On the Reading Table: "No Middle Name: The Complete Collected JackReacher Stories"

Lee Child

It's been a long time since I've read some mystery/ crime fiction. I've been reading mostly non-fiction for quite a spell. I've long enjoyed the crime fiction writings of Lee Child -- they remind me of the work of another favorite, John D. MacDonald -- which makes perfect sense -- since I read somewhere that Child was inspired by MacDonald in his approach to storytelling. Anyway, I snagged this recent "Jack Reacher" paperback from a "Little Free Library" in Anchorage, and finally started my pleasure reading. 

"This anthology compiles the complete collection of 'Reacher' short stories to date and includes an original novella, 'Too Much Time,' which leads into 'The Midnight Line' (the 22nd Reacher novel) alongside eleven reader favorites -- 'Deep Down,' 'Everyone Talks,' 'Guy Walks into a Bar,' 'High Heat,' 'James Penney’s New Identity' (the original version which is longer), 'Maybe They Have a Tradition,' 'No Room at the Motel,' 'Not a Drill,' 'Second Son,' 'Small Wars,' and The Picture of the Lonely Diner.'"

Rene Magritte: Portrait of Fantomas

Rene Magritte

Fantomas

Rene Magritte and his surreal portrait of Fantômas, The Barbarian, 1937...

One of the most popular characters in the history of French crime fiction, Fantômas was created in 1911 and appeared in a total of 32 volumes written by two collaborators, Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain, then a subsequent 11 volumes written by Allain alone after Souvestre's death. The character was also the basis of various film, television, and comic book adaptations. In the history of crime fiction, he represents a transition from Gothic novel villains of the 19th century to modern-day serial killers.

Fantômas is a criminal genius, ruthless and particularly elusive. He is the cause of almost any unsolved crime, a merciless criminal who can get away with his evil deeds by impersonating pretty much anyone. He is obsessively chased by Inspector Juve, who is generally the only one able to see Fantômas's tracks.

Fantômas was introduced a few years after Arsène Lupin, another well-known thief. But whereas Lupin draws the line at murder, Fantômas has no such qualms and is shown as a sociopath who enjoys killing in a sadistic fashion.

He is totally ruthless, gives no mercy, and is loyal to none, not even his own children. He is a master of disguise, always appearing under an assumed identity, often that of a person whom he has murdered. Fantômas makes use of bizarre and improbable techniques in his crimes, such as plague-infested rats, giant snakes, and rooms that fill with sand.

Fantômas's background remains vague. He might be of British and/or French ancestry and appears to have been born in 1867.

DVD: The Mentalist

I may have mentioned before that I don't watch broadcat TV or cable. I limit myself to DVDs and Netflix rentals (the two-a-month plan). This is how I end up "behind the curve" on TV series and movies. While in the big box discount store, I spied a show that I'd never seen, and it seemed like something I might enjoy. Since it was listed at such a reasonable retail price, I took a flyer, and bought a season for a trial run. It turns out, I enjoy the series very much, and so I shelled out for two more seasons. The cast is very attractive, and I enjoy the characters as written. I'm sure many of you know about it already, but in case you don't, give it a go.

After a prolific serial killer named Red John kills his wife and daughter, Patrick Jane (Simon Baker) gives up his prosperous life as a phony psychic and uses his staggering powers of observation to aid the California Bureau of Investigation. Although Jane's eccentric methods annoy skeptical agent Teresa Lisbon (Robin Tunney), they get results, enabling Lisbon's team to apprehend even the most cunning and cold-blooded of criminals.

Simon Baker (in his first Emmy-nominated role) stars as Patrick Jane, a rogue detective and case-cracking consultant for the California Bureau of Investigation -- a far cry from his last gig as a semi-famous "psychic medium" with no paranormal abilities. Despite his bogus past, Patrick's charm and powers of observation endear him to the CBI team -- except for Senior Agent Teresa Lisbon (Robin Tunney), who doesn't care for his antics. Tim Kang and Amanda Righetti also star.

Thrilling Detective Web Site Link

For all things Private Eye:

http://www.thrillingdetective.com/

Listomania: The Daily Telegraph's Great Crime Writers

From G K Chesterton to Elmore Leonard The Daily Telegraph presents a list of of its favourite crime writers of all time

After a debate that left senior members of the Telegraph's literary staff with pulled hair, black eyes and, in one case, an infected bite, we this week present our list of the 50 great crime writers of all time.

We wanted to compile a list of writers we had, jointly and severally, loved. We wanted to include writers like Dash Hammett, who brought something new and exciting to the genre; like Elmore Leonard, who turns an old trick in it with incomparable style; and like Poe, who invented it. We did not, except incidentally, take into account popularity.

Who, we asked ourselves finally, are the crime writers who can actually write? We believe any serious reader will profit from acquaintance with any of the writers on this list.

