JADE LADY BURNING  

by Martin Limón

“Ernie and I finished the black-market case in Pusan, did a little celebrating, and caught the Blue Line night train back to Seoul.”

But this book is about more than two GI’s and the high life in Korea.

What appears to be a ritual murder of a young Korean prostitute has the Eighth Army command very jittery. In an investigation that should have been left to the Korean police the military police are called in because the young woman was known to have many clients amongst the American servicemen stationed in and around Seoul. The Korean media would have a field day with this American angle, so the Eighth Army's criminal investigation division takes charge. Sergeants George Sueño and Ernie Bascom are put in charge of finding out who murdered the young woman.  Needless to say he is good at his job and you just know he is going to solve the murder of Miss Pak that every one else is trying to brush under the rug, the army and Korean police alike.

.

Their investigation leads them to Itaewon, the section of Seoul known for alcohol, music and prostitution. It is the type neighborhood with which the two are very familiar. Sueño is Hispanic, from East LA. George and both he and his partner Eddie prefer the life in Korea to that in Southern California. Sueño appreciates the housing, the regular meals, and the pay of Army life. He speaks some Korean and appreciates the culture. This is probably because he sees the country differently than most, and is impressed by the fact that life in Korea is a hard fight to survive:

"I loved Korea. It was a whole new world of different tastes and smells, and a different, more intense way of looking at life. People here didn't take eating and breathing for granted. They were fought for."

Sueño has learned Korean (somewhat), and he is young, not too attracted to older women yet, ahem age 30!! He doesn't look down on the business women (prostitutes) because as he says, he makes $500. per month and gets food and lodging and they make $30. per month and nothing is free. The author paints a sympathetic portrait of the women who are forced to make their living on the streets and in the clubs of the nightlife of Seoul.

It becomes clear to Sueño that the only reason for such a crime to be glossed over is because it must involve powerful people. So even though both the Korean National Police and the American forces are content to let the blame lie on the GI boyfriend because this would bring a rapid resolution to the case, George Sueño, while no angel himself, feels he has a responsibility to those who are the innocents in the case and he continues to pursue the truth and Eddie will go along with him.

Martin Limón has a spare very evocative style and the characters are very real, cynical and intense. The good guys are flawed as well as the bad guys and his portrayal of the military and military police is truthful and insightful.

Seoul Korea

A week from today I will be part of a new  endeavor. I have joined a group of like minded individuals with murder on their minds. We are beginning a blog discussion about crime fiction called Read Me Deadly.
Together with Della Streetwise, Sister Mary Murderous, Geoargette Spelvin and Periphera , I will be discussing the art of murder. I hope you will join us.

Della Streetwise

Sister Mary Murderous

Georgette Spelvin

Periphera

Recently I finished reading 84, Charing Cross Road and Q's Legacy by Helene Hanff which I was drawn to after seeing the movie by the name of the first. I was very intrigued by the fact that the recovery after the war was so very slow in England since all our money was apparently sent on to Europe  in the recovery effort and eggs and meat were still a rarity and rationing went on almost ten years after the war ended.


Helene was a great reader who got her second hand books from England because the books were not the dead white paper cardboard stuff that she could find in the US, rather they were soft vellum and heavy cream colored pages. I can imagine them now. She was getting leather bound volumes often with gilt edged pages as well instead of school boy copies as she called them.


She read all kinds of things from poetry to the bible including the New Testaments although she was Jewish. The one thing she would not touch was fiction. She said she never could get interested in things that didn't happen to people who never lived.


On the other hand she made her living writing for television including Hallmark Hall of Fame and Ellery Queen. She also wrote history books for children.


In Q's Legacy she writes about having to drop out of school and having to educate herself. She decides to go through the alphabet of the best books that are written in a language that she can understand and really is dissatisfied until she reaches q.  With  On the Art of Writing by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch MA King Edward VII Professor of English Literature to the University of Cambridge she found what she was looking for.

Helene Hanff

Sometimes she would write for duplicates of books because people who had borrowed hers failed to return them. She asked why was it that people who would never think of stealing anything else would not think twice about stealing a book?

A CASE OF TWO CITIES 




by Qiu Xiaolong

Detective Inspector  (and poet) Chen Cao of the Shanghai police has been called to take over an important investigation of the corruption that is a serious problem in the upper echelons in the communist party. The Communist Party leadership appears to be taking a rigorous stand investigating this rampant corruption among the profligate power elite during China's economic reforms of the recent past.

Shanghai

After the previous head of the corruption special case squad who was also known to be a very solid upright cop is murdered in sordid circumstances, Inspector Chen is brought in and is given what might be called an Imperial warrant in a different time to do what he must.  Chen discovers that the dead man had been probing a wealthy businessman, Xing Xing, who fled to the United States to escape prosecution. Xing Xing has amassed a fortune while corrupting various party officials.  In America Xing is claiming that that he left for political reasons and he wants the US to deny extradition.

