http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Mon, 29 Mar 2004 11:32:52 EST http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/ Phillip WinnSunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding. Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/03/29/113252.php Susanna CornettWho's more valuable - amateur or professional reviewers?Well, it depends on who you ask, but according to this article in the LA Times, amateur reviewers - especially on Amazon.com - are on the ascendency. And one author explains why:[W]riter Beth Lordan took to heart the HarperCollins winners' opinions on her new novel, "But Come Ye Back." She listens to professional critics, but "I wanted to know from readers who aren't doing literary analysis: Does the story itself hold? Do you care about the characters?"I was literally in tears that all these people in the middle of regular, ordinary, demanding lives took the time to read the book and respond to the characters and then say so. And they said, 'This is a good story.' It's not about networking, or you give me a good review, and I'll give you a good review. It leaves all the parts that are a little bit tainted out of the mix."Shows what a role Blogcritics can play too, yes? And the rewards, while not monetary, can be a pile of books - look at Amazon's #4 reviewer, Rebecca Johnson, who:gets 40 to 60 free books a month, along with checklists from publishers asking her to mark the upcoming titles she's interested in receiving at no charge.Encouraging thoughts to encourage Blogcritics - and a sign that Eric's vision is proving true. The reputation of Blogcritics is growing, and with amateur reviews the current trend, there's nowhere to go but up. Now, excuse me while I go write a review. Books14172@blogcritics.org Mon, 29 Mar 2004 11:32:52 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/10/31/113344.php Susanna CornettHave you ever seen a coffin go by? If you did, you’re the next to die. They wrap you up in a bloody sheet Throw you down ‘bout six feet deep. The bugs crawl in The bugs crawl out The bugs play peeky boo on your snout Your head falls off Your tummy turns green Stuff comes out like whipping cream You spread it on a piece of bread And that’s what you eat when you are dead!Halloween is the perfect time for a childhood chant about the horrors of death, a topic few of us find comfortable. The thoughts of flesh turning green, insects burrowing deeply inside, the indignities that our physical being goes through after our spirit has fled – we turn from those, yet spend billions on horror movies and Halloween costumes, slowing to see a bad wreck, sending shows like Forensic Files, CSI and others high in the Nielsen ratings. It is a ghoulish fascination that makes us cover our eyes with our hands – but make sure to open our fingers so we can still see what’s happening.The science of death – especially time of death – threads through all those fascinations, asking and trying to answer important questions: What qualifies as death – brain death? Cessation of body functions? How long has this person been dead? What killed him, was she left in this position, did she die before she was dumped? The answers are not as set as you may think, as Jessica Snyder Sachs details in her riveting 2001 book, Corpse – Nature, Forensics, and the Struggle to Pinpoint Time of Death.The book opens with a horrible multiple murder, and the question of who did it. The subsequent trial, a battle of medical experts, sets up the premise of the book: The science of determining time of death is advanced, but not infallible. The first chapter deals with the history of forensic pathology – the official name of the science of death – starting with descriptions from the ancient Greeks and Egyptians of two “body clocks” we still use today. Sachs defines them: rigor mortis, or postmortem stiffening, and algor mortis, body cooling. But the knowledge of the ancients didn’t stop there – the first known forensic handbook was written in 1247 China by Hsi Yuan Chi Lu. Sachs handles a tremendous range of science and time with a deft hand, moving quickly through the history with enough detail to set the stage for the advances of modern science without bogging down the reader. And that is a hallmark of this book – precision in detail coupled with a conversational tone that draws a reader in.The rest of the book will enthrall anyone who’s ever curled up with a Kay Scarpetta novel by Patricia Cornwell, or watched old reruns of Quincy. Sachs explores the value of lividity vs body temperature as a means of determining time of death. She introduces Bill Bass, the University of Tennessee anthropologist who started and runs an outdoor death research facility known colloquially as The Body Farm, after a Scarpetta novel of the same name – bodies donated to the school are placed in different positions on the scrap of land, and researchers