In Reference to Murder

Friday's "Forgotten" Books - Jack Vance

Today is Jack Vance day on Friday's "Forgotten" Books, and while Patti Abbott takes a much-deserved week off from playing host, I'm happy to step in and serve as Vance Central for the day.

John Holbrook "Jack" Vance was an American author born in 1916 who died just this past May, at the age of 96. He wrote prolifically in the science fiction and fantasy genres, but he also penned close to a dozen mystery novels under his name and a couple of pen names, as well as three books written in the Ellery Queen franchise. He won an Edgar for the best first mystery novel in 1961 for The Man in the Cage, as well as Hugo and Nebula Awards.

The first offering in today's FFB comes via Deb, who reviews Maske: Thaery, published by the author under his own name. For all the other books, both by Vance and other authors, check out the links at the bottom of this blog post.

Review of Jack Vance's Maske:Thaery by Deb

Part coming-of-age saga, part political and religious allegory, and part spy thriller, Jack Vance’s 1976 science fiction novel, Maske: Thaery, packs a lot into its slim 180 pages (this includes a helpful glossary, ala A Clockwork Orange, and a series of elucidating footnotes, found particularly at the beginning of the book). This is the first Vance book I have read and I must admit I found it a bit heavy-going in parts.  Not so much the plot, which is fairly fleet-footed, especially when Vance must include so much expository and world-building information, but the constant drag of made-up words and unconventional spellings.

Here is an example, a piece of dialog selected at random:  “That is the Wael punishment.  I consider them the strangest folk of Maske, perhaps of the whole Gaean Reach; they are said to derive from a union between Vile Fourteenth and a band of rogue Djans.”  Whether this arouses in you a desire to know where the Gaean Reach is or to discover who Vile Fourteenth and Djans are will determine if you will want to read this book.

Generations before the start of the story, the planet of Maske was invaded by a contingent of ultra-religious Thariots who drove out the original inhabitants (referred to as Waels and Djans) and settled an area they call Thaery. A group of original invaders who did not share the Thariots belief in a specific divinity process were exiled to a rough outpost called Glentlin. The residents of this area are referred to as “Glints”—a word synonymous with boorish and crude in the Thariot language (much as the Glints take “Thariot” to mean devious or secretive).

Jubal Droad is a Glint who has the misfortune of being a second son, meaning there will be no inheritance for him—he will have to make his way in the world armed with only his wits—but of those he has aplenty. During Yallow, a traditional Glint rite-of-passage, Jubal runs afoul of Ramus Ymph, a powerful Tharion who has broken the Theary laws restricting inhabitants to their own land.  Later, Jubal is employed by the head of Thearian security, Nai the Hever, and Jubal’s information about Ymph’s off-world activities results in Ymph being denied a significant government office. Ymph is a thug and a bully and Jubal now has a very powerful enemy.

While Jubal continues in his capacity as Sanitary Inspector (actually a cover for his work as a spy for Nai the Hever), Ymph seeks revenge by inducing his fiancée, Mieltrude, to sign a warrant that will result in Jubal’s being severely beaten. Did I mention that Mieltrude is also Nai the Hever’s daughter? Jubal manages to escape the punishment, but things get very complicated for Jubal, especially when his illegitimate brother murders their older brother, the head of their clan, and claims the position for himself. Jubal fights and defeats the usurper and he’s sure that Ymph had a hand in the original coup. Unable to convince Nai the Hever of the Ymph’s complicity, Jubal seizes Mieltrude and pursues Ymph across Thaery and the oceans of the outer lands.

During the voyage, Jubal and Mieltrude, like so many fictional couples who are originally antagonistic toward each other, begin to thaw.  Jubal discovers that Mieltrude is unwillingly engaged to Ymph who sees his fiancée as a political tool and reserves his love for his mistress, Sune, a nasty piece of work in her own right.  More adventure follows as the pursuit of Ymph exposes a whole new dimension to his greed, corruption, and cunning.  Stick around for Ymph’s well-deserved and ecologically-correct comeuppance.

