Killshot

Killshot

By Elmore Leonard

Welcome!

I am in the middle of my own personal reading challenge. I didn't mention this in the previous blogpost because I was too busy getting pseudo-academic on the subject of Ernest Hemingway (I insist on using the "pseudo" prefix because A) I drink rather heavily while writing and B) even if I weren't, I rarely know what I'm talking about). It wasn't planned. It's not particularly organized and I didn't invite other bloggers to participate, though you are more than welcome to hop aboard if you wish.

From now until Christmas I plan on reading as many novels by notable authors that I have previously never read. The first in this challenge was Ernest Hemingway, an author I have somehow managed to avoid for 38 years prior to last week. Other authors officially queued up for a peek this season are Iris Murdoch, Truman Capote and Raymond Chandler. But this week I finally tackled an author I've been dying to read for a few decades: Elmore Leonard.

As I am sure I have mentioned on more than one occasion on this blog, one of my favorite sites on the web is The Onion's AV Club. For anyone who takes popular culture seriously, it is an invaluable resource for books, film, music and games, both old and new. One of my favorite columns on the AV Club is something called Gateway to Geekery, which provides step-by-step tutorials for Johnny-Come-Latelys who would like to get into the work of prolific artists. For example, perhaps you are interested in exploring Lou Reed's discography but you feel hopelessly intimidated by the sheer volume of material. Where do you start? Gateway to Geekery is there to help lest you make the mistake of picking up a copy of Metal Machine Music.

Anyway, I wish there was a Gateway to Geekery article available to anyone late to the Elmore Leonard Party because I'm pretty sure they would have advised me against reading Killshot.

Killshot is mid-career novel by Elmore Leonard. Written in 1989, it is the story of Wayne Colson and his wife, Carmen who inadvertently get caught in the middle of the shakedown of Carmen's boss. After a brief physical altercation, Wayne sends Armand Degas, an Ojibway hit man, and Richie Nix, a dim-witted loose cannon away, with their tails between their legs. Degas is a professional and knows that both Wayne and Carmen have seen their faces and could positively identify them in a police line-up. He is determined to do away with Wayne and Carmen as a measure of job security and maintained anonymity. As with any novel of this sort, the police are ineffectual. Wayne and Carmen are natually forced to take matters into their own hands.

I was expecting a fast-paced novel with lots of slick-talking characters and what I got was a slow plot that seemed unsure of where to go next. It felt as if Leonard was throwing in all sorts of half-concocted ideas and ill-formed plot lines only to abandon them before they fully materialized. While the characters are indeed strong, I found it impossible to believe that a professional such as Armand Degas would have partnered up with someone as dull-witted as Richie Nix. Degas must have known upon meeting this half-wit that doing any sort of business with him was going to end in disaster and it's not like they were forced to work together. Furthermore, Degas could have dissolved their partnership at any time. So why does he let such an unstable partner continue to live despite his erratic behavior? Degas's motivations remained concealed throughout and that weakened the novel considerably.

Furthermore, the legendary dialog that I expected from Leonard never really materialized. The dialog was by no means awful, but given what I had heard about his ability to write a conversation, I was decidedly underwhelmed. It is possible that it was built up too much prior to reading, but I found that the dialog in Killshot is a far cry from the brilliant work of Richard Price. Perhaps I picked the wrong book.

One area in which this book excels is Leonard's exploration of the theme of security. Leonard takes aim at the myth that we can insulate ourselves from crime and violence via various methods of self defense (in this case firearms and police protection but it could extend to more contemporary methods such as video surveillance, home security firms etc...). The fact of the matter is that security is a complete myth. The amount of time, money and effort we put into security does not directly translate into a more secured existence. In fact, it is impossible to protect ourselves from anything or anyone if that thing or person is determined to get you. Leonard did a fine job of expressing this from both the perspective of the terrorized Colson couple trying to protect themselves from would-be killers and Armand Degas, a professional killer trying to protect his anonymity.

Unfortunately the themes of the novel are not enough to carry the slow, meandering plot. Killshot had the makings of a decent novel but too many weird directions and loose ends makes it feel like an unfinished idea rather than a fully actualized novel. Given Elmore Leonard's reputation and his sheer volume of work, I will definitely give him another chance (though I am going to solicit recommendations before I jump into another title).

Think of Number

Think of Number

By John Verdon

Oh man, I really wanted to like this novel.

