Nigel Bird's Blog, page 38

One Man's Opinion: THE LOST AND THE BLIND by DECLAN BURKE

Tom Noone is an author, journalist and a ghost writer who is approached to write a biography of one Sebastian Devereaux. Devereaux spent his life as an archaeologist and a novelist on the island of Delphi on Lough Swilly in northern Donegal. The man providing the funds for this task is the super rich octogenarian Shay Govern, long-established as a name among the Boston Irish. His motive appears to be one of cleansing; he wants to reveal a hidden atrocity committed by the Nazis back in 1940 where a number of children were slain. Govern also wants to support the island by regenerating the economy and setting up a gold mining business.
Govern has also employed a private investigator, Jack Byrne, to locate an eye-witness to the atrocity, one Gerard Smyth. He’s an old man who also seems to want to get something off his chest. It turns out that Byrne has already found Smyth and has decided to keep that information from his employer in case he can find an angle to exploit. All he needs is a little help from Noone and they’ll be laughing.
As the stories unfold, the ghost-writing project becomes much more complex than it seemed. It’s unclear who is being totally frank and what dark mysteries rest underneath the surface.
When a murder is committed, the plot thickens considerably and the arrival of a tough and unorthodox cop makes Noone’s life extremely uncomfortable. It’s not long before she forces Noone’s hand and he does a runner with his estranged young daughter. Noone suddenly finds his company in hot demand from a number of unsavoury and rather intimidating characters. There are many out there who want to avoid the truth about what happened on Delphi in the war from being revealed and they will stop at nothing to prevent it from entering the public arena.
The plot is rather complex. It grips tight at the beginning and leaves plenty of open-ended questions and contradictions to create a strong energy and intrigue.
Noone is a noble investigator. He can’t help but throw himself fully into the work and he’s such a likeable narrator that the prospect of harm coming his way causes genuine concern and tension.
Each of the characters in the novel is really well drawn and they’re a pleasure to meet, whether they’re bit players or have major roles. It can, at times, seem as though their motivations seem slightly overblown, but as the work rushes to its denouement all becomes clear and the pieces fall nicely into place.   
I enjoyed this one, not least because of its smooth evocative prose. Contrasting with that, the snappy and clinical action scenes are also a pleasure to read - Burke would make a great undertaker as he can hammer the final nail into a coffin with brutal precision and dexterity.

The Lost And The Blind (US)is definitely one to add to your to-be-read pile. 

One Man's Opinion: LET IT RIDE by JOHN McFETRIDGE

The Saints Of Hellhave pretty much sewn up the criminal world of Toronto. There’s still a mob of Italians and a rogue gang of bikers to share the turf with, but that’s not likely to be the state of play forever.
The novel begins with Get, a US army veteran, transporting arms to The Saints in the hope that he can open up drugs supplies for his mother’s business in Detroit. While in Canada, he hooks up with his contact, JT, who shows him the ropes and reveals just how well-structured the set-up of the Saints is.  He also introduces Get to a hooker, Sunitha, who has a few well-honed skills and a desire to pull off a major heist of her own.
Circling around these threads is a police investigation into a killing, a look into the world of swinging couples and an insight into the lives of those at the top of a number of crime families, all of which are engrossing and tightly put together.
It’s an interesting one to try and examine.
First of all, this isn’t the book I was expecting from the opening sequences. I expected a hard drive towards the resolving of a murder investigation and a crash-bang-boom coming together of the crime syndicates concerned.
Instead, the book took a much more considered route and was all the more satisfying for avoiding a simple journey from A to B and C to D.
There are multiple points of view, each of which is thorough and distinct. Through them, as the world shifts and alters balance, there are explanations of history and personal lives that explain just how things to come to be as they are and why each of the next steps seems almost inevitable. The characters are trapped in their own webs of time and place and are what and who they are.
Let It Ride smoulders its way through the action. It slowly peels off layers to reveal deeper flesh and each shift in viewpoint alters the perspective so that the need for an explosive ending becomes redundant. That’s not to say that there aren’t plenty of resolutions to be had – they are scattered through the novel as it moves on – it’s more that each answered question throws up something new to focus upon.
I really enjoyed the style and the depth of this one. The characters are etched superbly and their interactions always ring true. There’s a lot in here about the changing of the city and the comparisons between businesses that are, on the surface at least, legitimate or not so. Issues of race, gender and class come under scrutiny in various forms and these are really well-handled (and within character, of course).
My favourite aspect here is the dialogue. It’s put together as if it’s a work of art in itself and that’s from beginning to end. I found myself purring through the conversations and admiring the craft. It’s super stuff.

