Two debut thrillers and an exciting ebook

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides and Shiver by Allie Reynolds were gifts from my daughter. She'd enjoyed reading both the thrillers and thought my wife and I'd like them too. Her choice of crime fiction comes with high recommendations.

The Silent Patient is described as "A shocking psychological thriller of a woman's act of violence against her husband—and of the therapist obsessed with uncovering her motive."

The blurb on the back of the 339-page book tells us about the story of Alicia Berenson who "lived a seemingly perfect life until one day six years ago (when) she shot her husband in the head five times. Since then she hasn't spoken a single word. It's time to find out why."

"They were all there. So which one of them did it?" says the cover of Shiver (Headline, 2021). The 425-page book tells the story of "A reunion weekend in the French Alps (that turns deadly when five friends discover that someone has deliberately stranded them at their remote mountaintop resort during a snowstorm."

The Silent Patient and Shiver are both debut novels and were to be developed as a movie and a television series, respectively; although, I have no updates about either of the ventures.

Carolyn Arnold's The Little Grave (2021) is the first Detective Amanda Steele book in what appears to be a series of ten books. The 324-page Kindle edition was available for free on Amazon. My thanks to the author.

This is what the book is about:

"It's been five years since Detective Amanda Steele's life was derailed by the tragic death of her young daughter. The small community of Dumfries, Virginia, may have moved on, but Amanda cannot. When the man who killed Lindsey is found murdered, she can't keep away from the case. Fighting her sergeant to be allowed to work such a personal investigation, Amanda is in a race to prove that she can uncover the truth. But the more she digs into the past of the man who destroyed her future, the more shocking discoveries she makes."

At present, I'm reading The Silent Patient in paperback and The Little Grave on my tablet.

The Ann Patchett excerpt that made me buy her books

Excerpts often influence whether I pick up books by authors I have never read before. That, along with a post on Twitter (now X), is how I discovered the award-winning American author Ann Patchett, who writes both fiction and nonfiction.

I was drawn to her writing when I read about her latest book Tom Lake, which is described as a “Beautiful and moving novel about family, love and growing up” or in the words of The Guardian, “A truth that feels like life rather than literature.”

Those are the kind of books I have always enjoyed reading, and hope to write someday, now more so since my wife and I launched a website Pocketful of Happiness which stemmed from our desire to be as happy as possible and spread a little joy among our readers. Books like these have a feel-good quality about them. 

Ann Patchett's writing has been variously described as warm, poetic, illuminating, rich, poignant, funny, powerful, compelling and stirring. This was evident from the many excerpts I read including this affecting passage from This is the Story of a Happy Marriage (2013):

“People seem able to love their dogs with an unabashed acceptance that they rarely demonstrate with family or friends. The dogs do not disappoint them, or if they do, the owners manage to forget about it quickly. I want to learn to love people like this, the way I love my dog, with pride and enthusiasm and a complete amnesia for faults. In short, to love others the way my dog loves me.”

It prompted me to buy the book along with These Precious Days: Essays (2021). Both are personal  and literary collections of essays and memoir.

I look forward to reading one of these books as soon as I finish Agatha Christie’s The Murder on the Links.

Why I left a book fair empty-handed

About a month ago, I visited a Books by Weight exhibition in South Mumbai hosted by Butterfly Books and, in a rare display of self-restraint, left empty-handed. 

It wasn't because there were no good books to buy. I simply didn't feel the urge. Perhaps two years of working from home, followed by a hybrid routine, had something to do with it. Apart from evening walks, the occasional social visit and grocery runs in the neighbourhood, I had barely ventured out until that day.

I was also conscious that there was little point in adding to a collection of books that already contained many unread books. Only a few months earlier, my wife and I had given away more than a hundred paperbacks. I had no desire to replace them with another stack that might sit unread for months, if not years.

As I grow older, though not necessarily wiser, I find myself increasingly drawn to the idea of owning fewer things and making better use of what I already have. That applies to books as much as anything else: read them, enjoy them and then pass them on. 

One evening, my wife asked, "What are you finally going to do with all your books? It's time to move on." 

She had a point. It's not as though I own a treasure trove of rare and valuable editions, aside from a few out-of-print western paperbacks and some books with particularly memorable covers. What she really meant, I think, was that I needed to outgrow the habit of buying books simply because I loved the idea of owning them. There was a time for that, and perhaps that time had passed.  

