Shuffling Through the Clues to Find Redemption 'Waist Deep' in the Big Muddy

Review: WAIST DEEP (Kindle Edition 2011)
Author: Frank Zafiro

This story takes place in the mythical town of River City (sorta, because it's based on Spokane, WA, as we know from other books about it by the author Frank Zafiro, who only writes under that name, because his real name is Frank Scalise, and ... hey, what's with all the fake names? :) But I digress ...). The main character, Stefan Kopriva, was once a River City police officer, but he left the force under less than ideal circumstances. In fact, you could say he was disgraced.

To say that Stefan is wounded isn't saying nearly enough. He not only suffers physically, from old gunshot wounds and a knee injury that made me wince just to read about it, but he endures mental and emotional damage due to a young girl's death for which he blames himself. It was her death that led to his departure from the police force.

So ... despite his disabilities and not having a car (River City is a pretty small town, thank God), he shuffles over to a hockey game and gets into it with a really stoo-pid and loud drunk, for reasons related to honor and showing what a basically decent guy he is and all. Then he ends up in the hoosegow. Almost. Except the security chief, Matt Sinderling, doesn't press charges. But he does have a request for Stefan. He would like to hire Stefan to find his missing 16-year-old daughter, Kris, who's run away. She's interested in acting and has run away to become a big star. Apparently.

Stefan would like nothing better than to simply say no and walk shuffle away. He'd rather lay back in an easy chair, drink a beer or two (or three or four) and forget about the whole thing. Except that he's a recovering alcoholic and the beer part would be so wrong. So laying back would do just fine, thanks.

However, when Stefan sees the photo of Kris, he sees a 16-year-old girl going on 25 years. Maybe older. This kid is no innocent little girl, but Matt is blind to that. He's so naive that all he sees is his little girl when he looks at that picture. So Stefan reluctantly agrees to take Matt's money and look for Kris, even though he's not a licensed private investigator, he can barely move and he doesn't even own a freaking car.

Thereafter, Stefan is forced to do (the E Street) shuffle all around town looking for clues. Because that's how he moves. He also catches taxi cabs now and then. But not too often, because Stefan isn't exactly rolling in dough. So he can't offer huge tips, so cabbies aren't exactly in love with him.

Now, Stefan goes through the logical motions and I won't spoil it for you by telling you what those are, but WAIST DEEP is a hard-hitting story of a flawed hero trying to exorcise his demons. The plot is suspenseful, and includes fight scenes that make you wonder how Stefan manages to shuffle anywhere at all, afterward. :)

And while the subject matter explores dark moral territory, it's arguably not horribly shocking compared to certain real life situations taking place today. The horror is more in what might come afterward based on Kris' choices. This is where Stefan can possibly help most.

Further, in the best hardboiled tradition, finding the truth involves unearthing the scum from beneath the veneer of respectability.


Anyway, thank goodness Stefan has old friends on the River City police force. Otherwise, he'd probably be royally screwed.

The question is, will he be able to see the job through? The guy's almost too crippled for words in every possible sense. Will he get what he needs most? Oh, what's that word? Not food stamps. He's poor, but not that poor. It's what you do with food stamps. Redeem them! Will he get redemption? Can Stefan redeem himself? This is the question.

There's also a possible love interest in the form of Cassie, a barista with a Mona Lisa smile at a local cafe. Stefan really likes her, but seems to have trouble articulating these feelings. Can he overcome his insecurities and find love (or even friendship) with her? Another question. Hey, they both like coffee! They have common grounds. *groan*

And, BTW, Matt ends up lending Stefan a car. Thank God!

PS: Kopriva ... is that Polish? I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that Stefan was born in the USA? Get it? :)

PPS: Did I mention that I really enjoyed the book? Stefan rocks!

The Bittersweet Tale of Gary the Oyster Crab

Storytelling is a craft, as well as an art. And you can find interesting stories in the most unexpected places.

For instance, I found this story on a blog created by a teacher. This isn't entirely surprising. Teachers are highly literate people. And they have to keep students interested day after day. So, in a way, their job is to keep telling stories to kids about what they're supposed to be learning, in a sense.

The story is called (expurgated for this blog) Holy Sh*t, Oyster! and it's really awesome! And so is the blog where it appears, Mr. Teachbad.

Everyone should read this blog. And Mr. Teachbad should write more stories and publish them in an ebook. :)

'Follow the Money': Fast-Paced Legal Thrills and a Moral

Review: FOLLOW THE MONEY (Fingers Murphy 2011)
Author: Fingers Murphy

This is the story of Oliver (Ollie) Olson, a law student who's finished his second year of school. Now, allow me to translate the complete meaning of this sentence for anyone who hasn't had the pleasure of attending law school. Ollie knows the law school drill now and can probably brief case opinions in his sleep. However, when it comes to dealing with the real world aspects of dealing with actual clients with genuine problems, Ollie's a nice guy, but about as clueless as they come.

