tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10475847548244598992024-02-24T04:25:47.207-06:00Johnny DangerousInvestigate Higher Mysteriesjohnny dangeroushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00155587617175255684noreply@blogger.comBlogger220125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047584754824459899.post-58245108798442012032015-08-17T13:18:00.000-05:002015-08-17T13:18:19.986-05:00Now that SPECTER is out, Johnny asked me to provide a little background about myself. So I thought I'd share this high school photo and share a little story about when I was in St. Athalbert's Middle School in Chicago.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_57d8K3E8ptg1QNhIQT80aApviZ3I-Sos-gotTdYTF8gsvuFmPjTP9AHttAK1sqTjpRkduhpNaiRTCVtx-WXIOLLdvdSJgz9XAtdvzd0tJv9t1TCzWEmPnau7BhsytIR5MH872xBsCMpy/s1600/Selena+at+Loyola+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_57d8K3E8ptg1QNhIQT80aApviZ3I-Sos-gotTdYTF8gsvuFmPjTP9AHttAK1sqTjpRkduhpNaiRTCVtx-WXIOLLdvdSJgz9XAtdvzd0tJv9t1TCzWEmPnau7BhsytIR5MH872xBsCMpy/s320/Selena+at+Loyola+1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">After school one day, my best friend Gloria
and I tied our white blouses at the waist and rolled up our pleated uniform skirts,
wearing so much mascara, eye shadow and blush we looked like <i>cadaveras</i> in search of a wake. We took the El to the loop for a little shopping. As soon
as we sauntered into Marshall Fields we were shadowed by house dicks who</span>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">decided we
were there for the five-finger discount. We lingered in the lingerie department
to embarrass them and then browsed the bling. We dallied among the dresses and
Gloria joked that not even white girls were as white as the mannequins. There
was no sense in visiting the shoe department; the sales staff there insisted on
measuring your stocking feet before trying on anything. On the way out, at the door, a store
detective nabbed our collars and demanded we open our purses. The grim man
pulled out packs of gum, crumpled tissues, keys, peppermints, a tampon. He
asked, “Do those skirts have pockets?” Gloria opened her lipsticked mouth to
reply <i>Don’t you wish, so you could search
them, too </i>but I elbowed her. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> “No, officer,” I
said politely. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">He
cocked his head, reading our faces, and I worried that, given my blushing
cheeks, we might be in for a pat-down in the office. But he let us pass. He
kept a narrowed eye on us through the display window. On the sidewalk, out of
earshot, I waved my hands, irritated to no end.
<i>The nerve.</i> <i>They tailed us just because we’re brown.</i>
<i>I mean, how could you just walk out with stuff,
anyway?</i> Easy, Gloria told me – walk out <i>wearing</i>
it. She pulled her hair back to reveal the lifted earrings. <i>¿Gloria, estás loco?</i> I scolded. But it
was half in horror and half in admiration. I knew that with my pleated plaid
skirt and white socks, I couldn’t walk out wearing those Salvatore Ferragamo high
heels I had admired instead of my boring Buster Browns.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Thanks, Selena. Now we can see that your interest in shoes goes back a long way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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johnny dangeroushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00155587617175255684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047584754824459899.post-25424829774013136082015-05-28T15:30:00.002-05:002015-05-28T15:30:58.634-05:00<div class="ex-article-review-rating">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO-st3fP4aZ7ZAPNn6Jc8xjT8RewIKTy32TcrNk5h711OsjadxZQEvRZUp5UFoXglWJppYVnhnTReFziutAVs6KeHjz4ENNWP2i1OxzUFhyphenhyphen5fM9fB6MfRI8hvvJA1HMOuTAeFsBzxjFHir/s1600/Specter_cov_front.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO-st3fP4aZ7ZAPNn6Jc8xjT8RewIKTy32TcrNk5h711OsjadxZQEvRZUp5UFoXglWJppYVnhnTReFziutAVs6KeHjz4ENNWP2i1OxzUFhyphenhyphen5fM9fB6MfRI8hvvJA1HMOuTAeFsBzxjFHir/s320/Specter_cov_front.jpg" width="205" /></a></div>
<div class="fivestar-widget-static fivestar-widget-static-rating fivestar-widget-static-5">
<span class="media__title">Here is one of the first long reviews of SPECTER. </span></div>
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<span class="media__title"><br /></span></div>
<div class="fivestar-widget-static fivestar-widget-static-rating fivestar-widget-static-5">
<span class="media__title">SPECTER reviewed by: John Konecsi for Examiner.com</span></div>
<div class="fivestar-widget-static fivestar-widget-static-rating fivestar-widget-static-5">
<span class="media__title">Rating: 5 stars of 5</span><span class="star-container"><div class="star star-1 star-odd star-first">
<br /></div>
</span></div>
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In <a href="http://amzn.to/1EwuWbz" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bleeder</a>,
by John Desjarlais, we were introduced to philosophy professor Reed
Stubblefield, who thought in Aristotle quotes. During a bit of R and R
in the countryside, in a quiet, sleepy little village right out of a
Miss Marple novel, he meets a priest, the local stigmatic. When the
priest is murdered, Reed becomes the primary suspect. What follows is an
intricate, brilliant work that Agatha Christie would have been happy
with. Desjarlais' prose is tight, erudite and powerful. His vocabulary
is well-used. He knows how to engage the reader, and is very good with
turning a phrase. I enjoyed this <a class="inline_link omniture-click-processed" href="http://www.examiner.com/topic/book">book</a>, and I was surprised by the villain-reveal at the end. Five stars all the way.<br />
In <a href="http://amzn.to/1Ff8x4a" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Viper</a>,
new names appear in the local church's book of the dead. Except, none
of these people are dead yet. When the names on the list begin to
correlate to the fresh homicides in the neighborhood, it's clear that
this is a hitlist. At the bottom of that list is the former undercover
DEA agent Selena De La Cruz. Selena's passions are guns, shoes, fast
cars, and kickboxing, so if someone wants to kill her, it's going to be a
fight they're going to regret. It was more of a thriller than <a href="http://amzn.to/1EwuWbz" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bleeder</a>,
though it's set in the same universe -- Selena is even dating Reed.
This was a fun, solid ride from start to finish. My only problem with
the book was the unrealistic character of a DEA agent who was not only
racist, but whose solution to everything was a SWAT team breaking down
the front door (Seriously, how did the guy not get fired? Did he have a
relative in the hierarchy? Was he a nephew to the AG?). Even that only
knocks it down to a 4.5 star rating.<br />
Finally, we come to Desjarlais' third book, <a href="http://amzn.to/1PM6ajC" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Specter</a>.<br />
In our opening prologue, a Cardinal is murdered in an orchestrated
hit that looks like the end of a brilliantly executed caper movie ...
only with an assassination. The incident is loosely based off of the
death of Cardinal Ocampo in 1993, which was presumed to be the worst
case of timing and luck on the planet Earth.<br />
But what if it wasn't?<br />
16 years later, former undercover DEA agent Selena De La Cruz (of <em>Vi<a href="http://amzn.to/1Ff8x4a" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://amzn.to/1Ff8x4a</a>per</em>) is about to get married to Reed Stubblefield (of <a href="http://amzn.to/1EwuWbz" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bleeder</a>), and then the Vatican comes by and says "Hi, we think your family was in on the hit, and you were in town at the time."<br />
And we're off to the races.<br />
A fun part of this is the dynamic between Reed and Selena. <em>Bleeder</em> was very much Reed's book, where Selena first appeared. <a href="http://amzn.to/1Ff8x4a" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Viper</a> was all Selena, with a few cameos by Reed. <a href="http://amzn.to/1PM6ajC" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Specter</a> is <em>their</em>
book. Even the alternating points of views (third person personal) are
very distinct. Their chemistry is very much a part of the narrative as
it is part of their relationship. She's very a very tough, outgoing
modern woman who has little problem with a shootout, and he's a quiet,
bookish, old-fashioned gentleman who thinks in Aristotle quotes. And I
really like these two together, even though we hadn't seen much of their
developing relationship. Looking at the two of them deal with the
trials of dealing with the wedding is more than enough evidence for why
these two belong together.<br />
There's even one entire conversion that sums it up quite nicely.<br />
Him "We're incompatible. I'm North Side, you're South Side. I'm Cubs,
you're white Sox .... I'm publicly-employed pro-union Democrat for gun
control and you're small-business owner-Republican with a gun....I drive
a Volvo, you drive a Charger."<br />
Her: "My godmother is very traditional and is having a hard time thinking of me as Selena Perez de La Cruz Stubblefield."<br />
"You don't have to adopt my last name..."<br />
See what I mean? They work so well together, I'm surprised more of
this wasn't a romance novel. I would have read it twice for banter like
that.<br />
Okay, the fact that John Desjarlais has a female badass teamed up with the nerd just like I did in <a href="http://ow.ly/HouPF" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Pius Trilogy</a>
really doesn't have anything to do with my enjoyment of the book.