GK Chesterton (1874-1936)

The most fluent journalist of his generation, Gilbert Keith Chesterton was also a master of the detective story. Father Brown - his sceptical and worldly-wise priest - featured in dozens of exquisite entertainments. Settle into a comfy chair and enjoy. 
Read: The Complete Father Brown (1986)

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930)

Conan Doyle's pipe-smoking detective is so well known that Sherlock has become a synonym for sleuth. He never said the catchphrase; the illustrator gave him the hat; continuity errors abound… but he's brilliant.
Read: The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902)

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

Poe was a man of formidable talents - not least of which, sadly, was drinking himself to death. Before that, though, he gave us fiction's first detective, in Auguste Dupin, and hairiest murderer, in an orang-utan. 
Read: The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841)

Ed McBain (1926-2005)

As well as writing the script for Hitchcock's The Birds, McBain (real name: Evan Hunter) more or less invented the police procedural. The detectives of Isola's 87th Precinct wise-cracked for half a century, and their spare style was the prime influence on Hill Street Blues. 
Read: King's Ransom (2003)

Kyril Bonfiglioli (1929-1985)

A raffish former art dealer, Bonfiglioli created - in Charlie Mortdecai - an antihero (also a raffish art dealer) of irresistible charm. Charlie has the manner of a demented Bertie Wooster and the morals of a polecat. Great titles, too. 
Read: The Mortdecai Trilogy (1991)

James Ellroy (b. 1948)

Ellroy's labyrinthine novels chart a West Coast underworld of corruption and evil, played out against real historical events. Bent cops, nightsticks, psychopaths and seductresses. Makes The Silence of the Lambs resemble a vicar's tea party.
Read: The Black Dahlia (1987)

Janwillem van der Wetering (b. 1931)

The capers of Grijpstra and de Gier, aka The Amsterdam Cops, are oddly appealing. One plays the drums; the other the flute. They frequent canals. There's a cat. Unique and very Dutch. 
Read: Outsider in Amsterdam (1975)

Carl Hiaasen (b. 1953)

A master of the comic crime novel, Hiaasen patrols Florida's Everglades. His villains are big business, petty crimes and That Mouse. Skink, a feral former Florida governor who lives off roadkill, often features. 
Read: Double Whammy (1987)

Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961)

It’s a cinch to argue that Hammett was the most influential stylist of the past century and probably the father of the modern literary novel. After honing his style on pulp magazines, he famously proved that high literary art was not only possible, but best achieved, through spare rather than florid or heavily mannered prose.

He influenced Raymond Chandler, who then inspired generations of writers to explore the lyrical possibilities of laconic, muscular writing while instinctively rejecting popular pre-Hammett styles as dull or overwrought. Hammett created revolutionary models for the morally ambiguous hero (Sam Spade) and the equal partnership of modern marriage (Nick and Nora Charles) now so universal that we have forgotten our debt to him.

Reprinted in 2004, his Continental Op stories proved so stunningly fresh that the 1920s hero could have carried a Blackberry without raising eyebrows unduly.
Read: The Maltese Falcon (1930)

Dan Kavanagh (b. 1946)

In the 1980s, the shady, elusive Kavanagh - crime-writing alter-ego of Julian Barnes - produced four grimy, winningly absurd tales starring Duffy, a bisexual ex-copper with a heart of coal.
Read: The Duffy Omnibus (1991)

Margery Allingham (1904-1966)

Often taken as one of a trio with Marsh and Sayers, Allingham has a pace and frivolity all her own. She created a world that manages to be reassuring yet fraught with danger.
Read: The Tiger in the Smoke (1952)

Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

Like his friend Wilkie Collins, Dickens was obsessed with crime. Bleak House's Inspector Bucket is one of the first detectives in fiction. It's a pity that The Mystery of Edwin Drood will forever remain unsolved. 
Read: Bleak House (1852-3)

Georges Simenon (1903-1989)

Fabulously prolific Belgian master, said to have schtupped more than 10,000 ladies and written more than 300 novels. We don’t know how long he spent on each lady, but he reckoned to write 60 pages of fiction a day.

His greatest creation was Maigret, an unassuming detective with a brain like a sponge and the quiet moral determination of a true hero. Other detectives deduce; Maigret absorbs.

The best of the novels drop Simenon’s detective into a social environment in which, by doing very little, he unravels a whole world of secrets and interconnections.

