A Horse Race

As I watched Oxbow run away with the Preakness Stakes on Saturday afternoon, I mused how my reading resembles a horse race. I pick up several books at once and rank them on their pedigree, which includes past novels by the same author, recommendations from online friends, and finally what they look like. I often put my money on a flashy outsider and occasionally regret my choice. I read a bit from each of them and then pick one to settle into and the race is on. If my attention wanders, I fall on one of the others in the pack.

Oxbow at the Preakness

Sometimes the first one grabs me and it is a leader from start to finish just like Oxbow in Baltimore.

One such winner was Chris Grabenstein's latest, Free Fall, which was first out of the gate. The story opens in early June at a beach resort on the coast of New Jersey, which is getting itself together after superstorm Sandy. Sea Haven, home to its police department's dynamic duo John Ceepak and his partner Danny Boyle, has taken eight months to pull back from the brink.

Danny, who once thought of Sandy only as one of his favorite Bruce Springsteen songs, has had a few other things torn asunder. After a mayoral election, Danny found himself gifted with a new partner, Sal Santucci, who thinks of nothing but food, and Danny has found himself the "Keeper of The Code" of police conduct.

There is nothing worse for policemen in small towns than to be called to a scene of a fight to hear an old friend disclaim, "I didn’t do anything!" On this particular occasion, the friend, Christine, was a close friend of Danny's late, greatly-lamented love. This turns out to be a she-said/she-said situation, but before long, Christine is embroiled in a worst-case scenario involving murder.

After this battered seaside vacationland reclaimed some of its amusement rides from the surf, one of the rides has been transformed with new lights, sound effects, paint job and a new operator: Joe Ceepak, John's father, who has ridden into town to harass his son and former wife. The ride's name is the Free Fall. Freefall rides have three distinct parts: a ride to the top of a tall tower, a momentary suspension and then a downward plunge.

The ride is actually a metaphor for the mystery. The story gathers momentum, as John Ceepak and Boyle are reunited to investigate the murder, while simultaneously try to keep the reins on old Joe Ceepak. Joe's ex-wife has come into some money. Joe feels he is entitled to some of this legacy and is willing to go to extreme lengths to accomplish this––even kill someone, if he can stay off the sauce long enough. Ceepak the younger has his hands full.

But nothing is going to stop the inevitable free fall, because events are moving along like a force of nature and Danny is called upon to use all his skills to prevent disaster. The story crosses the finish line with intensity.

Sometimes, one of my reading choices tends to get stuck in the middle of the pack and gets a lot of dirt on its face. Somewhat like Orb actually. Orb came to the Preakness with a great track record, having won the Run for the Roses a few weeks ago. Similarly, Charlaine Harris has a tremendous record with several very successful series under her belt. Dead Ever After is the last of the Sookie Stackhouse series and, as such, came with tremendous expectations. Some fans also follow the TV series, True Blood, and they have their own set of expectations.

In Dead Ever After, Sookie is coming off a great battle involving many supernatural forces, at the end of which she had to make a crucial decision about whom to protect. Her final choice is not a popular one; many think she backed the wrong horse, and the story begins with Sookie down in the dumps because she seems to have alienated her vampire husband Eric, her partner Sam, and her witch friend Amelia.

When an ex-friend Arlene comes around to Sookie's workplace, Merlotte's, asking for a job, she gets turned down flat, but before the next day dawns Arlene is dead and Sookie is suspected of murder. In this finale, all of the people and creatures Sookie has helped in the past are spurred on to help her clear her name.

One of the main themes of the series is the jockeying for position in the race for Sookie's heart by several suitors. Eric, Sam, Alcide, Quinn and Bill have all been in the running at one time or another and if my odds-on favorite seems to lag behind, I can't use that as a criticism of the work. The main hurdle for me was a dark-horse evil power that has entered the field to keep Sookie from going the distance. I am not sure why I could swallow the vampire idea and then cavil at other influences, but I did. Go figure.