Honest. It just works really well. It's like Baldacci's King and
Maxwell series -- they just have this great dynamic together. And if you
don't like Baldacci, don't worry, that's the only overlap I can think
of.<br />
As for the rest ... if you're thinking that this is going to be exactly like <a href="http://amzn.to/1EwuWbz" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bleeder</a> or <a href="http://amzn.to/1Ff8x4a" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Viper</a>,
it is and it isn't. The overall plot feels like an excuse to watch Reed
and Selena on screen, which, frankly, I'm happy with. If you read
Desjarlais' books for the intricate puzzle solving (like <a href="http://amzn.to/1EwuWbz" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bleeder</a>), you're going to be disappointed. If you're in this only for a knock-down shootout (like <a href="http://amzn.to/1Ff8x4a" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Viper</a>), you're going to enjoy the second half of the book a lot.<br />
There is also the best look at supernatural phenomenon I've seen in
years. Even little conversations like "ever have a seance or use a ouja
board? Those things attract all <em>sorts </em>of nasty things." Awesome.<br />
However, <a href="http://amzn.to/1PM6ajC" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">if you want to read this book to follow Reed and Selena</a>,
dive right in. As far as I'm concerned, these two are right up there
with Nick and Nora Charles. And, from what I've heard, Chesterton Press
wants more books in this universe from John Desjarlais, despite that
it's "just" a trilogy.<br />
Frankly, I own all six Nick and Nora Charles movies, so I'm perfectly happy with the idea that we'll see more of these two.<br />
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johnny dangeroushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00155587617175255684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047584754824459899.post-35208509854297574602015-04-17T14:05:00.000-05:002015-04-17T14:05:01.377-05:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXZckOUBWbX0L-34nZMeDzmVQtYLW-KVwxNRy3jwvKpwywRhnbCRxn57Bi7VYBBAr2loYpB0hKrSDs3miXG29OIq4UxDJurx1pfpfSOICCcbYCf5TMihJdQXoplnu36Hqo8n73iizjvg_F/s1600/Specter_cov_front.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXZckOUBWbX0L-34nZMeDzmVQtYLW-KVwxNRy3jwvKpwywRhnbCRxn57Bi7VYBBAr2loYpB0hKrSDs3miXG29OIq4UxDJurx1pfpfSOICCcbYCf5TMihJdQXoplnu36Hqo8n73iizjvg_F/s1600/Specter_cov_front.jpg" height="320" width="205" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Now that SPECTER is out, some groups may want to gather to read/discuss it. So may I present:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">SPECTER Discussion Guide<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">By John Desjarlais<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">SPECTER is the third novel in a contemporary mystery
series. While it can be read as a stand-alone, an acquaintance with the earlier
two entries can be useful. Story summaries for BLEEDER and VIPER appear below.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The questions can be used in a single meeting or, as
in some college classes, in two weekly meetings – reading the first half of the
book in Week 1 and the rest in Week 2. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Some
notes for discussion facilitators:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<ol start="1" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Read the
book yourself first</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> – OK, this may be obvious. But you’ll want to
allow yourself time to think about the book and prepare before your group
meets. <o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Take note
of important passages/pages</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> – Read with a pencil in hand and
take note of passages that struck you, or things that you think might come
up in discussion. Write the page numbers somewhere – in the blank pages at
the back of the book, or in a note book - so you can find the passages
during the discussion.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Let others
talk</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
– You’re a facilitator, not a teacher. So ask questions, and invite
questions from others. Let others
in the group speak first. Your first task is to provide a welcoming
climate that promotes conversation and helps all participants feel like
their opinions are valuable. Don’t be afraid of silences. People are
thinking. There’s usually no need to jump in if no one answers right away.
Sometimes – if everyone looks puzzled instead of pondering - you’ll just
need to rephrase the question.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Remain
flexible and be alert to making connections</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> – You have
some prepared questions in this guide, but you needn’t march through them
in order. Someone might pipe up early with a comment that Question #4 or
#5 addresses. That’s ok, go with the flow. You are the facilitator, and
you can go with whatever order seems to work. If you go in order, connect
an answer to a question with the next question. By connecting people's
comments to the prepared questions, you'll build a sense of unity and
direction in the discussion.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Still
waters run deep</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
– While you don't want to pressure anyone, you want participants to feel
that their views are valued. If you have a few talkative people who always
dive in, keeping others quiet, try directing a question to a specific
person. A simple “Leslie, what did you think about that?” will do. This can
help draw out the quieter people (and let the more active people realize
that others deserve a turn).<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Be careful
about digressions</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> – People join book discussion groups because
they like to read and learn – and socialize. Off topic conversations are
ok, but people are here because they’ve spent a few hours reading a book
and expect to talk about it now. It is your job as the facilitator to
identify digressions and gently draw the conversation back to the book.
Save casual conversation for a refreshments time to follow the discussion.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Don't feel
as though your group must answer all the questions</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> - The
questions are here as a guide only. It isn’t a quiz. Maybe you’ll only get
through a few, and maybe you’ll decide to select only a few from the guide
to use. That’s fine. Group members will likely come up with their own
questions, too. Keep an eye on the clock and conclude the discussion near
the agreed-upon time, rather than pressing on to finish everything you
prepared. <o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Closing the
conversation</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
- One good way to close the conversation and help people summarize their
opinions is to ask each person to give the book a 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 star
rating. If someone has been taking notes, perhaps the group could agree to
post a review at Amazon.com that would assist other readers and groups.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Getting
some background</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> – A. There might be interest in the real crime
that prompts the story. While <i>Appendix
I</i> provides some updates not covered in the story itself, you could
also use an Internet search engine to find “Cardinal Posadas Ocampo” for
additional research. B. The story might raise an interest in ‘ghosts.’ Be
careful here. There is a great deal of uninformed secular speculation
fueled by popular TV shows. Given the Catholic context of the novel, it
would help to focus attention on the Catholic understanding of the
afterlife. A search for “Catholic teaching on ghosts” will lead to
trustworthy sources. Here is an especially helpful one: </span><a href="http://irenaeusgsaintonge.blogspot.com/2011/05/catholic-teachings-on-ghosts.html"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">http://irenaeusgsaintonge.blogspot.com/2011/05/catholic-teachings-on-ghosts.html</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
</ol>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This SPECTER summary may be useful in promoting your
book club/discussion:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">1993: the Cardinal of Guadalajara is gunned down at
the international airport just before meeting the Papal Nuncio coming for a
state visit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">2008: The Vatican re-opens the case, no longer
convinced the Cardinal was accidentally caught in the crossfire of rival drug
gangs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Now: Former DEA Special Agent Selena De La Cruz is
asked to join the investigation, since her <i>Papá</i>
– a former Mexican oil company executive and diplomat – may have had a part in
the murder, resulting in his own death. But what, exactly, was his part? With
fiancé Reed Stubblefield, Selena digs up clues only to uncover a shocking family
secret that threatens to destroy those she loves the most. And is she merely <i>dreaming</i> about <i>Papá</i>, or is he <i>appearing</i>
to her from Beyond the Grave to deliver a warning?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">DISCUSSION QUESTIONS<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">1. Reed Stubblefield and
Selena De La Cruz first met in BLEEDER and became engaged in VIPER. How would
you describe their relationship and individual personalities? What attracts
them to each other – after all, Reed acknowledges that even apart from their
Anglo/Latin difference they seem to be “i</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">ncompatible. I’m North Side,
you’re South Side. I’m Cubs, you’re
White Sox. I drive a Volvo, you drive a Charger.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">2. What seems to be troubling, or repelling, in their
relationship? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">3. What do we learn about the relationships within
Selena’s family? How does Selena’s relationship with her deceased father and
pious godmother complicate her life with Reed?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">4. Why does <i>Madrina</i>
believe <i>Papá</i> is appearing to them
from Purgatory? What is your understanding of this belief? What do you make of
Selena’s explanation of it on page 57-58? You can see the official Catholic
teaching in the <i>Catechism of the Catholic
Church</i>, paragraphs 1030, 1031, and 1032: </span><a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p123a12.htm"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p123a12.htm</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There is a small ‘museum’ in Rome that displays
items purportedly proving the existence of this intermediary state and the
‘ghostly’ appearances of suffering souls to the living: find it at </span><a href="http://www.traditioninaction.org/religious/e048-Museum_1.htm"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">http://www.traditioninaction.org/religious/e048-Museum_1.htm</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">5. “Ghosthunter” hobbyist Sean explains ‘ghosts’ from a
Catholic perspective on page 125-126. How does his explanation compare to
secular representations in popular TV shows? Why is it important for Sean to
pray for spiritual protection before proceeding with his investigation?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">6. Do Reed and Selena react to various revelations the
way you think you would in a similar situation? Do you find their actions
troubling? Are their actions consistent with their characters? How do they
change through the course of the story? What events trigger such changes? What
do you make of Selena’s somewhat flirty attraction to Von Bingen? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">7. Is “The Beast” a prop or another male character?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">8. What kinds of ‘secrets’ drive the story? What
effects do secrets have on family life? How is forgiveness possible when family
secrets have such profound, long-lasting effects?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">9. What
actors would you cast in the roles of the characters if the book were made into
a motion picture?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">10. The Vatican still regards the true case of the
Cardinal’s assassination open. SPECTER proposes a resolution to the case. Do
you find it plausible? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">11. What did you think of the final confrontation? The
ending? What does the Biblical quote in the “Epilogomenon” add to the
resolution of the story?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">12. Do the location and environment of the book color
the telling of the story or are they merely a backdrop? What effects do the
settings have on the central characters?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">13. Characters change in a story, but do you, the
reader, feel 'changed' in any way? Did the story expand your range of
experience, challenge your assumptions or affirm your beliefs?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">14. If you could ask the <strong>author</strong> a
question, what would you ask? Have you read other books by the same author? If
so, how does this book compare? (Consider inviting the author to ‘meet’ the
group via Skype or a conference call – jjdesjarlais (at) johndesjarlais (dot)
com).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">15. If you gave the book a rating of one to five stars
(five being high), what would you give it? What would you say in a one-or-two
sentence review to explain your rating? Consider posting your ratings/reviews
to amazon.com or goodreads.com<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>BLEEDER Summary:<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When classics
professor Reed Stubblefield is disabled in a school shooting, he retreats to a
rural Illinois cabin to recover and to write a book on Aristotle in peace.