As I said initially, this is a dense book.  It’s packed with action and adventure, good guys and bad guys, and a lovely female—almost the science fiction equivalent of a swashbuckling movie.  Enjoy the book, but take my advice and keep a bookmark in the glossary—you’re going to need it!

LINKS TO JACK VANCE BOOK REVIEWS

Patti Abbott, The Last Castle by Jack Vance 

Sergio Angelini, The Madman Theory by Jack Vance, writing as Ellery Queen

Bill Crider, Take My Face by Jack Vance, writing as Peter Held

Loren Eaton, The Dying Earth series by Jack Vance

Ed Gorman, Bad Ronald by Jack Vance

Jerry House has some interesting Vance notes and links

Randy Johnson, Son of the Tree by Jack Vance

George Kelley, To Live Forever by Jack Vance

Evan Lewis, Lyonesse, a/k/a Suldrun's Garden by Jack Vance

Todd Mason, The Dogtown Tourist Agency by Jack Vance

Todd Mason also posted a tribute to Vance after the author's death in May

John F. Norris, Space Opera by Jack Vance

James Reasoner, Vandals of the Void by Jack Vance

Kelly Robinson, Flesh Mask by Jack Vance

Kevin Tipple/Barry Ergang, The Dying Earth by Jack Vance

LINKS TO OTHER BOOKS

Joe Barone, Now May You Weep by Deborah Crombie

William F. Deeck, The Skyscraper Murder by Samuel Spewack

Martin Edwards, Found Floating by Freeman Wills Crofts

Curt Evans, The Adventures of Arthur Dawe (Sleuth Hound), by J.S. Fletcher

Roy Garraty, A Killer is Loose by Gil Brewer

Ed Gorman, The Vengeful Virgin by Gil Brewer

Nick Jones, The Hunted by Elmore Leonard

Peggy Ann, Deed Without a Name by Dorothy Bowers

Charles Rutledge, Through the Dark Curtain by Peter Saxon

Ron Scheer, Ramona by Helen Hunt Jackson

Michael Slind, The Tuesday Club Murders by Agatha Christie

Kerrie Smith, Danger Point by Patricia Wentworth

TomCat, The Cursing Stones Murder by George Bellairs

Prashant Trikannad, All the Lonely People by Martin Edwards

Zybahn, The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole

FYI, Jack Vance's literary legacy has been preserved via two expansive publication projects: the Vance Integral Edition (VIE), a 44-volume set of his complete works, and the Vance Digital Edition, a series of e-books created from latest digital versions of the Vance Integral Edition texts.

July Bestsellers

The Seattle Mystery Bookshop released its July 2013 summer bestseller lists. If you're still looking for a good summer read, these are a good place to start:

HARDCOVER

1 – Craig Johnson, A Serpent’s Tooth, Viking
2 – Mike Lawson, House Odds, Grove Atlantic
3 – James Lee Burke, Light of the World, Simon & Schuster
4 – Mary Daheim, Gone With The Win, Morrow
5 – Carl Hiaasen, Bad Monkey, Knopf
6 – Timothy Hallinan, The Fame Thief, Soho
7 – C.J. Box, The Highway, Minotaur
8 – tie
Lisa Lutz, The Last Word, Simon & Schuster
Robert Galbraith, The Cuckoo’s Calling, Mullholland
10 – Daniel Silva, The English Girl, Harper

TRADE PAPERBACK

1 – Craig Johnson, The Cold Dish, Penguin
2 – Jo Nesbø, The Bat, Vintage
3 – Jess Walter, Beautiful Ruins, Harper
4 – tie
Ernie Cline, Ready Player One, Crown
Louise Penny, The Beautiful Mystery, Minotaur
Peter Spiegelman, Thick as Thieves, Vintage
7 – Jussi Adler-Olsen, The Keeper of Lost Causes, Plume
8 – Timothy Hallinan, Crashed, Soho
9 – tie
Jess Walter, We Live in Water, Harper
Urban Waite, The Terror of Living, Back Bay
Fred Vargas, The Ghost Riders of Ordebec, Penguin
Lecretia Grindle, Villa Triste, Grand Central
Maurizio de Giovanni, I Will Have Vengeance, Europa