All this said, I’m not sure how you can best get hold of it. As far as I can gather, there are second hand hard-backed copies up for grabs and there’s an audio book that can be downloaded for a free trial via Audible as well as being purchased directly. That it’s not available for kindle seems criminal, but I might just be missing something – please add a comment if you can point out a better way to get hold of the book. It certainly deserves to be read and, if I may be so bold, fairly widely.  

One Man's Opinion: CONFESSIONS OF A HIT MAN by RICHARD GODWIN

In the early stages of this book, I was reminded somewhat of Lawrence Block’s excellent Hit Man stories. Early doors, the formats are similar in that there are a series of hits to be carried out, each requiring their own subtleties of approach and method of dispatch.
Of course, Godwin’s imagination reaches parts many other authors would not reach in terms of the twists and the twisted and the early events deal with targets of increasingly sordid lives. Jack, the Hit Man of the title, is an ex-service man who stumbles in to the world of the Sicilian mafia after a chance encounter on the island. His connection sets Jack up with a little work when he returns to London and Jack’s all too happy to find a way out of an existence where cash is short.
He’s good at the work, too. It’s not long before he’s setting out on private hits because his growing reputation has turned him into a sought-after professional.
One thing leads to another and he’s soon coaxed into a job of international significance. He’s to infiltrate and bring down an operation involving the smuggling of plutonium to Syria and feels the hand of the government holding his purse strings. The stakes are higher and the mission is hugely more complex and it’s this story that occupies most of the second half of the book.
I really enjoyed this. It’s well-written and has a slightly breezy style to it in the way the tale is told. I did favour the shorter tales showing Jack’s early development to the later section of international intrigue. To my mind, the chapter-per-hit formula works very well and within them Godwin seemed to relish the challenges of creating new situations with a playful creativity. The ease at which he managed to allow me to accept the need for execution and to enjoy the killing of the victims has me asking questions of myself that reach fairly deeply. The early links to Sicily and to Italy are also particularly evocative.
The second section does have a slightly different tone. Due to the nature of the job at hand, an awful lot more is required in the set up and a little more patience is taken. Though it hangs together well, it came at the expense of some of that early pace and freshness. I suspect that this says more about my taste in fiction than about the book itself and imagine that thriller fans might well come to the opposite conclusion.

All in all, Confessions Of  A Hit Man is a fine and pleasing read. There’s darkness, humour and a fine sense of character and place to get you in the mood. Well worth checking out.  

One Man's Opinion: THE MURDER BAG by TONY PARSONS

Having seen interviews with Tony Parsons when The Murder Bag (US) was released, as well as a rather good TV piece on boxing in fiction, I couldn’t resist buying the book. Having just piled through it in a couple of page-turning days, I’m very glad I did, even though I have a few reservations.
Max Wolfe is the protagonist. He’s aptly named given that he’s part of a pack as well as acting as a loner much of the time. It’s clear from the off that Max has a strong belief in his convictions and he’ll go against orders when he believes himself to be right.
He’s investigating a series of murders among a group of men who formed tight bonds during their private school days and who have gone on to have varied degrees of success in their adulthood. The killings involve the slashing of throats with a weapon specifically designed to do the job and the perpetrator leaves no clues at the scenes.
When the press get involved, a website by Bob The Butcher and its hashtags goes viral and an MP becomes one of the potential victims, the pressure on the police mounts.
There are many things to like about Murder Bag . The directions the case takes constantly fuel the plot and it’s difficult to stop at the end of one chapter when the path into the next has been so neatly built. Wolfe himself is an engaging sort and the other central players are all nicely formed. The domestic situation, though a little clichéd, provides a decent contrast to the drama and the head-scratching.  Wolfe’s thought processes work well and at a number of satisfying levels. There’s also a high pitch of tension when the action takes place and there are some neat little boxing insights that add another dimension. I also really enjoyed some of the turns of phrase; Parsons throws in some sentences of real power and craft along the way and manages to ensure that they don’t feel out of place. London is also really beautifully drawn and had me wanting to go again in the near future – I think visitors to the city hoping to find a read that will add to their overall experience could do a lot worse in choosing their material that this one. I also really enjoyed the final twist – it was a blow that I’d been expecting for so long that I’d forgotten about it and was totally taken aback when it was finally landed.
On the downside, I had a few niggles.
There are passages where the repetition of a word becomes jarring. It may be a deliberate act of style, but I’d have hoped an editor might have suggested a touch of ironing where this is the case.
There’s also an aspect relating to the way the research is handled. Mr Parsons has clearly done his homework and may also have access to things that many others might not. Managing to inserting information to add credibility to a book is a tricky thing and I think a little more subtly would have helped here. It feels, at times, that each character has an encyclopedic knowledge of the world and I’d be looking for better ways of getting a point across in (and hopefully there will be one) book two.  
This seeming desire to get everything right also throws up another issue. In trying that hard, it somehow highlights the points where there are contradictions or improbable procedures. I’m not going to draw your attention to them as that may not help your enjoyment of the story when the time comes.
Overall, I think that if you’re a fan of the police procedural this is definitely one for you. It has most of the things you’ll want and a little more besides. I enjoyed it very much and am definitely going back for more should Max Wolfe make his reappearance.