Oddly, in the chill of early March, the campgrounds and motels of tiny
River Falls are filled with the ill and infirm -- all seeking the
healing touch of the town’s new parish priest, reputed to be a stigmatic.
Skeptical about religion since his wife’s death from leukemia, Reed is
nevertheless drawn into a friendship with the cleric, Rev. Ray Boudreau, an
amiable Aquinas scholar with a fine library -- who collapses and bleeds
to death on Good Friday in front of horrified parishioners. A miracle? Or
bloody murder? Once Reed becomes the prime 'person of interest' in the
mysterious death, he seeks the truth with the help of an attractive local
reporter and Aristotle’s logic before he is arrested or killed -- because not
everyone in town wants this mystery solved...<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Reviews of BLEEDER:</b> <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>"Pure
enjoyment!"</i><br />
Seattle Post Intelligencer<br /><i>"Crisp and original...It keeps the reader trying to guess whodunit, just
as a good mystery should; and, as the better representatives of its kind do, it
also provides an ending of suspense and real surprise. Any fan of mysteries
would enjoy this novel, but for those who also enjoy reading the prose of a
master craftsman, I would recommend it even more highly."</i><br />
St. Austin Review<i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>"Smart,
frequently witty, and beautifully researched (the author’s paraphrasing of
Aristotle’s logic is an intellectual delight), it is refreshing to read a book
where faith is neither demanded, nor held up to ridicule."</i><br />
Mystery Scene<i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>VIPER summary:<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Haunted by the loss of her brother to drugs and a botched
raid that ended her career with the DEA, insurance agent Selena De La Cruz
hoped to start afresh in rural Illinois. But her gung-ho former boss needs her
back to hunt “The Snake,” a dealer she helped arrest who is out of prison and
systematically killing anyone who ever crossed him. His ‘hit list’, appended to
a Catholic Church’s All Souls Day ‘Book of the Deceased,’ shows Selena’s name
last. Working against time, small town prejudice and the suspicions of her own <i>Latino</i>
community, Selena races to find The Snake before he reaches her name while a
girl visionary claims a “Blue Lady” announces each killing in turn. Is it Our
Lady of Guadalupe or, as others believe, the Aztec goddess of Death?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
(VIPER was a 2013 Catholic Arts and Letters Award Finalist)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>VIPER reviews:<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>"Compelling
characters, an engaging plot and a 'can't put it down' vibe combine to make Viper
another literary jewel from one of my favorite novelists, John Desjarlais. Viper
picks up where Desjarlais' hit Bleeder left off, and John's writing is
better than ever. The cultural underpinnings that color Viper are rich,
diverse and well researched, and its action and dialogue will have you
instantly connecting with heroine Selena De La Cruz.”</i><br />
Lisa M. Hendey, Founder of CatholicMom.com<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>"Entertaining
and thrilling...a fascinating mystery and a fun read, with more substance
than your average best-seller."</i><br />
St. Austin Review <span style="color: olive;"><br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--></span><o:p></o:p></div>
johnny dangeroushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00155587617175255684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047584754824459899.post-87544363690043030322015-04-17T13:58:00.002-05:002015-04-17T13:58:21.333-05:00SPECTER is finally available! Here's what showed up in the mail last week. At last! To read the first 40 pages free, visit my editor's website<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">:</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<a href="http://reginadoman.com/CP_book_previews/Specter_sample/index.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">http://reginadoman.com/CP_book_previews/Specter_sample/index.html</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">To purchase, visit the publisher’s website:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<a href="http://www.chestertonpress.com/specter/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">http://www.chestertonpress.com/specter/</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2h9moWr3yBin86W8u9FlVwvpr23OV9zs8pXDO6JiOWnM8_GM52KUnl5H1tWMqa-5WTKF2XFpDSlLFND90f1kaoL9YC9tQxGPMyEEANLLywJAcwOTLG8HTd2RF3yi0fBXfCRekP3X33dL7/s1600/box+of+author+copies.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2h9moWr3yBin86W8u9FlVwvpr23OV9zs8pXDO6JiOWnM8_GM52KUnl5H1tWMqa-5WTKF2XFpDSlLFND90f1kaoL9YC9tQxGPMyEEANLLywJAcwOTLG8HTd2RF3yi0fBXfCRekP3X33dL7/s1600/box+of+author+copies.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
<br />johnny dangeroushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00155587617175255684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047584754824459899.post-36647429120111540402015-03-08T17:33:00.000-05:002015-03-08T17:33:00.481-05:00Prototype for the cover -- still rough, but coming along. The release date is March 20.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9-87OP-gAfqUS5QkLli9CRT3XSnwoBhQE-Pc-MwrEinnvmf3fOKdMQk_hR05wbgNWEYlWvYL2AYGAxWsvlGr1nW1-g3ri4B0dz0aK-YTXRiQsEFhij_FyHKBm55iw0FbBnaPCTnWYcXaF/s1600/Specter_cov_rough-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9-87OP-gAfqUS5QkLli9CRT3XSnwoBhQE-Pc-MwrEinnvmf3fOKdMQk_hR05wbgNWEYlWvYL2AYGAxWsvlGr1nW1-g3ri4B0dz0aK-YTXRiQsEFhij_FyHKBm55iw0FbBnaPCTnWYcXaF/s1600/Specter_cov_rough-1.jpg" height="235" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />johnny dangeroushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00155587617175255684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047584754824459899.post-24880278809877736862015-03-05T17:49:00.002-06:002015-03-05T17:49:58.352-06:00Coming soon...<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRqDqY7MOjKr9_qO-1xbX0OTSevkj3pDhh9MY206Ap0G4ZkSl0Y6_GMYRGeCeKohiZjIHKB-5eFnRG_Za_wlWr_upiC4lRn36tlAh61DN8WES1bMBgbcjcL4iOpTZRwn5ZSZsG2077FskS/s1600/SPECTER+promo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRqDqY7MOjKr9_qO-1xbX0OTSevkj3pDhh9MY206Ap0G4ZkSl0Y6_GMYRGeCeKohiZjIHKB-5eFnRG_Za_wlWr_upiC4lRn36tlAh61DN8WES1bMBgbcjcL4iOpTZRwn5ZSZsG2077FskS/s1600/SPECTER+promo.jpg" height="110" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />johnny dangeroushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00155587617175255684noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047584754824459899.post-31182773684364245872015-01-31T10:12:00.000-06:002015-01-31T10:12:53.924-06:00The Eternity of BaseballI told my Composition students that I'd post my essay draft here. It follows:<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
People complain that baseball is a slow
game. At least too slow for television. So, a few years ago, professional
baseball adopted “hurry up rules” to answer this criticism. Yet while the
average game in 1960 lasted 2 hours 20 minutes, the average game today is 3
hours. Baseball, it appears, resists time limits.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
One
might say baseball is beyond time. The game is not played against a clock,
which makes basketball and football – along with their rectangular fields of
play – more suitable for television. Those games feel faster with their
start-stop, left-right action. But baseball is played in innings which
theoretically can go on forever. Baseball is potentially eternal.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
I
learned this while playing baseball as a boy in a sandy field next to a
cemetery in northern <st1:state w:st="on">Massachusetts</st1:state>.