record how being burned or placed in a car or covered with brush affects their decomposition. She covers the activities of a cadre of death researchers including entomologists, who toss out pig carcasses and monitor the insect activity on them as they rot. Her language is always accessible, no mean feat given the scientific nature of her topic, and her imagery is compelling, as this excerpt (pg. 176) shows:…as the tiny first-instar larvae of blow flies and flesh flies mature into chunkier second and third instars, as they settle down to the serious work of devouring a human corpse, they can turn into something else entirely. They can swarm. The resulting activity becomes not so much that of individual maggots, but that of an all-consuming pack. The teeming mass churns and roils within the cadaver, with thousands of maggots diving for food, then rolling to the surface for air and plunging down again. The maggot mass becomes an ecosystem unto itself. It becomes the source of the ghoulish steam that has risen from cold battlefields since the beginning of man’s inhumanity to man. The resulting heat – whether from the friction of their roiling movements or the combined chemical spark of ten thousand tiny, flesh-filled guts – can sustain larval growth even in subfreezing weather.”The book is full of such scenes which, coupled with the personality sketches of the main characters in modern forensics, makes what could be a dry scientific tome interesting and – dare I say – lively. And those of us schooled on television shows and mystery novels have much to learn. Determining time of death is far from an exact science, and the scientists exploring it find their conclusions challenged at every turn. Yes, the victim had a hamburger and French fries for dinner – they’re right there! In his stomach! – but was it from yesterday, or the day before? Placement of the body, time of the year, cause of death, surrounding environment – all can confuse a straightforward rendering based on digestion. So what about insect infestation? Surely that would be less susceptible – but was the body tucked inside a freezer for a time before being dumped where the maggots could do their grisly work? Did a frost descend that night, was the body treated with chemicals? Each time scientists find a definitive method, it doesn’t take long for its cutting edge to blur with exceptions – and Sachs meticulously chronicles each permutation.This book is not for the faint of stomach, but if science or mysteries, medicine or history consistently draw your interest, then Corpse is a book to die for. Books9719@blogcritics.org Fri, 31 Oct 2003 11:33:44 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/10/08/102422.php Susanna CornettDiseases and distresses of the mind can't be diagnosed as readily as physical problems, and proper treatments are even more difficult to develop, test and implement. More than any other discipline, psychology/psychiatry teeters on the dividing line between the hard and soft sciences, the "soft" part being precisely the difficulty in definitively nailing down what the problem is and whether it's been treated. Some are more amenable to objective measurements, like schizophrenia or obsessive compulsive disorder, but those tend to be the more serious illnesses. And when there's money to be had coupled with people with problems, every kind of garbage solution conceivable will flood into the arena of possibilities.That's where a new book, Science and Pseudoscience in Clinical Psychology comes in.This review by Brandon A. Gaudiano is a good summary of both the problem and the ways the book tries to address it. Basically, prominent research clinicians in psychology tackle the primary areas of their discipline that are susceptible to pseudoscience, and both debunk the garbage solutions and outline what research says about what really does work. If you're interested at all in psychology, or have yourself struggled in that realm, it sounds like a good book to read.But therein lies another problem. From Gaudiano:The editors have presented the evidence in as fair and balanced a way as possible. They urged contributors to remain objective and dispassionate in their presentations, attempted to provide constructive criticism, and chose not to only debunk these techniques when necessary, but also to discuss techniques that are scientifically supported. Furthermore, each chapter contains a glossary of terms to aid the reader in the sometimes dense terminology. Although the book is accessible to the nonprofessional, the volume is most appropriate for the mental health professional or student.One of the reasons that pseudoscience gets a foothold in society is the lack of a crossable bridge between scientists and lay-people. "Objective and dispassionate" sounds like "boring and superior" to most people (including me), and that impression is supported by the fact that this contains a glossary for "the sometimes dense terminology". I think it's fantastic that they've tackled the therapies they call "pseudoscience" straight on, but regretable that very few people who could actually use the information will ever find it penetrable. They need to find a way to make a real bridge, one that invites understanding, not impedes it.