A good read that is also an educational one!

Just finished a great non-fiction book by Bruce Henderson called Trace Evidence. It is a meticulously researched account of the hunt for the I-5 killer in northern California. I strongly recommend it, on a couple of levels.

The account itself is riveting, using interviews and transcripts to detail the abductions of several women and the subsequent murder investigations. Henderson makes this read like good fiction, which is always a mark of superior non-fiction.

However, the account also appealed to me as a fiction writer, in that it provides an excellent police/forensic procedural. It shows how detective-work is similar/different across jurisdictions, and how multiple jurisdictions can cloud an investigation. It also provides a fascinating picture into how forensic trace-evidence can be used to pin down a suspect (in this case, Roger Kibbe).

A good read that is also an educational one!

They must "get the job done!"

I caught parts of The Guns of Navarone the other day on TCM. Although not as good as the book (which I recall as riveting), it is a great action picture, albeit a bit absurd. Gregory Peck described it as part love story and part keystone cops. The love story is a bit unconventional, in that:

"David Niven really loves Tony Quayle and Gregory Peck loves Anthony Quinn. Tony Quayle breaks his leg and is sent off to the hospital. Tony Quinn falls in love with Irene Pappas, and David Niven and Peck catch each other on the rebound and live happily ever after."

Like Where Eagles Dare (also by A. MacLean), this small band defeats the entire German army. Peck thought the whole thing so ridiculous that the only way it would work is for the actors to play it with great conviction. That they do.

Perhaps the biggest absurdity comes near the end. Throughout, the buildup has been a small band sent on a near-impossible suicide mission. The repeated catchphrase is that they must “get the job” done and destroy the guns. Now, why the Germans, who are fighting throughout the world, devoted considerable resources to guns in a remote Greek Island is never explained. But even so, they must stop the guns at all costs. They must “Get the job done.”

Here’s the kicker (spoiler alert), the fuses and timers are destroyed by a beautiful saboteur. So, the chemical-genius David Niven must devise ways of detonating the explosive while still giving them a chance to escape. The methods are chancy and may not work, but it’s the only option they have.

Of course, a committed band on a suicide mission should face no such dilemma. If the only thing that matters is to “get the job done,” and if they are locked in with the guns and ammo (as they are), then one man gets left behind with a hand grenade. Boom! Job is done. Man is dead, but there is no uncertainty about getting the job done. But then, one wouldn’t have a Hollywood blockbuster, now would one?

Reccomend it to a niece, but not your favorite one.

I recently purchased Stephen King’s newest, Gwendy’s Button Box, written in collaboration with Richard Chizmar. I bought it for my kindle based on the author and the back-cover blurb, which sounded like another eerie tale from Castle Rock. Then I read the book, which is when the disappointment set in.

To start with, Stephen King’s contribution seems limited to providing the names of Castle Rock and environs. There are occasional flashes of him in the writing, but the novel was primarily written by Chizmar. I won’t say he is a bad writer, I’ll only say he is of lesser caliber.

The next big disappointment was that the novel is geared to the middle-grade or young-adult audience, which was not clear from the write-up. We are treated to involved descriptions of Gwendy’s teenage angst flowering into young womanhood, complete with the tribulations of dealing with a budding body and budding romance. Teenage girls might like it, I did not. I’d prefer a little budding suspense and terror.

Finally, it is a short novel (novella?), which is a mixed blessing: I felt bad having wasted $7 bucks on a two-hour read, but at least didn’t have to deal with anymore adolescent whining.

My advice, recommend it to a niece, but not your favorite one.

And to think, that was less than 75 years ago.

I recently finished reading Our Island Road to Tokyo, by General (retired) Robert Eichelberger. His Eight Army did much of the leg work reconquering the Philippines, and other divisions/corps he commanded fought the early war to retake New Guinea.

It is not a particularly well written book, with kind of a Grandma Moses literary style. But what it lacks in sophistication it makes up for with a simple narrative that highlights an important but mostly forgotten chapter in the pacific war.