The field lay below a grassy hill which was fenced around the top and filled
with headstones. An asphalt road, veined with cracks, ran up the field’s middle
past low scrub and clumps of grass. At one end was a chain link fence and gate
and at the other end, a sharp curve up into the cemetery itself. At the elbow
of the curve we dropped home plate, a spare roof shingle from Eddie’s garage,
and we hit toward the fence, the home-run line.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
In
a way, our field resembled <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Fenway</st1:placename>
<st1:placetype w:st="on">Park</st1:placetype></st1:place> in <st1:city w:st="on">Boston</st1:city>: the pines on the hill to the left
resembled the infamous Green Monster. The low, lumpy shrubs made right field as
unpredictable as Fenway’s nooks and crannies. And in our twelve-year-old minds,
we were the Bosox pursuing the pennant that year in 1967, the 100-to-1 shot
Cinderella team of Yaz, Conigliaro, Petrocelli, and Lonborg. We took turns
being Yaz. Eddie did a good imitation of announcer Mel Parnell and called the
play-by-play. He hung his transistor radio on his bike’s banana seat so we
could hear the real game while we played. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
At
Cemetery Field, since there were only three or four of us playing at any time,
we used “ghost runners” (though I wouldn’t want to press the cemetery imagery
too far). We ignored innings and games; we played from dawn to dark for what
seemed a timeless forever (again, not to push the cemetery idea too much). We
only stopped for lightning storms and funerals, Acts of God (OK, so I am
pushing the cemetery idea). If my Mom heard us stomping in early, kicking off
our sneakers and snapping open Cokes, she asked “Another parade, boys?” That’s
what the funerals looked like. A line of cars driving with their brights behind
a hearse processed up the pavement while we stood aside, caps off. The cars
curved up and right into the cemetery, like Eddie’s bad pitches. And when the
last car crossed over home plate, it was easy to see that baseball, and life,
and death had one thing in common: going home.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: center;">
* *
*<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
Baseball
is played in a “park” or a “field,” never a “stadium,” (sorry, Yankee Stadium) for
historical reasons. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
When
the game developed during the late 19<sup>th</sup> Century, before lights and
broadcast contracts, it was played under the sun in a green oasis in the middle
of <st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region>’s
smoky cities. For factory workers, the “park” provided an escape from the
tyranny of the punch-clock. For just a little while, men who had left the
pastures and fields of rural America in search of a future returned to their unhurried
past and to a place of fresh-cut grass, open sky, and time measured by shadows
and stars.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
Today,
however, urgency and noise have overwhelmed the once-peaceful parks. Monstrous
“Jumbotrons” flash highlights and tell fans when to cheer. Raucous music blares
between innings. Cell phones twitter like starlings beneath the bleachers,
showing instant replays in streaming video. <i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
Is
this necessary? How did we come to this?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
Baseball’s
television ratings steadily declined over the 1990’s, losing young viewers to
faster back-and-forth games played against an urgent clock. Fox broadcasters tried
bringing video-game graphics and sound effects to the rescue, but viewers kept
leaking away until 2003 when it seemed possible the Chicago Cubs and Boston Red
Sox might meet in the World Series, which surely would have signaled the
apocalypse. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
It
didn’t happen. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
But
miracles still do. In the next season, the Sox routed the mighty Yanks against
impossible odds, and then swept the Cardinals to win the World Series for the
first time in 86 years. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
For
Boston fans, the time mattered – even though the game itself is an escape from
time.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
Plato
said “Time is the image of eternity.” He was wrong. Baseball is. Strangely,
with instant replay, we can now travel in time, back-and-forth, as many times
as we want. We can slow time, stop it, reverse it. As in eternity, time in
baseball is non-linear and doesn’t truly exist.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
Just don’t be late
for the first pitch.<o:p></o:p></div>
johnny dangeroushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00155587617175255684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047584754824459899.post-87373403796214384602014-07-26T10:55:00.004-05:002014-07-26T10:55:47.142-05:00short story collection FREEMy short story collection, "Blood of the Martyrs and other stories",
will be available as a free Kindle download next week, 7/29-8/1. This
giveaway is in conjunction with the Catholic Writers Guild LIVE
Conference and the Catholic Marketing Network trade show in Chicago.
Don't have a Kindle? No problem: the Kindle app is free for all devices.
You'll find the ebook here: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Martyrs-other-stories-Desjarlais-ebook/dp/B00A1CUBA6/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406388389&sr=1-7&keywords=john+desjarlais" id="yui_3_15_0_1_1406388237048_1335">http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Martyrs-other-stories-Desjarlais-ebook/dp/B00A1CUBA6/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406388389&sr=1-7&keywords=john+desjarlais</a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkV1GsHZozdpJpk8Mnkhf4idraiUQcZy0hRwARKSXSrWpiV2_LedQqjzhdz3PyZ5-Asg7euj-kfy08CGivGqSnUd8sAPf-3nLq-ckA3nxGR1vywzJ20jHfUVFox-dm7pHNoYINmyQ5AAgD/s1600/JD_BloodoftheMartyrs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkV1GsHZozdpJpk8Mnkhf4idraiUQcZy0hRwARKSXSrWpiV2_LedQqjzhdz3PyZ5-Asg7euj-kfy08CGivGqSnUd8sAPf-3nLq-ckA3nxGR1vywzJ20jHfUVFox-dm7pHNoYINmyQ5AAgD/s1600/JD_BloodoftheMartyrs.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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johnny dangeroushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00155587617175255684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047584754824459899.post-10550306823882959542013-06-20T11:05:00.000-05:002013-06-20T11:05:02.942-05:00Self-pubbing basicsI'll be sharing my self-pubbing experiences at the Karitos Arts Festival in July. The following links are mainly for attendees who would like more information than my brief session (and limited experience) can afford. <br />
<br />
<a href="http://davidgaughran.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/self-publishing-basics1.pdf">http://davidgaughran.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/self-publishing-basics1.pdf</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://janefriedman.com/2013/04/21/how-to-publish-an-ebook/">http://janefriedman.com/2013/04/21/how-to-publish-an-ebook/</a><br />
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johnny dangeroushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00155587617175255684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047584754824459899.post-22861839604805647822013-06-11T20:31:00.000-05:002013-06-11T20:31:16.545-05:00SPECTER cover artGot the cover art for SPECTER yesterday. It's draft 1.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuC-_IxVg4rlYWODT-zIa2kjup2LT7ZUHxmHHJFuubrkrwUbt3ziLo2VijLSoIA9u1Cr_RCkaGUJRfLZAE3JGLTOKeyIR8LOqzfiFR9t1gU8djZ0aLa9yLMBUcwibrbHGu2tw_yb_mwUpH/s1600/JD_Specterdraft1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuC-_IxVg4rlYWODT-zIa2kjup2LT7ZUHxmHHJFuubrkrwUbt3ziLo2VijLSoIA9u1Cr_RCkaGUJRfLZAE3JGLTOKeyIR8LOqzfiFR9t1gU8djZ0aLa9yLMBUcwibrbHGu2tw_yb_mwUpH/s320/JD_Specterdraft1.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
johnny dangeroushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00155587617175255684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047584754824459899.post-56891242147106228312013-05-20T17:36:00.001-05:002013-05-20T17:36:03.581-05:00SPECTER in progressI just finished the first draft of the the third installment in the mystery/thriller series, entitled SPECTER. It's a novella, weighing in at about 29,000 words. This was my Sabbatical project, and I plan to self-publish it this summer. Selena De La Cruz is back. This time it's personal.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg59GJE36khD3vVtWmeCYMK0Bh9IgF9X08CnldUTVq_8BCO7K9olRSzPGHMxFblH-jrFmBg8y9wR5SUhAjsoaht1qjbz4tknf_-FPG_s5vkQm8zlbTCQ8Jy6IphjzJowvlH6PdG4SNNZBnZ/s1600/selena+checking+a+clue+(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg59GJE36khD3vVtWmeCYMK0Bh9IgF9X08CnldUTVq_8BCO7K9olRSzPGHMxFblH-jrFmBg8y9wR5SUhAjsoaht1qjbz4tknf_-FPG_s5vkQm8zlbTCQ8Jy6IphjzJowvlH6PdG4SNNZBnZ/s320/selena+checking+a+clue+(1).jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
johnny dangeroushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00155587617175255684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047584754824459899.post-49949138919851654482013-02-19T12:10:00.002-06:002013-02-19T12:10:49.680-06:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_DQtfUkchWlKFuMiFaexHjsir_-iOwbCsXoYWLC4ywo5LLiNggQFxe1I0RvuPNQrrJnUrYfHCT_eM5LLeWEOH-X2aSaas74r8kVOObsWAtBHOtkrqkyVGG3XOuQpNOSUBBR7Vq_454vA3/s1600/Midwest+Mystery+Showcase.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" mea="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_DQtfUkchWlKFuMiFaexHjsir_-iOwbCsXoYWLC4ywo5LLiNggQFxe1I0RvuPNQrrJnUrYfHCT_eM5LLeWEOH-X2aSaas74r8kVOObsWAtBHOtkrqkyVGG3XOuQpNOSUBBR7Vq_454vA3/s320/Midwest+Mystery+Showcase.jpg" width="262" /></a></div>
I'll be a panelist at the Midwest Mystery Showcase in Waukesha WI in April. Many writers from the region are coming to talk about the craft and the biz. johnny dangeroushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00155587617175255684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047584754824459899.post-39182681169356194352013-02-18T18:08:00.002-06:002013-02-18T18:08:29.009-06:00Near 7,000 words on the draft of the 'Viper' sequel. It's slower going than I thought it might. Blending a story with a true-life crime is proving more challenging than I expected.johnny dangeroushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00155587617175255684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047584754824459899.post-13695652397946570272012-12-31T16:06:00.001-06:002013-01-01T12:10:49.579-06:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4lugbd2qwb12y5AiJup31Z1vpcCRr06y8nw8hF0TNYhP_j4wiS6vBWerES2eT27iGfRRQKI1Y_u7ayub_3IIVAc7hqZ4TlEcAw9bSr8_krMvSGdrqqSTKenOLAPc9CfND0wCqr21F0eBf/s1600/Blood+of+the+Martyrs+hi+res+jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" eea="true" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4lugbd2qwb12y5AiJup31Z1vpcCRr06y8nw8hF0TNYhP_j4wiS6vBWerES2eT27iGfRRQKI1Y_u7ayub_3IIVAc7hqZ4TlEcAw9bSr8_krMvSGdrqqSTKenOLAPc9CfND0wCqr21F0eBf/s320/Blood+of+the+Martyrs+hi+res+jpg.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