As Chen begins his investigation his mother’s life is threatened and one of the friends he contacted for information has also been savagely murdered.

Los Angeles

Suddenly, as he begins to delve into the lives of more corrupt officials he is told to lead a delegation of writers to the U.S. for a cultural exchange. The high officials from Beijing are aware that he is being sent to the US and so he follows orders although he feels unworthy to be leading a literary group and he knows the group for the sudden change in leadership will resent him. However Xing Xing is in LA when his tour starts and his American friend Catherine a US Marshall he became close to lives near one of the tour stops.

China Town LA

Chen has many doubts and obstacles. The group complains bitterly that their works are not seen on the shelves at the university they visit, but even worse they can’t understand why they can’t smoke wherever they want, “It is supposed to be a free country!!!” The local Chinese who are happy to see people from home and treat the visitors very well welcomes the tour group. There is a large section of LA where there are Chinese exiles who have purchased large estates with cash that they have managed to get out of China and need somewhere to hide to or launder it.

St. Louis

 Chen recalls his father’s words when he has these doubts that a man must do what he must and goes forward with his investigation despite the fact that the tour interpreter is murdered because he is thought to be Chen when they are in St. Louis.

This brings Catherine back into his life and he shows for once that he does have a desire for a private life. He writes his doubts in this T.S. Eliot parody

Shall I go, shall I go

with my Chinese accent and a roast

Beijing duck, to her home

When the evening is spreading out

Like a gigantic invitation poster

against the clouds of doubt?

..Should I explain a Chinese joke

with the help of an English book

after baseball, chips and dips

and helpless tongue slips,

..what if she, kicking

off her sandals and trimming

her toenails, should say

“That is not it at all,

that is not what I meant at all.”

Qiu Xiaolong

But he must go back to China to finish what he began and at the moment he is caught between the old China  of his father and the new China of his own generation and he understands both very well. He believes and hopes that the problems are not insurmountable.

Laos in yellow

ANARCHY AND OLD DOGS

Colin Cotterill

Vientiane, Laos

Dr. Siri Paiboun is a hearty 73 year old that is quite proud of having been an active force in the thirty-year struggle of the Pathet Lao in their efforts to throw off the yoke of colonialism. He understands that the very new two-year-old Democratic Republic of Laos has to undergo a great many growing pains. He is still willing to do his part and that is why he is the national coroner of Laos even though he has no training in that particular field. He never hesitates to thumb his nose at his very young and superior boss who knows less than he does  when he is not shown the proper respect.

Dr. Siri is a humble man who lives in a government issued bungalow with Mickey Mouse curtains on the windows. He lives a simple life and he believes utterly that despite all the foolishness of the current government things will get better when people get trained for the jobs they hold.

Sometimes when Siri is in doubt about certain aspects of his job he turns to the French expert Inspector Maigret. This is the case when he discovers a blank piece of paper in the pocket of a blind dentist who was hit by a bus. He remembers how Maigret used a formula of sodium bicarbonate to reveal hidden messages written in invisible ink. Thus he uncovers an n encoded message that starts him on an adventure that caps a lifetime of struggle. It appears that is a rebellion afoot, a drive to bring the royalists back.

Movie theater

Siri and his associates take a trip into the countryside to see if this rebellion is real. What I find most real about this book is some of the idiocies that are perpetrated on the populace of the fledgling socialist republic in order to indoctrinate them into the correct way of thinking. One example is in the showing of a Bruce Lee film. In the theaters the actual sound tracts are silenced and Lao actors and musicians substitute the words and music according to a specific script. The villains become capitalistic western oppressors who are usurpers of agronomic labor and Bruce a defender of the Lao Democratic Republic. Siri and his friend find these films hilarious but understand how they have come about. The Laotians have been kept down and uneducated for a long time and are poorly prepared for the positions of power they now hold, but he knows things will get better.

In ANARCHY AND OLD DOGS Cotterill gives a greater voice to Dr. Siri’s past than he has in previous books and he does it in a gentle fashion, which adds greatly to the story. The Laotians are reacting to the fact that for a long time they were considered lazy, dumb, and in fact lotus-eaters by the French. It was also a bitter pill to swallow that the Royal Laotian Army, their own kind turned against the peasants. They felt they were kept poor and ignorant to be better slaves to the colonialists. These mostly poorly educated men and some women are now the people in power and they have a lot of learning to do and it will come in time. This book is the fourth in the series and it  is in this mystery that Dr. Siri really starts coming to life for me.

THE WOODEN LEG OF INSPECTOR ANDERS

 

MARSHALL BROOME

Inspector Anders had been retired from the Rome police for several years when they asked him to return to the force to help clear up some historic cold cases. He was a decorated national hero who had been instrumental in bringing down an anarchist group ten years before. It was during this effort that he lost his leg as well as his desire to be a policeman.