So it is in The Yellow Dog, in which a small town in the gloomy off-season gives up its private passions one by one to the detective’s patient observation. A whole school of modern detectives still walks in Maigret’s large footprints.
Read: The Yellow Dog (1931)

Agatha Christie (1890-1976)

Christie did not have the purest prose style and she played hard and fast with the genre's rules but in Marple and Poirot, she invented two of our most enduring literary characters. 
Read: Peril at End House (1932)

Wilkie Collins (1824-1889)

The Moonstone established the genre's ground rules: red herrings; a long list of suspects; the man from Scotland Yard, and a nod to a pressing social issue, in this case opium addiction. 
Read: The Moonstone (1868)

Jonathan Latimer (1906-1983)

Admired for his William Crane novels of the 1930s, which parodied hard-boiled crime fiction. Where most private eyes drink like fish with little effect, boozy Crane is more often found sleeping it off than detecting.
Read: The Fifth Grave (1941)

Ruth Rendell (b. 1930)

Ruth Rendell, the creator of Inspector Wexford, is one of Britain's best-loved writers. She brought psychological realism and darker themes to crime fiction in novels such as Talking to Strange Men and Live Flesh. 
Read: The Water's Lovely (2006)

Ngaio Marsh (c. 1895-1982)

A New Zealander who created a quintessentially English detective, the dishy Roderick Alleyn, who featured in 32 sparkling novels. Female fans' hearts were broken when Alleyn eventually married.
Read: Vintage Murder (1937)

Benjamin Black (b. 1945)

Black's two novels set in 1950s Dublin, in which lumbering pathologist Quirk investigates suspicious deaths, are bracingly bleak. Also known to the police as John Banville.
Read: Christine Falls (2006)

John Dickson Carr (1906-1977)

The master of the "impossible crime", he claimed to have come up with 80 versions of the locked-room mystery, usually solved by his Falstaffian sleuth Dr. Gideon Fell. Also wrote as Carter Dickson.
Read: The Hollow Man (1935)

Michael Innes (1906-1994)

An Oxford don who wrote inventive crime fantasies. Crooks are more likely to get caught by quoting from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam than by fingerprints when erudite copper John Appleby is about.
Read: The Weight of the Evidence (1943)

Raymond Chandler (1888-1959)

He may have forgotten to tell us who murdered the chauffeur in The Big Sleep, but otherwise Chandler can't be faulted. Every reluctant step Philip Marlowe takes through California's mean streets carries him further into legend.
Read: Farewell, My Lovely (1940)

Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921-1990)

The most famous of this Swiss author's chilling novellas is The Pledge, in which a policeman finds his Holmes-like powers are useless for dealing with the real world's random brutality. 
Read: The Pledge (1958)

Michael Gilbert (1912-2006)

The stories featuring Mr Calder and Mr Behrens, two seemingly benign old boys who are actually ruthless secret service assassins, are examples of this underrated writer's unnervingly civilised approach to horrific violence.
Read: Even Murderers Take Holidays and other Mysteries (2007)

Donald Westlake (1933-2008)

The king of the comic caper, whose novels usually feature amiable criminals bungling their way into sticky situations. The novels he writes as "Richard Stark", featuring the amoral thief Parker, are darker fare. 
Read: What's So Funny? (2007)

Colin Bateman (b. 1962)

Any appearance by Bateman's regular protagonist, journalist Dan Starkey, heralds the imminent death in amusing fashion of half the population of Belfast. Comic thrillers that are actually comic and thrilling. 
Read: Wild About Harry (2001)

Frances Fyfield (b. 1948)

Fyfield emerged as a rival to Minette Walters when publishers in the mid-1990s were obsessed with grim, cod-psychological nasties inspired by Ruth Rendell. She's relaxed into a more comfortable format. 
Read: The Art of Drowning (2006)

Reginald Hill (b. 1936)

Everyone thinks they know Hill through the TV series "inspired" by his creations Dalziel and Pascoe - to the extent that they miss his writerly flourishes and teasing way with readers. He's a victim of his own success.
Read: Good Morning Midnight (2004)

Andrea Camilleri (b. 1925)

Camilleri's writing suits his hero Inspector Montalbano, a Sicilian with a broad sense of humour. Camilleri's real subject is the state of Sicily, but his characters are vivid and their dilemmas eternal.
Read: The Patience of the Spider (2007)

Henning Mankell (b. 1948)

Each book finishes with fatty Wallander crashing about the bushes in a tracksuit, but the Swede's existential misery is delightful and every novel is absorbing and satisfying. 
Read: Sidetracked (1999)

Patricia Highsmith (1921-1995)

No one reads Patricia Highsmith for consolation: there is rarely a happy ending in which order is restored, and her complex, morally ambiguous characters are just as likely to escape justice as to receive it.

Highsmith’s career was kick-started by Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film version of her 1950 novel, Strangers on a Train, but Tom Ripley (who also appeared on screen, in The Talented Mr Ripley) is her most infamous creation, and he appeared in five of her novels, chilly and scheming and repellent.