A winning crime debut.

One Man's Opinion: CRY UNCLE by RUSSEL D MCLEAN

David Burns is a hard man of the old-fashioned variety. He believes there’s honour among thieves and has been the ruthless leader of Dundee’s underworld for many years.
In steps Craig Nairn, the new contender for the Burns’s crown. Nairn is growing arms and legs and when his tentacles reach into Burns’s turf, tensions soon grow out of hand.
Sandwiched in between them is private investigator McNee who is working as one of Burns’s henchmen while undercover for the police.
Cry Uncle is a story that is full of drama, action and tension. It’s a book that had me craving slots of spare time so that I could continue reading and I made sure that I carved out those slots wherever I could. The chapters are perfectly bite-sized to suit these purposes, satisfying the appetite for the book and keeping the pace and momentum high, yet never quite fully sate the appetite until the final pieces are put into place.
McNee is a terrific first-person narrator. His voice is compelling and he’s articulate enough to take us through the ins and outs of the plot with ease. We follow him through a series of events in which he is always weighing up his moral position and, more often than not, considering how he can survive in a world where his friends and enemies all seem to find him expendable. He offers glimpses into Dundee past and present that paint a very vivid picture. He also takes us through the landscape of his internal workings, which is like taking a walk along cliffs that are at once beautiful and treacherous. McNee has limits and also has the capacity to cross them; it’s a moral ambiguity that I thoroughly enjoyed.
I loved Cry Uncle (US) and urge you to check it out. It works on so many different levels that I’m sure it has a broad appeal. Those who like a thriller, a PI novel, a police story or a brutal gangland battle should be fully engaged. As a bonus there are great character studies, curve-balls and tender moments. There’s even an ending that has something about the Count Of Monte Cristo to it and that’s saying something.

Really great stuff. 

The Lost Carnival

Arthur Bird makes radio documentaries. Life is pretty normal for him until the day he receives a mysterious package. What is to come is a perplexing tale surrounding the leader of a lost carnival, Popou Ingenue, the finding of a Phoenix egg and an exotic trip to Morocco. 

Arthur is soon to find himself in a very difficult position, caught between two rival factions that both seek his attention.

Intrigue, humour and the fanciful come together, along with newspapers with missing articles and gun-toting broads. A little hammy and totally absorbing. 

Find the first three episodes of The Lost Carnival here. 

Sleeps With The Fishes for your listening pleasure

Here's a story for you to listen to. It could be while you're doing the washing up or, if you'd rather, while you're doing the hoovering.
The production is by Bird On A Wire and is narrated by Geoff Bird.
Many thanks to Geoff for the support and the effort - such things are the acts of kindness that make the world a better place. 
If the video below won't work for you, please try the link to Soundcloud instead.



Thanks for listening.

