Poe man of the 80s

This is why I love Facebook. You can see silliness  like this photo of Edgar Allan Poe photoshopped to look  like a sleazy bad guy on Magnum PI.  Not sure where it originated.
And speaking of Poe (a belated happy birthday to the dark bard), his poetry is going to be an integral part of The Following, the Kevin Williamson-created television show starring Kevin Bacon and James Purefoy.

Bacon plays an FBI agent and Purefoy plays a literature professor specializing in romantic poetry whose real passion is murder. The series premieres on Fox this coming Monday and I cannot wait. There's an "Inside The Following" featurette up on IMDB, with images of crazy cultists in Poe masks killing people in honor of their idol, the charismatic killer played by Purefoy.

Book Review The Dead Do Not Improve by Jay Caspian Kang

If you like your noir leavened with humor and a lot of local color, you will LOVE Jay Caspian Kang's San Francisco-based, cross-cultural mystery, The Dead Do Not Improve.

THE DEAD DO NOT IMPROVE by Jay Caspian Kang

The lives of a detective and an under-employed Korean-American intersect when a woman is murdered in Jay Caspian Kang's novel The Dead Do Not Improve.

Philip Kim, a first-generation Korean-American, sleeps through the murder of his neighbor, Dolores Stone. He never knew her name until after the fact, just always called her the "Baby Molester," a name bestowed on her by Kathleen, the girl Philip followed to San Francisco and hasn’t talked to in a year.

Philip often sleeps late and just as often is late to his job, working for a social network that targets men who have been dumped. (getoverit.com). He is responsible for greeting the new accounts and sending them chatty emails every so often. For this he’s encouraged to use the named "Philip Davis" because research has convinced his boss that no one trusts Asians when it comes to relationship advice.

The man investigating the murder is Sid (short for Siddhartha) Finch, and he's more interested in saving his marriage to Sarah than in solving the crime which is, as is often the case, a gateway murder that leads to a much larger problem.

The dual stories are both interesting and the worlds of Finch and Philip are populated by extremely good characters. Philip's internal monologues often have to do with Korean identity and there's a running motif about the Korean-American school shooter at Virginia Tech.

Some of the dialogue is absolutely hilarious, particularly the interactions between Sid and the waitresses at a restaurant called Being Abundance, where everyone seems to have a reddish glow. There’s also a scene at a vintage clothing store where Philip and a neighbor suit up for Dolores’ bizarre funeral that seems incredibly and indelibly San Francisco.

Book Review Agent Zigzag by Ben Macintyre

Agent Zigzag by Ben Macintyre is the true story of Eddie Chapman, a criminal-turned-spy and his role as “Agent Zigzag” during WWII.  As always with Macintyre’s books, the characters here are first rate, with Chapman coming across as a character with a capital C.  He fascinated almost everyone he came into contact with, from the women who fell for his blue eyes to the man who “ran” him as an agent for MI5.  This was a man who made his living as a thief, but who also courted friendships with people like Noel Coward and a young filmmaker who went on to direct the first James Bond movie. 

Eddie Chapman/Agent Zigzag

Macintyre has a knack for taking footnotes in history and turning them into riveting non-fiction. The author does a terrific job of sketching out both time and place, wherever that time or place might be.  Whether he’s recounting the story of Eddie’s early crimes, the night he was arrested while dining with a date or his growing frustration in prison, there’s always an emotional underpinning to the scenes, and they spring from the pages in three dimensions.  The writer intersperses contemporary documents with his own narrative, so that we read accounts of Eddie’s crimes and exploits.  It gives a true immediacy to the events and brings us into his story. 

Stephan Graumann, the aristocratic German spymaster who "runs" Eddie in Germany is very much the antithesis of the clichéd German spy.  He’s an educated and intelligent man.  (And as we learn from the author’s graceful side trips into context, we know that the Abwehr was antithetical to Nazi culture.  Headed up by Admiral Canaris, who would later be executed for his part in a plot to kill Hitler, the German intelligence service sought to serve the country without serving the Fuhrer.)