[cross posted on cut on the bias] Books9000@blogcritics.org Wed, 8 Oct 2003 10:24:22 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/10/01/154539.php Susanna CornettDavid Greenberg weaves an interesting essay about the Washington press corps and the Nixon and Clinton presidential scandals in his review of two new books about Nixon and Watergate. Greenberg, himself a Nixon biographer, finds that Woodward and Bernstein were glorified a little too highly for what they actually did [although their contribution was not unimportant], and thinks that the outcome of the two scandals had little to do with press attitudes towards the presidents involved:While the acknowledgment of the power of the press is welcome, if not overdue, what's most surprising about its behavior in both the Clinton scandals and Watergate is its modest influence on the ultimate outcome. In both cases, a few journalists did heroic--even historic--work. Others performed their job creditably. Many more were suggestible and sheep-like. The difference between 1974 and 1998 was not the changes in the press corps, but the fact that Nixon had committed serious abuses of power. Nixon--not the press--brought himself down.Greenberg's analysis is especially germaine in light of an article by Rachel Smolkin in the new issue of American Journalism Review, which reveals all in the headline:Are the News Media Soft on Bush?No one reading that will reflexively think, "No... no, I don't think so." It is a question that almost sets up a strawman all on its own, with no embellishment, and Smolkin lives up to the billing:That pre-war press conference crystallized critics' frustration with coverage of Bush. While complaints about reporters' treatment of a president are as widespread as political polls, these protests cannot be dismissed merely as the howls of liberals stranded in the wilderness. Reporters have handled Bush gingerly, particularly after the September 11 terrorist attacks prompted a surge of patriotism. The administration skillfully capitalized on that sentiment, just as it excelled at controlling information, staying on message and limiting access to Bush from the nascent days of his presidency. Bush and his allies also have benefited in press coverage from having a weak opposition party. Democrats foundered after 9/11; then the discordant voices of 10 presidential candidates diluted attempts at a unified message. And as voices from the right saturate radio and cable talk shows, the media have become increasingly sensitive to the venerable conservative shibboleth of liberal bias, a development that also favors the first Republican president in eight years. These factors softened the adversarial coverage that defined Bill Clinton's presidency--at least until July, when 16 words from Bush's January State of the Union address sparked the first sustained negative coverage of the president since the terrorist attacks.Smolkin uses loaded phrases that clearly indicate the direction of her views: "these protests cannot be dismissed merely as the howls of liberals stranded in the wilderness"; "Reporters have handled Bush gingerly"; "The administration skillfully capitalized... excelled at controlling"; "voices from the right saturate radio"; "the venerable conservative shibboleth of liberal bias". She especially has it in for Fox News:Frank Sesno, former CNN senior vice president and Washington bureau chief, says the rising influence of Fox News Channel and concerns about allegations of liberal bias also have shaped coverage. "American journalism has been Foxified essentially, especially television," Sesno says. "The combination of the Fox influence, and the overhang from 9/11, and the overall presumption in America that the media have leaned terrifically left, have made it harder for tough questions to be asked."The presumption came from somewhere, and it predates Fox News - I would say that the presumption birthed both Fox News and the talk radio "saturation" of conservative voices, and are responsible for its success. And the answer from the mainstream media is not a clear-eyed assessment of itself, but a reflexive attack to protect the status quo. The skepticism of the media is not aided by things like the current flap over columnist Robert Novak releasing the name of a CIA operative, and whether he got the information from someone in the Bush administration - the media has swarmed like maggots on roadkill to a story that could damage the Bush administration, screaming for an official investigation, yet at the same time vehemently supporting