Flash Fiction Challenge: The confession

On August 14, my friend and fellow-blogger Yvette Banek posted a Flash Fiction Challenge on her blog In so many words… daring the rest of us to come up with short stories based on three curious illustrations she produced. I chose the one below. I don't get letters in my mailbox anymore, just bills and menu cards. So I thought I'd read Nala's letter, instead. 

The deadline is September 14 but I think it’s better to be the early bird than fly in late. Thank you, Yvette. It was good fun.

© Robert George Harris

Nala looked at the scented letter in her hand with growing distaste. It was written in beautiful longhand but the hand that wrote the letter had blood on it, her husband’s blood. She didn’t mind the blood—she wanted him dead—so much as the sentiment that oozed out of the letter, like sweat through the pores. It was starting to annoy her. As she began to read it for the third time, there was a wicked gleam in her eyes, a sudden flash of evil, a germ of a terrible idea, and suddenly she was no longer the lovely woman god had made her.

My darling Nala,
At last, you are mine, all mine. No living soul can come between us now. How I have longed for this day, when you and I can be together forever, in our own little heaven filled with love and beauty and passion. Isn't life wonderful more than it has ever been till now? We are free, my beautiful Nala, truly free, to love and be in love as we were meant to be. Can you imagine what this means? I love you and I can’t live without you. You know that, don’t you, Nala? Do you feel the same way about me? Please tell me you do. My god, Nala, I have never been so happy in my life!

Nala folded the letter and sat there, the letter in her hands, her hands in her lap. She looked out of the window and saw the Merchants across the street holding hands and preparing for their evening walk, in the fifty-fourth year of their marriage. She wondered if they were still happy. They must be if they were going out. She looked at the letter, opened it, and continued to read, loathing every word and line and feeling stifled every minute.

I didn’t want it to end this way. I wanted you but I didn’t want to take an innocent man’s life to get you. Not Lin’s. He was such a good man, such a caring husband, and my best friend, and I killed him for you, for us, and for our future. I will have to live with that for the rest of my life, Nala, but I don't mind because you are mine now...

Nala stopped reading. She rose and went to the almirah and took out a bulky envelope. She reached inside and drew out her husband’s will that proclaimed her as the sole heir to his vast fortune. She read the will and was soon lost in the little details, wealth, shares, properties, business, a fleet of cars, yacht, private planes, stud farms, and two Great Danes. “It’s mine now, all mine, every bit of it,” she clutched the will to her heart and smiled at herself in the mirror. “This was my dream and it's finally coming true,” she thought.

And then her gaze fell on the letter. She felt instantly disgusted. Hirsh never meant anything to her, even if he thought he did. He was just a toy and she was done playing with him. It was time to play the big game.

Ten minutes later, Nala emerged from her sea facing bungalow and got into the waiting limo. “Cotton Green Police Station,” she instructed the driver. Outside the police station, she was met by her lawyer, the finest legal brain this side of the equator. They went inside.

“I know who murdered my husband,” she said softly, almost inaudibly, and handed over Hirsh’s lovelorn letter to Inspector Rosario of the crime branch.

Somewhere outside, she heard someone playing The World Is My Oyster. She swayed on her feet imperceptibly and began to hum the song in her own way—“The world is my little oyster and no one can take it away from me.”

When ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ figured in a sitcom

A little diversion for Tuesday's much-awaited Overlooked Films, Audio & Video at Todd Mason’s blog Sweet Freedom.

Debra admires her Harper Lee gift.

If you are a fan of Everybody Loves Raymond as my family is, and as I am, then you'll probably remember the episode where Ray Barone (Ray Romano) gifts his wife Debra (Patricia Heaton) a first edition—yes, a first edition—of Harper Lee's unforgettable To Kill A Mockingbird as a Christmas present. Actually, he buys it to mollify Debra who is seething because he was very thoughtful when he bought a birthday gift for her rival and his mother Marie Barone (Doris Roberts). Her grouse is that he never puts a thought into the presents he buys her.

Now, Ray is a sports writer and reads only sports literature, probably just Sports Illustrated, and watches football on television. He doesn't know a damn thing about fiction leave alone about the Harper Lee classic. 

© Manhattan Rare Book Company

So when he asks his brother Robert (Brad Garrett) for the perfect gift for Debra, he tells Ray to get her a copy of To Kill A Mockingbird because she did her thesis on it and because she loves the book. He even narrates the story. Robert, who is jealous of his brother's success in life—a happy marriage, lovely wife and kids, a great job, a famous byline, his mother's pet, and money in the bank—thinks he knows Debra better than Ray and that she is too good for his brother.