There is a worrying strata of authentic darkness that underpins her work, and it is no surprise that she lived a peculiar, isolated life, during which she preferred the company of snails to humans.
Read: The Talented Mr Ripley (1955)

James Lee Burke (b. 1936)

A decade ago, Lee Burke gave the gritty lyricism of his series about alkie Louisiana cop Dave Robicheaux full rein and created a one-man revival of Southern Gothic writing. One of America's finest novelists in any field.
Read: Black Cherry Blues (1989)

Jim Thompson (1906-1977)

There was no more brutal and brilliant exponent of old-style pulp than the “Dime Store Dostoevsky” – Jim Thompson. Thompson churned out more than 30 novels in the course of his drunken, borderline criminal life.

Pop. 1280 and The Killer Inside Me are both narrated by murderously unhinged small-town lawmen, who mask their moral vacuity with goofy homespun wisdom. The Grifters shows the noose tightening nastily on small-time cons. The Getaway follows a viperous Bonnie-and- Clyde-style pair of robbers on the run, pitching them finally into a chilling hell of their own making.

Thompson’s novels are set, largely, in a world where there are no good guys. Dark as hell, his books are all the darker for being funny.
Read: The Getaway (1959)

Walter Mosley (b. 1952)

Mosley's Easy Rawlins is a classic film noir gumshoe with the twist that he's a black war vet at the dawn of the civil rights crusade.
Read: Devil in a Blue Dress (1991)

Denise Mina (b. 1966)

In Mina's Garnethill novels, an ex-mental patient clinging to sanity in the underbelly of Glasgow isn't as grim as it sounds. Her wit and warmth render the trials of her heroine oddly life-affirming.
Read: Garnethill (1999)

Steig Larsson (1954-2004)

A crusading Swedish journalist who died in 2004, leaving the manuscripts of three thrillers. They have received high praise and the first volume, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, has just been published here.
Read: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2008)

Ronald Knox (1888-1957)

Knox gained fame as a Roman Catholic priest but made a huge contribution to Golden Age crime. Miles Bredon (Dorothy L Sayers stole the surname for Peter Wimsey) is an insurance investigator in The Three Taps; there are five other books. He coined the 10 commandments of the detective novel in 1929 and was later reduced to translating the Bible.
Read: The Viaduct Murder (1925)

EC Bentley (1875-1956)

Inventor of the Clerihew and a schoolmate of GK Chesterton. Trent's Last Case (1913) is a landmark in detective fiction because it breaks several of the form's cardinal rules.
Read: Trent's Last Case (1913)

Lawrence Block (b. 1938)

Block shows a love of the cosy locked-room school in his Burglar series. His genius is in full flower in the Matt Scudder series, about a hard-boiled ex-cop investigating sleazy crimes.
Read: All the Flowers Are Dying (2005)

Edmund Crispin (1921-1978)

Bohemian schoolmaster Bruce Montgomery (aka Crispin) spoofed post-war crime fiction with great larkiness. His dotty professor and amateur sleuth, Gervase Fen, even admits he's a fictional character. 
Read: Holy Disorders (1945)

William McIlvanney (b. 1936)

McIlvanney, a considerable mainstream novelist, has set three crime novels in Glasgow: Laidlaw, The Papers of Tony Veitch and Strange Loyalties. They probably inspired the TV series Taggart, but are far more intelligent and subtle.
Read: Laidlaw (1977)

George V Higgins (1939-1999)

Elmore Leonard acknowledges Higgins as his major influence. His books are almost all in (foul-mouthed, funny, well observed, poetically cadenced) dialogue. The Friends of Eddie Coyle is the best known but none are duds.
Read: The Rat on Fire (1981)

Dorothy L Sayers (1893-1957)

Sayers was responsible, with Agatha Christie, for fixing in the public mind the idea (demonstrably false) that women are particularly good at crime writing. Unlike Christie, Sayers was. She was good at writing, full stop.

She translated Dante’s Inferno when it was little-known, except to specialists, and wrote a radical radio play about Christ which caused an outcry. Sayers had her faults. She was donnish and high-jinxy to a degree which might have made even other members of the High Oxford school (Michael Innes, Edmund Crispin) blush.

In Clouds of Witness she alludes to a fairly obscure quotation. Lower-class characters drop their aitches left, right and centre, while Lord Peter is perhaps too much of a good thing, even as snobbish wishfulfilment.