MASS MARKET PAPERBACK

1 – Yasmine Galenorn, Night Vision, Berkley
2 – Jasper Fforde, The Last Dragonslayer, Harcourt
3 – Leslie Budewitz, Death al Dente, Berkley
4 – Louise Penny, Still Life, Minotaur
5 – Kevin O’Brien, Unspeakable, Pinnacle
6 – tie
Kat Richardson, Seawitch, Roc
Gail Carrieger, Soulless, Orbit
8 – tie
Kat Richardson, Greywalker, Roc
Mike Lawson, The Inside Ring, Grove Atlantic
10 – tie
Mary Daheim, The Wurst is Yet to Come, Harper
Ridley Pearson, The Risk Agent, Jove
Waverly Curtis, Dial C for Chihuahua, Kensington
Diana Renn, Tokyo Heist, Speak
C.J. Box, Open Season, Berkley
Ed Falco, The Family Corleone, Grand Central
Mary Lou Kirwin, Killer Librarian, Pocket

Mystery Melange

 

Book sculpture by Daniel Lai

Tonight, the Berkeley, California, Literary Salon hosted by Janet Rudolph will feature Lisa Brackman, whose debut novel Rock Paper Tiger made several "Best of 2010" lists, and also Tim Hallinan, the author of three separate mystery series. You can check with Janet via her Mystery Fanfare blog about any seating availability by sending an e-mail to [email protected].

Congrats to Jane Cleland, winner of the David Award for Dolled Up for Murder. The award is handed out at the Deadly Ink Conference to honor the best mystery published during the previous year.

The nominees (short list) for the 2013 Ned Kelly Awards have been announced by the Australian Crime Writers Association, with winners to be announced on September 7th in conjunction with the Brisbane Writers Festival. The list includes those for best novel:

 

• The Holiday Murders by Robert Gott
• Web of Deceit by Katherine Howell
• Blackwattle Creek by Geoffrey McGeachin
• I Hear the Sirens in the Street by Adrian McKinty
• Silent Valley by Malla Nunn

The short list for the 2013 Bloody Scotland festival's Scottish Crime Book of the Year were also announced. The winners will be handed out September 14th. The nominees include:Dead Water by Ann Cleeves

• Pilgrim Soul by Gordon Ferris
• How a Gunman Says Goodbye by Malcolm MacKay
• The Vanishing Point by Val McDermid
• The Red Road by Denise Mina
• Standing In Another Man's Grave by Ian Rankin

In honor of author M.C. Beaton's Agatha Raisin series celebrating its 20th birthday, Criminal Element is sponsoring a sweepstakes with a chance to win all 22 books in the series. Just visit the website and click on the link to fill out the form.

The Private Eye Writers of America Shamus Awards Banquet will be held in conjunction with the Bouchercon conference in Albany on Friday night, Sept. 20. The event is open to the public, and you don't have to be a PWA member to attend and rub elbows with your favorite authors. For questions and ticket information email [email protected].

This week's Beat to a Pulp entry switches from short fiction to poetry, with three offerings from Charles A. Gramlich.

The latest poem from the 5-2, which features new crime poems each week, is "The Survivor of a Slasher Flick in Middle Age" by Massachusetts author Peter Swanson.

The ABA chose their picks for the "25 greatest law novels...ever!" Hop on over to see the list, and you can also cast your vote for THE greatest. (Hat tip to Elizabeth Foxwell.)

Alec Cizak, editor of the magazine Pulp Modern, announced that after five issues, he will be shutting the 'zine down. It's sad to see another high-quality publication bit the dust, but you can still order back issues via Amazon with great stories from the likes of Patti Abbott, Matthew C. Funk, Chris Rhatigan,  John Kenyon, Stephen D. Rogers, Sandra Seamans, Lawrence Block and more.