Debra is thrilled when she opens the gift and holds a first edition of the book in her hands, to the delight of Ray who thinks he has earned a bucket of brownie points with her and the possibility of sex that night, and to the disdain of Robert who is so infuriated because Ray doesn’t give him credit for the idea that he blurts out the truth.

As usual, Ray finds himself in trouble again.

The episode is called The Thought That Counts (E157, S11).

I was wondering: if someone were to gift me a first edition of a book for my birthday or Diwali or Christmas, which book would I want? To Kill a Mockingbird wouldn’t be a bad idea but it is Robert’s idea and I don’t want to steal it from him, not when he is already in a foul mood.

Frankly, I can’t think of any. But, if you were to exert pressure gently by twisting my ear and insist that I say something, I’d sheepishly ask for a bunch of first-edition comic-books from the Golden Age. Those would be worth a few million dollars and since it's my gift, I might as well make a killing out of it.

Which first-edition book would you like as a gift?

The Dark Side of the Island by Jack Higgins, 1963

Yet another review of a novel by my favourite author, for Friday’s Forgotten Books at Patti Abbott's blog Pattinase.

My 1987 Coronet Books edition

The Dark Side of the Island is one of the earliest and lesser-known novels of Jack Higgins (Harry Patterson). It ranks amongst the best of his early output out of a total of some eighty novels, starting with Sad Wind from the Sea in 1959 and culminating with The Eagle Has Landed in 1975, which built his formidable reputation as a thriller and espionage writer.

Since then, Higgins has produced over forty novels, and from the ones I have read, none are nearly as good as his early fiction.

At just a little over 150 pages, The Dark Side of the Island is set towards the close of World War II and many years after. It has some of the hallmarks of a Jack Higgins novel—a tough and battle hardened hero with a conscience, an idyllic setting torn apart by war, an anti-German resistance movement, a beautiful woman with trust in her heart and courage in her soul and, of course, betrayal which is what the story is about.

© www.gravetapping.blogspot.in

Captain Hugh Lomax returns to Kyros seventeen years after he came to the picturesque Greek Island to destroy a Nazi stronghold—a strategic radar station—in a secret British Intelligence operation. The reason for his sudden return eludes him but he knows something terrible happened after the successful operation and although he was caught by the Germans, he managed to escape and spend the peacetime years in England and later in California where he worked as a scriptwriter and a novelist of sorts. Now he is back to find out what happened on the island that night more than a decade ago.

The novel is built into three sections, present, past, and present—‘The Long Return,’ when Lomax comes back after the war and is shocked to find that the locals, including old friends from the Resistance, have turned so hostile as to want him dead; ‘The Nightcomer,’ a flashback, where we get a glimpse of the secret operation and what happened after; and ‘A Sound of Hunting,’ which aptly begins with the chapter ‘One Should Never Return to Anything,’ and where Lomax finally discovers the horrible truth—a friend who betrayed the locals to the Germans and condemned them to hell, and who ensured Lomax took the blame for it.

Final word
The Dark Side of the Island is a well-written mystery of sorts that begins during the war and ends years later. The trust and betrayal aspects are done well as the very people Lomax befriended and worked with during the war are now out to kill him. His bewilderment at the hateful reception he gets upon his return is convincing. Like many of Higgins’ protagonists, Lomax has two faces: he is mild, caring, and conscientious on one hand and bitter, tough, and ruthless on the other, depending on who he is dealing with. The story moves at a quick pace and there is good suspense and action towards the end. Any Jack Higgins fan will enjoy this novel.

On another note, it was interesting to see two chapters in the third part of the book, ‘A Sound of Hunting,’ were titles of books he wrote later, namely A Fine Night for Dying (1969) and Confessional (1985). 

Also, the young German commanding officer in charge of Kyros island is one Colonel Steiner who, I'd like to think, is the same Steiner who plays a more critical role in the plot to kidnap Churchill in The Eagle Has Landed (1975). Michael Caine played the role in the 1976 film version directed by John Sturges. I must hasten to add, however, that Steiner has a nominal part in The Dark Side of the Island and dies in the end, or so we are told.   


Note: Ben Boulden, who reviews a variety of books including thrillers, mysteries, and sf, wrote a fine review of this novel over at his blog Gravetapping, April 8, 2014. 