'Blood of the Martyrs and other stories' is FREE via Amazon Kindle Select on January 1,2,3, here: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Martyrs-other-stories-ebook/dp/B00A1CUBA6/ref=sr_1_5?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1357063550&sr=1-5&keywords=desjarlais">http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Martyrs-other-stories-ebook/dp/B00A1CUBA6/ref=sr_1_5?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1357063550&sr=1-5&keywords=desjarlais</a>johnny dangeroushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00155587617175255684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047584754824459899.post-18558522430227981052012-11-14T19:31:00.000-06:002012-11-14T19:31:04.654-06:00story published in 'Lit Noir'The title story of my collection, "Blood of the Martyrs," was reprinted this month in 'Lit Noir,' an e-zine sold through Amazon's Kindle store for $1 at: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Lit-Noir-Magazine-ebook/dp/B00A6WG8DA/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1352930870&sr=1-1&keywords=Lit+Noir+%237">http://www.amazon.com/Lit-Noir-Magazine-ebook/dp/B00A6WG8DA/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1352930870&sr=1-1&keywords=Lit+Noir+%237</a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjagveKrmpt_DG07OFyeYjdwrKiAl1pxuBjyq5fLVnG8xG893ORafigcVEqDFReEgcrS04EDk81iJRnqf5bmROj4E8NeYqnCLuuCAQwZol0IDz3J32FESks3lTDRmrx2r6RJLHTIxb5WqOd/s1600/lit+noir+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" rea="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjagveKrmpt_DG07OFyeYjdwrKiAl1pxuBjyq5fLVnG8xG893ORafigcVEqDFReEgcrS04EDk81iJRnqf5bmROj4E8NeYqnCLuuCAQwZol0IDz3J32FESks3lTDRmrx2r6RJLHTIxb5WqOd/s1600/lit+noir+cover.jpg" /></a></div>
johnny dangeroushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00155587617175255684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047584754824459899.post-23588945070961539072012-11-03T13:50:00.001-05:002012-11-03T13:50:37.346-05:00Blood of the Martyrs published!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifOd_C4k8voYahZpAw6oIzeXhTnxWfCiREeGQkKXlrrnKTElXjm89vcsAD9sbPFT0gdacHnC_kjzNiT-GUxs0O0lVBB4YHaMZSnw8ttkgeFFtYq6uejz37auJy8Exr9ZSy0SoH30m4M2Nb/s1600/Blood+of+the+Martyrs+hi+res+jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" qea="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifOd_C4k8voYahZpAw6oIzeXhTnxWfCiREeGQkKXlrrnKTElXjm89vcsAD9sbPFT0gdacHnC_kjzNiT-GUxs0O0lVBB4YHaMZSnw8ttkgeFFtYq6uejz37auJy8Exr9ZSy0SoH30m4M2Nb/s320/Blood+of+the+Martyrs+hi+res+jpg.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
I just uploaded my short story collection, "Blood of the Martyrs and other stories," to Amazon Kindle Select! It should be available for downloads in about 12 hours for $1.99. Raise a glass!johnny dangeroushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00155587617175255684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047584754824459899.post-81445625786605279852012-08-25T11:20:00.000-05:002012-08-25T11:20:01.286-05:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSod3kiB8DVcwpQklhdWYllRNnhQ_9Oer0jRRZOYyPoA3cuEF-G3TtvV9uqdn8v05gbGbNZFcJXGLMlh6JXh53CjikkN-d91f4KpI-j3bIWMulqUSCk5H8bwvmqsqnG1NE_m-JMltDeV2q/s1600/JD_BloodoftheMartyrs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSod3kiB8DVcwpQklhdWYllRNnhQ_9Oer0jRRZOYyPoA3cuEF-G3TtvV9uqdn8v05gbGbNZFcJXGLMlh6JXh53CjikkN-d91f4KpI-j3bIWMulqUSCk5H8bwvmqsqnG1NE_m-JMltDeV2q/s320/JD_BloodoftheMartyrs.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
Here's the cover art for my upcoming short story collection. It should be out on Kindle later this Fall. <br />johnny dangeroushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00155587617175255684noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047584754824459899.post-30086244333621069932012-07-09T10:22:00.003-05:002012-07-09T10:23:14.417-05:00why we love a mystery<br />
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This week on the NY Times Bestseller list, 5 of top 10
bestsellers in fiction and 11 of top 20 are mysteries. Mysteries and crime novels consistently
dominate the bestsellers lists in both the US and Britain. What draws us to
these tales of murder and mayhem? Why do we stay up late at night reading about
violence and vengeance?</div>
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Because they are fun. Mysteries are the guilty pleasure of
the intellectual. They are puzzles of logic. When Sherlock Holmes cries out,
‘the game is afoot,’ he almost means it literally. For if the classic mystery –
the traditional mystery – is a contest between the intelligent sleuth and the
clever villain, it is also a duel between the skillful writer and the astute
reader, who delights in trying to solve the puzzle along with – and possibly
before – the detective. The paradox is that if the reader does, indeed,
discover ‘whodunnit’ early on, the game is spoiled. The alert reader far more
wishes to be surprised and fooled at the end, and yet find delight in seeing
how the outcome was inevitable. This is only possible if the writer has ‘played
fair’ with the ‘rules of the game,’ in which the reader can detect along with
the detective – and still be assured that the detective will be more clever
than the reader. </div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">In Britain,
Monsignor Ronald Knox had set out in 1928 the "10 Commandments of
Detection," contending, for example, that the criminal must be
mentioned early on, the supernatural must be ruled out, the detective himself
must not commit the crime, and "no accident must ever help the detective,
not must he ever have an unaccountable intuition which proves to be
right." American SS Van Dine offered 20 rules that same year, insisting,
for example, that the reader must have equal opportunity with the detective for
solving the mystery with all clues plainly described. “There simply must be a
corpse and the deader the better”, and “there must be no love interest”. Dorothy
Sayers believed the same thing but fell in love with Lord Peter Whimsey and
married him by proxy via Harriet Vane. The Detection Club, which formed shortly
afterwards in 1930, asked members (such as Sayers) to swear an oath on Eric the
Skull (all in good fun): "Do you swear solemnly never to conceal a clue
from the reader?" Members also promised to honor the King's English, use
legitimate detection methods in stories, and refrain from stealing other
writers' plots, although collaboration was encouraged. Two of the greatest
collaborators in the genre – Manfred Lee and Frederick Dannay, the cousins who
comprised “Ellery Queen,” regularly issued ‘A Challenge to the Reader” near the
end of Queen novels, saying that the reader now had all the clues necessary for
solving the puzzle. Queen began his – I mean their – writing career by entering
one of the many detective fiction contests of the period, and always saw the
detective story as a contest between the writer and the reader.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Some of this
rule-making - and breaking - became quite complex. Christie, especially, played
with the "rules" as a way to outsmart readers. It was a matter of
"you think that I think that you think I think this, so I won't - or will
- in order to outwit you." She did things like exonerate a suspect in a
trial only to prove he was guilty all along, employed double disguises, broke
the convention of "the least likely suspect" in <i>Murder on the
Orient Express,</i> and committed the unforgivable sin in<i> The Murder of
Roger Akroyd</i>. I should probably not say here what she did with those two
books. It would spoil the fun.</span></div>
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Books of this period sometimes looked like games: they included
lists of characters, maps of houses, gardens and room layouts, all part of the
game. Some included physical clues – matchsticks, coins or facsimiles of
letters. One of my favorites is the "sealed mystery" - the last
chapter was sealed with an onionskin wrapper. If you returned the book with the
wrapper uncut (because you figured out the mystery or gave up trying), you'd
get a refund. Small wonder that Parker Brothers launched the board game “Clue”
at about this time. The newspapers were full of crossword puzzles and other
word games. Edgar Allan Poe, who practically invented the detective story, also
produced scores of crossword puzzles, secret codes and other games of logic.
One might argue that his first detective story is a kind of game; He begins it
with a long essay on ‘ratiocination,’ the art of logic and deduction, and the
story is, in some ways, an illustration of his argument in the form of a
locked-room puzzle. </div>
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<br /></div>
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But mysteries aren’t only about the puzzles, they are about
the people who solve them. Mysteries allow readers to spend time in the
detective’s gumshoes for a while. Along
with our favorite sleuth, we get to outwit the killer with our friend within a
few hours of reading. From the security of our armchair, bed or tub, we get to
be brave and clever for a while. And if it is a character in a series, then we
welcome them as friends into our lives a few times and get to know them better
than our own families. </div>
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<br /></div>
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A peculiar thing about the genre is that, while usually
driven by a crime to be solved – a puzzle – and therefore plot-oriented, it’s
the people we remember more than the plots: Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson,
Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, Inspector Maigret, Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade, Hercule Poirot, Lord Peter, Steve Carella, Dave
Robichaux, VI Warshawski, Kinsey Millhone, Miss Marple, - well, the list is
long. For each sub-genre – the cozy, the amateur sleuth, the police prodedural,
the Private Eye, the historical, among others – there is a kind of character
that affords a particular insight or comfort for readers.</div>
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For example, readers of the ‘cozy,’ where the violence is
offstage and the sleuth often quirky or an outright amateur, the battle of wits
with the villain is won by a person much like the reader. There is the subtle
reassurance of St Paul’s dictum in I Corinthians 1 that ‘God hath chosen the
foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God hath chosen the weak
things of the world to put to shame the things that are mighty.” </div>
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In the police procedural, readers meet the hardworking
middle-class and working class joes who do their job under stress. The police
novel is, some say, the literature of the proletariat, celebrating duty in
one’s work. Readers find special delight in the rumpled rain-coated Columbo asking
just one more question of the elitist, wealthy killer who truly believes he’s
gotten away with murder.</div>
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One more example: in the PI or hard-boiled story, as in ‘The
Maltese Falcon”, readers encounter another kind of working-class hero who must work for a living
and take lousy, dangerous jobs to make ends meet. He is, in the words of the
character Race Williams, "a middleman, just a halfway house between the
cops and the crooks." Because of this, the hero is often isolated, lonely,
and cynical. He is idealistic and a bit sentimental, a tough guy with a noble
heart. He’s an urban counterpart of the lone cowboy in The Western who is good
with a gun and, like a mounted knight, upholds a code of justice and chivalry.