Novak in not releasing any of his notes or personal knowledge. (About which noted First Amendment scholar and law professor Eugene Volokh - no flaming conservative himself - opines that legally Novak should have to testify.)It's easy to draw comparisons between coverage of this latest scandal wannabe and Greenberg's assessment of the media. He notes that while the media did do a yoeman's job in many ways during the Watergate scandal, they did not always or even usually cover themselves in glory:Nonetheless, to credit "the press" for investigative tenacity in Watergate is too generous. In the first stage of the scandal, a mere handful of reporters joined Woodward and Bernstein in their pursuits. In the later stages, starting in April 1973, a multitude of others jumped on the bandwagon. Although this swarming coverage did help rivet public attention on the scandal, we often forget that it also had its unseemly side. In this respect, it foreshadowed the press' sometimes inglorious behavior during real and imagined scandals of later years..."The documentation makes untenable the charge that liberal politicians and a liberal media drove Nixon from the White House," Olson asserts. Yet it's also true that in the hothouse environment, critically minded reporting often gave way to a simple hunt for lies and misdeeds. Zeal encouraged errors. In May 1973, Walter Cronkite opened the CBS Evening News erroneously charging a Bethesda bank run by Pat Buchanan's brother with Watergate money-laundering. The AP incorrectly reported that John Ehrlichman was present at a key cover-up meeting. ABC's Sam Donaldson had to apologize for implicating former White House aide Harry Dent in Nixon's campaign sabotage efforts. Other news outlets overplayed trivial items, as The New York Times did by placing on the front page a three-column story--ultimately inconsequential--about the possibility that Nixon's campaign had received gambling money from the Bahamas...Even during its heyday, then, the press corps showed itself capable of--if not structurally hard-wired for--the kind of collective prosecutorial mentality that frequently substitutes for tough-minded investigation.Contrast that with this critique from Smolkin, about a study that she notes is from the "nonpartisan Council for Excellence in Government":The study also found that although Bush was covered more favorably after 9/11, overall coverage of his administration became more critical. But the report, which purports to be objective because it crunches numbers, does not distinguish between appropriate skepticism--the role of an engaged press corps--and unjust negativity.This rather sneering tone - "purports" - is intended to cast into doubt the study's conclusion that Bush's coverage is no more or less negative than that of either Reagan or Clinton. Clearly Smolkin has decided that someone was the object of appropriate skepticism (Bush?) while someone else (Clinton?) was slammed with unjust negativity. Of course, "crunching numbers" is precisely what a study is all about, and is one aspect of that "objectivity". Defining what is "appropriate" and what is "unjust" is not a task for a number cruncher, unless those terms can be clearly defined in both identifiable and mutually exclusive ways, thus rendering them both countable and crunchable. She could have made her point that the "negative" coverage was not categorized using value judgments without impugning the objectivity of the study as a whole.It's a good example of how Greenberg and Smolkin differ in their analyses - not in their conclusions, necessarily, but in their approach to their topic. Smolkin goes in with a point to prove, which is that the media is too soft on Bush, using primarily liberal or (supposedly neutral) media sources, along with a token conservative (Tucker Carlson). I don't discount Smolkin's premise out of hand - there may be some truth to what she says - but her piece is uneven, swinging from dispassionate recounting to open hostility, like bursts of journalistic Tourette's. Greenberg is more evenhanded, building a case and drawing conclusions from his presented evidence. That isn't to say that others wouldn't disagree with his conclusions, but they would be hard-pressed to find personal malice in his discussion.I recommend you read both pieces, for contrast as well as content. I think it would be well worth your time. Books8818@blogcritics.org Wed, 1 Oct 2003 15:45:39 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/09/05/120216.php Susanna CornettTerry Teachout has a wonderful essay in the current issue of Commentary about art and politics which also serves as a review of Frederic Spotts' new book, Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics. There's nothing I can add that would enhance or clarify it, so I will instead give you a few excerpts:...