One Man's Opinion: VOLUNTARY MADNESS by VICKI HENDRICKS

“Too bad my mother didn’t have a gun. I might have gotten to know her better.”
This one opens like a hurricane. Juliette’s a smoking a joint, idly playing with herself as she waits for a suitable victim to flash. Within a tiny space, the chaos of her early life and the darkness of her future are revealed. She’s hooked up with the love of her life, a diabetic alcoholic writer called Punch with whom she has a suicide pact. While they’re waiting for the date of their deaths, they’re supposed to be living life to the full, collecting stories for Punch’s novel. If she thinks it, she has to do it – that’s the rule. It’s like she’s a dice lady without the numbers.
In truth, the first chapter knocked me back onto my heels. I just wasn’t really ready to walk in on the situation. That disorientation was a feeling I really enjoyed and what I wanted was more.
As the early pages went by, I became a little worried that I might just be wandering through a series of interesting, well-written scenes that weren’t heading anywhere in particular. That sense soon disappeared as my emotional involvement grew quite sharply.
On one of their early adventures, the couple break into the Hemingway house at Key West and set to enjoying Hem’s space in every way they can. When a guard shows up and there’s an explosion of reflexive violence, Punch and Juliette worry that their crime will be uncovered.
Into her life walks a lesbian white witch called Isis. Isis brings a different kind of love to Juliette and adds a new dimension to the story. It allows Juliette’s vulnerability to come to the fore. In sharp contrast to Punch’s mean spells, Isis is full of warmth and concern. Crucial for me, it meant I no longer wanted the suicide pact to go ahead and shared Isis’s hope that there would be a way to get Juliette out of her way of thinking.
The criminal acts of Punch and Juliette become more intense. They’re exciting, tense and unsettling. As they work through their Bonnie and Clyde routine, the date of their death rushes at them (and rushed at me) at a startling pace. The end comes into view and even as the crash is about to happen, I had no idea how it was going to play out.

From that amazing opening, through those early uncertain chapters and into the meat of Punch and Juliette’s journey together, I was delighted and totally engaged with their world. I really enjoyed the writing style and the whole range of tensions, including the warmly erotic moments. Juliette’s highs and lows seem very real and those emotions seeped from the pages into my pores. I guess that’s what I want from a book – complete involvement and total immersion. A really great read.
Voluntary Madness (US) was re-released last month by New Pulp Press.