At the wire, all the loose ends were reined in but I was saddled with a bit of sorrow over the demise of a great series.

Then there are those books that seem to start slowly, like Secretariat used to do, and I go back to them several times before they get into their stride and surpass all others in the pack. Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin was like this.

Slow out of the starting gate, the story ambles along as two men are introduced. One is Larry, the son of a white small landowner in rural Chabot, Mississippi, who spends his childhood trying to be a help to his father. Larry's father rejects him most of the time, so Larry loses himself in books and horror stories. As an adult, he is a shunned outcast because he is presumed to be responsible for the disappearance of a girl he had his only date with.

Secretariat at Belmont

Silas is a transplant from Chicago, coming back to this small southern town with his African-American mother to a place that was familiar to her. They are dirt poor, but Silas finds a way to be successful in school because of his athletic ability. Later on, he returns to Chabot as a constable and he is remembered fondly by his sobriquet "32." Silas has not seen Larry in years, and makes no attempt to meet him until now, when he calls in a professional capacity. Now, another girl is missing.

"Scary" Larry is slowly atrophying from lack of human interaction, so when an intruder shoots him he is ready to die. Silas doesn't want to come a cropper in this case, because he wonders if he had been unfair to Larry when he was too busy to answer urgent phone calls.

Once, though, these boys were friends, albeit secretly. In this time and in this place, comradeship between the races was verboten. Silas was the one boy who really knew Larry, but now he lives with decisions he made long ago.

This is a story that does not have a predictable outcome. It is filled with flawed characters who seem to be surrounded with sadness. But then the plot picks up speed and once Franklin delves into this duo's shared history and shared secrets, the novel catches fire and down the stretch it goes. Filled with lyrical prose that is almost poetic made reading this book a memorable experience.

Note: I could not have written these reviews without the help of sports metaphors.

Book Review of Michael Kardos's The Three-Day Affair

The Three-Day Affair by
Michael Kardos

If you're lucky, you have no personal experience with the proverb "With friends like these, who needs enemies?" You can count on your friends to cheer your successes, help you mop up your messes, and forgive you for liking bad movies. If they catch you careening off the rails, they yank you back on. Before the weekend events of Michael Kardos's The Three-Day Affair, narrator Will Walker would probably have agreed.

Will and three other young men became very close friends at Princeton University. Every year since they graduated nine years ago, these best buddies reunite for a weekend of golf and conversation. This year, rather than meeting at a luxurious resort, Will asks them to come to his home in suburban New Jersey. He's a sound engineer at a third-rate recording studio, and he's trying to save money to start his own small record company. He feels a little bad requesting this, because his friends are past scrimping and saving. Jeffrey Hocks, married to Sara, the most beautiful woman of their Princeton class, earned $30 million in a dot-com company's stock before he was age 25; Nolan Albright is a wealthy Missouri farmer's son who's now running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives; Evan Wolff is overloaded with work, but he'll make partner at his high-powered Manhattan law firm. Despite his embarrassment, Will is confident Jeff, Nolan, and Evan will not only understand, but they'll also be happy to invest in his new company. They're that kind of friends.

Princeton

After college graduation, Will became the drummer in a New York City band. He and his wife Cynthia, who's in public relations, fled to New Jersey after the band's bassist was killed by a stray bullet while she stood near Will outside the Cobra Club, where they'd just finished a gig. Cynthia and Will have lived in a rental house on a quiet street for three years. They're now expecting their first baby and, surprisingly to Will, are content with their lives.

Cynthia heads off to stay with her sister for the weekend as Nolan arrives. Jeff is due in a few hours; Evan's job has detained him in the city, but he'll come as soon as he can. The forecast is for a pleasant, laid-back weekend with friends. As Will explains in the prologue, "By then, violent crime was about the furthest thing from my mind, until the night when I helped one of my best friends kidnap a young woman."