Few Americans realize how important the Island of New Guinea was at the start of WWII. Situated just off the Australian coast, NG straddled the supply lines to our best/sole ally and largest/main base in the region. The Japanese controlled the entire north coast of this massive island, and much of the first year and a half of our Pacific war was contesting this control (eg, Coral Sea, Guadalcanal, defense of Port Moresby) and then retaking the place. The latter was an arduous affair, fought on a shoestring amid appalling jungle conditions. In a series of jungle treks and amphibious jumps, US and Australian forces fought for over a year to seize places with unlikely names like Buna, Weewak, Salamaua, and Sanananda. Malaria and other disease were common, shoes/uniforms rotted apart in the torrential rains and mud, diet was monotonously bad, and fanatical Japs were constantly trying to kill you. There were tens of thousands of US casualties, and many times that number (mostly killed) on the Japanese side.

And to think, that this was less than 75 years ago.

Papa's writing is hard to describe, but I know I like it.

Caught parts of Hemingway’s Adventures of a Young Man the other day on TCM. The movie is based on ten of Papa’s Nick Adams short stories and parts of Farewell to Arms.

I’d seen bits of this movie long ago, and came away with the impression it wasn’t a great film. This time around confirmed that impression, but left me with another one. It is a good film. For several reasons.

The acting is excellent. Paul Newman as the punch-drunk Battler and Arthur Kennedy as Nick’s father stand out, but even Richard Beymer (Nick) was better than average. Susan Strasburg’s Italian accent was a little laughable. Perhaps they should have cast her as an American or English nurse working in Italy. Jessica Tandy was also good as Nick’s mother, but the character is so cold, distant, and unlikable, it’s hard to warm up to the performance.

The scenery was gorgeous. I’m speaking here primarily about the scenes in Northern Michigan. Fall on the lake, with gold and red leaves blowing off the trees, creates a lonely, wistful setting that mirrors Nick’s dysfunctional family life.

Finally, and maybe most importantly, much of the dialogue was borrowed directly from Hemingway’s work. I don’t know what it is about his writing that makes it so good. I went back and read several of the short stories from the movie, those that I either had not read or had not read for decades. The sentences are short, often choppy. He frequently repeats himself, especially during dialogue. There is little action. Yet, a genuineness comes across the page, making you feel you are experiencing things the way the characters do. It’s hard to describe. But I know I like it.

Pet-food ads make me sore. Or why Michael Crichton never visited a genetics lab.

Author Michael Crichton was once asked if he visited genetic research labs before writing Jurassic Park. His reply? “No. Why would I? They don’t know how to make a dinosaur either.” That’s the fun of fiction. You can take something ridiculous and jazz it up with a little pseudo-science to create a great story. But in the real world of pet nutrition, science is better.

I recently saw a dog-food commercial that boldly stated that Golden retrievers and Labrador retrievers may look similar, but have very different nutritional requirements. Wow! I went through four years of vet school and seven years of practice without learning this. Until recently, my wife edited the premier veterinary text book in the country but also somehow missed that point while poring over hundreds of pages on nutrition.

News flash for pet-food advertisers. Not only do Labs and Goldens look similar, they are both retrievers from the sporting-dog group. Not only do they share similar nutritional requirement with each other, they share them with other members of the group, including spaniels and setters. Or for that matter, other large dogs like Dobermans and Shepherds. In fact, their nutritional needs are not very far off those of miniature poodles, with the obvious exception of kibble size and caloric intake. Now it is true that nutritional needs vary with age, pregnancy status, and illness. But to say that two similar, healthy retrievers are somehow internally alien, is for want of a better term, dog wash.