BERLIN BURNING by DAMIEN SEAMAN

Chapter 1

The teletype ran hot through the night shift, spewing its litany of crimes from the precinct houses of Berlin for the detectives at the Alex.At 00.21 a runner brought the latest to the Kripo squad room – Precinct 87, possible murder in a tenement.Kriminalkommissar Trautmann and Kriminalassistant Roth took the call and Roth cursed their luck. Trautmann knew what the younger man was thinking. Precinct 87 meant a small-time pimp or a KPD agitator; the odds of finding the culprit were long. They’d have to talk to Fleischer, see what the usual noses were picking up.Trautmann sent the runner to requisition an auto and then run on a little further and inform the lab. The kommissar expected a long night. Little did he know how long.
When they arrived on the scene they saw the 87th had sent a whole squad, some of the men outside going door to door under the flickering street lamps. Word from the Schupo on the tenement door was Kessler was running things inside.‘Not any more,’ Trautmann said, tasting sweat on his lips from the warmth of the night air. ‘Where is he?’‘One floor up,’ said the Schupo. He smoked a cigarette, raising it to his mouth with trembling fingers. It was unprofessional but he didn’t seem to care. He chugged the smoke without pause.‘A whole squad?’ Roth said, as they passed into the dusty tenement hallway. ‘What the hell’s going on?’The Schupo ignored the question, eyeing a Jew who passed by on the other side of the street. A couple of the uniformed officers stopped the man and began asking questions. Trautmann shifted his attention inside.Scuffed blood droplets on the stairs and the squeak of heavy shoes on bare floorboards overhead told Trautmann to expect a mess. Sure enough, when they entered the brightly lit apartment there were far too many uniforms in there. A crime scene needed the rigour of a Bach prelude; this was more the chaos of a Stravinsky score. Trautmann disliked Stravinsky. He disliked procedural laxity even more. He managed a glimpse of a body lying on a blood-soaked rug near the fireplace at the end of the room before calling for Kessler.‘So they sent me the Mule,’ said Schupo-sergeant Kessler, coming through from a connecting room with his shako dangling from his left fist. Sweat dripped from him and made dark patches in the underarms of his uniform jacket. Trautmann itched to bring out a handkerchief and mop his own face. As Kessler came nearer, he glanced at Roth: ‘I see you brought Admiral Nelson with you.’Roth touched the stump where his right arm had once been.‘That’s enough of that, Kessler,’ Trautmann said, pulling the sergeant’s gaze back to him. ‘I need you to clear this apartment. There are too many people in here.’‘We’re trying to solve this one before word gets out.’‘You don’t solve a crime by ruining the evidence,’ Roth said with a jerk of his pomaded head.‘Roth,’ Trautmann warned. Kessler just smiled. ‘What do you mean, before word gets out?’ Trautmann said. ‘Victim’s a brownshirt,’ Kessler said, scratching one of his chins. ‘You know as well as I do there’ll be reprisals by tomorrow lunchtime if we don’t make an arrest…’  ‘Yeah, reprisals from who,’ Roth muttered.‘…It’s a tinderbox out there.’ Kessler led them past the body to the next room, a bedroom. Then he waited for them to catch up. ‘The trail begins in here.’The sheets on the bed were rumpled. A brass candlestick lay in a pool of drying blood on a patch of floor between the bed and a dresser, and there were red-brown speckles on the sheets and on the walls. A picture frame had toppled from the dresser into the blood; one corner of the frame was stained with it and the glass had cracked.‘Reckon our boy came in and caught his woman with some other chap, leading to a struggle.’Trautmann pulled a pair of rubber gloves from his pocket and pointed at the candlestick. ‘The murder weapon?’ Kessler laughed. ‘Slow up there, Mule. I’ve got more…’Trautmann put on the gloves and picked up the picture frame, angling it to catch the light as Kessler rattled on.‘…So there’s a fight in here, our boy with his woman, or the gentlemen caller, or maybe both…’The photograph showed a young woman with dark hair and eyes and a beguiling smile. ‘…Our boy takes a nasty blow to the head that knocks him to the floor. There’s a corresponding mark on his right temple, as you’ll see. Then…’Kessler paused and made them follow him back to where the body lay. Trautmann brought the picture frame along.‘…at some point, two shots to the torso.’‘A gun?’ Roth asked.‘Well, I may just be a humble Schupo,’ Kessler said, ‘but I reckon I know a fatal gunshot wound when I see one.’Trautmann looked down at the body, a young blond male dressed in the brown uniform of Hitler’s Sturmabteilung. Dead though he was, he still oozed blood onto the rug. ‘Anyone hear anything?’‘Round here?’ Kessler made a face. ‘What do you think?’‘I thought you had your ways,’ Roth said.‘Now now, Admiral. No need to get jealous because we know how to get results.’‘So what have you found out?’ Roth snapped. ‘Anything?’‘Do we have the boy’s name?’ Trautmann cut in.Kessler referred to a notebook. ‘Jan Meist, according to his landlady.’‘Who is…?’‘The old girl on the next landing up. And a real pleasure she is, too. I can’t wait for you to meet her.’‘And the young woman here?’ Trautmann showed them the photograph. ‘She lived with him, I take it?’‘That’s the best part.’ Kessler grinned. ‘You’ll never guess who she is. Fair gives us our killer straight out of the gate.’‘You’re right,’ Trautmann said. ‘I won’t guess who she is. So why don’t you just tell me.’‘Maria Fleischer.’Trautmann looked at Roth and Roth looked at Trautmann.‘She’s related to Fleischer?’ Trautmann said.Kessler clapped his hands. ‘I know. Great, isn’t it? I can have my squad ready to pick him up as soon as the lab boys are done here.’Roth clicked his tongue in disgust.‘No, you don’t,’ Trautmann said. ‘Not without we’ve spoken to him first.’‘Oh, come on, Mule!’ Kessler said. ‘What more do you want? Meist beats up his girl, makes her go out pros-pec-ting’ – he drew out the word – ‘to pay the rent. She tells her uncle, who comes and puts two bullets in him for her. Simple.’‘Whoa, not so simple,’ Trautmann said. ‘Beats up his girl?’ ‘Ask the landlady. She’s full of it. You’ll get all you need from her.’‘And what about this man she was supposedly with when Meist came in here?’ Roth said. ‘Anyone see what happened to him?’  ‘Who else but Fleischer would be able to get hold of a gun in this part of town?’ Kessler said.‘Maybe they didn’t get the gun in this part of town,’ Roth said. ‘Maybe this gentleman caller was an army officer. Or a pol…’ He cut himself off and regarded the knot of uniformed patrolmen standing close by. ‘Or a what?’ Kessler said. ‘We can soon settle this,’ Trautmann said. ‘Do you have the gun?’‘Sarge,’ bellowed a voice; a young Schupoman entered the apartment with a pistol in his hand. ‘We found it! In the drains outside.’Trautmann couldn’t contain his anger. ‘Kessler! Tell me that man isn’t contaminating evidence!’Kessler blushed. ‘That’s it!’ Trautmann shouted. ‘Everybody out – RIGHT NOW!’