A Hardy Boys a Day

Twelve and restless, I started reading,

Hardy Boys and little else.

Seven lads younger than Frank ’an Joe,
Taking turns reading blue and yellow.

Two hours is what we had,

To retreat, read, and pass on.

We fought, cursed, and split hairs,

To be with Bayport's sleuthing pair.

Seven mothers cooked,
For seven sons ‘booked.’

All we had were the Hardy Boys,

For breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

© Prashant C. Trikannad

The horrors of horror movies

Moments before the gory scene in Damien: Omen II.

When I think of horror movies I think of the immediate side effects—cold sweat, dry mouth, palpitation, tingling, loss of appetite, insomnia, tremors, and irrational behaviour. No, I didn't have an anxiety attack but it'd be the sum total of how I felt when I watched scary movies in my youth, and I saw quite a few of them including such absurd films like Evil Dead. I no longer have the stomach or the enthusiasm for horror flicks. That's not entirely true. I might have seen a couple of them over the past fourteen years, in broad daylight and in my living room, surrounded by family and friends, and a plate of chocolate cake and a glass of cold lemon iced tea.

Now, as I grow older, I'm afraid I'll scare to death easily.

I see enough horror in real life, as it were. One morning, a couple of years ago, I was taking the suburban train to work when I saw four porters running along a parallel track, carrying a dirty stretcher between them. I knew what was coming. Instead of turning my face away I looked out of the window just in time to see the porters haul a pair of bloody legs by the ankles and dump it on the aluminium stretcher. Crows circled above. The limbs were sliced at the waist and the innards were spilling out. The legs wore blue jeans. The rest of the dismembered body, which belonged to a young migrant from north of the country, was found half a mile away to where it was dragged by the express train. I read that in the papers the next day. 

In Bombay, fatalities due to track-crossing are routine. They run into thousands every year. I don't blame Indian Railways. I blame commuters who cross the tracks as a shortcut. The only shortcut they take is to death's door. 

If horror movies don’t kill me, morbid curiosity will.

The Exorcist was the scariest horror film I saw. As a westerner might say, it scared the crap outta me. Young Indians use that a lot now. The Entity and The Omen trilogy didn’t have a hideous face on a rotating head but I still found them disturbing. Perhaps, it was the music that freaked me out. Every time it played you knew something was coming, from somewhere behind you. Remember Jaws?

Which brings me to the purpose of this hellish post: which scene in a horror flick do you remember well?

I can recall many but one that comes to mind, for no apparent reason other than that Satan put it there, is the raven scene in Damien: Omen II. There is this woman in red who is wise to young Damien Thorn’s terrifying identity. After meeting the handsome boy on a football field and seeing the devil in his eyes, she hurriedly gets into her car and drives away. But then, her car breaks down on a long and deserted stretch of the road. She gets out of the car and looks right into the shining black eyes of a raven perched on the roof. The bird attacks her, scratches up her face and claws her eyes out, and in her blind moment of pain and panic, she stumbles onto the road and right into the path of a speeding truck that blows her away. Hazy memory but that is how I remember it.

Defending Jacob by William Landay, 2012

© Random House

This is not a conventional review. Rather, these are my observations of a book, a legal thriller, which offers a profound insight into how bad things can happen all of a sudden to good people, happy families, and destroy their seemingly pleasant lives. 

In recent years, few novels have touched me as deeply and compellingly as Defending Jacob by William Landay. I think it is because as a father of a seventeen-year old teenager I could feel a sense of empathy for Andrew Barber and his wife, Laurie, whose fourteen-year old son, Jacob, is accused of murdering his classmate in the beautiful Cold Spring Park in a Massachusetts suburb. Jacob is like any teenager, reclusive and rebellious, and mostly preoccupied with his thoughts, his cellphone, and his laptop. The question is what lies beneath.

I read books with a certain level of detachment. I try not to get involved in what transpires between the covers of a book, however gut-wrenching the story may be. But sometimes it’s not possible to be a mere witness to the emotional drama unfolding in the pages in front of you. You leap right into the narrative because somewhere in the back of your head you feel you have a stake too, in this case knowing what happens to the once happy Barber family.

If you are a devoted husband and a doting father, you’ll feel the pain of Andy Barber who refuses to admit to himself that his son could be guilty because he loves him deeply and because he owes it to him. It’s a terrible choice for any father to make, especially if, like Andy, you are a respected and a successful assistant district attorney who has stood by his conviction that the law must take its course no matter who the suspect is. You know you have to stick by your son because you’re responsible for him and because he is your flesh and blood. Hell with conviction and all that. You know you are wrong but you also know you are right.