For a murder mystery novel it is compelling enough. And as debut novels go, John Verdon should be proud and I hope he does well with it and future books. I like the way this book was paced and never felt like it was dragging on. But Think Of A Number fails in a lot of fundamental ways. Here are a few:

My main problem with Think Like a Number is that Verdon sets up Dave Gurney, his main character, as the expert in hunting and catching psychopathic serial murderers. Think Clarice Starling from Silence of the Lambs. In Verdon's world, there simply isn't a cop alive better equipped to catch a killer than Dave Gurney. He's even a minor celebrity among cops on the Eastern Seaboard. Gurney's a retired cop that has lead the investigations against several high-profile serial killers. In Think Of A Number he gets dragged back into service when a series of strange notes lead to the death of a college friend. Once the crime scene is established and the investigation gets underway I assumed that Gurney was going to take the reader into the mind of the killer, tracing his motives and methods, each more cold and calculating than the first, revealing his madness a little at a time.... you know, like a good murder mystery.

The problem was that I had most things figured out long before Gurney and the cops. And on several occasions it was Gurney's wife, Madeleine, who tells him what I already knew. So much for celebrity expert in the field. My wife continuously tells me that I'm the least perceptive person in the world. I notice very little, and yet I seem to be solving a case a solid week in advance of these experts. That's inexcusable. These guys are supposed to be a professional crime unit. The reader and the retired cop's hippie wife are solving the crime faster than these chumps. Think of the lives that would have been saved if I had Kilgore Trout-ed into the book and taken over. Certainly Detective Sissek would not have perished. We could have spared Mrs. Sissek such a needless tragedy, coming only two weeks before the detective's retirement from the Wycherly Police Department. So much wasted time, fellas.

And that's another thing! Aside from Gurney and his wife, Verdon's characters seem to be merely caricatures of real people, cartoonish in their cliched existence. There's Detective Sissek, as mentioned above. He was only two weeks away from retirement, like I said. In the world of books, television and movies, all cops are within a month of retirement. Police Departments around the world should really address the problem of aging officers. Perhaps departments should give officers an inside job for their last month to avoid these all too common last month murders. Other characters include a clueless DA, a brown-nosing chief of police who insists that the murder follow a more conventional crime pattern, the requisite round peg in a square hole guy and the slightly racist but ultimately professional crime scene officer who nobody likes but everyone respects. Do police departments in America hire specifically for these particular quirks?

Another aspect in which Verdon fails is his sub-plots. He establishes several throughout the novel involving the death of his 9-year-old son, issues with his other son, on-going tension with his wife and a potential affair with an art gallery proprietor. Verdon either fails to develop these sub-plots and wraps them up clumsily in the last ten pages following the resolution of the primary story, leaves them completely unresolved, or, in one particularly galling instance involving a Gurney's burgeoning art career, forgets about it entirely. I have no problem with stories that follow a single trajectory. Writers need to know their limitations and if one story is all you can handle, fine. Do it, and do it well. Don't bite off more than you can chew. In this instance, Think Of A Number would have been better served without any sub-plots. The main plot was compelling enough to carry the reader, why bother with the other issues if you can't follow through?

And while we are on the subject of wrapping up a story, Gurney spends a lot of time toward the end of the book discussing the psychology of the killer and what was once a well-paced murder-mystery descends into a morass of psycho-babble that somehow renders his killer from perfectionist to a bumbling insane man simply by articulating his psychology. At no point previous to the killer's psychological profile did he ever make a mistake. Once we are presented with the full flower of his insanity, he becomes a complete moron. And finally, for the millionth time: If you are a killer, victory soliloquies always end badly. If committing the perfect murder is your business, shut up and do it. Never explain yourself. I can't believe I'm typing this in 2011. You'd think villains would have learned by now. I'm surprised the killer wasn't stroking his cat while divulging his secrets. The victory soliloquy is a classic blunder akin to starting a land war in Asia or going against a Sicilian when death is on the line. Don't do it!

Alas, Silence of the Lambs this is not. While I would like to wish John Verdon luck in his future writing (he really does have talent) if you are looking for a really good murder mystery and/or cop drama this summer, I will forever recommend Lush Life by Richard Price. This is perhaps the best crime drama I have read in recent years. It keeps you guessing and never disappoints. Something I really wish I could say for Think Of A Number.