(W)ith few exceptions, biographers, historians, and commentators have seldom... consider(ed)... the possibility that Hitler’s artistic interests might have been central to his character, or have had a significant effect on his political career...Spotts contends that Hitler’s “aesthetic talents,” far from being peripheral to his achievements as a politician, were in fact at the heart of his political self-understanding.Hitler believed, according to Spotts, that “the ultimate objective of political effort should be artistic achievement.” He meant this in a literal sense: “Once he had won his war and established an Aryan state that was a dominant world power, he intended to devote himself to the creation of cultural monuments that would change the face of Germany and immortalize himself.” But Hitler was no mere builder of temples celebrating the triumph of his iron will. As Spotts goes on to explain:The Hitler of this book is someone for whom culture was not only the end to which power should aspire but also a means of achieving and keeping it. . . . Using a new style of politics, mediated through symbols, myths, rites, spectacles, and personal dramatics, he reached the masses as did no other leader of his time.Not only does Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics serve as a useful corrective to earlier Hitler biographies, it also supplies a thoroughly unsettling account of what, for lovers of the arts, is one of the most unsavory features of the Third Reich: the seeming eagerness of so many noted German artists (as well as more than a few of their counterparts in Nazi-occupied countries, especially France) to collaborate with Hitler and his henchmen. What was it about Hitler that appealed to them? Were they simply afraid not to support him? Or were they responding to the siren call of a deeper urge?...Hitler, in short, was a deranged idealist, a painter who sought power over others in order to make his romantic dreams real, then grew ever more bloodthirsty when the human beings who were his flesh-and-blood medium resisted his transforming touch....To read Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics is to reflect not only on power but on the various ways in which artists through the ages have responded to power, and more specifically to the politicians and political ideas of their time.In Nazi Germany, this response, as Frederic Spotts reminds us, was overwhelmingly positive. The list of distinguished non-Jewish artists who left the country after Hitler came to power is brief to the point of invisibility when placed next to the rogues’ gallery of those who stayed behind, in many cases not merely accepting the inevitability of Nazi rule but actively collaborating with the regime...The relationship of these artists to the Nazi regime remains relevant to this day. Though artists vary widely in their political awareness—from total indifference on the one hand to passionate involvement on the other—many, perhaps most, find it hard to resist the blandishments of politicians who appear to take an informed interest, however specious, in the arts...It is tempting to try to excuse this as mere foolishness. As Hitler himself once remarked, “Artists are simple-hearted souls. Today they sign this, tomorrow that; they don’t even look to see what it is, so long as it seems to them well-meaning.” But as he knew—better, perhaps, than any other politician of the 20th century—ideas have consequences, and the artist who succumbs to the temptation to dabble in ill-digested political ideas, be he a Nazi, a Communist, or a pacifist, is as morally responsible for their ultimate consequences as any other human being. In the end, beauty excuses nothing, least of all mass murder.The piece is fascinating both for its historical context and for the light it shines on art today - including the media arts such as acting. I don't think Teachout or Spotts - and for that matter, me - is advocating that artists stay out of politics. Certainly politics and current events give us some of our most moving art, such as Picasso's Guernica (I don't agree with his overall sentiment, but the painting is one instance where I think the modernism of his art conveyed the emotion and tragedy of the moment better than realism). But I do think this as one of the larger points is well taken - art cannot be fully understood outside of its political and historical context, and artists do not operate in some divine sphere that removes their motivations from the taint of self-interest or even evil. Books8134@blogcritics.org Fri, 5 Sep 2003 12:02:16 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/09/05/102636.php Susanna CornettJealousy is always an issue when you have artistic egos vying for personal space in a relationship - although it's not something unique to the artistic. Robert Fulford looks at an essay by writer Kathryn Chetkovich about her own struggles with her work and herself when her partner, Jonathan Franzen, hit popular and literary success with his book, The Corrections.I never knew Margaret Millar was married to Ross MacDonald, in his real-life incarnation - Ken Millar.