Ordinary man Richard Hannay in Hitchcock's The 39 Steps

With an impulsive act so dumb it transcends understanding, Will is drafted into the club of ordinary men placed in extraordinary situations, where he joins characters such as Fredric Brown's newspaperman Doc Stoeger (Night of the Jabberwock) and the civilians pressed into service against the Nazis by espionage writers Alan Furst (Dark Voyage) and Helen MacInnes (The Double Image). These ordinary folks surprise themselves, and so does Will. Of course, Will isn't exactly extraordinarily ordinary, since he did make it through Princeton. Part of the pleasure of reading this book is the mental trip Will takes back to his college days in an attempt to recognize the friends with whom he explored literature, life's meaning, and what it's like to fall in love. These are the friends with whom he now shares a nightmare, and he's no longer sure of what they, or he, will do. They're as unfamiliar as when they first met: the Princeton legacy from Los Angeles whose baby clothes had little tigers stitched onto them, the ambitious and jaw-droppingly hard-working Missourian, and the nice guy from New Jersey with a deep love of music.

The high IQ and sophistication of these men make their weekend behavior surprising, and the tale isn't absolutely airtight in its logic. But then again, who's to say what I'd do on such a weekend with college friends in Newfield, New Jersey? After all, isn't this a story about smart people doing stupid things; a crisis of conflicting needs that create a moral dilemma; a situation in which everyone defers to everyone else to solve a problem? Man, oh man, The Three-Day Affair is the sort of book you read with one eye closed because you can hardly stand to see what will happen, but there's no way you can put it down. Author Kardos created characters you can't help but care about. Will is wonderfully human. Great use of settings, clear writing, and a plot gratifying in its complexity and surprises. It would make a terrific book for a group to read and discuss. Pandora's box was opened, but by whom and when?

Michael Kardos

Like his protagonist, Will, the author grew up in New Jersey, received a degree in music from Princeton, and played the drums professionally. Kardos currently lives in Starkville, Mississippi, where he is an assistant professor of English and co-director of the creative writing program at Mississippi State University. His previous publications include short stories and a collection in One Last Good Time. I'm happy to say he's working on another novel now.

Note: For review purposes, I received a free advance reading copy of The Three-Day Affair, published earlier this month by Mysterious Press/Grove Atlantic. It has received starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly, which also named it one of fall's best books.

Book Review of Chris Grabenstein's Fun House

Fun House by Chris Grabenstein

I have been eagerly awaiting this book and sat down to read it as soon as it came in the mail. I thought one of the nicest things I could do was to share it with you. We have had a damp, cold April, and the first week of May has been the way Dickens describes March: "Summer in the sun but winter in the shade." Unfortunately, we have not had much of any sun. This is the perfect time to read a Chris Grabenstein book and imagine summer just a little bit closer than it is.

Have you ever been to a funhouse? It is what Danny Boyle calls a participatory amusement. Danny is my favorite philosopher––camouflaged as a policeman––in fiction today. He and John Ceepak, the ex-Marine recently home from Iraq, are two of the Sea Haven, New Jersey, Police Department’s finest. Danny explains that it is not because people are subconsciously afraid to walk through Mick Jagger lips that nobody builds those rickety funhouse things any more. It is because people today like to sit in cars, after they have driven in cars to get where they are going.

The most famous "funhouse" in Sea Haven these days isn't at a carnival. It's on a rather seedy Halibut Street, where a reality TV show called Fun House is filming. The show resembles a mix of Jersey Shore and Big Brother––and maybe, as it turns out, And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. The summer began with 10 young men and women in their twenties who love living la vida loca, spending their time high on alcohol and amour, and trying to outlast each other through exciting, drunken competitions required by the show. The last one of the housemates staggering wins a cool quarter mil. The denizens of this funhouse live by the credo that anything done is best done while out of control and best described by bleepity bleep. Naturally, the show is very popular.