The Q&A roundup this week includes a "short, sharp interview" with author Dana King at Paul D. Brazill's blog; Dana also makes an appearance on Patti Abbott's blog, talking about his fifteen-year path toward publication.

Author R&R - Joscelyn Godwin

In this edition of Author R&R (Research and Reference) for In Reference to Murder, Joscelyn Godwin, co-author of The Forbidden Book, discusses the inspiration behind writing the novel, described as "occult fiction": a murder mystery set against the conflicts of Islam and the West with symbolism, alchemy, and magic fueling the action. Joscelyn was born in England and lives in Hamilton, New York, where he is professor of music at Colgate University. He is a composer, musicologist, and translator, known for his work on ancient music, paganism, and music in the occult.

It began when Ian Caldwell sent me the novel that he and Dustin Thomason had written: The Rule of Four. He sent it to me because the plot hinges on a real Italian book of 1499 called the Hypnerotomachia  Poliphili, which I happened to have translated into English in 1999. I enjoyed The Rule of Four and admired the way the authors wove the Hypnerotomachia and its mysteries into their story. The book deservedly rose to the top of the best seller lists, and I was asked to write a short, unofficial guide-book to it. In about a month I wrote The Real Rule of Four, which showed how Caldwell and Thomason’s novel works, explains all its learned allusions, and introduces the real Hypnerotomachia.

The Hypnerotomachia is an epic fantasy novel set in an imaginary pagan land populated by goddesses, fauns, satyrs, and irresistibly sexy nymphs. The language is a flowery Italian, expanded with rare Latin and Greek words. It’s lavishly illustrated, and the general perfection of its design have earned it a place in the history of fine books. The author, who was a Franciscan friar (though you wouldn’t think it), had a passion for classical architecture, sculptures, tombs, and formal and symbolic gardens. The whole book drips with excess of language, imagery, and emotion. All it lacked was a complete English translation, since the last, incomplete one was made in the 16^th century. Since no one else seemed inclined to do it, and the 500^th anniversary was coming up, I took it on.

So that was what inspired The Rule of Four’s authors in their blend of Renaissance mysteries with modern ones. No sooner had their book arrived than Guido and I got in touch with one another. Guido already had seven novels behind him. I had never written fiction, but I did see one shortcoming in this genre, which Dan Brown had revitalized. It draws on esoteric traditions, but only for atmosphere and decoration, not as realities. I thought that between us, with Guido’s experience in fiction and my long interest in esotericism, we could write a novel in which the mysteries are real. Neither of us shares the scientific world view, i.e. that scientific materialism does the best job of explaining the universe. Indeed, we hold it in utter contempt. So we would reach into the past, into that wonderful period of Renaissance Hermeticism. We would use it to give our novel not just historical but also metaphysical depth.

The material lay close at hand in the form of another mysterious Italian work, The Magical World of the Heroes published in 1605 by Cesare della Riviera. Like the Hypnerotomachia, it operates on several levels including classical erudition, language games, self-development, and practical alchemy. We would make our chief character actually practice Riviera’s form of magic, and it would have real consequences.

You may think here of the Harry Potter books, because there too the magic is real. But Rowling’s is a different genre. Her readers give temporary consent to the way things work in her world, and don’t expect it to be like our world except in a symbolic sense. In our novel, on the contrary, magic happens in contemporary Italy, as I suspect it really does. We don’t ask you to believe that, nor to disbelieve it. Just consider it as a possibility, and that the world may be a much stranger and richer place than the one most people choose to inhabit.

The Forbidden Book by Joscelyn Godwin and Guido Mina di Sospiro is available via Amazon and other retailers.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Rosamund Pike, who starred in the Jack Reacher movie, has landed the lead in David Fincher's big-screen adaptation of Gillian Flynn's novel Gone Girl. She'll play opposite Ben Affleck, who was already on board for the project, scheduled to start production in September.

