David Thayer

Gulliver Langston, the feared literary critic, has rendered his judgment on the Earl’s most recent novel, Rimbaud. “From the opening pages Rimbaud seizes the reader by the throat, applies pressure, choking off oxygen to the brain.”

Young Arthur Rimdaud, Twenty Second Earl of Watership Down, must secure his love, Faire Olive, from the clutches of the Dauphin. Without thought for his own safety Rimbaud boards the frigate Forthright, battling the French Navy, Armenian Pirates, and a sinister group of Ukrainians until he sails through the Pillars of Hercules. There he duels a Bourbon prince, invents electricity, and topples a Pretender before sailing onward. In the straights of Sardinia he sees Olive aboard the mighty tuna trawler Von Klausewitz. Rimbaud sinks the trawler but the Forthright is damaged by a Luftwaffe assault. He endures eleven years of exile posing as a Greek poet earning very little pay.

When word cometh of Olive’s proposed nuptials to the Dauphin’s deranged nephew, Rimbaud can wait no longer; he travels to the Isle of the Sirens where, bedeviled by distractions, he drinks absynthe and writes haikus. He mails these blunt missives to the Court where Olive reads them aloud to a coterie of critics. Incensed, the Dauphin launches his entire fleet. Rimbaud, somewhat out of shape from all the poetry writing, is taken in chains to Castle Gauche where chintz and brocade conceal a dark secret: Olive is vacationing in Turkey.

Rimbaud dons an ornate headband, enabling him to crush a Byzantine army, cross the Dardanelles and storm Istanbul. He reties the Gordion Knot, freeing Olive from her delusional belief that the Dauphin’s nephew is Alexander the Great. In a final climactic battle Rimbaud crushes Parthian forces seeking to spirit Olive away. He invades France and embraces Olive on the Pont Neuf. Then it’s off to Reno for a much deserved holiday.

Gulliver Langston’s column appears in the Druidical & Literary every third Wednesday of the month. His ongoing feud with The Earl may cloud his judgment, but he remains devoted to protecting the reading public from inferior prose. He does wonder if Rimbaud is off to Reno alone or in the company of Faire Olive since her vacation was interrupted by the novel’s somewhat improbable denouement. Could she get more time off on short notice? Also the pacing of the book suffers from the eleven year hiatus as virtually nothing happens for close to six hundred pages. Why a Greek poet? Does the main character understand Greek? Would the Luftwaffe attack a tuna boat? Aren’t tuna valuable?

Daniel Judson’s novel THE DARKEST PLACE was released by SMP-Minotaur last month. Yesterday the publicists at SMP launched a second wave on behalf of the book and I’m glad they did. I almost missed this one and that would’ve been too bad as this is one of the best crime novels of the year. I’ll do a review within the week but in the meanwhile here is what I know about the author. Daniel Judson lives on the east end of Long Island where he attended Southampton College. That’s Yaz territory for those of you in Red Sox Nation. Yaz.

There is an interview at Bookreporter from last month in which Judson discusses THE DARKEST PLACE  and his previous novels THE BONE ORCHARD and THE POISONED ROSE. THE BONE ORCHARD garnered an EDGAR nomination and based on the writing in THE DARKEST PLACE I can see why. I’ll put a link to the Bookreporter interview on the blogroll.

Favorites in 2006: DOPE  by Sara Gran, SMOKED by Patrick Quinlan, THE DEAD HOUR by Denise Mina, FIELD OF DARKNESS by Cornelia Read, THE LINCOLN LAWYER by Michael Connelly. I think that THE DARKEST PLACE will find its way onto my favorites list as well.

THE BETRAYED is David Hosp’s second novel, a follow up to last year’s DARK HARBOR. He sets his new book in Pelecanos country, Washington DC, and one of the principal characters is Detective Darius Train, an African-American cop from the streets. But Hosp and Pelecanos have different agendas; THE BETRAYED is a thriller although it blurs the lines at times between thriller and procedural. The story is set off by the murder of a Washington Post reporter as seen through the eyes of her fourteen year old daughter Amanda. The victim is from one of the wealthiest families in the country, which establishes the intrigue of DC power politics.

Detectives Train and Cassian are assigned the case. The victim’s sister arrives from California, and becomes the novel’s central character. Sydney Chapin is determined to learn the truth about her sister’s murder, and as the story progresses becomes involved with Cassian. Hosp brings the romantic element into the story with skill and plausibility, no mean feat in the thriller game. He avoids the pitfalls of bestowing superpowers on his characters, forcing them to work toward resolution, making them believable throughout the story.

He’s equally adept at using the setting to good effect and ups the ante with a powerful senator as a possible suspect in the murder. The rough spots occur in the opening chapters where the cops are introduced, complete with a screaming boss. It takes a while for the thriller to emerge from the procedural where the author hits his stride. The story takes root in the science of eugenics and Hosp weaves this aspect of the plot into the climax and resolution.