Now Inspector Anders has been sent from the ministry in Rome to a southern city because a few months before the Ministry’s agent, Investigating Magistrate Fabri and his two bodyguards had been blown to pieces while sitting in a piazza café. Fabri had been sent to investigate the assassination of Judge De Angelis. The judge had been presiding over a case of local corruption that involved many powerful local people.

The Commissioner of Police in this southern city cannot understand why he was sent an aging policeman of no particular rank and who additionally was disabled. Anders himself is not sure why he was chosen for this commission. But locally the ripples were already being felt and almost immediately another undercover cop from Rome is killed. This death is being publicized as that of a policeman dying heroically in the line of duty.  This is the story that has been agreed upon by the powers that be in the city.

As a matter of fact all three of these recent deaths of public figures in the city have been ascribed to anarchists. Anders is well aware of the fact that most if not all of the groups of anarchists that had Italy terrorized at one time were either disbanded or are deep underground. He knows that the real people involved in these crimes are involved with a different criminal society, one that has been the power behind the scenes for decades in southern cities. It seems to appear that the main governing principle in keeping the criminals in charge of the city is one of fear. Everyone who dares to stand up for the ideal of a free society places his own life as well of those of his family at risk. The methods used in the murders of any one who would rock the boat are brutal and sadistic, the screams of the victims such that they are heard in one-way or another in all corners of the city. The populace knows that even an innocent gesture or look may bring down danger.

               “ The detective said with a sudden intense bitterness ‘The question is- will truth and justice ever be stronger than the mafia, than the politicians, the bureaucrat in their pockets? Are good men going to be endlessly slaughtered like sacrificial lambs?’

                                                                              

                                                                                                                                                                    The author points out:

‘Bitter experience showed that in their sad country, whistle blowers rarely achieved anything other than their own destruction.’

Anders quotes from Andre de Chenier of two hundred years before :”Before the Terror worthy men retreat/ Kindness dies, and virtues grow discrete.”

What Anders is beginning to suspect is that there maybe a case of dishonor among thieves. Things that don’t add up one-way make sense if there is a renegade faction in the mafia who are bringing more attention on themselves by some of these deaths. But in any case can one man, or even groups of people together fight such insidious, widespread and deeply entrenched corruption.

 

In this excellent novel by Marshall Broome you will find a beautiful recounting of the classic paradox of what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object.  One realizes that if there is such a thing as an immovable object there cannot be an unstoppable force. Both cannot be true at once. In this particular story one is given hope that evil cannot triumph forever, there will be forces of good. Broome tells the tale with a rapid pace, the suspense building to the point that you are gripping the book with both hands. Everything that happens has such a sense of reality that my sense of disbelief is completely shut down.  There is an intense feeling of the despair for the characters in this city but where there is life there is hope. I am really looking forward to the next Inspector Anders book INSPECTOR ANDERS AND THE SHIP OF FOOLS.

Broome is a native Australian but he has convinced me he has an Italian soul. The series of books is very short but the debut was fantastic.

THE ANGEL'S GAME

I finished Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s THE ANGEL’S GAME several days ago. And overall it is a very good book. If it were not being compared to THE SHADOW OF THE WIND all the time it would fare better. I liked it very much and I got more out of it than expected.

The book is set in the 1920’s Barcelona and the main protagonist is a very talented young writer David who turns to writing hack novels to make a living. These books are still loved by many, but he felt he wanted to write a book of his own which he does at the expense of his health. His publishers say that they will publish it for him but if it is not a success he must stick to his contact and keep putting out his very popular thrillers. Naturally they see to it that the book tanks and David is in a quandary. He is now in very poor health and life looks dismal.

He gets a contract from another publisher to write a new book of religious importance amidst promises of help with his other problems. Herein is part of the gem of the story. Some of the great discussions that take place about the nature of beliefs, how they develop, how they are manipulated is very well done, thought provoking and worth rereading. Zafon doesn’t criticize doctrines but he exposes some of the weakness of human’s needs.

‘ There is always someone else to blame for our misfortunes or failures, someone we wish to exclude.

Embracing a doctrine that will turn this grudge and this victim mentality into something positive provides comfort and strength. The adult then feels part of the group and sublimates his lost desires and hopes through the community.’

 In all the book is a love story without a romantic ending. I am glad I finally read it.

ARTISTS IN CRIME

NGAIO MARSH

Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn has been having a long holiday in New Zealand, which turned out to be a bus man's holiday in chronicled in VINTAGE MURDER. He has taken the long way home starting with an ocean cruise which stopped at ports in Fiji, Hawaii and lastly at San Francisco. While in the port of Suva, Fiji his eye is caught by a lovely young artist, Agatha Troy. She is sitting on a lifeboat trying to capture the harbor scene. They seem to strike sparks off each other so they avoid each other all the way from the ocean liner to the wonderful trip across Canada on the Canadian Pacific railroad.

