, you can always depend on Laura Lippman to bring things to a satisfying ending.
Superb craftsmanship, characters you can believe, steadily building suspense and a great ending...yep, it's a Laura Lippman book all right, and one of her best.
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May 15, 2011
Thugs and Ho's: The Oil Companies Fight For Their Tax Subsidies
I think it's safe to say that no one really likes big oil companies.
Certainly not the people who glumly watch the total on the gas pump go higher and higher as they fill their tanks, the numbers increasing so fast they seem to blur.
Certainly not the people of America's Gulf Coast who are still suffering from the effects of the largest oil spill in U.S. history, a disaster of biblical proportions that was highlighted by a top oil executive whining that "he wanted his life back" and a Republican congressman from Texas apologizing to BP because he felt the government was being mean and hurting their delicate feelings.
So it's always been a source of puzzlement to me that more people aren't teed off at the massive tax subsidies our government gives to these corporate behemoths, especially in this deficit-obsessed era.
Even though the big five oil companies — BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and Shell — made a total profit of nearly $1 trillion over the past decade, oil companies continue to receive a variety of tax breaks for such arcane things as "intangible drilling costs," "marginal well production" and "percentage depletion allowance."
Some of these date back to 1916, when the government was trying to get the fledgling auto and oil industries off the ground and gain wide acceptance for the automobile as the primary mode of transport. I think we can safely say mission accomplished. But the tax subsidies remain.
President Obama has proposed, and Senate Democrats held hearings this past week on, proposals to eliminate $46.2 billion in oil and gas tax breaks over the next 10 years. Of course, the oil companies weren't going to take that lying down. Spokesmen for the oil industry and the Republican caucus (as if there's much difference) immediately claimed that repealing the tax breaks would lead to higher prices at the pump.
One of those making the claim, it should be noted, was a spokesman for Speaker John Boehner, who'd previously claimed he was "open" to the idea of doing away with the tax breaks. An executive from ConocoPhillips (which reported $95.32 billion in profits in 2010) went further: He called ending the tax breaks "un-American."
Well, from his perspective, he's right. After all, in his America, there's nothing more patriotic than giving a bloated multinational corporation anything they want anytime they stamp their feet and pout, as long as we can make up the difference by cutting aid to the poor and destroying Medicare. From where he sits, that's as American as apple pie and baseball. To these people, America and its government exists to serve them.
Here's another thing. I am sick to death of these bloated tycoons holding a gun to the economy's head every time it looks like they're going to have to pay their fair share or clean up their mess. "Nice gas price you got there, be a shame if anything happened to it."
I mean, really. Is anyone really stupid enough to believe that oil companies are going to stop drilling if they don't get a massive tax subsidy for doing so?
I suppose there is one group who actually likes the oil companies: the people who work for them. Unfortunately, that includes a sizable chunk of our Congress, including DINOS (Democrats in Name Only) from oil-producing states, such as Louisiana's Mary Landrieu (who's taken $3 million from oil and gas companies) and Alaska's Mark Begich (who's only prostituted himself to the tune of $140,000, but he's still pretty new to the game).
They, too, are acting as if they expect us to believe that the oil companies will just take their multibillion-dollar ball and go home if they don't get their tax subsidies. Of course, they may not actually like Big Oil; but they sure do smile pretty and say the things their oily "clients" like to hear.
Will the Republicans and a couple of turncoat DINOs manage to derail the president's attempt to get the oil companies to pay a reasonable amount of taxes on hundred of billions of dollars in profits?
Sad to say, it's entirely possible. Because to them, the deficit's big enough to justify balancing the budget on the backs of the poor and the old, but there's no deficit, ever, big enough to justify inconveniencing their corporate masters.
May 11, 2011
Ahh, There We Go... Kindle Version of BREAKING COVER Is Now Live
In case you'd forgotten, Bill Ott from Booklist had this to say:
Rhoades takes a break from his Keller series, featuring the Gulf War–haunted bounty hunter (Safe and Sound, 2007), with a stand-alone thriller starring rogue FBI agent Tony Wolf. Forced to break cover after rescuing two abducted children, Wolf—officially dead but living under the radar in rural North Carolina—suddenly finds himself on the run from both his former colleagues in the bureau (including his wife) and, more seriously, from the gang of drug-dealing bikers he infiltrated in his last FBI assignment. Tired of running from trouble, Wolf decides to go on the offense: take down the bikers, and expose the mole in the FBI power structure who is feeding the bikers information. If thriller fans are thinking Lee Child here, they're right on target. Like Child, Rhoades dishes out one airtight action scene after another, mixing in just enough character-building moments and holding our interest in a full cast of nicely developed supporting players. All that, and a Sam Peckinpah–like bloody, bravura finale that will leave even icy-veined thriller fans panting for breath.