[Links via Arts & Letters Daily] Books8127@blogcritics.org Fri, 5 Sep 2003 10:26:36 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/09/05/080841.php Susanna CornettDo you remember the old commercial where someone eating from a jar of peanut butter collided with someone eating a bar of chocolate, and in the process discovered the flavor of Reese's Cup? A true marriage of tastes. Well, this collision of feminism, Marxism and plain old bitterness is more like the theoretical equivalent of a stalker's fantasy - a bizarre distortion of reality as viewed through a determinedly deluded mind:...40 years after Betty Friedan, Laura Kipnis has arrived with a new jeremiad, Against Love: A Polemic, to tell us that this hope was forlorn: Marriage, she suggests, belongs on the junk heap of human folly. It is an equal-opportunity oppressor, trapping men and women in a life of drudgery, emotional anesthesia, and a tug-of-war struggle to balance vastly different needs...Kipnis' essential question is: Why? Why, in what seems like an age of great social freedom, would anyone willingly consent to a life of constricting monogamy? Why has marriage (which she defines broadly as any long-term monogamous relationship) remained a polestar even as ingrained ideas about race, gender, and sexuality have been overturned?Now, take a minute, relax, channel a little Tammy Wynette, get yourself another icy glass of Pepsi, and get ready to learn the answer to life's age-old question - why get married?Kipnis' answer is that marriage is an insidious social construct, harnessed by capitalism to get us to have kids and work harder to support them. Her quasi-Marxist argument sees desire as inevitably subordinated to economics. And the price of this subordination is immense: Domestic cohabitation is a "gulag"; marriage is the rough equivalent of a credit card with zero percent APR that, upon first misstep, zooms to a punishing 30 percent and compounds daily. You feel you owe something, or you're afraid of being alone, and so you "work" at your relationship, like a prisoner in Siberia ice-picking away at the erotic permafrost.Meghan O'Rourke, the author of this review in Slate of Kipnis's book, does call foul a little on the premise:Let's accept that the resolute public emphasis on fixing ourselves, not marriage, can seem grim, and even sentimentally blinkered in its emphasis on ending divorce. Yet Kipnis' framing of the problem is grim, too. While she usefully challenges our assumptions about commitment, it's not evident that we'd be better off in the lust-happy world she envisions, or that men and women really want the exact same sexual freedoms. In its ideal form, marriage seems to reify all that's best about human exchange. Most people don't want to be alone at home with a cat, and everyone but Kipnis worries about the effects of divorce on children. "Work," in her lexicon, is always the drudgery of self-denial, not the challenge of extending yourself beyond what you knew you could do. But we usually mean two things when we say "work": The slog we endure purely to put food on the table, and the kind we do because we like it--are drawn to it, even. While it's certainly true that people stay in an unhappy relationship longer than they should, it's not yet clear that monogamy is more "unnatural" than sleeping around but finding that the hum of your refrigerator is your most constant companion. And Kipnis spends scant time thinking about the fact that marriage is a hardy social institution several thousand years old, spanning many cultures--which calls into question, to say the least, whether its presence in our lives today has mostly to do with the insidious chokehold capitalism has on us.It seems to me that Kipnis's premise falls on its own merits, and hardly needs me to dissect it. She ignores essential aspects of the human condition - the needs for affection, security, connection and meaning in life. She ignores an essential factor necessary for society to survive - social cohesion. And she advocates a self-centric worldview that would reject any claim by any one - family, friend, lover, community, society - on our lives or efforts, any situation where curbing a self-gratifying impulse would benefit the greater good. It appears to me that in the process she also ignores a central tenet of Marxism - the subordinating of the self for the good of the whole, which is foundational in socialism (in theory - we know that in practice it is actually a ruse to justify elite rule and wealth).In my opinion, what has resulted in the increase in divorce is precisely the blinkered self-absorption that Kipnis thinks should be the default approach to life. As someone whose grandparents were married 57 years before my grandfather died; whose