David Hosp deserves kudos for avoiding the hyberpole that render many thrillers nonsensical. There are many reasons to turn the pages, and the story has complexity and character development in lieu of obvious plot points. THE BETRAYED exhibits fine intelligence, characters to care about, and a strong backstory, a welcome addition to the thriller genre.

I’m reluctant to share a lot of what’s happening in my life as a writer because much of it is boring. There’s the typing part which has evolved into keyboarding and that sounds worse than typing. Every once in a while there’s a trip to the post office to get in line behind the woman mailing forty boxes of stuff to various nation states and postal codes hither and yon. What always amazes me is when the post office dude asks “how do you want to pay for this?” the lady’s reaction unfolds in a series of rummaging for coins, dark glances, and repetitive asides to her six year old who doesn’t have a major credit card handy or enough pennies to cover shipping and handling sufficient to fling those forty boxes into the system. We’ve already been through the fragile prologue. High explosives? Any drawings of Che Guevara or Joe Stalin? Insurance? Stamps? Live hogs at auction? ( I just want to beg the post office dude: please do not offer any more options to this person. She’s not even listening, man.)

I’m holding up my end of the bargain, I think, standing there with my manuscript box. I’m ready for the questions: go ahead and shake the box, pal, yeah, turn it on end. It takes more time to mail a novel than to write one, or so it seems, because one thing about the post office is this: they ask the same questions every time, culminating with the method of payment, which, for reasons the PO feel make it more human and accessible they’ve trained their workers to offer an array of options, credit card, debit card, cash, low down payment pay as you go no interest for seventeen years, and what I suppose was a well intended customer service thing has turned into a showstopper where the undecided form an effective commercial blockade and the entire nation grinds to a halt while you start hoping that Vesuvius will erupt, anything, just pay the man. Your carefully addressed box is bleeding from every orifice and by the time Our Lady of the Boxes dredges through the contents of her purse some sort of New Ice Age will devour the city and no one will be able to read your book or anyone else’s due to the extreme cold. Or, the recipient of your manuscript will think it was mailed from the trunk of a Pontiac by the guy from Goodfellas who wasn’t as dead as everyone supposed: DeNiro and company didn’t need to shoot him, they could’ve asked him to mail something, you know, run to the post office, and he would’ve shot himself.

Tomorrow we’ll discuss the SASE.

Author JA Konrath is on the road this summer crisscrossing the US. If you live in a small or medium sized country you might not that be impressed with the miles Joe is logging; you can drive all over the Benelux countries and not get very far. I drove from Frankfurt am Main in Germany to drop someone off at the airport in Luxembourg. It took about twenty minutes but for all the fuss at the border where the Duchy’s pantalooned guards seized a round of Ementhaler. Then there was the backup near the Phinius T. Bluster Memorial Aqueduct where a half dozen Peugeots had gathered to die.

Konrath is putting the Intersate System to good use. At the same time MJ Rose is touring the blogosphere promoting her latest novel The Venus Trap. While Joe is wedged into some kind soul’s Plymouth wagon, MJ is home. Joe is reading the Howdy Stranger sign at a Motel Six near Akron while MJ is sipping Pinot Grigio in the familiar surroundings of her living room.

Both authors are on tour. MJ is missing the smell of diesel at dawn, the slap of the sixteen wheelers on concrete, Conway Twitty on 50,000 Watts of Jesus fueled downhome AM Radio, crystal clear from Mobile to Rock Island. She cannot have a Hallejuhah. MJ will not know the special Monongahela Omelett with the dill pickle and tobasco chaser that makes Mabel’s Keep On Truckin’ the place to eat in the Ohio River Valley. Joe knows: he knows that the Red Roof Inn is actually is a brighter shade of orange almost vermillion when the heat shimmies from the asphalt parking lot in the late afternoon. We’re rollin’ with you Joe because we know in our hearts that without pain there can be no gain. Joe’s on a Road Trip and sweet choruses of Angels will thunder by and great puddles of greasy rain will cascade from the Jack in the Box sign. MJ is going to miss seeing that.

MJ, you have our sympathy. You’ll take a little jaunt to the market and as you pull into the driveway that FM radio will yield the opening chords of Houses of the Holy and you’ll wish the state of Iowa was filling your windshield just to jam with Plant and the boys. You know that’s gonna happen, girl.

With jury selection, adverse selection, and natural selection almost complete, there came the stunning revelation that Duane Parvenu, Juror Six, is a Googlebot. Mr. Parvenu was exposed during a meal break when he opened a panel in his skull to pour Gatorade into a reservoir behind his left ear. “I was showing him how to grip a two seam fastball,” reported Juror Nine, Mrs. Wendy Bulwer-Lytton, of Peekskill. “He said “excuse me” and poured Gatorade into his head.” “He also knew the capital of Lesotho,” she added.