The reader joins the fun during the Brewskee Ball competition, which is taking place at the Coin Castle. Skeeball is a common seaside attention on many boardwalk arcades that affords a lot of fun for a small amount of money; still a favorite of my own, I must admit. The player bowls a small ball up an alley in an attempt to hop it in to a set of rings for points, which win the player coupons redeemable for––wait for it––tiny little prizes worth a few pennies!

John Ceepak and his wife Rita are out enjoying a nice late summer evening when the four of the Fun House group are competing at Brewskee Ball and begin making themselves known to all. Paulie “The Thing,” who has made himself famous by calling himself after a horror creature and constantly flashing his awesome pecs, begins to lose to Mike Tomasino, a fella with rototiller sharp hair. An altercation ensues and the girls fan the flames. Jenny Mortadella (who has actually changed her name, apparently not realizing it means baloney) and Soozy K are there more in the cheerleader capacity.

When blood begins to flow and balls fly, Ceepak enters the fray and is memorialized on YouTube, the natural outcome of which is that the producers want him on the show.

The mayor of Sea Haven––with dollar signs in his eyes––is all for the idea, and when Danny Boyle, Ceepak's partner, suggests there is a reason for the behavior at the Coin Palace, they both see a deeper purpose for being around this group. They have hopes that it will help them solve another crime from the past. Before much can be accomplished though, Paulie “The Thing” is found brutally murdered in a Knock ’Em Down booth. To both the cops' dismay, despite the almost 24/7 camera coverage of the TV personalities for the Fun House show, Paulie had managed to elude the cameras. The in-house video cameras were supposed to be on a generator for power purposes, but it was mysteriously down and so there was no footage, and the camera crew missed him sneaking away as well.

Before long, there are death threats aimed at another of the remaining cast members. Motives are swirling all around. The ratings are skyrocketing, the careers of some are circling the drain while others' ambitions seem to be catching fire. Then rumors start coming out of the woodwork. This is New Jersey with Atlantic City and its gambling dens just around the corner; big money is involved in many ways.

John Ceepak is taking it one step at a time. Danny Boyle, on the other hand, is the kind of guy––as he puts it––who would rather land on a square with a chute or ladder so he can skip some of the boring moves. Maybe it is the combination of two such different personalities that works so well. In any case, when in doubt, whatever the situation––emotional, critical or just plain nostalgic––both of these guys fall back on Eastern philosophy. Eastern coast that is, as elucidated by the "Boss," Bruce Springsteen.

It is a bit too early to go to the nearest boardwalk, but when I slipped into Fun House I had what my children used to call, ungrammatically, "a really fun time." The pace was rapid, but if you read too fast you might miss some of the dryly-humorous comments that toboggan out of Danny’s mouth, guaranteed to crack you up and make you want to read the book over again to make sure nothing slid by.

What I really like about this series is that the plots are original, even when reflecting pop culture. The location is not unusual, but it is presented in an extraordinary fashion and if you have ever been "down the shore" as it is said in some parts, you feel like you are back there on vacation. The characters are complex, and if morose, not for more than a few hours.

From the Boss:

"Oh, the price you pay, oh, the price you pay

Now you can’t walk away from the price you pay"

Some of Danny’s words of wisdom––priceless!

One Is Not Enough

It’s not been published in a medical journal as far as I know, but I have been given to understand that one way of predicting whether one has a potential for addiction is by the Oreo test. You are safe enough if you can stop after eating one. This is one test I am sorry to say I have failed gloriously many times. Call me an Oreo addict. It doesn’t matter if they are the classic, the double stuff, the berry flavored or even the football shaped; they are welcome on my plate. I am confident that I am one of many, because the Oreo is celebrating its 100th birthday this year.

One other thing that I am addicted to is the murder mystery. Stories told about exotic locations, intrepid protagonists, are all tasty to me, but I do still appreciate home-grown classics as well. These days, I read a great many series and of these, there are a few that once begun trigger my addictive personality and I can't stop until I have finished them all.