This may be especially true given that Ollie comes from a working class background and he's participating as a summer associate, aka, intern, at Kohlberg & Crowley, a big deal international law firm in Los Angeles, where he fits in like a guppy in a shark tank.

However, Ollie isn't threatened by anyone at the firm. He's assigned to a case, in which the firm is trying to get a former U.S. senator James Steele released from prison, where they claim he's being wrongly held. Why? Because they say he was wrongfully convicted of killing his wife, Sharon, due to ineffective assistance of counsel. And his lawyer at the time was one of the greatest criminal defense attorneys around -- Garrett Andersen.

And when Ollie meets Steele in prison, he seems like a guy who really got screwed the hell over. So Ollie really wants to bust his ass for him and see that justice is done. Even though he sees his job as doing research to find support for "a legal technicality." But the law is the law. And lawyers uphold the law, don't they? Right!

Oh, and did I mention that the firm is paying Ollie three grand a week to do this? THREE GRAND? Every freaking week? And he's NOT. EVEN. A LAWYER!

The worst part is, I didn't have to suspend my disbelief about this part at all. :)

Anyhow, so Ollie starts investigating doing research. I don't want talk too much about what he finds, because it'll spoil the whole thing for you.

Just know this: Ollie has a girlfriend, Liz. She works for Legal Aid and serves as a kind of reminder of the real reason he decided to be a lawyer ... at least, maybe. If he thought about it. The question is, will he? You see there's also this other girl (another summer associate who goes to Yale or some muckety-muck school) named Morgan. Clearly, she's no good. She's a metaphor, if there ever was one. And it's a metaphor of something awful.

The dialogue is spot on and very funny. Including the internal dialogue. There was more than one priceless moment that made me laugh out loud. Including this one: [After someone tells Ollie about a conversation that couldn't be admitted as evidence.] "I thought about that for a second. Was it hearsay? Steele couldn't repeat the contents of the conversation between Becky and Matt's sister because it took place out of court? I didn't remember the rules of evidence. Why was I so stupid?"

This is so, so typical. :) Everyone thinks lawyers have all the rules memorized or something. We don't. We look them up. What? You think we all have photographic memories? lol According to Professor Kingsfield, they're useless, but I digress ... anyhow ...

The plot takes so many twists and turns, you might think you're being taken for a ride along one of those incredibly scenic southern California roads Fingers Murphy describes in the book so very well. Because he does paint an awesome picture of the City of Angels and the surrounding environs.

FOLLOW THE MONEY builds to a fast-paced and suspenseful finish. I spotted a few clues from the get go, but others might not see them, so your mileage may vary.

As for the notion that all the players were smart enough to pull off what was required to make this happen, I must admit I had to suspend my disbelief a bit, because most criminals of a certain type are really stoo-pid. :)

Nonetheless, I would highly recommend this book. I thought it was an impressive debut novel. It's not only well written and entertaining, but shows how easily people can get suckered, when they're not thinking clearly and their judgment is clouded by illusions of comfort.

So, I look forward to reading more books by Fingers Murphy and about Ollie Olson. What the heck were his parents thinking when they named that poor kid, anyway? :)

10 Technologies That Changed Literature Forever

Literature has been affected by changing technology for a long, long time. These technologies date back to the very earliest ones, such as the tools needed to carve written words into clay tablets. In other words, we've come a really, really long way, baby! :-)

This article lists the 10 Technologies That Changed Literature Forever.

So ... what's next? Perhaps, it will involve this form of weather phenomenon.

'A Memory of Grief' Takes You on the Hero's Journey

Review: A MEMORY OF GRIEF (Briona Glen Publishing 2011)
Author: Dale T Phillips
Zachary Taylor (yes, just like the president) is an ex-con living in Miami. The novel A MEMORY OF GRIEF opens with Zack sitting in a bar after a fight, not feeling so hot, even though he won. Zack has demons. He's an angry man. He's haunted by his brother's death, which he feels is his fault. He's spent his life drifting aimlessly.

Now he's sitting in a bar, feeling like sh*t. Then something happens. Something has to happen, right? :) A kid gives him a letter from his best friend Ben's ex-wife, which says that Ben, his best friend in the world, has committed suicide. Shot himself in the head.

