I Did That on Purpose

Ed McBain used to tell of readers who’d point out inconsistencies in Isola geography between books written years apart. One even sent McBain what amounted to an atlas of every location he’d ever mentioned in all the 87^th Precinct novels. (If memory serves, this included hand-drawn maps.) McBain couldn’t decide whether to be flattered or concerned. I mean, the guy clearly loved the books and bought them as soon as they were available. On the other hand, what kind of holes was he filing in his life that he took that kind of time living in Isola’s alternate universe?

All writers are subject to this, though not to the same extent. Readers love to point out errors. Sometimes it’s out of affection and a desire to see a favorite author get something right. Sometimes it’s a way to show their knowledge of a certain field is superior to the author’s. (Or at least that they think it is. Readers who point out perceived errors are not always correct themselves.) And some are just pricks playing “Gotcha” in the hope of proving (to themselves, likely) that while this big shot author may be making money off his writing, he’s no smarter than I am.

Authors respond in different ways. Some ignore any such comments. Some engage, either to agree with the reader and apologize for the error, or to point out the reader’s error. The latter can be fraught with peril. Among my favorite panels at Creatures, Crimes, and Creativity conferences is when the guests of honor get together to talk about their mail and detail some of the exchanges they’ve had over accuracy, or, more precisely, the lack thereof. The stories range from hilarious to chilling.

Some authors argue, which even I, argumentative as anyone, see no profit in. Even worse are those who argue publicly when a reviewer points out an error in a forum such as Amazon or Goodreads. There’s no upside to that. It deteriorates into a pissing contest no one can win and the author can’t help but come off as the bad guy, punching down in weight class.

The best response to readers who point out errors, the one I’m adopting right now and from this point forward, the one I’m pissed I hadn’t thought of, and the one I consider PFG (Pure Fucking Genius), comes courtesy of Adrian McKinty, author of the Sean Duffy series. (Which I cannot recommend highly enough.) It’s from an old blog post I stumbled onto while reading a recent entry.

In short, when a reader points out an inconsistency with fact in one of the Duffy books—say, a road not yet built when the story takes place—Adrian explains that Duffy’s fictional world exists in an alternate universe where the road had been built. He freely cops to inconsistencies such as a character’s eyes changing color during the book: Sorry, mate, you caught me out there. I’ll see can it be changed for the paperback. Facts are more fluid and may need adjustment to get to the greater truth. (To a point. The Duffy books take place in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. I believe the chances that Queen Elizabeth will come to an untimely demise are roughly equivalent to Lord Mountbatten surviving his attack.)

The Duffy books are historical, but the principle applies to non-period works. I actually made a conscious decision to do exactly this in Penns River without realizing it. Penns River stands in for three small, adjacent cities in Western Pennsylvania. I’ve even gone so far as to make a Google map of “Penns River” that encompasses the three cities (and one township) that make up Neshannock County. I use actual street names and locations so I never have to worry about McBain’s conundrum of forgetting where I put things.

This also allows me to create places as needed. Just because I used Leechburg Road and Drey Street and the coffee shop on Tarentum Bridge Road doesn’t mean any of this is real; there is no such place as Penns River or Neshannock County in Pennsylvania. This frees me up to create whatever else I want, such as a casino in an abandoned shopping mall, or to decide Ben Dougherty lives in the last townhouse in the row near the top of Garver’s Ferry Hill. They exist in that fictional version of the Tri-Cities. Reader response to Worst Enemies and Grind Joint implies the technique is effective.

Let’s hope that remains true in Resurrection Mall.

Best Reads of 2016

I read 67 books in 2016; started and failed to finish nine more. Below are my ten favorites, though not necessarily released in 2016 (I think only two were). I’m not saying they were the best books. These are the ten that stuck in my mind as the best reading experiences. (Listed alphabetically by title.)

A Detailed Man, David Swinson. Often neglected in the well-deserved buzz that surrounds The Second Girl, A Detailed Man deserves attention on its own merits. The story of a burned-out cop as he decides how badly he wants to rebuild his career (or not) and the various vicissitudes of having no regular gig in a police department.

Flash Boys, Michael Lewis. The stock market may have been intended as a way to create fluid capital and bring buyers and sellers together, but the people making the big money have nothing to do with any of that. They think of it as a casino and Lewis’s book described how they filter the skim for themselves.

King Maybe, Timothy Hallinan. The first of two Junior Bender adventures this year continues the series in good form, in part by returning Junior more to his roots as a burglar who gets by more on his wits than on hardware.