 This extract has been taken from the novella Berlin Burning by Damien Seaman, published by Blasted Heath.

STORIES AND STUPIDITY

Are stories just a symptom of human stupidity?
So, how are you feeling about Muslims right now?
Conflicted, I’ll bet.
Your head says it’s ridiculous to assume they’re all humourless maniacs ready to kill you at the slightest hint of disrespect for their religion. But your heart…
Well, your heart can’t help but feel a pang at every tabloid headline your head struggles to ignore.
And if you’re Muslim reading this – have you noticed people looking at you any differently in the last few months? Or perhaps you’re just resigned to the idea that most non-Muslims now see you as a potential terrorist.
What with the rise of Islamic State, beheadings of foreign captives, the recent murders in France, and now the whole Jihadi John brouhaha, you’d be forgiven for just sticking your head under the duvet and refusing to think about it.
Interestingly, recent(ish) scientific discoveries suggest that might be the best thing for you.
Because you hear that clanging sound in your mind?
That’s the clash of narratives you can hear.
The irresistible appeal of narrative
You see, it turns out the human mind is virtually incapable of seeing two events without trying to link them together, with one event as the cause and the second as the effect.
You can see it going on right now with the case of Jihadi John. Was he radicalised because of harassment by sinister British security services? Or was he radicalised by sinister religious nutters who want to destroy the West?
Who’s to say he was radicalised by either? Who’s to say he was radicalised at all?
In our rush to construct what is now fashionable for politicians and media types to call a “narrative” – what most of us know in everyday life as a “story” – we’re in serious danger of distorting the facts entirely.
For example, within a week of the Charlie Hebdo murders in France, many world leaders started spouting the whole “we’re at war” thing again. But at war with who – or what? Islam? Radicalised Islam? Individual Muslims? Or just some dumb murderers who were looking for validation, and sought it through religion?
And why were our political leaders so keen to jump on the “war on terror” bandwagon yet again? We’d do well to question their narrative. Unless, that is, it’s as blindingly obvious to you as it is to me that this whole Islamic distraction is a great excuse to squeeze more taxes out of us, bung the spooks a few more hundreds of millions to snoop on our online habits, and keep us in line while making us forget about all the other dodgy shit…
But perhaps I’ve let slip a little too much of my own narrative.
If I did, you can’t blame me. It’s all the fault of my primitive brain for not evolving quickly enough.
Learning… indoctrination… what’s the difference?
It’s quite common now to accept that stories are in many respects the best way for us to learn. Whether that’s learning empathy (or, of course, hate – thanks again, tabloid headlines) or a new skill. Whether it’s indoctrination into a specific way of looking at the world, or just because someone wants to sell you something (hello infomercials and party political broadcasts).
Perhaps I’m wrong on this, but it seems easy for us to accept that stories work because they tap into our emotions. They bypass the logical parts of our brains and make it easier for new information to stick.
Blah blah blah.
Actually, I think it’s more pathological than that. I don’t think stories are the best way for us to learn; I think they’re the onlyway we’re really capable of learning.
In fact, skip back up a couple of paragraphs and go over what I wrote. “Stories work because…” Cause and effect. I’m already guilty yet again of the very thing I’m half-arsedly deriding. And it’s all my brain’s fault!
God, this is infuriating… But let me explain what I’m trying to get at and perhaps you’ll see I do have a point somewhere in all this. Because your brain is almost certainly as flawed as mine when it comes to this unholy narrative addiction, so I promise you’ll get something good out of this if you stay with me to the end.
Thinking, Fast and Slow
In fact, let’s try another story to illustrate my point. This one comes from the book “Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman, which I recommend wholeheartedly…
“The ‘fact’ that [basketball] players occasionally acquire a hot hand is generally accepted by players, coaches, and fans. The inference is irresistible: a player sinks three or four baskets in a row and you cannot help forming the causal judgment that this player is now hot, with a temporarily increased propensity to score. Players on both teams adapt to this judgment – teammates are more likely to pass to the hot scorer and the defense is more likely to double-team. Analysis of thousands of sequences of shots led to a disappointing conclusion: there is no such thing as a hot hand in professional basketball… Of course some players are more accurate than others, but the sequence of successes and missed shots satisfies all tests of randomness. The hot hand is entirely in the eye of the beholders, who are consistently too quick to perceive order and causality in randomness. The hot hand is a massive and widespread cognitive illusion.”