We still have many books, I more than she. I'm also holding on to my comic books, some of which I've owned for decades. What will become of them when I retire, I don't know. Paper, after all, has a shelf life.

These days, I do most of my reading on a Kindle and a tablet. Both are convenient, reader-friendly and, above all, kind to limited shelf space. Physical books possess a charm that ebooks can never quite replicate, but practicality has led me to draw a line between the two. My reading is now roughly 70 per cent digital and 30 per cent print.

I still buy the occasional paperback from secondhand bookshops and book exhibitions, but only after asking myself if it's really worth having the book and wouldn't an ebook serve my purpose just as well. 

The answer to those questions is increasingly shaping my book-buying habits. Having fewer books doesn't mean reading less.

Drink with the Devil by Jack Higgins, 1996

I read Drink with the Devil—the fifth appearance of Jack Higgins' trademark hero Sean Dillon—before the pandemic and decided to finally review it in my sixth month of work from home. Somehow, I always seem to pick up a Higgins to revive my blog every few months. Maybe because he is my favourite action-thriller writer and also my comfort read.

In Drink with the Devil (1996), Higgins offers a glimpse into Dillon's early life—first as a disillusioned IRA assassin, then as a skilled mercenary for the PLO and the Israelis, the KGB and the Red Brigades, and finally as an operative for a highly secret British intelligence unit answerable only to the prime minister.

The story begins in 1985, London.

The IRA sends Sean Dillon—as Martin Keogh—to team up with a legendary Irish militant (Protestant/Loyalist), Michael Ryan, and his young niece Kathleen, who hijack a truck laden with gold bullion worth £50 million. The IRA doesn't want Ryan to use the bullion to buy arms and start a civil war back home. Luckily for Dillion, things don't go according to plan. One late night, he and Ryan are transporting the bullion truck by a hired boat across the Irish Sea. But the scheming crew with plans of their own forces them to blow up the boat and send the bullion plunging to the bottom of the choppy sea.

Cut to the present, 1995, New York State.

Michael and Kathleen are dead to the world, including to the IRA and British intelligence; the priceless cargo never recovered. Michael is serving 25 years in a New York State prison for a failed bank robbery and shooting a policeman. His niece, who works as a nurse at a nearby hospital, meets him every day. They have assumed the names of Liam and Jean Kelly. 

But word of the lost bullion reaches the mafia family of Don Antonio Russo, who strikes a deal with Michael and Kathleen—a share of the gold, now worth £100 million, and their freedom. Word also reaches the US and British intelligence services, the president and the prime minister, and the IRA.

Enter Sean Dillon. The former IRA hitman is tasked with a single mission—prevent the gold from disrupting the peace process between the Catholics and Protestants. He meets his "old friends" a decade later, and therein lies the proverbial twist in the tale.

While I haven't read many of the nearly two-dozen Sean Dillon novels, I can venture to say that Drink with the Devil is not his best. I thought the story, though evenly paced and with a fair amount of action and plenty of dialogue, was somewhat weak. It gave me the impression that even an amateur could have got away with stealing the gold. It also left me wondering how British Intel could not have traced the hijacked bullion or the whereabouts of Michael and Kathleen. They can't just have been lost at sea or disappeared into thin air.

In Higgins' defence, though, Dillion, his boss, Brigadier Charles Ferguson, who heads the secret unit known as the Prime Minister's Private Army, and Special Agent Hannah Bernstein, come into the picture much later; in 1995, when the story of the Irish Rose under the Irish Sea actually begins.

That aside, Drink with the Devil has all the hallmarks of Higgins' simple, to the point and conversational storytelling style. The characters, including the appearance of his other endearing hero, Liam Devlin, and the charming Lake District setting in northwest England, with its pubs and cafes affiliated either to the Republicans or the Loyalists, make the novel a fairly entertaining read. As with many of his IRA-linked novels, Higgins weaves the Northern Ireland conflict and its assorted players into his narrative, which, as a history buff, I find very interesting to read.

Whatever the pros and cons, it is a pleasure to read Jack Higgins.

Hits and misses in 2019

2019 was less than an average year for reading and writing. I did not read much and hardly wrote in my personal capacity. I'd be embarrassed to put a number to either. I have a folder titled 'My Writing Projects' that I have been visiting whenever the mood has suited me. While I did not read a lot, I did buy a few books and watched plenty of films, mostly on Netflix. I also travelled a bit, especially towards the end of the year. I continue to remain active on social media, as many of you know, which is partly responsible for the downside to my reading and writing. I will have to do something about it in the new year.