LaBrava, Elmore Leonard. Among the few Leonard novels I hadn’t read, ad from his prime crime period. As good as I’d heard it would be. True, his characters and plots have a lot of similarities, but they’re similar in good ways and just different enough you don’t mind. Besides, no one reads Elmore Leonard for the plots.

The Lost Detective, Nathan Ward. Maybe the best book I’ve ever read about a writer.

The Long and Faraway Gone, Lou Berney. Deserves all the acclaim. A departure from Gutshot Straight and Whiplash River, though the elements that made both of them so good are here, as well as an added layer. I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next.

The Martian, Andy Weir. The biggest surprise read of the year. It’s been a long time since I read a book I enjoyed more.

Once Were Cops, Ken Bruen. Snuck in under the deadline to remind me how good Bruen is, even with awkward material.

Rain Dogs, Adrian McKinty. Book Five of the Troubles Trilogy shows why McKinty didn’t stop at three. He had a lot more for Sean Duffy to say and do.

World Gone By, Dennis Lehane. Sequel to Live By Night, and I liked it better.

Honorable Mention

The Hunter and Other Stories, Dashiell Hammett. A good cross-section of Hammett’s shorts.

To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee. Finally got around to reading this, thanks to David Swinson. I see why it’s such a big deal, though it probably would have moved me more had I read it in school.

L.A. Confidential, James Ellroy. A big, glorious mess of a book. If you’re into Ellroy’s writing for the sake of the writing, read it. If you have a mission to read the entire LA Quartet, read it. Otherwise, see the movie.

The Long Good-Bye / Bay City Blues, Raymond Chandler. One of the Big Three Chandler novels, and one of the best shorts.

One or the Other, John McFetridge. The Olympics came to Montreal in 1976, and Eddie Dougherty was there. Take a look at how the Olympics affects a major city from the ground up.

Rumrunners, Eric Beetner. No one writes books that lend themselves to movie treatments better than Beetner. Unlike many others, his are outstanding books, too. Picture Harry Dean Stanton as the tough as nails old man here.

Rough Trade, Todd Robinson. Boo and Junior are in over their heads again, and Robinson gets them out in a way only he can.

June's Best Reads

Went back to some old reliable authors in June and they came through for me, as usual.

L.A. Confidential, James Ellroy. The weakest of the three LA Quartet novels I’ve read so far, but still wonderful stuff. Brian Helgeland and Curtis Hanson did yeomen’s work converting this sprawling magnificent mess of a book into a lean, satisfying, and damn near perfect movie. The book shows the continued evolution of Ellroy’s style: using snippets of police reports and newspaper articles to show the passage of time, increasingly percussive sentences, and three-dimensional plotting as everyone schemes around everyone else. That’s where the problem arises: it’s too much. Credulity is strained and the ending is so complicated Ellroy has no choice but to revert to the traditional mystery’s hoary convention of having characters standing around explaining what the hell just happened. And he has to have them do it twice. Read the book if you want to get off on the writing. See the movie for a better story.

The Whites, Richard Price. There’s nothing about Price’s writing that stands out, which is why I think he sometimes falls through the cracks in my reading. His style isn’t flashy like Ellroy’s. His characters aren’t as glib as Elmore Leonard’s. The dialog isn’t as transcript-ready as George Higgins’s. What Price does best is to do everything right. His books perfectly balance story and characterization, he knows exactly how much description to give, and you believe everything in them. The Whites isn’t as good as Clockers, but few books are.

Rain Dogs, Adrian McKinty. In his famous essay “The Simple Art of Murder,” Raymond Chandler wrote, “The fellow who can write you a vivid and colorful prose simply won’t be bothered with the coolie labor of breaking down unbreakable alibis.” Chandler never read Adrian McKinty. (Ray is excused. McKinty wasn’t born until nine years after Chandler died.) Volume Five of the Troubles Trilogy may be the best yet. Sean Duffy is still slogging away as the only Catholic cop in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland in the 80s and he continues to take his lumps. Not blessed with Sherlock Holmes’s brilliance, he’s a hard man in his own way, never afraid to push the buttons he thinks need pushing, but neither is he some Lethal Weapon renegade. Mostly he’s a guy in a consistently difficult position who is offended that people keep thinking they can put one over on him. Duffy plugs away until he gets at least some measure of satisfaction, if not always justice. 

Greater Empathy Through Fiction?

I’ve heard it said that those who read fiction develop a greater sense of empathy. Maybe. It could also be an example of my favorite Latin logic fallacy, which I trot out at the drop of a hat because I love how it sounds: post hoc ergo propter hoc. (After this, therefore because of this.) It could be people with greater senses of empathy are attracted to novels, and those with less of that quality read non-fiction. I’ll leave that for greater minds to debate. There is no shortage of them in the world.