Two that I will discuss are like the fine, chocolatey, crispy, but firm Oreo cookie outsides and one that I consider the sweet creamy center. When I first read The Cold Dish by Craig Johnson I was hooked by the first bite:

"There's nothing like a dead body to make you feel, well, removed. I guess the big city boys, cataloguing forty or fifty homicides a year get used to it but I never have. There is a religion worthy of this rite of passage, of taking that final step of being a vertical creature instead of a horizontal one. Yesterday you were just some nobody; today you're the honored dead with bread bags rubber banded over your hands. I secure what’s left of my dwindling confidence with the false confidence of the living, the deceitful wit of the eight-foot tall and bulletproof. Yea verily though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will live forever. If I don't, I sure won't become an unattended dead in the state of Wyoming with sheep sh*t all over me."

Sheriff Walt Longmire has been on the job for many years, and when he is first called to the scene of the crime he is positive that he is on the way to the great sheepicide he has been long awaiting. Instead, he finds the body of a young man who had been killed with a single shot through the back. Weapons experts determine that the weapon was most likely a very special rifle known as a Sharps rifle.

The history of the dead young man––one Cody Pritchard who, as Longmire puts it, departed for the far country from which no traveler ever born returns––is that he was no angel. Among other things, three years prior to his murder he was involved in a brutal gang rape of a young Cheyenne maiden who was afflicted with fetal alcohol syndrome.

The history of the Sharps rifle is that it was designed by Christian Sharps and adopted by the military in 1874 because it could kill a horse stone dead at 600 yards. It was used at Harpers Ferry, and by the Indians as well, as a buffalo rifle. Sharps shooter = sharpshooter.  It was the Sharps rifles that put the icing on the cake at Little Big Horn. There were few of these rifles around, and you needed to be a marksman to shoot this rifle cleanly. The list of people who owned one was short.

Within days, two of the other young men out of the three remaining involved in the rape case were found dead, killed by Sharps. Walt Longmire and his Deputy, Victoria Moretti, a Philadelphia transplant with a mouth worse than a sailor, are fighting the weather of the high plains of Wyoming, as well as fears that more deaths will happen before the killer is caught.

And that was a great and enticing beginning to the rest of the Craig Johnson series, which goes from strength to strength. There are now eight books in this award-winning series, the latest of which is As the Crow Flies, due out in May.

Slightly darker, but oh, so satisfying, is Martin Limón's series revolving around the exploits of a military duo in South Korea. After their introduction in Jade Lady Burning, I was anxious to read Slicky Boys.

George Sueño and his partner, Ernie Bascom, are both grateful to the army. What for? For George it is because he has a real life, money coming in, and has a job to do. He and Ernie are CID investigators for the 8th United States Army in Seoul, South Korea. They wear suits and do important work, something George never thought he would do growing up in East Los Angeles. Ernie's Chicago youth also left much to be desired.

Itaewon

After work, these two friends and partners spend their free time in Itaewon, a seedy part of town filled with bars and businesswomen. On this occasion, they do a favor for one of the girls they met and it results in the death of a British soldier. It turned out that he was a little shady, and as the CID investigators they need to find his murderer before they themselves are in hot water for perhaps leading him to his death.

Part of the investigation reveals connections to a widespread systematic thievery of the American enclaves. After the devastation of the Korean War 20 years before, people were desperate and starving. In the middle of these wastelands were American military settlements surrounded by barbed wire, and these were the only places with food, clothing and shelter. The people would barter with the GIs for the wealth they held, be it so small as a used bar of soap. Others were more aggressive, using thievery. "Slick boys" is what the GIs called them, and the South Koreans softened it to "slicky boys." Many were exactly that, boys of six to 10 years old. They would slip through the wire and take anything that could fit in their pockets.

8th Army PX

In George Sueño's time, they were very organized and he was going to find out just how much. What he found impressed him, because there was a certain honor to the way the losses to the American compounds were always kept just below what the US Government allotted for. No greed was permitted. In this way, they also hid from investigations.