parents have been married 46 years; whose sister has been married 25 years; and whose brother has been married for 8 - all happily - I think I can speak to what makes happy relationships. It's about choosing the right person, for the right reasons, and then making it your business to be a partner in a relationship. Of course a marriage won't work if the couple don't put each other first, or if either one sees the relationship merely as a means to fulfill his or her own desires (for romance, sex, admiration, money, children, status, whatever). As with any successful endeavor, it takes work, commitment and sacrifice; like any successful endeavor, it takes the right raw materials; and like any successful endeavor, the rewards are greater than the effort put into it, in the long run.I think a book like this says more about the author than the subject. Kipnis, a communications professor at Northwestern who teaches film, is apparently a throwback to the 1970s bitter feminists that I've been assured no longer exist. Somebody give the girl a Reese's Cup to sweeten her up a little. Books8120@blogcritics.org Fri, 5 Sep 2003 08:08:41 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/08/31/104241.php Susanna CornettA man lays naked and dead in a seedy motel room in upper Manhattan. His teenage niece is missing. When Lt. Peter Decker responds to a frantic call from his half-brother, another uncle of the missing girl, he finds himself far from his Los Angeles home, caught between family and a psychopathic killer.But is that killer the one who killed the missing girl's uncle? Was he actually the girl's ticket to safety? Could he be both?Faye Kellerman's Stone Kiss is a recent addition to Kellerman's Peter Decker series. Decker is a Los Angeles detective trying to balance his life between the violence his job immerses him in, and the quiet life of an observant conservative Jew that he shares with his wife Rina Lazarus at home. It's a sometimes uneasy coupling, since Decker came to observant Judaism as an adult when he married Rina, who herself made sacrifices to meld her religious observances to the reality of sharing life with Decker. Rina is an active part of this case as she is all the books in the series.In Stone Kiss, Rina and Decker travel to NYC with their young daughter Hannah for a few days to visit with their college-age sons, Rina's children from a previous marriage, after Decker's brother Jonathan's call. At first Decker just meets with the NYPD detectives working the murder case, but when a psychopathic killer from his past resurfaces with a role in the case Decker finds himself drawn deeper into a confusing miasma of sexual exploitation, twisted loyalties, family obligations and the increasing evidence that all is not right in the Jewish community the young girl comes from. The dead man worked with his father and brother in the family's electronics stores, recovering from drug addiction and serving as a confidant to his young niece. The girl's father, the dead man's brother, at first welcomes Decker, then suddenly attacks him viciously and orders him gone. And without Decker's knowledge, the killer from his past gets in touch with Rina, who herself faces choices about helping Decker or lying to him. The story is complex but deftly handled by Kellerman, who is strong in both characterization and plot. The book stands alone as a worthy read, but the series as a whole is an interesting and thoughtful look at how very religious Jews accommodate their faith and rituals to the pressures and temptations of modern life - and much of the insight would apply to those of other faiths as well. However, the insight is a byproduct of the characters Kellerman has chosen to tell her tales; the point is the story, and Kellerman succeeds in making Stone Kiss difficult to put down.(For those new to the series, Sacred and Profane is the book where Decker first meets widow Rina Lazarus, and their romance begins. Also, The Quality of Mercy is Kellerman's first non-Decker/Lazarus novel.) Books7983@blogcritics.org Sun, 31 Aug 2003 10:42:41 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/08/28/084425.php Susanna CornettThe bones of the dead give up their secrets to Dr. Temperance Brennan, a forensic anthropologist, in the mystery series by Kathy Reichs, herself a forensic anthropologist. Those who enjoy the Dr. Kay Scarpetta novels by Patricia Cornwall will find themselves on familiar ground. The mystery is the point, but the puzzle is unraveled from the bodies.Dr. Brennan, known as Tempe to her friends and coworkers, began her career as a forensic anthropologist working for the state of North Carolina; somewhere along the way, she also accepted an assignment with Quebec. Although she divides her time between the jurisdictions, in the two novels I've read she's been based in Quebec, working for the Laboratoire de Médecine Légale. The novels are engrossing, with