On a more positive and happy note, my daughter, a post-graduate and a chartered accountant by profession, got engaged and married all within a span of three months. My son, a graduate, enrolled for an MBA programme with specialisation in finance. Both are brilliant in Math and Accounts. I count on my fingers. In October, I rejoined a yoga class, which was a big plus for me, though I'm light years away from doing Shirshasana (the headstand) and having a fresh perspective on life. I needed to slow down and de-stress. Now I wake up at 5 am, bathe and shave, do yoga from 6 to 7 am on most days, come home for a quick breakfast, change into formals, and head to work by 7.30 am. 

I'm going to make sure 2020 is different and productive. I have a few unwritten goals that include reading and writing, contributing meaningful essays and articles to magazines and websites, and reviewing books and interviewing authors on my blog. I have missed the last. Hopefully, this is a start.

Coming back to the new and secondhand books I acquired in 2019, I look forward to reading the ones I received as Christmas gifts from my family—India: From Curzon to Nehru and After, a 550-page book on Indian history by Durga Das (1901-1974), a well-known journalist and historian, and Batman: The Killing Joke, a 1988 DC graphic novel written by Alan Moore and featuring Batman and the Joker. History and comic-books have been my favourite genres since I was in school.

At another time, a serious errand ended in a treasure hunt among the old book haunts of King's Circle in central Mumbai and a rare find—an early Coronet edition of P.G. Wodehouse. A welcome addition to my wife's collection of mostly Penguin PGs.

I will leave you with a story in 50 words—a Dribble—I wrote on Facebook; clearly, the influence of yoga.

I sat on the mat, legs folded under me, eyes closed lightly, hands resting on my thighs, the tips of my index finger and thumb touching gently, in Gyana Mudra. I took a deep breath and exhaled, once, twice, thrice, and instantly found balance—in a dusty old secondhand bookshop.

Happy New Year!

Images: Prashant C. Trikannad

Dangerous Lady by Martina Cole, 1992

The Ryans, Benjamin and Sarah, and their nine children including eight sons and a daughter, live in squalor and deprivation in a seedy district of London. Michael, the eldest, loves his mother and dotes on his little sister Maura, the joy and pride of the Ryans. He is indifferent to his father, a good-for-nothing boozer who introduces him and his brothers to small crimes at a young age. Soon, cops, or "Bills" as they are referred to in the novel, come a-calling. Michael loathes the uniforms so much that, when he grows up to be a ruthless mobster, his antipathy to the police nearly destroys the family he is protective of and fiercely loyal to.

In many ways, Michael Ryan, born into an Irish-English family and ruling the West End of the London underworld, is like Michael Corleone, born into a Sicilian-American mafia family and running the New York gangland. But the similarity ends there.

In spite of Michael Ryan's intimidating presence through most of the 416-page novel, Dangerous Lady is not so much about him as his beautiful sister Maura. Following a secret love affair with a cop, fear of Michael and a painful abortion at the age of 17, she joins her brother and together they build a criminal empire that would’ve made the Sicilian Mafia proud. She proves her worth not just to Michael and her other brothers, but even to the traditionally male-dominated crime syndicates of London. And yet, tough as she comes, Maura has a soft side to her, the result of unfulfilled love that eventually comes back to haunt her and possibly gives her a shot at redemption.

British crime writer Martina Cole’s debut novel is more than a high-octane crime story; it’s the violent saga of a crime family whose exploits stretch from post-war London in the 1950s to the mid-1980s. As the years roll, the Ryans lose more than they gain, both within the family and on the streets of West End.

Though Dangerous Lady is a crime drama with plenty of action and gory scenes, I had a few issues with the novel. One, it was rather long, the narrative seeming to drag on in places and frequently moving back and forth. I'm not much for flashbacks. Two, I thought the writing was ordinary, as was the dialogue. I read somewhere that Martina Cole wrote the novel in her early 20s and published it years later. She has since written over two dozen books to wide acclaim and rave reviews. Three, I felt somewhat cheated that in the end I couldn't empathise with or relate to any of the characters, neither Michael or Maura, nor their strong-willed mother, Sarah, or any of their seven brothers who work for Michael and Maura. It’s not how I expected to come away from a crime thriller of this scale.

In spite of my reservations, Dangerous Lady is both entertaining and readable. It's a dramatic canvas of organised crime and an all-too-real portrayal of an unlikely female gangster with a heart. I plan to read more in the Maura Ryan series as well as other books by the author.