As Sueño's investigation proceeds, he feels that he is becoming wrapped in the tentacles of a giant squid. There are more brutal murders and the partners find far-reaching fingers in the pie, such as the North Koreans, the South Korean police, the South Korean and the US Navies. The case is dragging them down to the depths of evil.  On the surface, at least part of the problem is the loss of military secrets.

Sueño has to lower himself to abide by the dictates of common thieves, but this did not really bother him. He was from East LA and he had been fighting his way up from the bottom all his life. His strength in his relations with the South Koreans is that he is one of the few who bothered to learn the language, to learn about the culture and to understand the desperate circumstances that force people into certain ways of life.

Martin Limón takes us to a South Korea that is fascinating, exciting and complex. He uses a bit of the history of the people he writes about to make us appreciate an Asian culture that has suffered for the last centuries. The seventh and, so far, the last in this series is Mr. Kill, published in 2011.

Some of us take off the outsides of the Oreo, lick them and put them aside for later. Then spend a sweet time with the creamy middle. My grandson is one of these. It is such fun to watch his ritual. My appreciation of this sugar jolt can be compared to the sensation I have when reading the Chris Grabenstein series that takes place on the Jersey shore where people go to escape.

In Tilt–A-Whirl, we are introduced to appealing partners John Ceepak, an Iraq war veteran and his sidekick, young Danny Boyle, who narrates the story.

“Some guys have a code they live by, some guys don't.
John Ceepak? He has a code.
Me? No code. Not unless you count my zip code or something."

So says Danny Boyle, a Sea Haven 2.5. That is to say a part-time summer cop in a tourist town on the Jersey shore called Sea Haven. He is a hometown boy who likes the job because of the cop cap, which he believes attracts the babes.

Ceepak, on the other hand, just finished a 13-year stint with the army, where he was in the military police. Before the army, he studied criminology. Before that, he was an Eagle Scout. Before that, Boyle figures he was one helluva hall monitor in kindergarten. He is a cop 24/7. One thing they have in common is The Boss, Bruce Springsteen.

Every morning, they meet at 7:30 at the Pancake Palace to discuss the plans for the day. It begins as a girl runs down the boardwalk covered with blood. The murder victim found on the Tilt-A-Whirl ride is Reginald Hart, a wealthy real estate tycoon also known as Reginald Hartless because of the lowdown tactics he has used in the past to drive tenants out of buildings.

Ceepak's code is simple. He will not tell a lie, or steal, or cheat, or tolerate those who do. It is an honor code. It is something Danny Boyle is learning to live by as well. He is having to grow up this summer and it is about time. As the story unfolds, we learn a little about what makes John Ceepak the man he is, and the Tilt-A-Whirl murder stretches his sense of honor to the limits.

Chris Grabenstein has a wonderful way with words. From the moment the story begins, you are on a wild, exhilarating ride, with the wind in your face, the tang of salt air mingling with the smell of popcorn and the sound of laughter in the background. Grabenstein paints distinct visuals that remain with you long after the book is finished. There is one description of a chase of a wild-haired man through a working car wash that made me laugh like a hyena. So many of his descriptions keep such a big smile on your face that this dead seriousness of the crime and the criminality of what goes on in Sea Haven and elsewhere is lightened a bit.

In this series, which is followed by Mad Mouse––also the name of a ride at an amusement park––there is a lot of amusement. But there is plenty of seriousness as well, always lightened by Bruce Springsteen quotes chosen appropriately for the moment. At the end of Tilt-A-Whirl, when John and Danny have to pick their spirits up, Danny is reminded of the song Springsteen wrote for the New York City firefighters after 9/11, the ones who went into the fire because they knew it was the right thing to do.

May your strength give us strength
May your faith give us faith
May your hope give us hope
May your love give us love

Danny decides to work on his code as well.

The seventh and latest of the group is Fun House, due out in May. Meanwhile, I have to dip into my spring yellow-centered Oreos, because I am salivating already.