What I do know is that I have far more empathy for those whose situations vary from my own than I did as a younger man. There is no single date or occurrence that prompted it. I can say when the tide began to turn: The Wire. I came late to the show (as usual), picking up Season One with Season Four already in progress. I’d already read Homicide, so I was primed. Around this time I read The Corner and I started to to look past the superficial dissimilarities between my rural upbringing and what happens in the inner city of Baltimore.

My reading remained focused on crime, but crime with more diversity. While reviewing books for the New Mystery Reader web site I became sort of the unofficial Irish crime fiction reviewer, routinely assigned books by Declan Burke, Declan Hughes, Adrian McKinty, and Ken Bruen. NMR also exposed me to Tim Hallinan’s Poke Rafferty thrillers, set in Bangkok. Charlie Stella’s looks at mob life from the underside. Arnaldur Indriðason’s Iceland novels and Leighton Gage’s Chief Inspector Silva series. J. D. Rhoades’s unique brand of redneck noir. Friends steered me toward Daniel Woodrell

I learned that once one gets past the superficial differences in language, culture, justice systems, availability of weapons, and which side of the road to drive on, people are pretty much the same. With outliers on either side, the great majority of people pretty much want to be left alone to live their lives as happily as they can, and for their children to have it better than they do. The only thing that made me special was having the foresight to be born in a country that allowed me to do those things.

It’s now easier for me to imagine—and I am grateful beyond words that I only have to imagine—what it must be like to live in a place where those things are denied to people. Even worse, a place where your life—and the lives of your family—is in danger because of things you have no control over. Gender. Sexual orientation. Race or ethnicity. I include religion, too, as the major organized religions all preach peace. (I’ll not hold it against any religion if some of its followers defame the faith by their very existence. These people are apostates, and they exist in every religion.) How would I feel if I lost everything I owned and faced the option of death or flight that took me to a place where I didn’t speak the language and my customs seemed as strange to the current inhabitants as theirs do to me.

It has become fashionable to declare at great length and volume against immigrants and refugees, and every nation certainly has the right to set its own polices for both. When doing so, let’s not forget that the only thing that allows us to pass judgment on who is worthy to cross our borders is an accident of birth. I served in the military, pay my taxes, vote, and comply with summonses for jury duty without complaint. I view them as debts owed that I can never fully repay, but do the best I can.

Let’s remember how we all got to where we are during this holiday season. Some work harder than others, but it’s a sin of hubris for anyone in this country to believe for an instant that he or she has earned what we have. We’ve done our part, but we also started ahead of the game by being born into a situation that allowed—and often encouraged—us to become everything our gifts and efforts warranted. Any “earning” we did came after the fact. With that in mind, let’s take a minute this holiday season to reflect on our great and largely undeserved good fortune and learn a little fucking humility.

Gun Street Girl, by Adrian McKinty

It’s a paradox of the author-reader relationship that some writers can so often—and so well—please a reader as to create a higher bar for themselves. The reader will still buy everything the author produces, but his standards for enjoyment may be higher than for a less-appreciated writer. I confess to being like that with Dennis Lehane. Live By Night got reviews about as good as The Given Day, but, to me, the fact it was even a notch below was a disappointment.

Adrian McKinty’s Sean Duffy series has entered that same rarified air. My expectations for Gun Street Girl, based on the previous Duffy books, were as high as for any book I’ve read in the past year. The difference is, there was not a jot of disappointment in Gun Street Girl; McKinty met even my inflated expectations.

The Duffy series has entered a realm where it is difficult to know which events are integrated historical facts, and which are purely fictional; he’s the Irish James Ellroy, with a less brutal style. Duffy isn’t a traditional here, nor is he bent the way so many of Ellroy’s characters are. He’s also not an anti-hero. He’s a man in a difficult, possibly untenable position: a Catholic cop in Protestant Northern Ireland during the peak of the Troubles. Scorned by many for being Catholic, he’s a member of what may be the most universally reviled organization in Northern Ireland: the Royal Ulster Constabulary. His fellow Catholics consider him a traitor because he’s a cop, and many of his peers on the police force—on whom he depends to have his back—distrust him because he’s Catholic. Now MI5 is recruiting him to work with informants, a prospect against even Sean recoils. He’s a cop, and cops depend on informants, but he’s also Irish, with a distaste for those who would inform on their peers as a violation of the Irish First Commandment: Whatever you say, say nothing.