Zack ain't buying this for a New York minute. Even though he's in Miami. And he has to go to Maine to prove otherwise. And visit the Carolinas on the way.

The letter moves Zack into action. He takes what's known as "the hero's journey."

Zack is convinced someone killed his friend and his mission is to find out who did it and avenge his friend's death. To do this, he must go up to Maine, where his friend lived.

The trip to Carolina is to see the friend's ex-wife and see just WTF is up with her, anyway. Turns out, she's living in an abusive relationship with a redneck so-and-so, or words to that effect. He ends up being sympathetic to her plight and swears that when he figures out what really happened to Ben, he's going to come back and help her out.

So, now he has TWO missions! In two different parts of the eastern seaboard. Is this guy a saint or what?

Well, he is a drifter, so ... Carolina to Maine and back. No biggie, right? :)

When Zack gets to Maine, he gets right to work. Thing is, everywhere he goes, people basically tell him to go pound sand. Or words to that effect.

This gets a bit frustrating for Zack. And could stall the plot, if it were left in less capable hands. Fortunately, as I've previously mentioned, Zack's a fighter. And despite his best efforts to avoid it, he ends up fighting one particular alleged kung fu master who isn't quite as invincible as he or his groupies think he is. The fight scenes in this book are written with a level of detail that feel almost like the slow motion scenes from a Sam Peckinpah movie, without the bullets and the blood. Although that part will come later. During the big climax. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

There are also great scenes depicted between Zack and the local cops. Two cops, of course. Good cop, bad cop. The usual duo, but without relying on cliches or copying another author's style. Dale T Phillips has a distinctive voice, no question. And it's distinctively hardboiled, suspenseful and action packed.

Zack runs across a number of potential suspects. People who won't cooperate with him and insist upon fighting him to varying degrees. This is especially true in one place, in particular, which I won't reveal for risk of spoilers.

But not everyone is unfriendly to Zack for he finds possible love in the form of Allison, a nurse at the local hospital, a place where he seems to end up after his frequent encounters with people who'd rather he go away. For Zack is basically a really nice guy, who'd rather not fight, but keeps getting resistance wherever he tries to find out what happened to Ben. For a fighter, he's got a sense of humor, and he even quotes Coleridge at one point. So, he's not exactly you're run of the mill action-adventure hero.

Phillips writes with well-crafted prose that paints a vivid picture of small town Maine, as well as the natural beauty of its forests and coastline.

And just so you know, the book is also realistic about the waiting. In order to learn the truth, Zack must patiently conduct surveillance day-after-day. However, if the routine of hiding in the bushes and peering through binoculars takes on a repetitious quality, it also creates a great deal of suspense. You know something will happen. It's just a matter of what it will be, when it will take place and how it will turn out for Zack.

And when Zack gets the payoff from those days of surveillance, there's this awesome "Aha!" moment. Even so, questions remain. Will anger get the best of Zack? Will he ultimately prevail? Will he get the girl? How will the big, bloody Sam Peckinpah climax turn out? And what about that gal in the Carolinas?

There's only one way to know. Read the book. Which I highly recommend you do. :)

Mystery Scene Mag Review of 'Dreams of the Dead'

The latest issue of Mystery Scene Magazine features my review of DREAMS OF THE DEAD by Peri O’Shaughnessy, two sisters writing under one name. Here's the link to my review.

Can you imagine? Two sisters writing one novel. Writing one or two novels under one name (with a third on the way) has been plenty of work for this author. Thank you! :)

'Moose Tracks': A Story of Maine by Dale Phillips

Now and then, I like to post a short story that's published online here. Especially, if it's by a new and talented author, who's spent years toiling at his craft and knows how to spin a yarn with the best of them. Dale T. Phillips qualifies as such an author, in my opinion.

Feel free to read his short story "Moose Tracks" and see if you don't agree.

But do it soon. The link to the story will only be good throughout the month of July.

You can find Dale at his Web site and his blog.

Now ... what's that sound I heard in the woods ...?

The Paperback Game: Can Anyone Win?

For all you book lovers out there, here's an interesting new thing you can do with all those old paperback books you've collected over the years.

It's called the paperback game. The idea is to gather a bunch of old paperback books in a pile and have one of the 4 to 10 (ideally) players read the cheesy back cover descriptions -- the cheesier, the better, apparently -- then have the rest write what they imagine would be the first sentence of the novel on a slip of paper and gather the slips. The reader will write the actual first sentence and add it to the slips.

Then, everyone votes on which line they think is the actual first line. Points are assigned based on how the votes go. This game also involves the drinking of much wine. Apparently.

What I'd like to know is, who came up with this game? What were you smoking? :)