A windfall of books

I bought more books in the first three months of this year than I did in all of 2018. Restraint and resolution went out the window as I scoured book exhibitions and secondhand bookstalls for some of my preferred books and comic-books. A few books, such as Yuval Noah Harari's 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, I bought online (I already have his Sapiens and Homo Deus). I also used my annual office book allowance to acquire a few guides to better writing, two of which are featured here. I ordered Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology for my son, which I intend to read in future.

My catch of the season? Three rare Sudden novels by British author Oliver Strange, including two different Corgi editions of The Range Robbers. The title is the first of the 10 adventures of the Texas outlaw James Green, alias Sudden, so known for his quick draw. English writer Frederick H. Christian (Frederick Nolan in real life) wrote another five based on Strange's eponymous hero. I have 12 of these 15 classic westerns, my favourite in the genre.

Here are the exact covers of some of the books I bought over the past three months.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wild by Cheryl Strayed, 2012

©Alfred A. Knopf

Synopsis

At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State—and she would do it alone. Told with suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild powerfully captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.

My thoughts

In order to find yourself, sometimes you have to lose something. Or in the case of Cheryl Strayed, someone. Someone very dear to her, her own mother, who she loses to cancer. The personal tragedy leaves her distraught with grief and sets off a chain of unfortunate events in her life—estrangement from her stepfather and her two younger siblings; extramarital affairs and experiments with drugs; the heartbreaking decision to put down her horse; and divorce from the man she loved and who truly cared for her.

Cheryl is lost in the wilderness of her life. And it is the wilderness she seeks to find herself again or, as she says, “to save myself.”

Four years after her mother’s death, Cheryl embarks on an epic and a fascinating pilgrimage of self-discovery—all by herself—hiking the 1,100-mile Pacific Crest Trail that starts from the Mexican border and ends on the Canadian border. Cheryl, though, begins her redemptive journey from the Mojave Desert, hiking through California and Oregon, and finally making it to the Bridge of the Gods, a cantilever bridge, and to Washington state.

It takes Cheryl over three months to complete the hike, through imposing mountain ranges, forests and plateaus, record snowfall and extreme temperatures, and past deadly creatures such as bears and rattlesnakes. Her remarkable and seemingly impossible expedition, often assailed by fear and self-doubt, is as intimidating as it is beguiling, the rocky terrain as hostile as it is hospitable. In the end, Cheryl emerges triumphant, grateful to the PCT—“the long walk”—for making her whole again. 

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail is an engaging and entertaining memoir etched with vivid details of Cheryl’s journey starting with her lack of preparedness, first with her humongous backpack she affectionately calls ‘Monster’ and then with her ill-fitting boots that cause her to lose the nails of her feet; the books she carries (including the oft-repeated The Pacific Crest Trail, Volume 1: California), reads and burns on the PCT; the many kind and helpful people, mostly fellow-hikers, she meets on the way and exchanges notes with; and the nights she spends alone in her tent, eating granola bars, listening to the voices in her head and the strange sounds outside. 

Throughout her journey, Cheryl recalls, with a tinge of pain and sadness, the life she left behind—her childhood, the abusive father who abandoned them, the stepfather who admirably filled his shoes, remorse over her failed marriage, and finally, the one person who meant the world to her—her mother, and the illness that snatched her away. The frequent flashbacks, however, do not take away the joy of reading about her hike, though, at 338 pages, I thought it was a bit long. But considering it’s a deeply personal and emotionally-charged account of her early life, the writer would be justified in telling it any how she likes. Cheryl tells hers in first person, in a candid, engaging and almost conversational style.

Wild struck a chord because I’d read of similar journeys of self-discovery, undertaken for different reasons. Notably, Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words, where Peace Pilgrim (Mildred Lisette Norman) walked over 25,000 miles on a personal pilgrimage for peace; the classic Walden, a life in the woods of Massachusetts, by Henry David Thoreau; and my personal favourite, In Quest of God and In The Vision of God by Swami Ramdas, the Hindu monk who walked the length and breadth of undivided India in search of spiritual salvation.

Nearly every one of us must someday get on the trail, not necessarily a physical trail, and find ourselves.

I plan to watch the 2014 screen adaptation of Wild where Reese Witherspoon plays Cheryl Strayed. I learnt of the film only after I read the book.