graphic details about the corpses under Brennan's knife, about the ravages Nature brings to bodies left in her grasp, and about the human emotions that swirl and swing out of control in any death investigation. No doubt due to the similarities to her own work - Reichs works for both North Carolina and Quebec as well, and is of an age with Brennan - the author, writing in the first person, brings to vivid life the mysteries of the dead and the lives of those who try to solve them.In Déja Dead, Reichs' first Tempe novel, Brennan is living and working in Montreal, dealing with her divorce, her daughter's new college career, and the gnawing hungers of a recovering alcoholic. Into this mix falls a mystery - who dismembered a young woman, carefully slicing through joints, and dumped the body in separate plastic bags? Tempe finds herself locking horns with the lead detective as she begins to connect the case with earlier cases, connections he refuses to see. She fears it is a serial killer, and every new find of old bones confirms her fears - but is slow to convince the detectives. Finally she starts digging into the mystery herself, literally, drawing the attention of the killer not just to her, but to her daughter and best friend as well.Tempe is working an excavation in Guatemala as Grave Secrets opens; she and her team had volunteered to identify the residents of a small village who were killed during the Guatemalan civil war some 20 years before, their bodies dumped unceremoniously into common graves. The sadness is sharp but the terror distant until a frantic satellite call from colleagues heading to the site makes Tempe a helpless witness to a deadly attack. As the team struggles to learn what happened to their friends, Tempe is approached by Sergeant-Detective Bartolomé Galiano of Guatemala's National Civil Police. He brings with him photos of an oozing bundle of bones found blocking a septic tank in Guatemala City, and asks for her help in properly recovering the rest of the body - likely in pieces in the same tank. Her dual investigations lead to questions about the disappearances of four young women from good families, taking her from Guatemala to Montreal and back, before all the mysteries come together in a resolution that puts Tempe in more danger than she could foresee.The Tempe Brennan series promises to be an excellent one, exciting and intriguing with familiar faces enmeshed in fresh plots each time. Reichs already has written several books in the series, and I look forward to reading the others. For those interested in forensic science, these are a must-read. Books7904@blogcritics.org Thu, 28 Aug 2003 08:44:25 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/08/27/152617.php Susanna CornettIn a post 9/11 world, John Case’s the first horseman seems eerily prescient. Published in 1998, the novel begins with three events: the murder of a couple in upstate New York; the mysterious disappearance of a tiny North Korean village; and an expedition to the Arctic Circle by a team of scientists set on exploring a mystery locked deep in the ice at Kopervik, an abandoned mining town dating to the early 1900s. Frank Daly, a reporter on leave from the Washington Post, misses the boat to Kopervik and sits shivering in small Russian towns waiting for it to return. When it does, the people he was supposed to travel with – including his contact, scientist Annie Adair – are hustled into a waiting car by clean-cut American men in dark heavy topcoats and wingtip shoes, not allowed to say a word to Daly.Thus begins the weaving of a taut, thrilling tale from the very disparate beginning story threads. Daly works against time and his ability to get information out of the government as he tries to piece together a story he can almost, but not quite, see. He finally convinces a hesitant Adair to join him, and the two combine their knowledge and research skills. As they uncover the plot of the man calling himself “The First Horseman”, the size and complexity of the plot begins to overwhelm them – people fall sick mysteriously in several parts of the country, ordinary citizens refuse to talk to them out of fear, and both of them are attacked. The portrayal of plot's leader answers the question, "What is a human monster like?"It’s difficult to write much about the plot without mentioning something that may lessen your tension in reading the book, which would be a shame because Case has done such a nice job. Its weaving of ecoterrorism, rogue states, a government wanting to do right but caught in bureaucracy, and the technical plausibility of an attack on the United States invokes shades of the 9/11 attacks as it highlights our risk and vulnerability. Those living in New York will never look at steam rising in the streets in the same way again. I know I won’t.And I may not drink Pepsi again either. Books7888@blogcritics.org Wed, 27 Aug 2003 15:26:17 EDT