Judge Hamilcar Frist ordered the band to play “Houses of the Holy” during Mandy Rice-Davies dramatic entrance into the courtroom. Rice-Davies wore a red leather miniskirt and a white pillbox hat according to eyewitnesses. Prosecutor Gonads demanded that a charge be appended to the bill. “Those spiked heels are a lethal weapon,” he cried. One of the fat guys fell out of the jury box when Mandy winked at him; a barrage of cabbages and day old Napoleons accompanied cries of “she’s guilty” from the gallery. Judge Frist performed a hand stand that settled the crowd.

A Motion in limine was filed. Political correspondents, Puffy n Scooter, reported that the Crown planned to add a Greek Chorus to the prosecution team led by local thespian and Walmart greeter Arthur “Boom Boom” Geoffrion. “Mr. Geoffrion will cry out from time to time to emphasize points of order, points of law, and remind the jury of how guilty the defendants are.” He will be backed up by the Inner Goth Chorale.

DCI Borchardt took the googlebot into custody. “He may have obtained the Gatorade through defrauding a vending machine,” Borchardt said. “He was in possession of several Canadian quarters,” he added. Alternate Juror, Graciella Pace, will stand in for the duration.

The Earl is not scheduled to appear for several days, according to Borchardt. He’s being held in lieu of bond at the Fillmore East extension of City Jail. His attorney, D&L cub reporter Anna Nicole, is having a fundraiser Saturday night at the Bingo Palace on Newbury Place. “It’s a Polka Night,” Anna said. The first five guests will be flown to the French Riviera. “Come early,” she urged.

Over at Books Inq. there is a mention of another Amazon initiative, the Purchase Circle. According to Amazon there is a purchase circle for you no matter where you live, work, or play. The idea is to create specialized best sellers. If you live in New York there’s a book that contains lists of private nursery schools. That’s number one on the New York list. It’s a mini bestseller. Never mind Snake Pliskin, Escape from New York is number four and it’s a Frommer Guide. You can see the circle breaking down a little bit here; you finally got your kid into a private nursery school and now you want to leave town?

Some of the geographic circles seem a trifle large: Africa. Everyone in Africa from Morocco to Capetown will want to read the same books. I was expecting a little more focus like Cairo or Mombasa.

Unlike crop circles, purchase circles are not the work of an alien intelligence or rural jokesters with time on their hands. If you work for Oracle Corporation the thoughts of Larry Ellison are condensed into a book called Larry Ellison. Larry is a billionaire although he’s not in Bill Gate’s league nor is he reknown for philanthropy, but he is the boss at Oracle, and his employees and their loved ones will want to own that book in case Larry drops by.

Ultimately we all belong to Purchase Circles. You have to live somewhere. Amazon knows that and has ensnared all of us in this cat’s cradle. If you live in Africa and suffer male pattern baldness, you’re in luck. The mini-bestseller, Bald Guys in Africa, is available now.

Many readers of this blog return daily in an attempt, I think, to decipher its meaning. As the author of the blog I note with alarm a spreading sense of purpose elsewhere and a more relaxed standard of meaningfulness indemic here. I further worry that fans from Bulgaria, Japan, Korea and Chile are reading in order to improve their English comprehension while readers from Canada, other than Quebec, report the obverse. Thus I conclude that the greater your proficiency in English the more confused you are as to the nature and purpose of this blog whose “lit-blog” categorization remains in constant peril.

A long time ago I wrote a story called Fat Maggot. Fat is a young maggot when he leaves the city and ventures into the swamp. He’s captured and brought before the ruler of the swamp, Mojo Toto. Mojo has written hundreds of poems which he reads aloud to ducks, snakes, and other creatures. When he finishes reading the ducks paddle off, the snakes slither away and Mojo is left with that empty feeling that a captive audience is no audience at all. He needs feedback. Mojo reads his entire collection to Fat. In exchange for his freedom, Fat promises to find a publisher for Mojo’s poems and return with a fistful of reviews, maybe a New Yorker piece. There were in those dark days no blogs.
Needless to say a story that contains over one hundred poems at some point ceases to be a story and becomes a book of poems. Thus Fat Maggot, ostensibly a story, is a book of poems. This blog, supposedly about books, is actually a soap opera. Wellington Leg, like Fat Maggot’s mythical city, is a tiny place populated by people whose entire universe is the size of a flower blossom. The blossom is in the garden of Mrs. Willa Mayhew of River Road. When she prunes her flowers she sets off cataclysmic events, earthquakes, floods, hurricanes. At any moment she might seize her clippers and lop Wellington Leg into oblivion…

Well, let’s hope not. The trial of the century is under way and the Earl stands accused of Barratry. The Romans are building their causeway from the Isle of Mitch and DCI Borchardt is determined to find a publisher for Wellington Leg Confidential. The Dowager Princess has eluded the Detroit PD and the Literary Faire will be hosted by Hizzoner Jimmy Stones. It ain’t over until the battle dinghy Forthright sinks beneath the waves of Gastropod Alley.