Book Extract: Justice Gone by N. Lombardi Jr

The 3Cs is delighted to reproduce an exclusive extract from Chapter 1 of Justice Gone by writer N. Lombardi Jr. The book, the first in a series of psychological thrillers involving Dr Tessa Thorpe, publishes February 22, 2019.

About the Book
 

© Roundfire Books

“When a homeless war veteran is beaten to death by the police, stormy protests ensue, engulfing a small New Jersey town. Soon after, three cops are gunned down. A multi-state manhunt is underway for a cop killer on the loose. And Dr. Tessa Thorpe, a veteran's counselor, is caught up in the chase.

“Donald Darfield, an African-American Iraqi war vet, war-time buddy of the beaten man, and one of Tessa's patients, is holed up in a mountain cabin. Tessa, acting on instinct, sets off to find him, but the swarm of law enforcement officers gets there first, leading to Darfield's dramatic capture.


“Now, the only people separating him from the lethal needle of state justice are Tessa and ageing blind lawyer, Nathaniel Bodine. Can they untangle the web tightening around Darfield in time, when the press and the justice system are baying for revenge?”

The Extract

Bruntfield, New Jersey, just another banal town in a part of the country that nobody thinks about, was about to become famous; or rather, more aptly put, infamous. People sauntered past lackluster shops unaware that in a few days, the lackadaisical streets would bear the rabid frustrations that divided the nation; a pus-like bitterness that was held in check by the demands of everyday survival and the distractions offered by obsessive consumerism and brazen media would inevitably blame the cascade of events on the weather, since the origins could be found on a hot summer day in 2006. Sure, just about all summer days are hot, but this one was close to the record, and humid to boot. By the end of July, the Northeast coast was suffering under a sweltering heat wave. Despite the humidity, no one could remember the last time it had rained. A hundred-year drought was predicted, they'd said.

Bruntfield, among the many places under this curse, had its water supply so severely depressed that the city authorities were forced to impose water rationing. As if that wasn't enough, the excessive load on air conditioners led to incessant brownouts. With the weather nothing less than insufferable, suffocating, oppressive, even provoking, tempers flared along with the temperature. But the local situation, as bad as it was, was about to get worse.

In the heart of this small town, just a block up from the bus depot, sat Sliders, a rather successful drinking establishment catering to young adults, and noted for its ecstasy-fueled rave parties. At four in the afternoon, the owner, Joe Poppet, a burly man with a thick red beard and a well-developed beer belly, was staring out the large glass facade of his bar.

"Screw this heat, man."

Joe was sweating because he didn't want to turn on the air-conditioning; as a rule, he didn't put it on until a half hour before opening. He possessed a rather cynical personality, considering himself continually persecuted by life's little aggravations. Now it was the heat ramping up his electricity bill; soon it would be the freezing temperatures inflating his heating bill…always something. His worries constantly exceeded his hopes. He was sort of a "glass-half-empty" man.

Rudy Glum, the shaven-headed bartender, was an easygoing optimist, a "glass-half-full" kind of guy. He was whistling as he washed the glasses in the sink behind the bar. "Tell me about it," he chuckled. "I hear ya, buddy."

But Rudy's sanguinity did not rub off on Joe. "There's that guy again."

"What guy?"

"That fucking guy we saw yesterday."

"Oh, yeah, he's probably from the bus depot. Lotta homeless hang out there."

Joe continued to stare out the glass facade, feeling helpless.  "For Chrissakes, why can't the city do something and get rid of those bastards. They're a fucking eyesore…it's bad for business. Probably got diseases too."

Rudy finished drying the glass in his hand and hung it up on the beer mug rack. "Yeah, it's a goddamn shame," he said noncommittally, trying to get these glasses done before the evening crowd surged in.

"He doesn't have a shirt on."

"Yeah, well it's hot, ain't it? Wish I could take mine off."

"And we're opening in an hour. Ladies Night tonight."

Rudy said nothing while reaching for another glass from the sink behind the bar.

"Call the cops."

The bartender froze with the glass still in his hand. "And tell them what?"

"I don't know, tell 'em there's someone suspicious hanging out on the corner…trying to break into cars or something. That way they'll come fast."

Reluctantly, Rudy put down his dishrag, picked up the phone, and dialed 911, not feeling good about it at all.


Patrolman Rafael Puente might well be considered an unattractive man. A pencil-thin mustache above diminutive lips made insignificant by his large inflated face, gave his head the appearance of a balloon with a cartoon countenance. His acnescarred skin oozed sweat as he studied the thin disheveled man, shirtless with unkempt hair and a scraggly beard, standing three feet in front of him. "You were trying door handles on cars, eh?"