As Raymond Chandler put it famously in his essay, “The Simple Art of Murder,” “Down
these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither
tarnished nor afraid. He must be…a man of honor – by instinct, by
inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it.’</div>
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The ‘noir’ story may be a game like other detective stories,
but it is a rough game.</div>
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If even the serious crime novel is a form of game, there’s
another reason we play it. One writer put it this way: ‘When we look at clues
and details about murder, we get to be a four-year-old playing with rubber dinosaurs:
the game is enjoyable because we control what might otherwise give us
nightmares.”</div>
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It is small wonder that the detective novel emerged in the
Victorian Age when the murder rate was twice what it is now . People wanted some assurance that the police
could do their job and keep respectable citizens safe. The books did that. They
still do.</div>
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Murder mysteries are
the modern form of the medieval morality play, where the sleuth is Everyman who
works against time, big money, a determined antagonist, daunting odds and his
own flaws to expose evil, stop the bad guy and restore the balance of justice.
At the end, readers who identify with the successful hero or heroine feel a
little better about the world and about themselves. A critic might say that
mystery novels are escapist, since they offer a fantasy world in which justice
prevails, right always wins over wrong, and love finds a way. But what's wrong
with that? That's healing. The odd thing is that we can escape reality and face
it at the same time.<br />
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That’s because, with mysteries so close to the barest human desires and fears,
they have a built-in opportunity to explore life's higher mysteries: love and
power, guilt and innocence, good and evil, the mystery of undeserved suffering.
</div>
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All
literature tries to make meaning out of the frightfully short dash between
our birthdate and departure date on our tombstones. Mysteries, dealing so
openly with the reality of death, do this well.</div>
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It was Aristotle
who defined what good literature ought to do, and as it turns out, mysteries do
it best. </div>
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The best stories,
Aristotle said, advance through a series of discoveries – recognitions and
subsequent reversals – and this is what occurs in a mystery whenever the
detective discovers a clue, a new suspect, an alibi that checks out or doesn’t,
or another body – usually the lead suspect. This results in a reversal – a
change in direction, a setback, a gap between expectations and results, a new plan
of action. The reversals and the setbacks raise the stakes, the danger, and
make the protagonist suffer. So our detective endures criticism, failure, false
leads, isolation, and the threat of being killed by the desperate villain who
cannot bear to be exposed. The ending
must be inevitable, but it cannot be predictable, Aristotle says – it must be a
surprise. And this is exactly what happens in a mystery where the puzzle pieces
fall into place perfectly at the end, and the reader is delightfully fooled. </div>
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Aristotle’s
favorite story, after all, was a mystery - Oedipus Rex, in which the sleuth who investigates
relentlessly discovers that, ironically, he is the villain. </div>johnny dangeroushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00155587617175255684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047584754824459899.post-13483170526867662052012-06-26T09:26:00.001-05:002012-06-26T09:26:23.166-05:00Behold a White Horse<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True." Rev 19:11johnny dangeroushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00155587617175255684noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047584754824459899.post-61599255201444299002012-05-05T12:49:00.001-05:002012-05-05T12:49:59.743-05:00Actor or Role?Is it the Actor or the Role?<br />
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<br />
By Kathleen Kaska<br />
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Is stepping into the role of Sherlock Holmes as easy as a pair of Persian slippers? Do actors find themselves possessed by the Great Detective as soon as they pick up a script? I’m not sure, but every actor who has played Holmes has won me over—from John Barrymore in the 1922 silent film, to those in later films such as Basil Rathbone, Christopher Plummer or Roger Moore. Even George C. Scott, as a delusional millionaire who thinks he is Sherlock, did a convincing job. And of course, who wouldn’t believe that Jeremy Brett was the one and only, the real Holmes? He was my favorite. But then Robert Downey, Jr. put on the deerstalker cap, stuck a pipe between his teeth, and he became my favorite. <br />
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Nonetheless, when I saw a photo of Benedict Cumberbatch in an article announcing his portrayal of Holmes in a new BBC series, his short blonde locks and turned up nose elicited a loud “No way!” After a good friend twisted my arm, I went ahead and ordered the first episodic DVDs, but it was still weeks before I finally slid them into my laptop. They are set in current times and Cumberbatch’s Holmes has taken arrogance, obsession, and self-centeredness to the extreme. I was hooked within five minutes of the very first episode, “A Study in Pink.” <br />
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When the 2012 season’s episodes aired, I was on the road and not able to catch the three new and much anticipated offerings, “A Scandal in Belgravia,” “The Hounds of the Baskerville,” and “The Reichenbach Fall.” Waiting till May for the DVDs to be available is like watching a cheesecake in my fridge. <br />
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And Benedict Cumberbath? He’s good, he’s convincing; and oh yeah, and now he’s my favorite. How long will that last? Well, I don’t know. But I see a face or two—Leonardo DiCaprio, Johnny Depp. Sure, they can do it. Uh oh . . . I’m hearing a voice; an accent. It’s Spanish. Antonio Banderas! Well, why not?<br />
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<br />
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Kathleen Kaska’s The Sherlock Holmes Triviography and Quiz Book features hundreds of trivia about the world's most famous detective, answering such questions as whether or not Sherlock Holmes ever uttered the phrase "Elementary, my dear Watson". Kathleen draws upon the entire Sherlock Holmes canon, plus the hundreds of films and thousands of radio and television programs that featured the detective and his inimitable partner, Dr. Watson. The Sherlock Holmes Triviography and Quiz Book is enhanced with 75 separate quizzes, asking probing, intriguing, fun questions related to all of Conan Doyle's 56 stories and four novels.<br />
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Also look for Kathleen’s other two trivia book: The Agatha Christie Triviography and Quiz Book and The Alfred Hitchcock Triviography and Quiz Book. All three have been reissued by LL-Publications.<br />
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<br />johnny dangeroushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00155587617175255684noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047584754824459899.post-91351033231649736232012-04-01T16:43:00.002-05:002012-04-01T16:45:25.316-05:00Mystericale review of VIPER<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVGC1YljYOKCQb6ZzdVeurdnvJg6q38HQt5OSOdS-f47tE8yvFzcGETjZ6F_nax9QU_YVMohweOC3UPl9bWc03lXZdZ8OjhK4Wq4YHOkgZoaupFVnBqDSVqp539ZdlZ0_XX4I-wSnyOc8H/s1600/selena+with+a+look.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 214px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5726551625321496882" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVGC1YljYOKCQb6ZzdVeurdnvJg6q38HQt5OSOdS-f47tE8yvFzcGETjZ6F_nax9QU_YVMohweOC3UPl9bWc03lXZdZ8OjhK4Wq4YHOkgZoaupFVnBqDSVqp539ZdlZ0_XX4I-wSnyOc8H/s320/selena+with+a+look.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><div>"Viper, the sequel to Bleeder, is a fast paced, tension-filled thriller. Weaving together the many strands that make the work of Desjarlais distinctive, Viper does not fail to please those who like a book filled with suspense and action. Selena De La Cruz indulges her fondness for high-end shoes while working as an insurance agent and trying to put her past as a DEA agent behind her. But she isn’t allowed to forget. Her old enemies won’t permit that. A man known as "The Snake" is a ghost from Selena’s past and is now intent on killing her. Of the many facets this book shows readers, none of them disappoint. You may not be able to put this book down once you start reading."</div>johnny dangeroushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00155587617175255684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047584754824459899.post-40117904113698022362012-03-27T18:04:00.002-05:002012-03-27T18:08:20.569-05:00St. Austin Review on BLEEDER<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXSEQNziFgH8zjQXlqJoHPwyKekItwkYi_GEvfg9LveJ3pvBZEWdH2XELepLmgn2nLrqlPdg9-piBD98sFo3vdNJ2YXogokpqo8nLjeusQuNVbojrOOqbkulRTVyMeAUadfI-fPJ1M8sC1/s1600/BLEEDER+COVER.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 195px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5724717487213146050" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXSEQNziFgH8zjQXlqJoHPwyKekItwkYi_GEvfg9LveJ3pvBZEWdH2XELepLmgn2nLrqlPdg9-piBD98sFo3vdNJ2YXogokpqo8nLjeusQuNVbojrOOqbkulRTVyMeAUadfI-fPJ1M8sC1/s320/BLEEDER+COVER.