And what was the public reaction to the news that this common belief was, in fact, a myth? Kahneman goes on to tell us…
“The finding was picked up by the press because of its surprising conclusion, and the general response was disbelief. When the celebrated coach of the Boston Celtics, Red Auerbach, heard of Gilovich and his study, he responded, ‘Who is this guy? So he makes a study. I couldn’t care less.’ The tendency to see patterns in randomness is overwhelming – certainly more impressive than a guy making a study.”
This tendency to see patterns is another way of describing what stories are. They help us to perceive and shape the world, which can be very useful to us. But they can also do great damage, because we see things that aren’t there – or refuse to see things that are there – to justify what we believe.
This must be why people can still question Darwin’s theory of evolution and argue – quite wrongly – that there is just as much evidence for the theory of intelligent design. Or why some people still obsess over discovering the identity of Jack the Ripper – as if it could possibly matter to anyone now.
Even more depressingly, it’s why there are otherwise-intelligent people who will seriously argue for the existence of ghosts. Or – worst of all – for the theory that aliens built the pyramids – or that they told we poor, retarded humans how to do it.
It’s why some people read Dan Brown. And it’s why others will maintain the moon landings were faked, or that 9/11 was the work of Mossad. Or any half-baked bullshit conspiracy you could choose to name. 
Oversimplified mush
Because this is how deeply patterns – stories – matter to us. Take them away from us, and we’re little lost children unable to cope with the existence of randomness.
Whether this is due to our centuries of religious training… or, more likely, because organised religion emerged from this need to give meaning to the random… it’s hard to say. I have my opinion, and I’m sure you have yours.
The more important question is what we do with this knowledge that most of what we know is oversimplified mush – the mental equivalent of baby food.
Are stories good for us as a species? Or do they just hold us back from understanding the world as it really is?
And yes, before you ask, this does matter.
Is the film “300” just a fun, stylised action flick, for example? Or is it racist and homophobic dross that can influence how we feel about Eastern cultures for the worse?
Does the film “Taken” encourage us to look upon swarthy people from the East as heartless white slavers who deserve nothing more than a bullet in the head?
I could go on, but I see my narrative is peeking out again.
So let’s return to the idea I started with. How many Muslims murdering in the name of their religion does it take to inspire widespread prejudice and repression against their innocent co-religionists? (Or, indeed, innocent non-believers from the same cultural background. They don’t all believe in God, and it’s patronising to assume otherwise.)
Conversely, how many botched Western military interventions does it take for the citizens of non-Western nations to see us as hypocritical bullies?
Indeed, one should probably ask how many botched Western military interventions it takes before we start wondering what we pay our taxes for.
But then, my brain is too primitive to cope with all this endless confusion. I’m off to stick my head under the duvet.
If you’ve any sense, you’ll do likewise.
Oh, but if you wanted a conclusion, here it is.
Stories are fun and stories are entertaining. But stories are only useful when they teach us something we don’t know or challenge what we thought we knew.
You’ll know which narratives you disagree with. That’s easy. The trick is to recognise which ones you agree with – because they’re the dangerous ones, as far as you’re concerned.
After all, it’s just as disrespectful to dismiss someone out of hand for their religious belief as their atheism. And it’s just as dangerous to dismiss an argument as racist as it is to propagate racist beliefs. All narratives rest on assumptions, and all assumptions can be flawed. So they must be tested.
Always test your assumptions. Always consider your opponent’s point of view.
And, whatever you do, never ever read the newspapers. Except for pure entertainment.
With that, I really am off to bed.
But do wake me up if they finally prove the identity of Jack the Ripper, won’t you?

If this has your juices flowing, check out David's earlier posts from the week:

The Sea Minor Interview

The Night James Ellroy Was Eyeing Up My Girlfriend... 

On Reading, Writing and Free Speech

And if you'd like to hear some of David's own stories, check out The Killing Of Emma Gross (US)or Berlin Burning (US). Take them in either order, that's not an issue. You might thank me if you do.
If you're still not sure, come back on Sunday to read a sample from Berlin Berlin; that ought to swing you one way or t'other.