© www.williamlanday.com

As I read through the book, I found myself frequently walking beside Andy, who is forced to go on leave owing to possible conflict of interest, and watch him do everything in his capacity to defend his son and prove he is innocent. He hires a close acquaintance to fight the case. For me, this is Andy’s story more than Jacob’s; the father is the pivot around which the son’s fate hinges.

Let’s not forget Laurie Barber. Once the cynosure of all eyes, Andy’s beautiful wife slowly disintegrates, first with the onslaught of her son’s indictment and the possibility of his guilt and then when, after years of a beautiful love marriage, she learns from Andy that his side of the family has a history of violent behaviour. She feels betrayed. In many ways Laurie suffers more than Andy because, unlike her husband, she is willing to acknowledge that their son could be the murderer of his fellow eighth grader Benjamin Rifkin. She feels responsible for Jacob and that they must have done something wrong raising him.

What Laurie Barber goes through would be any mother’s worst nightmare, as defending Jacob takes its toll on her and the family she has loved and cherished.

Final word
William Landay has produced a cracker of a novel. The suspense is intense, in a non-brutal way, and consistent throughout the 448 pages, alternating between the Barbers’ isolated existence at home and shamed public life in the courtroom, and finally culminating in an unforeseen end.

Defending Jacob is a legal thriller in every sense of the term as William takes the reader through a realistic and gripping homicide investigation and judicial process complete with jury and grand jury, and courtroom scenes. He explains the legal terms including how the system works as well as the theory of a murder gene that the prosecutor is more than keen to bring up in court. I found that aspect of the book very interesting. Can someone commit a crime because it’s in his or her DNA? Is it admissible as evidence in court? The writer offers plausible answers.

The author’s writing style is engaging and he keeps you engrossed with twists and turns every few pages so much so that you feel compelled to finish the book in two sittings as I did.

The author
William Landay was an assistant district attorney in Boston before he took to writing fiction and authored the award-winning Mission Flats and The Strangler—the latest in a long line of seasoned attorneys turned successful writers. He brings his firsthand experience as a legal brain to bear upon his third novel, Defending Jacob.

Earlier this month, when I wrote to William requesting an interview based on this novel, he replied saying that he was too busy at the moment to answer—he is working on his next suspense novel among other things—and, very thoughtfully, invited me to quote freely from a similar interview on his website. I thought that wouldn’t be right, but you can read it here.

Real Steel, 2011

This Tuesday, a film from the near future for Overlooked Films, Audio & Video over at Todd Mason’s blog Sweet Freedom.

Real Steel is a futuristic movie about boxing, not between people but between robots. Hugh Jackman plays Charlie Kenton, a former boxer turned promoter of robot boxing, except his robots don’t do as well in the ring as he himself once did, though he refuses to admit it. With mounting losses and debts, Charlie is at wit’s end. He desperately needs money for a new robot that will get him back into the ring. And then one day Charlie learns that his ex-wife has died leaving behind their eleven-year old son, Max Kenton (Dakota Goyo). That's the last thing he needs.

Max is a precocious kid who quickly endears himself to his newfound father who’d rather gladly surrender him to his sister-in-law Debra (Hope Davis) and her husband Marvin (James Rebhorn), for a million dollars and get on with his life, programming robots to fight other robots. There is no serious custody battle, only a rich aunt who would rather raise her nephew than leave him with her sister's struggling ex.

Max and his father Charlie bond over robots.

The rest of the film is about Charlie and Max discovering more than just their passion for robot boxing; they also discover each other as father and son. Helping them to bond is Atom, an old discarded robot Max finds in a scrapyard and has enough faith in to win them matches and moolah. Charlie is initially amused but then quickly realises that Max’s gaming brain is working wonders for their two-man team. In the end he finds a son who teaches him how to win at robot boxing, and at life.

Real Steel, directed by Shawn Levy (The Pink Panther, Night of the Museum), is a silly but an entertaining film. At one point I didn’t know if I was watching Real Steel or one of the Transformers. When my teenage son asked me why Hugh Jackman would do such a film, I said probably for the money. Who wouldn't? Jackman is mild-mannered throughout the film and acquits himself well as Charlie Kenton who teaches a robot how to box.