Some think the solution to The Nine Tailors is a swizz; but the genius of the missing item in Five Red Herrings is, on its own, enough to confirm her greatness.
Read: Five Red Herrings (1931)

Anthony Boucher (1911-68)

The revered US crime fiction critic also created characters such as Nick Noble, a former cop who props up a bar while his ex-colleagues bring him their trickiest cases.
Read: The Case of the Baker Street Irregulars (1940)

Mickey Spillane (1918-2006 )

Creator of brutish but honest private dick Mike Hammer, who, by bashing the bejesus out of crooks, helped make Spillane one of the best-selling writers of the 20th century.
Read: I, the Jury (1947)

James Grady (b. 1949)

His thrillers set ordinary people in dangerous situations engendered by government greed and corruption. His first novel, Six Days of the Condor, was made into a film. 
Read: Six Days of the Condor (1974)

George Pelecanos (b. 1957)

The pulp fiction bard of the sleaziest side of Washington DC. The capital's rigid firearms laws generate imaginatively grisly alternatives to the traditional shoot-out.
Read: The Big Blowdown (1996)

Robert Crais (b. 1954)

Just when you think there can't be a new take on the old "PI with a mildly psychotic sidekick" formula, Crais proves you right. Elvis Cole is a homage, but also a labour of literary love.
Read: The Watchman (2007)

John Lawton (b. 1949)

Lawton immerses a newspaper baron's son, Inspector Troy, in the scandals of post-war Britain. His skewed social history is utterly absorbing. 
Read: Black Out (1995)

Elmore Leonard (b. 1925)

Leonard owes much to George V Higgins, but his snappy dialogue, learned as a copy-writer, slick prose and plotting are instantly recognisable. "If it sounds like writing," he says,"I rewrite it."
Read: Maximum Bob (1991)

Crime Fiction Masters: Robert Crais

Robert Crais is one of my must-read crime fiction novelists. His P. I.s, Elvis Cole and Joe Pike, partner to form yet another classic "buddy" team. The early Elvis Cole romps were told with a much more lighthearted and satirical slant than the later books, but every Crais novel is an enjoyable read. Crais' last few novels have shifted the focus over to Joe Pike, with Elvis appearing in a supporting role. Robert Crais is not a book factory like some of the other best-selling mystery writers. Each of his books is well-crafted and fast-moving. The supporting character, geeky LAPD criminalist John Chen, is a hoot.

From yee ol' Wiki: "Robert Crais (b. 1953) began his career writing scripts for television shows such as Hill Street Blues, Cagney & Lacey, Quincy, Miami Vice and L.A. Law. He lists amongst his literary influences the authors Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Ernest Hemingway, Robert B. Parker and John Steinbeck. (Note from Donno: How can you go wrong with that list?)

Crais's usual protagonist and first-person narrator is private detective Elvis Cole, an ex-Ranger. Cole's partner is Joe Pike, a former Marine. Except for Demolition Angel, Hostage and The Two-Minute Rule, all of Crais' books feature Cole and Pike, with The Watchman (2007), The First Rule (2010) and The Sentry (2011) centering on Joe Pike.

The author tackles a variety of subjects in his novels. Free Fall was inspired by the Rodney King riots and Sunset Express dealt with a killer who bore an uncanny resemblance to O. J. Simpson. The most frequently recurring theme in Crais's books is the value of honesty; in his works, the long-term value of coming clean always outweighs the short-term benefits of covering up the problem. Crais also delves into issues of family and loyalty

Robert Crais has stated that "Thematically, again and again my books are about people who are trying to be better than they have been."

In 2005, Bruce Willis appeared in Hostage, the first Hollywood adaptation of one of his books. Crais has no plans to sell the rights to his Elvis Cole novels, preferring to allow his readers to keep their own personal conceptions of the characters."

Elvis Cole/Joe Pike novels:

The Monkey's Raincoat -- 1987
Stalking the Angel -- 1989
Lullaby Town -- 1992
Free Fall -- 1993
Voodoo River -- 1995
Sunset Express -- 1996
Indigo Slam -- 1997
L. A. Requiem -- 1999
The Last Detective -- 2003
The Forgotten Man -- 2005
The Watchman -- 2007
Chasing Darkness -- 2008
The First Rule -- 2010
The Sentry -- 2011
Taken -- 2012


Other novels:

Demolition Angel -- 2000
Hostage -- 2001
The Two-Minute Rule -- 2006

Billy Batts On Loss, Anger, and Acceptance

The Kübler-Ross model, commonly called The Five Stages of Loss, is a hypothesis first introduced by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her book, On Death and Dying, which was inspired by her work with terminally ill patients.

Her five stages of loss have now become widely accepted. My own cognitive psychologist, Dr. R., has pointed out that these stages often occur for any loss, not just death or illness. It could be the loss of a job, loss of status, loss a lover, almost anything.

Kübler-Ross stressed that these five stages are not meant to be complete or chronological. The hypothesis is that the reactions to loss are as unique as the person experiencing them.

The five classic stages include:

Denial — "I feel fine;" "This can't be happening, not to me."

Denial is usually only a temporary defense for the individual. This feeling is generally replaced with heightened awareness of possessions and individuals that will be left after the loss. Denial can be conscious or unconscious refusal to accept facts, information, or the reality of the situation. Denial is a defense mechanism and some people can become locked in this stage.

Anger — "Why me? It's not fair!;" "How can this happen to me?;" '"Who is to blame?"