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><div>The <em>St. Austin Review</em>, a classy, Catholic journal of the fine arts, just reviewed BLEEDER. Here it is:</div><br /><br /><br /><div></div><br /><br /><br /><div>Bleeder<br />John Desjarlais<br />Sophia Institute Press, 2009<br />272 pp., $14.95<br />ISBN: 978-1-93318-456-2<br />Reviewed by Dena Hunt<br /></div><br /><br /><br /><div>A widowed classics professor has been wounded by gunshots while trying to break up a fight between two students. He takes a leave of absence and goes to his brother’s hunting cabin in rural River Falls, Illinois, to recover and to write a book on Aristotle. There, by apparent accident, he meets a priest in a bookstore. Through a shared interest in the classics, they become friends. There is little else to draw them together: the professor is a non-Catholic and the priest is not just a local associate pastor, but a reputed stigmatic with healing powers. Then, suddenly and quite dramatically, the priest bleeds to death on the steps of the altar on Good Friday during the rite of Veneration of the Cross. When an inquest reveals the real cause of death, suspicion falls on the professor.</div><br /><br /><br /><div><br />Bleeder is John Desjarlais’s first novel since Relics, published some years ago and now in its second printing. Readers familiar with Relics may be surprised by the author’s shift from historical adventure to contemporary mystery, but the departure does not lie in a shift in genre alone. Although, perhaps like many others, I enjoyed the amazing depth of historical research in Desjarlais’s first books, I must admit that in this new genre, we see a style far more mature, even innovative, and a much more subtle hand in characterization.<br /></div><br /><br /><br /><div>The character of Reed Stubblefield is an unlikely hero, suffering from chronic pain in his hip due to the injury. He uses a cane, performs exercises prescribed by his physical therapist, and takes a potent anti-depressant to control panic seizures and breathing difficulties. At the slightest provocation, he is afflicted with flashback memories of the long illness of his beloved wife of twenty years, who died of leukemia. Life is not easy for Stubblefield; he has problems with his insurance company, problems with his teaching schedule—one can forgive him if he seems a bit self-absorbed at times. He does not even have the Presbyterian faith he once had to sustain him, having allowed it to lapse rather like a magazine subscription that, in his painful attentiveness to his wife’s suffering, he somehow forgot to renew. It’s not that he is angry with God for allowing his wife to suffer and die. He’s not so dramatic as that; besides, one has the feeling that his already over-taxed emotional state could hardly afford serious anger. On the contrary, he seems a very nice, very sad, ordinary man, with whom every reader has something or other in common. Desjarlais’s characterization of Stubblefield is one of the novel’s best features.<br />But it is the highly textured first-person narration that merits the most attention. Internal monologue is smoothly woven into external events, drawing the reader into the direct experience of the narrator, even while those events are often interrupted by a re-living of painful memories of his wife’s suffering and death and the shooting incident. The interruptions are remarkably seamless, causing no confusion or irritation for the reader, even though their appearance is sudden and unannounced—just as real-life painful memories always are. But add to that the voice of Aristotle, Stubblefield’s constant mental companion, interjecting his own frequent italicized observations, and the result is a multi-layered narration that goes beyond standard stream-of-consciousness. Desjarlais accomplishes this feat with such ease and polish that the reader barely notices it.<br /></div><br /><br /><br /><div>What the reader does notice immediately is the descriptive prose, crisp and original, beginning without preamble on the first page: “The patchwork fields of rural Illinois rolled away from the ditches in soft waves, with snow lying in stripes across the rows of cornstalk stubble, like a lathered but unshaven face.” The description alone is a recurring delight, and when it is combined with the unusual access to the narrator’s consciousness, the result is an extraordinarily experiential read.</div><br /><br /><br /><div><br />If the novel has a flaw, it’s in the plot structure of the denouement following the death of the priest. Until that point, the pace has been steady, while tension mounts in anticipation of the tragedy. After that point, however, direction seems obscure. News coverage of the event is quoted in its entirety for three pages, though the article provides only information that has already been revealed. Fewer than ten pages later, the entire police report is quoted, for five full pages—again providing no new information for the reader. Such insertions seem to have a kind of scrapbook effect for the author but add nothing to the story for the reader. When the inquest is scheduled for three weeks later, the three weeks simply disappear from the story, not only a radical departure from the steady pace of daily events up to that point, but also inexplicable, since we leave the hero’s brother lying in the intensive care unit of the hospital, following a near-fatal traffic accident.</div><br /><br /><br /><div><br />Despite the difficulties with plot in the second half, Bleeder delivers well on its promise as a mystery novel. It keeps the reader trying to guess whodunit, just as a good mystery should; and, as the better representatives of its kind do, it also provides an ending of suspense and real surprise—which I will not spoil for readers by revealing. Any fan of mysteries would enjoy this novel, but for those who also enjoy reading the prose of a master craftsman, I would recommend it even more highly.</div><br /><br /><br /><div><br /><em>Dena Hunt lives in Georgia. Retired from teaching at Valdosta State University, she is working on her second novel.</em></div><br /><div><em></em></div><br /><div><em>(image: prototype cover for BLEEDER)</em></div>johnny dangeroushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00155587617175255684noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047584754824459899.post-67887075918240040872012-03-27T16:56:00.003-05:002012-03-27T18:10:40.036-05:00St Austin Review on VIPER<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgCT511BrDw7tbCInH9roL6nb1JvbKsDZ9N3NdsNc0LSWBC-FNncVpTPlwZdiBjptKBKwwaGuGHr_YMUGln8l-2FM2Ia8coHu74u6KuDz1sH9rxCD7Zwf8tVsCPaMa8UmekWhXrHnog6up/s1600/selena+checking+a+clue.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 214px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5724718015799940770" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgCT511BrDw7tbCInH9roL6nb1JvbKsDZ9N3NdsNc0LSWBC-FNncVpTPlwZdiBjptKBKwwaGuGHr_YMUGln8l-2FM2Ia8coHu74u6KuDz1sH9rxCD7Zwf8tVsCPaMa8UmekWhXrHnog6up/s320/selena+checking+a+clue.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><div>The <em>St. Austin Review</em> is a classy, Catholic journal of the fine arts. Here's their March/April issue review of VIPER (followed by a brief comment or two by me):<br /><br /><em>Viper<br /></em>By John Desjarlais<br />238 pp., $14.95<br />Sophia Institute Press, 2011<br />ISBN: 978-1-933184-80-7<br />Reviewed by Katie St. Hilaire<br /><br />Sophia Institute Press’s Imagio Catholic Fiction series—the publisher of John Desjarlais’s <em>Viper</em>—was founded in response to John Paul II’s call for renewal among Catholic artists. As noted within the book, the mission of the Imagio Catholic Fiction series is to publish books by authors who are conscious of the “precious gift and responsibility” of being the “image of God the Creator”. These books must be “grounded in a Catholic sensibility . . . [presenting] a moral universe in which God is real and active and in which virtue leads to happiness (if not always success) and sin to death.” The goal of Sophia Institute Press is thus to “[provide] Catholic families a haven from the nihilism and prurience of the world’s corrupted art.” These books are intended to do as John Paul II’s 1999 “Letter to Artists” commanded—to convey truth through image.<br /><br />In his Letter, John Paul II called “for a renewed ‘epiphany’ of beauty in our time” in order to “make perceptible, and as far as possible attractive, the world of the spirit, of the invisible, of God.” Especially conscious of the widespread disconnect between art and faith that has surfaced in modern times, the late pontiff challenged artists to bring the immaterial world of faith into the sensible realm via the medium of beauty and image. As an image of God the Creator, the artist’s inventions should reflect the work of God in creation, with His glory and majesty. Artists, therefore, have a unique role within the Church. Even if their work is not explicitly religious, it must in some way reflect the mystery of the Incarnation, in which the invisible Word is made flesh, and truth made visible. John Paul II’s message in the Letter might be summarized as follows: artists have an obligation to communicate truth through beauty.<br /><br />This prelude provides an important standard by which to evaluate the success of this book. The claim that Viper is written with a Catholic sensibility of truth, morality, and purity is made within the pages of the book itself, and so it is impossible not to assess the book in terms of this claim. Working to create such a piece of art is no small endeavor, and as such is highly commendable. It is greatly to be wished that more artists would follow Desjarlais’s example in this respect. However, there are times in which it might be said, the more worthy the task, the more difficult its execution—and this is one of them. The ability to create fiction which conveys truth and yet is not homiletic, a story with its own integrity and yet incarnational as well, is a rare gift. It should not come as a surprise, then, that Desjarlais falls somewhat short of the mark.<br /><em>Viper’s</em> heroine is the beautiful, fearless Selena De La Cruz, an ex-cop with extraordinary mechanical abilities and a past. Her boyfriend, who, in his sole appearance in the book is shut out of it again for his own protection, is an uninteresting side-character who will need to be prepared to relinquish the proverbial pants in the relationship. Intent upon pursuing justice in the drug war after a beloved brother’s life was claimed by drugs, Selena, though retired into insurance work, cannot resist rejoining the force when she hears of an old rival’s resurfacing. “The Snake” is a deadly enemy, and he has threatened to kill her—that is, after he finishes off a list of nine other names. But his m.o. is strangely altered from the old days, and Selena senses something strange. Desjarlais dabbles in the supernatural in crafting his mystery thriller, playing off of the similarities between the Virgin of Guadalupe and the Aztec goddess Lady Death.