Now 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.

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 cadaveras 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 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 Don’t you wish, so you could search them, too but I elbowed her. 

            “No, officer,” I said politely.

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.  The nerve. They tailed us just because we’re brown. I mean, how could you just walk out with stuff, anyway? Easy, Gloria told me – walk out wearing it. She pulled her hair back to reveal the lifted earrings. ¿Gloria, estás loco? 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.

Thanks, Selena. Now we can see that your interest in shoes goes back a long way.

Here is one of the first long reviews of SPECTER. 

SPECTER reviewed by: John Konecsi for Examiner.com

Rating: 5 stars of 5

In Bleeder, 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 book, and I was surprised by the villain-reveal at the end. Five stars all the way.
In Viper, 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 Bleeder, 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.
Finally, we come to Desjarlais' third book, Specter.
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.
But what if it wasn't?
16 years later, former undercover DEA agent Selena De La Cruz (of Vihttp://amzn.to/1Ff8x4aper) is about to get married to Reed Stubblefield (of Bleeder), 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."
And we're off to the races.
A fun part of this is the dynamic between Reed and Selena. Bleeder was very much Reed's book, where Selena first appeared. Viper was all Selena, with a few cameos by Reed. Specter is their 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.
There's even one entire conversion that sums it up quite nicely.
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."
Her: "My godmother is very traditional and is having a hard time thinking of me as Selena Perez de La Cruz Stubblefield."
"You don't have to adopt my last name..."
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.
Okay, the fact that John Desjarlais has a female badass teamed up with the nerd just like I did in The Pius Trilogy 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.
As for the rest ... if you're thinking that this is going to be exactly like Bleeder or Viper, 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 Bleeder), you're going to be disappointed. If you're in this only for a knock-down shootout (like Viper), you're going to enjoy the second half of the book a lot.
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 sorts of nasty things." Awesome.
However, if you want to read this book to follow Reed and Selena, 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.
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.

Now that SPECTER is out, some groups may want to gather to read/discuss it. So may I present:

SPECTER Discussion Guide

By John Desjarlais

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.

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.

Some notes for discussion facilitators:

1. Read the book yourself first – OK, this may be obvious. But you’ll want to allow yourself time to think about the book and prepare before your group meets.
2. Take note of important passages/pages – 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.
3. Let others talk – 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.
4. Remain flexible and be alert to making connections – 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.
5. Still waters run deep – 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).
6. Be careful about digressions – 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.
7. Don't feel as though your group must answer all the questions - 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.
8. Closing the conversation - 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.
9. Getting some background – A. There might be interest in the real crime that prompts the story. While Appendix 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:  http://irenaeusgsaintonge.blogspot.com/2011/05/catholic-teachings-on-ghosts.html

This SPECTER summary may be useful in promoting your book club/discussion:

1993: the Cardinal of Guadalajara is gunned down at the international airport just before meeting the Papal Nuncio coming for a state visit.

2008: The Vatican re-opens the case, no longer convinced the Cardinal was accidentally caught in the crossfire of rival drug gangs.

Now: Former DEA Special Agent Selena De La Cruz is asked to join the investigation, since her Papá – 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 dreaming about Papá, or is he appearing to her from Beyond the Grave to deliver a warning?

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

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 “incompatible. I’m North Side, you’re South Side.  I’m Cubs, you’re White Sox. I drive a Volvo, you drive a Charger.”

2. What seems to be troubling, or repelling, in their relationship?

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?

4. Why does Madrina believe Papá 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 Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 1030, 1031, and 1032: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p123a12.htm

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 http://www.traditioninaction.org/religious/e048-Museum_1.htm

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?

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?

7. Is “The Beast” a prop or another male character?

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?

9. What actors would you cast in the roles of the characters if the book were made into a motion picture?

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?

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?

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?

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?

14. If you could ask the author 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).

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

BLEEDER Summary:

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...

 Reviews of BLEEDER: 

"Pure enjoyment!"
Seattle Post Intelligencer
"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."
St. Austin Review

"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."
Mystery Scene

VIPER summary:

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 Latino 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?

(VIPER was a 2013 Catholic Arts and Letters Award Finalist)

VIPER reviews:

"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.”
     Lisa M. Hendey, Founder of CatholicMom.com

"Entertaining and thrilling...a fascinating mystery and a fun read, with more substance than your average best-seller."
     St. Austin Review 

SPECTER 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:

http://reginadoman.com/CP_book_previews/Specter_sample/index.html

To purchase, visit the publisher’s website:

http://www.chestertonpress.com/specter/

Prototype for the cover -- still rough, but coming along. The release date is March 20.

Coming soon...

The Eternity of Baseball

I told my Composition students that I'd post my essay draft here. It follows:

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.

            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.

            I learned this while playing baseball as a boy in a sandy field next to a cemetery in northern Massachusetts. 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.

            In a way, our field resembled Fenway Park in Boston: 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.

            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.

* * *

            Baseball is played in a “park” or a “field,” never a “stadium,” (sorry, Yankee Stadium) for historical reasons.

            When the game developed during the late 19^th Century, before lights and broadcast contracts, it was played under the sun in a green oasis in the middle of America’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.

            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.

            Is this necessary? How did we come to this?

            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.

            It didn’t happen.

            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.

            For Boston fans, the time mattered – even though the game itself is an escape from time.

            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.

Just don’t be late for the first pitch.