The man's body wavered, but his gaze was focused hard on Puente's eyes. Then his own eyes darted left and right, revealing his vacillation on how to handle this situation. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Puente began playing with his baton, twirling it down, and then back up smack into his palm. Rotating it down, rotating it up, like a long yo-yo…like the tail of an agitated cat ready to pounce. "Give me a language…tell me a language you speak in."

"Like what?"

Puente's tone rose in hostility. "Tell me a language you speak in."

"I don't know. What do you want to know?"

The humidity was so dense it felt like a sponge rubbing against their skins; so thick you could almost take a bite out of it and chew it.

"I want to know what kinda language you speak."

"I don't know."

"Yeah, well, what do you know?"

"I don't know."

"My partner, he speaks ten languages. Right, Foxy?"

Patrolman John Fox, a clean shaven, waspish-looking man standing to his right, smiled a mouthful of nice bright teeth.

"Yeah, that's right. I can speak Mongolian, Cambodian…" Fox came closer, boxing in the man they were questioning.

"He don't speak English," Puente told his partner.

"You don't?" Fox asked the homeless man.

The figure in front of them became fidgety. "What do you think I speak?"

Fox put his hands on his hips. "I don't know, you tell us. You're speaking English right now, aren't ya?"

Puente interrupted. "You know, it seems I see you all the time, and all the time I gotta say something to you. Do you enjoy that?"

"Oh yeah, I love bumping into you all the time."

"Really?"

The bearded man looked to his left and right, looking for an escape route while at the same time desperately trying to tell himself that these guys were just American cops and not the enemy in Iraq. He was trembling with the effort. "So, what do you guys wanna know?"

Puente's baton was still twirling with a pent-up belligerence. "I asked you already."

"I don't know what…"

"You trying to open car doors?"

"Well, I don't know what you're talking about."

"What does that mean, is that a yes or a no?"

"I don't know, don't know what you're hassling me for, man."

"You got any ID on you?"

"No. I don't need any."

"You don't need any?" Fox voiced with a rising tone of contempt.

"No, I don't drive, I don't vote, no credit card, and I don't use my passport anymore."

"So what's your name?" Puente asked.

"Felson. Jay Felson."

"What's your first name?"

"I just fucking told you, man. Jay."

"'J' is an initial. Tell me your full name."

"Jay, J-A-Y, Felson."

Puente, his question answered, went off on a new tack. "You know, I can take you to jail right now…loitering, suspicion of burglary."

"You don't have anything better to do?"

"What's in your knapsack?" Fox interjected.

"Why? You wanna search it?

"If you don't mind."

The bearded man swung his bag off his shoulders and handed it over. "Knock yourself out."

"Sit down," Puente abruptly ordered.

"Sit down where?"

"On the ground."

This was getting hard. Just cops, he reminded himself, but he suspected something worse.

"I said sit down."

"Where man?"

"Where you're standing, on the ground."

Felson plopped down on the concrete pavement.

"Put your legs out in front of you. Stretch them out."

Just do it. He did so, his arms at his sides supporting him.

"Put your hands on your knees."

No, this is a mind fuck, man. He ignored the command.

"I said put your hands on your knees."

Realizing he didn't have much choice, Jay drew his legs up first, then put his hands on his knees.

"Stretch your legs out."

He removed his hands from his knees and stretched out his legs.

"Put your fucking hands on your knees."

"What the fuck you want me to do. I can't do both."

"Give it a try, lean forward and put your hands on your knees."

Fox was going through the items found in the knapsack. "Got some letters here. They ain't addressed to Jay Felson…let's see, Casey Hull, Donald Darfield… You stealing other people's letters, boy."

"I'm gonna mail them."

"They already got stamps on them," Fox noted. "How come you haven't mailed them yet? You know, just slip them into a mailbox. There's one right over there on the corner."

Puente was still toying with his baton. "Let's take him in on a 4-96." Four-ninety-six was police code for handling stolen property.

Jay Felson, feeling an ache in his lower back, removed his hands from his knees, once again placing his arms in back of him to support himself.

"Hey, what the fuck I tell ya! Hands on knees!"

This time Felson was not eager to comply. He remained motionless in silent defiance.

Puente then reached into his back pocket and slowly, deliberately, put on a pair of latex gloves. He thrust one glove-laden fist in front of Felson's face. "See these fists?'

"Yeah, what about 'em?"