<br /><br />The book is worthwhile in many respects. It provides an immersion in Latino culture, an opportunity to learn about Aztec beliefs, and a positive perspective on Catholicism and reconciliation. It is an entertaining and thrilling read that is hard to put down.<br /><br />There are some objections, however, which cannot be ignored. The foremost of these is that <em>Viper</em> contains some breaches of verisimilitude and weaknesses in plot structure. In order to be considered art or literature, fiction must be believable, credible. When the reader is unable to reconcile elements of the plot with his understanding of reality, the book crumbles, as any “willing suspension of disbelief” becomes impossible. An example of this problem is Desjarlais’ casual use of fictional Marian apparitions as a plot vehicle, the depictions of which are out of keeping with true, approved apparitions. While imaginative, this plot device may be confusing to non-Catholics or unschooled readers. These problems put the novel more in the category of entertainment than art.<br /><br />Other minor objections also present themselves. The book includes a few similes which, though undoubtedly original, are such that they decrease the overall quality of the writing. Two of these, by way of example, are “He glanced around, furtive as a finch in a neighborhood known for its cats”, and “warmth washed over her like a summer breaker on the beach at Acapulco”. Finally, there are some lewd references which would be inappropriate for young readers.<br /><br />While I once again highly commend the effort of producing Catholic art and quality fiction, I cannot give the book my unqualified recommendation. It is a fascinating mystery and a fun read, with Catholic themes and more substance than your average best-seller. However, in reference to John Paul II’s standards for Catholic art, we may say that some of the harmony and integrity perquisite to beauty is lacking, which in turn limits the work’s ability to convey truth.<br /><br /><em>Katie St. Hilaire is a graduate of Ave Maria University, where she obtained a B.A. in literature with a minor in philosophy.</em><br /><em></em><br /><em></em><br />OK, everyone is entitled to an opinion and I appreciate the intelligent forthrightness of Ms. St. Hilaire's evaluation. I concede that <em>Viper</em> is not on a par with, say, Hillary Waugh or Dante. But sheesh, like Graham Green, I make a distinction between literary fiction and (what he called) "entertainments," and <em>Viper </em>- as genre detective fiction - is most definitely 'an entertainment.' It seems that it succeeds well on that score. My models in the field are Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler - not committed Christians, by any stretch, but great stylists.<br /><br />I have no idea where the text is "lewd" - I'd never write something I wouldn't let my granddaughters read. And everyone knows I blush easily. I was extremely careful about this, especially since I was writing a female protagonist. Sophia Press is also highly protective of their reputation, and the editor certainly wouldn't allow anything 'lewd' to pass - not that there was anything in the first place. This comment really puzzled me. I wonder if it had something to do with the crime scenes? They ain't pretty. But I'm no fan of of 'gross' and even those scenes were treated in an understated manner - more sanitary than what you'd see on <em>NCIS, Law And Order</em> or <em>CSI</em>. There's certainly nothing sexually offensive, and no profanity.<br /><br />As with all my novels, I conducted assiduous research, and I did so with Marian ("Blue Lady")apparitions. The descriptions are in complete keeping with the reported visits in Mejugorge (not yet approved, as indicated in the story) and Garabandal, Spain (also not yet approved). It was important to have 'not yet approved' visits as the models since the appearances of "The Blue Lady" in the book are obviously 'not yet approved' but under investigation.<br /><br />I admit that the weaving of "The Blue Lady" idea into the main plot poses difficulties, but it was immensely important to the underlying themes. The question about her real identity is intimately connected to the Mexican-American backdrop: is she Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of Mexico and the Americas, or the Aztec goddess of death (or perhaps "Saint Death", the female Mexican 'Grim Reaper')? "Guadalupe" comes from an Aztec phrase meaning 'she who crushes the snake,' and Mary is often depicted as crushing the serpent Satan under her foot (as prefigured in Genesis 3:15); Aztec female deities like Coatlicue are depicted wearing skirts of snakes, so there is a spiritual contest of sorts in the background between Mary the Mother of God and Coatlicue who is called 'the mother of gods', a deity whom the antagonist admires; and the drug dealer suspected of the serial killings is called "The Snake." There are other connections regarding Selena and the girl visionary Jacinta, but I'll stop here.<br /><br />Pope John Paul The Great is one of my heroes, and I love his letter to artists. I'd like to think my literary short stories are in keeping with his high vision, and that my 'entertainments' - the novels - are the kinds of works that open people to the possibilities of faith and wonder. The books are not preachy on purpose, but I certainly can't help but produce mysteries that point to 'higher mysteries.'<br />jjd</div><br /><div></div><br /><div><em>(photo: Selena De La Cruz)</em></div>johnny dangeroushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00155587617175255684noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047584754824459899.post-53547369466214898402011-12-13T20:57:00.002-06:002011-12-18T20:11:34.599-06:00Selena and Christmas<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRU_sn6rqY5mQaNk7T1sO6wSyvWKbBYumzmwnn5Q4hWLZZzYcDH2fQV6WS3ehf1vjbNPOLASOBNXBgv0bs_Cgh2btKlG87UMH88nkWKbsJSC8Pkw-_ni3UQgtnJ5DhftGqmYJTjuBUBZFO/s1600/pilsen-storefronts+and+church.jpg"></a><br /><br /><div><br /><div>(excerpt from VIPER) When Selena rounded the corner of her street she noticed the Christmas decor strung on neighbors’ shrubs and eaves. It was too early in the day to see lights, but doors sported wreaths and Santa Claus cut-outs, while lawns displayed sleighs, reindeer and plastic snowmen. She hadn’t even started decorating and wouldn’t until the novena before Noche-buena, Christmas Eve. During the nine days of the posadas, she and her brothers had paraded through the neighborhood each night with all the other kids, in bright costumes, holding candles and singing Mexican carols with guitars and, in imitation of Joseph and Mary, asking neighbors if they can stay. The first two always refused, and the third took them inside where there was already a barn scene set up. Everyone prayed the rosary in Spanish, the Santa Marías rolling like soft waves. Afterward, they partied with piñatas, fritters and fresh fruit drinks like horchata, chía, and piña. One time Lorenzo got into the men’s tequila supply somehow and spent the rest of the night kneeling in front of the toilet.<br />This year I’m going to keep it simple, she thought, parking at the curb. Candles in the windows as usual, garland on the banisters. I’ll set up the pesebre with the carved olive tree figures of the whole nativity scene.<br />Her family had a large set in the living room and each person had a little crèche in their rooms. Every year someone disappeared from the big set-up; if it wasn’t Saint Joseph it was a shepherd or a magi. One year they couldn’t find the Baby Jesus. Selena cried because she thought there wouldn’t be a Christmas that year because of it. The Baby Jesus turned up in time, albeit with tiny bite marks from Mamí’s Chihuahua. Selena was still missing a magi from her own set, the one carrying the gold. Maybe this year I’ll find him, she mused with a soft chuckle. But then who else will disappear?<br />The familia always gathered at Comadre María’s. First, Christmas midnight Mass, then chow down at madrina’s. Her mouth watered thinking of the colorful bacalao a la vizcaina and romeritos in mole sauce. This mess had better be over with by then, she muttered as she stepped out and trotted to the front door.<br />Still plenty of light left in the day. She checked her watch, thinking she didn’t have time to think about presents. Anyway, family gifts weren’t given until Epiphany, Dia de los Santos Reyes Magos. Reed might expect something at Christmas, though. There was the cognac she bought for a special occasion. Maybe that. But would she see him again at all? Her heart squeezed like a limón.<br />She jingled her keys, found the one for the front door and plunged it in, rushing through a mental list: bundle up, it’s getting cold. After changing, drive to the office, get the Charger and race down I-88 to Prophetstown. Do I need to get gas? Take the GPS just in case I get lost even if I was there before. Check with Felicia about office calls.<br />She shouldered against the door but it didn’t budge. The deadbolt was engaged. Don’t remember doing that, she thought. Glancing over her shoulder furtively, she leaned her body on the door frame and fingered the keychain again, opened the door, and stepped inside.<br />A glass tinkled in the kitchen.<br />Someone was in the house.<br />Madre de Dios, they went for Miguel first and now they’re here.<br />She backed to the wall and drew her pistol from the purse. She set the purse down and double-fisted the SIG Sauer against her thumping chest. She padded toward the kitchen, her mouth suddenly dry. A cup scraped on a countertop.<br />She lunged into the kitchen, gun high.<br /><br />(You’ll have to buy VIPER to find out who was in the kitchen and what happens next!)</div></div>johnny dangeroushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00155587617175255684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047584754824459899.post-84369729965368895062011-11-18T07:35:00.001-06:002011-11-18T07:37:07.558-06:00blog interview todayI'm interviewed at 'The Muriel Reeves Mysteries' blog today. It's the last stop of 16 stops on my Fall Virtual Book Tour. <a href="http://tiny.cc/n54nl">http://tiny.cc/n54nl</a>johnny dangeroushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00155587617175255684noreply@blogger.com0