Agatha Troy is going back to a household of art students that she is to teach for the next several weeks. Alleyn who still has some few days of leave left is going to spend sometime with his mother. Both of these households are somewhat close to each other.

There is a motley crew of artists at Tatler's End, Troys home. The students  and the model settle in for the painting of a recumbent nude. As with all artistic people there are some disturbances but the greatest of these is the accidental murder of the vivacious young model.  The question arises about the nature of the death and since Alleyn is staying in the vicinity he is asked to go to Tatler's End.

He is not sure about this case because he really wants to follow his heart which tells him that the woman he is falling in love with cannot possibly be a murderer. His head on the other hand is very well trained and he has associates who will keep his mind on the job.

Tatler's End

The cast of suspects  is large, all the people in the house and much of the story revolves around who was where and when, then who left and at what time and the merry-go-round somewhat typical of some classic mysteries. My eyes did glaze over once or twice with the recounting over and again of time schedules and itineraries.

All's well that ends well except for the model who was in any case walking a perilous line. Readers of Marsh know that Alleyn and Troy are made for each other and are together in future books so this is a delightful introduction to their relationship.

DESERT WIVES  by Betty Webb

"What do you call a dead, sixty-eight-year-old polygamist?

In the case of my thirteen-year-old client, you call him your fiancee."

Arizona Private Investigator Lena Jones took Rebecca Corbett away from Prophet Solomon Royal because her job was to rescue her from a polygamy compound called Purity and soon the men from the area would be swarming to take back what they saw as their property: a breeding age girl.

Rebecca's mother who had left the compound sometime before has hired Lena  to find the girl because her father a resident of Purity had returned to the compound and taken young Rebecca with him and had brokered a deal in which he would get two 16 year old brides and the head of the polygamists Prophet Solomon would get beautiful Rebecca. It is of no use to call in the police since the reality of the political situation was that the Mormons were and are a powerful force in Arizona and Utah. and despite laws against polygamy and child marriage it was still prevalent in many small enclaves and allowed to exist.

Mormon Temple Arizona

Lena and her partner Jimmy Sisiwan, her partner at Desert Investigations in Scottsdale Arizona have hidden Rebecca among Jimmy’s Pima Indian relatives. Then the leader of the compound Prophet Solomon is found dead and Rebecca’s mother was arrested for the murder of the polygamist. 


Lena goes undercover at the Purity compound masquerading as one of the wives of a sympathetic member of the compound. There were members who while believing in polygamy did not endorse ‘child marriages.’

As Lena learns while undercover, there are troubles afoot in Purity. The new “Prophet” is more moderate, and is totally against underage marriage as well as forced marriage but he has an uphill battle and his life is also threatened and there have been several attempts on it. Lena also notices that there are also many very beautiful people with similar looks and she finds a secret ward of children and babies hidden away.

Many of the male members of the Purity compound have access to arms, and many of the women who seemingly are docile and hardworking are festering below the surface. What is causing this pot to boil?  Why do the authorities turn a blind eye time and again?

As the New York Times pointed out “If Betty Webb had gone undercover and written DESERT WIVES as a piece of investigative journalism, she’d probably be up for a Pulitzer ..”

HOW TO TRAIN A DRAGON




Cressida Cowell


Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third is part of a group of  Viking boys of the Island of Berk, who is going through a coming of age ritual. This invokes catching a dragon which will be with you for many years into the future and then training it. Failure to accomplish either of these will result in exile banishment and worse- humiliation. Hiccup is the sons of the chief of the tribe and and has an even greater burden since he is small and gets picked on quite a bit.

Toothless

None the less he captures his dragon heroically but it turns out to be a very small dragon who hasn't any teeth . Naturally he is named Toothless. One of the things that distinguishes Hiccup from the others is that unbeknownst to many he can speak Dragonese. He has studied about Dragons for a long time and he knows a bit about them.

Fireworm.

One of the other boys, graphically named Snotlout has captured a Monstrous Nightmare dragon who is fierce indeed and he has named him Fireworm. Usually only sons of chiefs are allowed to have such fearsome dragons and Hiccup feels compelled to challenge Snotlout for the ownership of the beast. This small battle is put off until the dragons are tamed and trained.


On the day of the results of the training of the dragons  there is also a competition between similar aged boys and their dragons who come from the Meathead Islands. Before the competition gets going their is an awesome storm which results in bringing up some life from the bottom of the sea. Now the entire community is endangered.. Thus begins the heroic misadventures of Hiccup the Viking. This is a very enticing story about unlikely heroes and just as unlikely ales in an unpredictable world.

sea dragon