The above does not explain all that occurs here. What about the hogs? They come and go rustling in the fens. DCI Borchardt chases them and fulminates about them, but he cannot catch them. Wellington Leg adapts. Fat Maggot’s epic journey is all about adaptation. Perhaps over the course of time some of Mojo Toto’s poems will appear here if adaptation occurs and I learn how to use the excerpt feature. As this construct dangles by a thread we know that Mrs. Mayhew can obtain clippers at Lowe’s or Home Depot and bring this blog to a swift and inglorious end. As Mojo warned Fat: the vanity of man brings him through the bracken, past the guardian ducks and chains of lily pads; he sinks to eye level where all is revealed.

Catherine of Aragon reporting for Full Court Press TV: Here in quaint Wellington Leg the courtroom is packed this sweltering summer day for the trial of the century. With me is veteran reporter HC Mackerel: “HC what should we expect today?”

“Justice Frist likes to make a grand entrance. Wait, Catherine, the houselights are dimming. Here comes Biff the Bailiff. To my left is the Johnny Mancuso Orchestra…let’s hear what Biff is saying.”

“Ladies and gentlemen welcome to the Hall of Justice. Before I introduce His Honor, let me remind you that throwing things from the Peasants’ Gallery is okay as long as it’s biodegradable. We’ve got a heck of a show today…let’s bring those lights all the way down, throw that spotlight on the judge’s door. You’ve seen him win the annual golf tournament four years running…you’ve seen him at Vegas night at the Senior Center. Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for the Right Honorable Hamilcar Frist…”

Catharine: “Is the band playing “Love Train?”

HC: “It’s the judge’s signature tune, Catherine. Look, he’s high fiving the prospective jurors, mugging with Prosecutor Gonads. This guy can work a room, Catherine.”

“Can he do this? Look, he’s making faces at defense counsel Frankie Pins. This seems awfully prejudicial.”

“He owes Frankie money. Hey, the judge wants everyone to get up and dance. This is my favorite part of the trial, Catherine, where we all form a big strong line…”

“The Locomotion?”

“Jump up, jump back. I think you’ve got the knack..”

“There goes the jury pool…I really don’t think we should join in, HC. Wow, Biff the Bailiff is dancing on the railing. I notice Judge Frist is wearing a rainbow-colored wig. Isn’t that unusual?”

“It was a gift from Ronald McDonald.”

“This is Catharine of Aragon describing the opening scenes of the Trial of the Century. We’re snaking out the front door into the hallway…oh, the prospective jurors have opened a case of Budweiser. Judge Hamilcar Frist is moon walking…this is very irregular. Cut the feed. Back to the studio.”

“Are we still live? Are cameras in the courtroom a good idea? Should people on jury duty be given beer? Oh My God they’re doing the wave…”

Wellington Leg: After celebrating the grand opening of her disco, the first of its kind to open in thirty years, the Dowager Princess flew to New York for a summit meeting with other heads of state. Her proposal to redraw the map of the world is meeting nominal resistance from established nations. “We’re no longer talking about Bavaria. We’re talking Princessland. We’re talking globally.”

Princessland would include Bavaria, a swath of Southern England ( Hampshire, Devon, and Cornwall) the Longueduc region of France, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, parts of upstate New York, all of California, fishing rights in the Sea of Japan, the Kamchatka peninsula, and the former Portuguese colonies of Goa and Macao. Citizens of Princessland are to receive an annual beer stipend, a black and white TV, as well as communal use of a fleet of AMC Pacers. They may elect a Sheriff local to their burghs, wallows, funstiles, and apportionments, who shall bear writs and other instruments of Her Authority, Dignity, or Person. Every citizen of the land shall be welcome to cast suggestions into a wooden recepticle “from time to time.” They are free to erect statues of Herself, go about their business with her grace and allowances, to offer tribute and alimentations without fear of regret.

The big news, though, is her disco called Studio 1066. With polka bands rocking until well after ten pm local residents aren’t sure a disco is right for Wellington Leg. “We were told it would be a water treatment plant,” complained Mrs. Marjorie Morningstar. “That’s why I upgraded the city’s bond rating.” Papparazzi clogged local streets after rumors circulated that the Earl would escort famed economist Paris Milton to the grand opening. Ms. Milton’s treatise and roman a clef “A Force Economy Journey” is circulating among New York editors now. “The buzz is intense…this is gonna blow,” said lobbyist turned agent Puffy. “We’re talking Greenspan money,” he said.