Once in the second stage, the individual recognizes that denial cannot continue. Because of anger, the person is very difficult to care for due to misplaced feelings of rage and envy. Anger can manifest itself in different ways. People can be angry with themselves, or with others, and especially those who are close to them. It is important to remain detached and nonjudgmental when dealing with a person experiencing anger from loss.

Bargaining — "I'll do anything for more time without the loss;" "I'd give up this if only..."

The third stage involves the hope that the individual can somehow postpone or delay loss. Usually, the negotiation for an extended life is made with a higher power in exchange for a reformed lifestyle. Psychologically, the individual is saying, "I understand I will loose, but if I could just do something to buy more time..." People facing less serious trauma can bargain or seek to negotiate a compromise. For example "Can we still be friends?.." when facing a break-up. Bargaining rarely provides a sustainable solution, especially if it's a matter of life or death.

Depression — "I'm so sad, why bother with anything?;" "I'm going to lose this soon so what's the point?"; "I miss the way things were, why go on?"

During the fourth stage, the person begins to understand the certainty of loss. Because of this, the individual may become silent, refuse visitors and spend much of the time crying and grieving. This process allows the person to disconnect from things of love and affection. It is not recommended to attempt to cheer up an individual who is in this stage. It is an important time for grieving that must be processed. Depression could be referred to as the dress rehearsal for the 'aftermath'. It is a kind of acceptance with emotional attachment. It's natural to feel sadness, regret, fear, and uncertainty when going through this stage. Feeling those emotions shows that the person has begun to accept the situation.

Acceptance (or sometimes, Resignation) — "It's going to be okay;" "I can't fight it, I may as well prepare for it."

In this last stage, individuals begin to come to terms with their loss or other tragic event. This stage varies according to the person's situation. People dying can enter this stage a long time before the people they leave behind, who must pass through their own individual stages of dealing with the grief.

As I wrote earlier, it doesn't take a loss as traumatic as illness or death for these five stages to kick in.

When I feel slighted or criticized illogically or unfairly, I have an incredibly hard time accepting such losses. I lock onto the "insults" with denial and fierce anger. My form of bargaining usually takes the form of endless OCD-style rumination, where I replay conversations or disagreements, over and over in my head, conjuring up countless logical points where I finally prove myself right. When I finally realize even though I may be technically correct, I'm seldomly, if ever, going to win the real-life arguments, or change the outcomes, or even get acknowledgement about the reasons for my points of view, depression briefly sets in, and then I finally I accept the loss of argument or status (resignation).

Even so, I am fully capable of flaring up, OCD-style, and locking onto the anger and bargaining stages, even years later. I seldom forget slights, perhaps they are "softwired" into my brain and and thus can't be totally extinguished. Some scientists believe this bad memory encoding could be a result of the supreme efficiency of the "lizard" brain (aka the limbic system), where losses are cataloged so that snap decisions can be made later in life. These limbic system structures are believed to be involved in many of our emotions and motivations, particularly those that are related to survival. Such emotions include fear, anger, and emotions related to sexual behavior. The limbic system is also involved in feelings of pleasure that are related to our survival, such as those experienced from eating and sex.

One of the most terrifying portrayals of pent-up "lizard" brain anger breaking free from its cortex-controlled leash is the murder scene in Goodfellas, wherein crazy Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci) and calculating Jimmy Conway (Robert DeNiro) stomp "made-man" mafiaso Billy Batts (Frank Vincent) to death in a barroom, all because Batts  "breaks DeVito's balls" about his boyhood days as shoeshine boy.

Here's the setup for the Billy Batts murder scene from Goodfellas (1990):