As before, the case Duffy must solve is formidable enough, but it serves mostly as a frame on which to hang a description of everyday existence during the Troubles, as Duffy must navigate a barren personal life along with the workaday accommodations required of a member of the RUC, such as never starting the car without checking for bombs. His work is unfulfilling on many levels, but it’s all he has. Duffy is not defeated—he still hopes for more—never really expects it. He has his own code, his own compromises and sacrifices he’s willing to make, understanding more as time goes on his true loyalty must be to those who have come to accept him and will protect him with the same vigor he extends for them.

I’ve read all four of the Duffy novels, in sequence. It’s hard to say which is my favorite. The Cold, Cold Ground had the greatest impact on me, through its introduction to such a foreign world, but that could well have been the case no matter where I began; they’re all that good. Starting from the beginning does allow one to see Duffy’s life and attitude evolve as events take their toll, but he’s a fascinating character no matter where you pick him up. So pick him up. You’ll be fascinated and educated all at once.

I have heard it said those who read fiction have a more highly developed sense of empathy for having viewed so many of life’s trials through the eyes of others. Never has this been truer than when viewing life as Sean Duffy sees it.

March Reads

March was a bit of a mess for me personally, with travel and a family situation that required my attention. (The family situation is well on the way to a fully satisfactory resolution, so no worries.) I didn’t get to read as much as usual, but what I read was damned good.

Junkie Love, Joe Clifford. I’ll have more to say about this on Monday. For now, suffice to say I can’t remember any book having a greater effect on me. Now I understand what “gobsmacked” means.

Gun Street Girl, Adrian McKinty. A more detailed review than will fit here will be available in a week or so. McKinty is the Irish James Ellroy.

Hollywood Crows, Joseph Wambaugh. The master of scene reversal. There are laugh out loud funny scenes, but don’t laugh too hard: what’s happening may not be funny on the next page. His Hollywood series lacks the punch of earlier works, such as The New Centurions, The Blue Knight, and the classic The Onion Field, but no one’s better at weaving seemingly disparate stories tighter and tighter until everything else falls away and what’s left is engrossing. He’s the poster child for my argument that not every book needs to open with a body.

December's Best Reads

Like December wasn’t a busy enough month, what with the holidays and the college graduation—with honors, no less—of one of my two favorite nieces (Congratulations, Aspen), good books were fighting each other to rush through my eyeballs to permanently imprint themselves on my brianal area. (I may be watching too much TV sports. Ever notice how sportscasters can never just say “he got hit in the face?” It’s always the “facial area.”)

Enough of me. These guys are good:

For the Dead, Timothy Hallinan. Poke Rafferty is back. I discussed this one in detail a few weeks ago. If you’re already a Hallinan fan, you need to read it. If you’re not a fan yet, read it and you will be.

Dead Red, Tim O’Mara. This one won’t release until next week, but is available for pre-order. The third of O’Mara’s successful Raymond Donne series finds Donne on summer vacation from teaching, sitting in a cab when the guy next to him gets his head shot off. I’ll have more to say when the book becomes generally available, including an interview with the author.

The Lost and the Blind, Declan Burke. I wrote on this one at length last week. Available in Ireland and the UK now; the colonies won’t have a shot at it until April. Sometimes one has to wonder if that whole revolution thing wasn’t a bit hasty.

The Friends of Eddie Coyle, George V. Higgins. Yes, I read it again, and, yes, I still think it may be the finest bit of crime fiction ever written.

The Sun is God, Adrian McKinty. A bit of a departure for McKinty, this historically-based mystery tells the story of a murder on a German colony in the south Pacific, in an enclave made up of a handful of nudists who eat only coconuts and bananas. (That part is true: such a colony did exist a little over a hundred years ago.) McKinty uses it as a satire on social mores and manners. The ending gets a little hairy, but McKinty’s story-telling gifts are on full display, and that’s more than enough.

The Good Cop, Brad Parks. My lack of affinity for bestsellers has been previously documented. I’m also leery of comedic crime fiction, if only because such books way too often either trivialize the violence or aren’t actually funny. I met Parks at a conference, he seemed to know what he was doing, so, what the hell? Good for me. Parks has the gift of paying full respect to the victims of violence while populating the cast with enough “characters” to keep a smile never more than a page away. I see why he keeps winning all those damned awards; he earns them. Added to the rotation.

All the President’s Men, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. I read it when it first came out, and, of course, saw the movie. (Learning Robert Redford had been cast to play him had to be the best day of Bob Woodward’s life.) Age and experience have made this an even more chilling read, placed in the context of how government and journalism have changed over the past forty years. Read it with what you know now and see if you aren’t dismayed by how fragile are the walls that protect our ability to have a say in how we live.