Relativity Media is giving its film Out of the Furnace a wide release on Dec. 6. The story centers around a blue-collar factory worker (Christian Bale) who seeks vengeance when his younger brother, played by Casey Affleck, disappears and the local cops aren't much help. Woody Harrelson plays the heavy, while Forest Whitaker stars as one of the local cops investigating the case. Also in the all-star cast: Zoe Saldana, Sam Shepard and Willem Dafoe.

There is movement toward a new Bourne franchise installment, with Anthony Peckham scripting a film that will continue the storyline of Aaron Cross, the character played by Jeremy Renner in the 2012 Bourne Legacy. Peckham also wrote the screenplay for the first Sherlock Holmes movie starring Robert Downey, Jr.

David Yates, who directed the final four installments of the Harry Potter series, is in final talks to helm the remake of the mob drama Scarface. The plan is update the story and characters, giving it more of a contemporary feel.

CBS Film has picked up the screen rights to Children of Paranoia, the debut YA novel by Trevor Shane about a young assassin caught up in a secret war that’s been waged for centuries, with assassinations passed off as accidents or acts of random violence.

Four-time Oscar nominee Ed Harris is joining an all-star cast that includes Liam Neeson and Joel Kinnaman in the crime thriller Run All Night, about an aging mob hit man (Neeson) forced to take on his former boss (Harris), the leader of a prominent criminal organization in Philadelphia.

Great Gatsby star Elizabeth Debicki has landed a leading role in the film reboot of the 60s TV spy drama The Man From U.N.C.L.E., joining headliner stars Armie Hammer and Henry Cavill. Debicki's role is described as a femme fatale, although she won't be the only female in the cast, with Alicia Vikander playing an agent.

TELEVISION

Jack Bauer will return to Fox next year for 24: Live Another Day, which picks up several years after the end of the show and will depict a single day, packed into 12 hour-long episodes. Mary Lynn Rajskub, a regular on the original series, will return for the new show along with star Kiefer Sutherland.

Billy Bob Thornton is set to star in the small screen mini-series adaptation of the film Fargo for FX. His role is described as "the rootless, manipulative man who meets a small-town insurance salesman and sets him on a path of destruction." (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

Fox handed out a series order for the adaptation of the popular British series Broadchurch, set to debut on American screens in the 2014-15 season. The story revolves around the tragic and mysterious death of a young boy found dead on an idyllic beach surrounded by rocks and a jutting cliff-face from where he may have fallen. (With a nod to Omnimystery News.)

Smash star Jeremy Jordan is set to guest-star on the upcoming season of Elementary, playing Joey Castro, the son of a former surgical patient of Joan's (Lucy Liu).

Syfy renewed its time-travel police drama Continuum, starring Rachel Nichols and Victor Webster, for a third season.

J.H. Wyman and J.J. Abrams (the team behind Fringe) chatted up their new series Almost Human during a Television Critics Association press tour session. The duo credited NYPD more than the supernatural Fringe as a blueprint for the show, which is set 35 years into the future when human cops in the LAPD are paired up with androids.

In another Television Critics Association panel, Mike Schur assured the audience that his new cop comedy Brooklyn Nine-Nine is not a parody, with the comedic elements taking second place to telling a real cop story for stars Andy Samberg and Andre Braugher.

Fans of the BBC Sherlock series can get a small (spoiler-free) "hit" of their Sherlock fix via this trailer for the upcoming third series of the show to premiere in the UK later this year and in U.S. markets early in 2014.

PODCASTS

Indie publisher Untreed Reads, which started out as digital-only but is adding audio and print-on-demand, has also started an author podcast. It's available via Stitcher Radio (a free app for either Android or Apple devices) or you can listen online. Episode One features author Kevin J. Cunningham.

In case you missed it, the July 27th edition of Suspense Radio is archived online, with guests Marcus Sakey, Antonio Hill and Dan Graffeo.