The backdrop of events is elegant.  In fact, it’s about as far removed from modern-day spycraft, with its anonymous rooms and bland personalities as it is possible to be.  The Villa de la Bretonniere is an irresistible setting for Eddie’s schooling. 

Book Review The Gods of Gotham

In pre-Civil War New York, a reluctant cop must find a murderer preying on child prostitutes as tensions escalate between locals and Irish immigrants. Lindsay Faye's novel The Gods of Gotham has just been nominated for an Edgar Award and in a year that was filled with outstanding historical mysteries, from The Killing of Emma Gross to The Technologists, this book stands out.

There is meticulous attention to period detail and excellent character work. The writer offers up four plausible candidates for the role of the killer and the revelation of who’s responsible will come as a surprise even for a reader paying close attention.

Be warned though, the plot is so dark it makes Caleb Carr's The Angel of Darkness look like a Nancy Drew mystery with a portrait of a cold-hearted madam that is chilling. Fans of the BBC America series Copper may find this book particularly engaging with its blend of crime and politics.

In Gods of Gotham the hero and investigator is a former barman who becomes a "copper star" after his life savings bur up in a fire that destroys his lodging. Timothy Wilde is no stranger to the mean streets of the city but even he is shocked when a madam who specializes in child prostitutes is protected by the Democratic Party because she's a generous benefactor.

The characters here are rich and layered, and their relationships are believable and adult.

Timothy is a complex man but his older brother Valentine is even better. There’s something twisted and tweaked about him and when we find out what it is, it explains a lot. Then there's Mercy, the do-gooder who is Timothy's childhood friend and the love of his life. As with Timothy and Valentine, there's a lot more going on with her than meets the eye.

Timothy has a large and eclectic circle of friends that include a former "oysterman" and a group of "newsies" who have banded together in an informal family. His landlady, a baker's widow, has a life filled with sorrow and a practicality that serves Timothy well.

Father Sheehy, an Irish Catholic priest who helps Timothy, is what a priest should be—a man who is ready to defend his flock—at gunpoint if necessary—and who harbors a fine, fierce outrage over injustice. He reminds us a bit of characters from the works of Andrew Vachss where the protagonists are always on the childrens' side. Then there’s Matsell and Piest, Timothy’s colleagues on the police force. They both turn out to be (again) terrific characters.

It seems likely that this is the first in a series of books about these characters and the characters are up to the task of keeping readers interested from one book to the next.

Fleur Pellerin and Twitter

Fleur Pellerin is France's Minister for the Digital Economy (a very cool-sounding job title) and she's very much involved in a current contretemps over racist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic hashtags on Twitter. The country that gave us liberte, egalite and fraternite, is having some problems living up to its national motto.  (Witness the huge turnout against gay marriage over the weekend.) Read about the court case now going on here.

Top baby names of 2013

Sookie? Are you kidding me? Eithne?  Really? (I actually know someone who named her baby girl Eithne. I hope she will grow into it.)  Speaking as someone who hated her first name enough to legally get rid of it--no one ever called me by the name except for elementary school teachers on the first day of class--it constantly amazes me the names that crop up.  Millie's' on the list too. My mother's name was Mildred and her mother called her "Mert," which she despised. She was Mickey from college onward. I always thought "Mickey" was kind of cool.
"Ellie" and "Betty" are on the list too.
The boys fare a bit better. Team Jacob comes up on top in the boy's list (and Edward actually isn't on the list at all). However Mo, Bertie and Gus make the list. "Bertie?" Not even "Albert," which would be bad enough? The commplete list of baby names is here.

Review of Snow White Must Die

This is a Euro-noir from German writer Cornelia "Nele" Neuhaus. It's part of a series about two detectives working homicides in the burbs of Frankfurt. I would love to read the first three books but they haven't been translated yet. The review is posted over at Criminal Element. Head over there for a chance to win the book.