The other thing I’ve noticed lately is an appeal to politically correct perceptions of pet nutrition. I’ve seen ads touting a dog food that contains no genetically modified ingredients. Yet, there is no evidence that GMOs are at all harmful. In fact, genetic modification is not even new. It has been going on for centuries under the auspices of selective plant breeding. All genetic engineering does is shorten and simplify the process, so that only the desired traits (eg, disease/drought resistance, extra protein, etc.) are added to the altered plant.

Another type of ad appeals to the cave man in us, touting that dogs are wolves that should only eat meat. Ugh! While this might have some viewers beating their chests in a Tarzan yell, it is again not true. Dogs are not wolves. They are pet animals with a 10,000-year history of domestication. And even in the wild, wolves consume a fair amount of vegetation, like that yucky stuff in the rumen of a deer. Decades of research have shown that animal by-products and vegetable sources have benefits as cost-effective forms of nutrition. That’s something that name-brand dog foods like Purina, Iams, and Science Diet know well. In fact, all-meat diets can actually cause nutrient imbalances, especially in minerals like calcium and phosphorous.

So, whenever you see one of these dog-food ads, remember to take them with a grain of genetically modified salt. Then give your dog his Science Diet with a clear conscious.

With that one word, and that look, we know exactly what kind of men these are.

Wait until Dark will be on TCM this weekend. A very good film, with excellent acting. Audrey Hepburn plays a very plausible blind woman, being very plausibly terrified. But it is the character portrayals by the likes of Alan Arkin, Jack Weston, and Richard Crenna that really float my boat. The writing is also nice and crisp, and provides perhaps the best example of ‘show don’t tell’ in the trade.

Early in the movie, Alan Arkin’s creepy evil is revealed. But we don’t know about the characters played by Crenna and Weston. Both actors are likable, so we suspect maybe they might have some moral fiber. Maybe anti-heros. But we don’t know. Instead of expending yards and yards of film telling us about their character, the writer removes all doubt in just three short lines and one look. I paraphrase.

Crenna asks, “Do we have to hurt anybody?”

Arkin responds, “Do you care?”

Crenna answers, “No,” with a look on his face that says it really doesn’t matter to him at all.

With that one word, and that look, we know exactly what kind of men these are.

I've ordered more Elmore paperbacks. Twill be a sad day indeed when I run through his bill of fare.

Haven’t mused my grey matter lately. Things come up and I was traveling. The latter consisted of four airplane flights and time on a cruise ship sipping wine on a sunlit balcony (it was tough, but somebody had to do it). Needless to say, I had lots of time for reading. In this case, my good pal Elmore Leonard.

I first read Rylan, the last of this series and one of the last books Dutch ever wrote. The book was a bit unusual in that there was no standard plot line. Rather, there were three successive plots, loosely connected to make a novel. None of the three novellas had the standard structure of a thriller or heist book. But the characters lived and breathed, and I loved it.

Next up was Out of Sight. Pardon my lack of originality, but it was out of sight! The villains were most interesting and in some cases (eg, Jack Foley) quite likable. The protagonist (Karen Sisco) was fun and much more textured than your typical pulp heroine. I liked the book so much, that I ordered the movie off Amazon as soon as I got home.

But here’s the rub. My two books were completed by the time the boat docked, and I hadn’t brought my kindle. So I was stuck getting an airplane read at a jet-way snack counter that had a total of 10-15 paperback novels lined up next to the trail mix. So I purchased a David Baldacci (The Last Mile) because I had read one of his books previously, and it had been an ok thriller. The problem this time was that I had just read Elmore Leonard. I know that Baldacci is a very popular writer, but compared to Dutch, his characters were wooden and his pacing turgid. And what’s with the exposition? Describing everything in excruciating detail, from a breakfast order to the pattern on some guy’s tie. Does that advance the plot? Do I need to know? Can’t I let my imagination fill it in? Do I care?

Long story short, I stopped Last Mile on page 80, and switched to Razor’s Edge by Somerset Maugham. More on that in another blog. And of course, I’ve ordered more Elmore paper backs. Twill be a sad day when I run through his bill of fare.