Tommy DeVito: No more shines, Billy.
Billy Batts: What?
Tommy DeVito: I said, no more shines. Maybe you didn't hear about it, you've been away a long time. They didn't go up there and tell you. I don't shine shoes anymore.
Billy Batts: Relax, will ya? Ya flip right out, what's got into you? I'm breaking your balls a little bit, that's all. I'm only kidding with ya...
Tommy DeVito: Sometimes you don't sound like you're kidding, you know, there's a lotta people around...
Billy Batts: I'm only kidding with you, we're having a party, I just came home and I haven't seen you in a long time and I'm breaking your balls, and you're getting f**king fresh. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you.
Tommy DeVito: I'm sorry too. It's okay. No problem.
Billy Batts: Okay, salud.
Billy Batts: [takes a drink] Now go home and get your f**kin' shinebox.
Tommy DeVito: Mother f**kin' mutt! You, you f**king piece of sh*t!
Billy Batts: [taunting] Yeah, yeah, yeah, come on, come on, come on!
Tommy DeVito: Motherf**king... He bought his f**king button! That fake old tough guy! You bought your f**king button!
Tommy DeVito: You mother f**k... F**k! Keep that motherf**ker here, keep him here! [leaves]
Billy Batts: Go home and get your f**king shine box.
Tommy DeVito: Just don't go busting my balls, Billy, okay?
Billy Batts: Hey, Tommy, if I was gonna break your balls, I'd tell you to go home and get your shine box.  [to his friends]
Billy Batts: Now this kid, this kid was great. They, they used to call him Spitshine Tommy.
Billy Batts: [under his breath after Tommy leaves the bar] I'll f**k him in his *ss. I f**ked kids like him in the can in the *ss. F**kin' trying to break up my party.
Billy Batts: Hey Jimmy! What's right is right. You understand what I'm talking about?
Jimmy Conway: It's all right. It's all right.
Billy Batts: No. The kid's over here. We're hugging and kissing over here. And two minutes later, he's acting like a f**king jerk.
Jimmy Conway: No, no, no, no, no. You insulted him a little bit. You got a little bit out of order yourself.
Billy Batts: No I didn't insult him. I didn't insult him.
Jimmy Conway: I'm sorry. You insulted him a little bit.
Billy Batts: No, I didn't insult nobody. Give us a drink. Give us a drink.
Billy Batts: Give us a drink. And give some to those Irish hoodlums down there.
Jimmy Conway: There's only one Irishman in here.
Billy Batts: On the house. Salud.
Jimmy Conway: Top of the mornin'.

Of course, this heated exhange proves to be the beginning of the end for DeVito and Conway. If only they'd  taken the healthier choice of accepting the loss of respect -- but it's tough to keep the lizard down when a eff-ing mutt is "busting your balls."

LLLLLLLiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii---zzzzzaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrdddd!.

The Complete Nero Wolfe Magaset DVD

Nero Wolfe is a terrific boxed DVD set. Since I seldom watch broadcast TV (only DVDs), watching the shows recently was new experience for me. It's an unusual format, in that the various episodes employ the same ensemble of character actors for the sundry supporting roles of each episode. That threw me a bit at first, especially with the femmes fatales. anyway, it's a whole lot of fun to watch and a brilliant period piece.

"Like Sherlock Holmes and Watson before them, the brilliant but curmudgeonly Nero Wolfe and his streetwise sidekick Archie Goodwin are crime's greatest nemeses. With Nero preferring to solve crimes at home amid his orchid collection, it is Archie who does the legwork about town to allow Wolfe to unravel the most confounding crimes. Together the duo cracks cases of murder, deception, blackmail, and more, resulting in an unforgettable confection of mystery, suspense, and style.

Faithfully adapted from the best-selling stories by Rex Stout, The Complete Nero Wolfe Megaset stars Maury Chaykin (The Sweet Hereafter) and Oscar(r) winner Timothy Hutton (Ordinary People) and features all 20 episodes of the critically acclaimed A&E series, including the feature-length series pilot, The Golden Spiders. "

Crime Fiction Masters: Berlin Noir: Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther Novels

Philip Kerr is the author of many novels, but perhaps most important are the ones featuring Bernie Gunther—A Quiet Flame, The One from the Other, and the Berlin Noir trilogy (March Violets, The Pale Criminal, and A German Requiem). Kerr lives in London and Cornwall, England, with his family.

The Philip Kerr Bernie Gunther  mysteries are exciting and insightful looks at life inside Nazi Germany -- richer and more readable than most histories of the period. We first meet ex-policeman Bernie Gunther in 1936, in March Violets (a term of derision which original Nazis used to describe late converts.) The Olympic Games are about to start; some of Bernie's Jewish friends are beginning to realize that they should have left while they could; and Gunther himself has been hired to look into two murders that reach high into the Nazi Party. In The Pale Criminal, it's 1938, and Gunther has been blackmailed into rejoining the police by Heydrich himself. And in A German Requiem, the saddest and most disturbing of the three books, it's 1947 as Gunther stumbles across a nightmare landscape that conceals even more death than he imagines.

The Bernie Gunther novels:

March Violets. London: Viking, 1989.
The Pale Criminal. London: Viking, 1990.
A German Requiem. London: Viking, 1991.
The One From the Other. New York: Putnam, 2006.
A Quiet Flame. London: Quercus, 2008.
If The Dead Rise Not. London: Quercus, 2009.
Field Grey. London: Quercus, 2010
Prague Fatale. London: Quercus, 2011

Crime Fiction Masters: A Titan of Thrillers: Lee Child

I started reading this crime/thriller series, and I got so hooked, I read every book in the series obsessively, one after the other, until I had finall read them all to date.

Jack Reacher is the fictional character created by British author Jim Grant who writes under the pen name of Lee Child.