Forgotten Books Friday - The Long Shadow

British author Celia Fremlin (1914-2009), was the daughter of a doctor and the sister of nuclear physicist John H. Fremlin. She studied classics at Somerville College, Oxford, but after her mother died in 1931, she was expected to look after her father. Instead of being content to just stay at home, she took jobs in domestic service, which was unusual for a middle-class woman at that time. She said it was to "observe the peculiarities of the class structure of our society," and those experiences later found their way into her later writing.

Much later, in her sixties, she began to take long walks at night by herself  all over the back streets of London, partly for research and partly to prove a point. Her conclusion was that to make the dark streets lose their terror, "We don’t need more policemen on the beat. We need more grandmothers." Those experiences were compiled into a TV program about challenging people’s fears of urban streets at night and many observations also wound up in her books.

Her life may have seemed like domestic bliss on the surface, but it was filled with its share of tragedy that would be at home in any crime novel:  Not only did she lose her mother at age 17, but her youngest daughter committed suicide, as did Fremlin's husband, rather than live a disabled life after a heart attack. She also outlived her second husband and her other two children, and went slowly blind in her later years, spending her last days in a nursing home, which was a bit ironic, considering she became an advocate for euthanasia late in life.

Fremlin's first mystery novel was The Hours Before Dawn from 1958 which won the Edgar Award for Best Novel and established her style of mystery/horror set mostly around the lives of married women in the 1950s. Some feel that The Long Shadow was an equally fine work, and H.R.F. Keating even included it in his 1987 listing of the 100 best crime and mystery books. It's the story of the Imogen Barnicott, third wife of a celebrated, cruel and egocentric professor, who, despite her unhappy marriage, had never plotted her husband's murder—yet after his supposedly accidental death, she receives a mysterious phone call accusing her of that very thing. Add to that strange happenings like new messages left lying around in his handwriting, work on an unfinished manuscript of his that continues to be written, and shadowy figures seen in the house, and Imogen not only begins to doubt her husband is dead at all, she begins to believe she just might take his place.

Celia Fremlin used to say that she wrote the sort of book she wanted to read, in which a mysterious threat hangs over someone and escalates chapter by chapter; or as, H.R.F. Keating recalled her saying, "to put a plot that is exciting or terrifying against a background that is domestic, very ordinary, humdrum." She used this to great effect in The Long Shadow and others, slowly building an atmosphere of suspense and terror out of the excruciatingly mundane, using the contrasts as a literary canvas like Dali and his surrealistic art.

Her character observations managed to be cutting and yet have a touch of dark humor, as well, as this passage from Imogen's experience at a party a well-wishing friend had encouraged her to attend:

Worst of all, perhaps, was the apparently unending procession of people who, incredibly, still hadn't heard, and had to be clobbered with the news in the first moment of meeting. Had to have the smiles slashed from their faces, the cheery words of greeting rammed back down their gullets as if by a gratuitous blow across the mouth. There they would be, waving from across the road, calling "Hi!" from their garden gates, phoning by chance from Los Angeles, from Aberdeen, from Beckenham...One and all to have their friendly overtures slammed into silence, their kindly voices choked with shock. One after another, day after day, over and over again: sometimes Imogen felt like the Black Death stalking the earth, destroying everything in her path.

Fremlin's books are filled with astute perceptions that no doubt bear the imprint of her first-hand research into human behavior, as Imogen's stepson Robin advises her about taking on boarders:

I'd choose Depressions rather than Anxiety States...From the point of view of a landlady, Depressions are good because they lie in bed until midday and don't eat breakfast. Whereas Anxiety States want grapefruit—All Bran—the lot."

In addition to her 20 novels and nonfiction books, the last dating from 1994, she wrote short stories, poetry and articles and was a member of the Crime Writers Association for many years. The Long Shadow, The Hours Before Dawn, and her other fiction certainly deserves a closer look.