"They're getting ready to fuck you up."

"That just sucks."

"Put your legs out, put your hands on your knees"

"Hey, I'm sick of playing games, which one is it!"

Puente slapped him in the head.

"Hey, wouldya just fucking…"

"Put your hands on your knees!" he yelled, giving Felson another slap.

"Wouldya just fucking…"

Fox got on his handheld radio. "Code three, four-fifteen, bus depot corner Fifth and Clemston." (Code three, urgent, proceed with lights and siren; four-fifteen, disturbance.)

Puente slapped Felson's head a third time. Felson stood up, tired of being hit while on the ground.

Puente raised his baton.

Felson put his hands in front of him to display supplication.

"Hey, hey all right!"

"Get on the ground, get on the ground now!" Fox screamed. Both officers began to hit Felson on his legs and side with their batons, and he did what came instinctively-he ran.

"Take him down, take him down!" Puente yelled.

They grabbed him, got him down on the pavement, pressing his face against the concrete, and the real beating began.

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry, sorry, man."

"Put your hands behind your back," the two cops shouted, twisting his arms.

"Okay, I'm sorry…I can't breathe…"

The two cops were on top, Puente with a knee in Felson's back and Fox kicking him. "Stop resisting," they both yelled in turns.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

A second patrol car pulled up with sirens blaring and flashers blazing. Two more officers sprang from the car and piled on. One of the new guys, Victor Fratollini, tasered Felson, zzzzt, and Fox began walloping him over the head with his stun gun. Another unit pulled up. Two more cops, two more assailants, and seeing Fratollini smashing the homeless man's cheekbones with his elbow, joined in the fracas.

Zzzzt, zzzzt, zzzzt they tasered him again and again.

"Dad, Dad, help me!"

More tasering, six times now.

"Help me, Dad! I can't breathe, I can't…Dad…"

Someone pounded Felson's head into the pavement.

"Dad help me!"

A pool of blood formed beneath him. The six police officers relentlessly pummeled him, the scene resembling a feeding frenzy of enraged carnivores…until Felson was no longer able to call for his father.

© Reproduced with the written permission of N. Lombardi Jr and John Hunt Publishing (Roundfire Books)

N. Lombardi Jr (Photo supplied by the author)

About the Author

N. Lombardi Jr (N for Nicholas) has spent over half his life in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, working as a groundwater geologist.

In 1997, while visiting Lao People's Democratic Republic, he witnessed the remnants of a secret war that had been waged for nine years, among which were children wounded from leftover cluster bombs. Driven by what he saw, he worked on The Plain of Jars for the next eight years. Nick maintains a website with content that spans most aspects of the novel: The Secret War, Laotian culture, Buddhism etc.

His second novel, Journey Towards a Falling Sun, is set in the wild frontier of northern Kenya.

His latest novel Justice Gone was inspired by the fatal beating of a homeless man by police.

Nick lives in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. You can read more about him and his work at Goodreads.

Partners: Rogue Lawyer by John Grisham

“I’m not sure I want to get involved in this one,” Sebastian mumbled.

© Doubleday

Partners: Rogue Lawyer (2016) is a 60-page prequel to John Grisham’s full novel Rogue Lawyer published a year before. It is also the bestselling author’s first digital short story, or novella. And it’s written in Grisham’s trademark style; the prose sharp and precise, where every line impels the reader to move on to the next line and the one after, and read through until the end.

Since I hadn’t read the novel, it seemed appropriate to read the short story first and learn how rogue lawyer Sebastian Rudd meets up with Thomas Cardell (alias Tee Ray) who, by the end, offers to become his man Friday, his partner, bodyguard, law clerk and driver rolled into one.

Basically, Grisham wrote Rogue Lawyer introducing Rudd and Cardell to readers, and then decided to write a prequel about how the two met.

Rudd, somewhere in his early thirties, is a street lawyer who operates from a cheap bar-turned-law office in a drug-infested neighbourhood. He defends people other lawyers won’t go near. He knows they’re criminals and probably guilty even before they step inside a courtroom. Rudd has built a reputation as a skilled defence lawyer and has had more jury trials than others his age. He is also the most unpopular lawyer in town.

The rogue lawyer’s unpopularity shoots up when he reluctantly agrees to defend Tee Ray, a Black drug carrier arrested for killing a White cop in self defence. The dead cop, an honour student and a decorated Marine, has the town, the media and the entire police force behind him; Rudd has the backing of his client’s employers, a territorial drug organisation, and threats to his life.