Lee Child is the author of sixteen Jack Reacher thrillers, including the New York Times bestsellers Persuader, The Enemy, One Shot, and The Hard Way, and the #1 bestsellers Worth Dying For, 61 Hours, Gone Tomorrow, Bad Luck and Trouble, and Nothing to Lose. His debut, Killing Floor, won both the Anthony and the Barry awards for Best First Mystery, and The Enemy won both the Barry and Nero awards for Best Novel.

The Jack Reacher novels:

1. Killing Floor (1997)
2. Die Trying (1998)
3. Tripwire (1999)
4. Running Blind (2000)
5. Echo Burning (2001)
6. Without Fail (2002)
7. Persuader (2003)
8. The Enemy (a prequel, time frame occurs before Killing Floor) (2004)
9. One Shot (2005)
10. The Hard Way (2006)
11. Bad Luck and Trouble (2007)
12. Nothing to Lose (2008)
13. Gone Tomorrow (2009)
14. 61 Hours (2010)
15. Worth Dying For (2010)
16. The Affair (2011) another prequel to Killing Floor

Crime Fiction Masters: Charles Willeford

Perhaps my favorite crime fiction author is Charles Willeford, with his outstanding Hoke Moseley novels. The 1990 film, Miami Blues, starring Fred Ward as Hoke (who gets second billing to Alec Baldwin as the sociopathic Frederick J. Frenger Jr.) was a first-rate adaptation. It's a shame no sequels were made.

The book critics rightly rave:

“If you are looking for a master’s insight into the humid decadence of South Florida and its polygot tribes, nobody does it better than Mr. Willeford.” —The New York Times Book Review“Extraordinarily winning. . . . Pure pleasure. . . . Mr. Willeford never puts a foot wrong.” —The New Yorker“No one write a better crime novel than Charles Willeford.” —Elmore Leonard“A tempo so relentless, words practically fly off the page.” —The Village Voice“The prose is clean and tough and flows easily.” --The New York Times Book Review“A Graham Greene-like entertainment, but tougher and funnier, softened by neither simile nor sentiment. This is probably as close to the real now Miami as any thriller is likely to come.” --Donald Justice“Terse, scary, and evocative, Miami Blues is a thriller with cold blood. . . . Snap up Miami Blues.” --The Philadelphia Inquirer“Nobody writes like Charles Willeford . . . he is an original–funny and weird and wonderful.” --James Crumley“A nasty crime-comedy that’s full of casual violence, outrageous coincidences, and hilariously rude dialogue. . . . Willeford has a marvelously deadpan way with losers on both sides of the law.” --Kirkus Reviews“Absolutely brilliant in every regard–the definitive Miami novel.” --Stanley Ellin“Bone-deep satire . . . terrific.” --Publishers Weekly

Mangus Family Lore: Chester H. Gray, 1950

Here's mom at her wedding with her father, Chester H. Gray. Chester was the Corporation Counsel  of Washington D. C. This is the title given to the chief legal officer in some municipal and county jurisdictions, who handles civil claims against the city, including negotiating settlements and defending the city when it is sued. According to Wikipedia, in Washington D.C., the former Corporation Counsel, now known as Attorney General, prosecutes adult misdemeanors and juvenile delinquency cases in addition to traffic and local ordinance violations. What I remember most is that Grandad had a city license plate on his car of "4." The President's was "1," the VP's "2", and so on, so we thought, wow, he 's a real power broker in our nation's capitol.

Unfortunately, he died at the age of 65, just a week after retiring. Since we lived in Guatemala, Canada, and then Alaska, I only got to visit him a few times on vacations. He was the first Grandparent to die. Even so, he made a huge impression on me. He was urbane, loved reading mystery novels, playing cards, chess, and the had a "system" for betting on horses. He smoked, drank dinner cocktails, and he wasn't shy about putting huge pats of butter on his baked potato. Family lore has it that he was an amazingly fast touch-typist, and he learned the law at night school. I believe he got a signed letter of commendation from FDR for his invaluable typing skills in the service. This photograph is exactly how I remember him.

The Game is On: Sherlock: Season One DCD (2010)

Here's an updated version of Sherlock Holmes that I enjoyed tremendously. Check it out if you haven't already seen it.

"A contemporary take on the classic Arthur Conan Doyle stories, Sherlock is a thrilling, funny, fast-paced adventure series set in present-day London. Co-created by Steven Moffat (Doctor Who, Coupling) and Mark Gatiss, Sherlock stars BAFTA-nominee Benedict Cumberbatch (Hawking, Amazing Grace) as the new Sherlock Holmes and Martin Freeman (The Office, Love Actually), as his loyal friend, Doctor John Watson. Rupert Graves plays Inspector Lestrade. The iconic details from Conan Doyle's original books remain -- they live at the same address, have the same names and, somewhere out there, Moriarty is waiting for them. And so across three thrilling, scary, action-packed and highly modern-day adventures, Sherlock and John navigate a maze of cryptic clues and lethal killers to get at the truth."