Rudd is aware, without evidence and witnesses, the drug dealer would be sentenced to death for the “murder” of the police officer. So he digs and discovers, with help from his point man in the organisation, that Tee Ray is actually telling the truth; that he was forced to shoot the cop only after the former fired at him several times. The cop wanted a scapegoat, to achieve his month’s target, and Tee Ray seemed like easy pickings. He was clean when he was set upon. A swift trial follows.

Partners is a fast-paced and well-crafted story about not just a street crime or a crime against a police officer, but also about racial violence against Blacks, and is reminiscent of America in the 60s and perhaps even today. Grisham, as is his tradition, handles the subject with skill and sensitivity. What I liked about this story is he not only makes the good guys look good, he doesn’t make the bad ones look very bad. His characters, irrespective of which side of the law they belong to, are only human, with their share of foibles and weaknesses. Another endearing quality about Grisham’s stories is his empathy for the underdog—like Tee Ray and his dream of providing a good life for his teenage son—and the manner in which he gives them a voice that touches the reader. He makes one think, there is justice in this world, after all.

Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut and other books

“I was the baby of the family. Now I don’t have anybody to show off for anymore.” 
— Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut

I bought no more than a dozen secondhand books this year. I’m pretty sure of that. Let me see—a few westerns, thrillers and spy fiction, Lee Child, P.G. Wodehouse, Agatha Christie, Erle Stanley Gardner, Enid Blyton, Kurt Vonnegut. Yes, that’s about it, though I haven’t read any of the books yet. I seldom buy new fiction.

© Prashant C. Trikannad

I also ordered nonfiction from Amazon, as part of the annual office book allowance I’m entitled to. They’re all there in the picture on the left. I haven’t read any of those either, though I have been leafing through the books on writing. I usually don’t read guide books from cover to cover.

Separately, I also picked up Khushwant Singh’s autobiography Truth, Love & A Little Malice (2002). Singh was a well-known and an outspoken diplomat, journalist, parliamentarian, columnist, and author of scores of books. He was one of India’s most engaging storytellers, and also its most controversial. He had an easy and lucid style. The publication of the politically-sensitive book was held up for five years due to a court case.

© Viking, New Delhi

I also added a handful of comic-books to my collection. These included two graphic adaptations from the popular Warrior Cats multi-series by Erin Hunter, a combined pseudonym of a group of children’s book writers. Besides, I downloaded comics from Amazon under its ‘free comic book day’ attraction. I mostly read these on my tab during office commute.

From among fiction, I intend to read Kurt Vonnegut’s Timequake first. It’s not exactly a novel; rather it’s a semi-autobiographical work marketed as a novel. The author, himself, has described the book as a “stew” and his “last novel”.

The following blurbs will tell you more about the book.

“There's been a timequake. And everyone—even you—must live the decade between February 17, 1991, and February 17, 2001, over again. The trick is that we all have to do exactly the same things as we did the first time—minute by minute, hour by hour, year by year, betting on the wrong horse again, marrying the wrong person again. Why? You'll have to ask the old science fiction writer, Kilgore Trout. This was all his idea.” 
— Amazon

© Berkley Books, New York

“Using his science-fictional alter ego Kilgore Trout, Vonnegut talks about a recalcitrant book of Trout's whose premise would have been that ‘a sudden glitch in the space-time continuum’' occurs, creating a 10-year hitch in time in which everyone is forced to live that period of their lives over again, every word and action exactly repeated, from 1991 until 2001, at which point their lives move forward once more. It is a nice conceit, and Vonnegut and Trout have some fun with it, all interwoven with anecdotes about the Vonnegut family, how it feels to be an aging author and suchlike.” 
— Publishers Weekly

“Family is obviously an important anchor for Vonnegut. Through Timequake, he keeps track of a wide variety of siblings, uncles, children, wives and ex-wives, etc. It says a great deal about Vonnegut's view of family that he is close to his family and is also a successful writer while his alter ego, Kilgore Trout, is an unsuccessful author and has no family. When Trout does gain some success in Timequake after the rerun has concluded, he has also gained a family of sorts.” 
— Review on SF Site

The late Kurt Vonnegut is one of my favourite writers mainly because I enjoy his writing to the extent that I'm tempted to imitate his style. He kept it short, almost staccato, and simple. He managed to say a lot without saying much, a tribute to his ability to write with brevity and minimum fuss. He also had a wry sense of humour.