Death in Spain, Murder and Race Relations in Boston and Philly- Part 3

The Flanders Panel (TFP) by Arturo Perez-Reverte was written by one of my favorite authors. I have read about 80% of his novels that have been translated into English. The writing is always outstanding. Unlike with many authors, these novels span genres, styles and subject matter, and have settings that are modern or historical, or both.

Chess plays a big role in TFP. Earlier this autumn I read and discussed Katherine Neville's cult classic, The Eight, in which the game of chess is also central to the story. TFP isn't a stuffy book by any means, however. We experience a world of Madrid's beauty, love and betrayal in distant the past and present, modern dance clubs and vices, art galleries, collectors and dealers, threatening businessmen, fast-living bums and studious academics. Oh, and plenty of murders that don't seem to make sense.

In TFP, first we meet Julia, a beautiful art restorer who is working on The Game of Chess, a painting from by the Flemish master Van Huys that needs some work before it can be auctioned. Julia has just received a set of X-ray photographs of the painting, and they reveal a surprising and startling secret. Underneath layers of paint, yet dating to the time of the original painting, is a Latin inscription visible only via the X-ray results:

Quis Necavit Equitem

The translation she immediately carries out yields "Who killed the knight?" It turns out that other slightly different translations are also possible, and perhaps valid.

Although "The Game of Chess" had been known for 500 years, and even hung in the Prado during the early part of the 20th century, the discovery of a hidden inscription has the chance to increase the painting's value greatly at auction, so the wolves start circling immediately. An auction is planned shortly in order to raise money for the once-patrician, and currently dysfunctional, family that owns the piece of art and history.

I like the idea of a place, Spain is this case, where a stunningly beautiful woman devotes herself to restoring and researching art and who has the background to read Latin with aplomb and write brilliant summaries and analyses of the provenance and authenticity of classical paintings. In such a place, I could perhaps live happily, maybe with a job as museum guard. Even though this seems like one idiot's version of paradise, the idiot being me, Julia is in for an extended patch of stormy weather. However, she may turn out to be one of the lucky inhabitants of this intriguing place where new and old worlds collide.

One of the pleasures of this book is the chess puzzles, the first of which is the puzzle left by the painter on the the canvas, one that does not require X-rays to be revealed. The painting shows a chess game between two men, a nobleman and a soldier, being played while a woman sits in the background reading a book. The whole scene is reflected in a mirror, and the floor tiles of the room represent the pattern of a chessboard. The actual chessboard used for the game is placed between the two male subjects, who are rendered precisely, as are all of the details of the room. The artist painted in an intricate style, and even the room's reflection in the mirror can be seen. The chess pieces and their placement on the board are clear, and the game has progressed quite far, though not very conventionally.

The first part of the puzzle is to work the painting's game in reverse and determine which piece took the white knight. Why? Because the painter seems to have constructed the entire painting to be a set of clues to a centuries-old murder. Julia solves this puzzle and its sad secrets with help from friends- an old family friend and a new recruit from a local chess club. The chess puzzles in the book are enhanced by pictures of chess boards, so you can try to work out the next (or previous) moves on your own.

However, while further researching the painting and its refractory inscription, odd events begin to occur around Julia, and several of her friends are murdered. It seems that she and her friends have to solve a new chess puzzle based on the game in the painting. The new puzzle is being set for them by some sort of deranged chess master, and it seems to encompass the lives and deaths of the painting's subjects and of Julia et al. The killer starts playing the painting's game forwards, and the taking of pieces corresponds to more murders. Anticipating the next move becomes a matter of life and death.

Will Julia survive? Is she the White Queen? Which of her friends are represented by the other pieces on the board? Which themes from Greek tragedy will play a prominent role? Perhaps the day be will be saved by Julia and an unlikely hero, an introverted chess master who never wins a game, but settles for showing his opponent that he could win if wanted to. At least this one time, settling for a moral victory could prove fatal. With all the confusion, possible betrayals, accelerating pace, and substantial odds against Julia's coterie, perhaps the game will will be lost. Read The Flanders Panel to find out.

Note added afterwards: I forgot to mention that I especially enjoyed reading that Julia listens to the music of Michael Edges! Mr. Hedges was never edgier.

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Death in Spain, Murder and Race Relations in Boston and Philadelphia- Part 2

A Drink Before the War (ADBTW) is a tale of dirty politicians, drug wars, race relations (good and bad), and private eyes who operate outside the law with impunity. Add to this an unhealthy dose of behavior right out of a Greek play by Aeschylus and you have enough ammunition for a high-energy, high body count thriller. However, author Dennis Lehane doesn't stop there in his first novel about private detectives Angie Gennaro and Patrick Kenzie. He takes on the problem of battered spouses, and he adds the baggage of growing up in a neighborhood where "hood" is the operative word, and the criminal in question may well be your Dad.

The good guys, the bad guys and the men, women and children who straddle the moral line come mostly from Irish, Italian, and African American ethnic groups that dominate various Boston neighborhoods. There is no correlation between socioeconomic status and moral character, though the poor and homeless beat the Statehouse crowd hands down when it comes to true character.

So, what is different about this book from all similar crime novels? The book differs in the way it addresses issues of race and class, head on, and pulls no punches. Some of the book touches raw nerves, but it does so by providing dialog and scenes that authentically portray how some black and white friends (and enemies) would discuss and argue and fight and make truces, or not make truces, depending on how far things had gone. Of course, this means that the book doesn't offer us any easy answers, or any answers at all, but with many of these issues, a whole a lot talking needs to go on before it will be possible for communities to agree on answers. ADBTW adds to the dialog and doesn't exploit the characters.

One additional subplot that rings true is the way that Kenzie, who has been in love with Gennaro since childhood, constantly subjects her to sexual harassment in the course of their professional partnership while simultaneously acting as avenging angel towards Gennaro's wife-beating husband. Patrick Kenzie isn't perfect, and he isn't a saint, and he still hangs out with old friends who are serious criminals, and he can barely control himself when it comes to Angie, and he doesn't have pat answers to serious problems facing society. On the other hand, with any matter not involving Angie, he does know right from wrong, if right and wrong can actually be identified. In this book, as in life, just identifying the right course of action can be difficult, and following it can cause considerable anguish, offering no reason for celebration once the final step is taken.

James K. Bashkin

Technorati Tags:a drink before the war, devil's corner, the flanders panel, crime fiction, literature, fiction, spain, chess, murder, race relations, boston, south boston, philadelphia, dennis lehane, arturo perez-reverte, lisa scottoline
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Death in Spain, Murder and Race Relations in Boston and Philadelphia- Part 1

I very recently read The Flanders Panel (TPF) by Arturo Perez-Reverte, A Drink Before the War (ADBTW) by Dennis Lehane and Devil's Corner (DC) by Lisa Scottoline (which I had read once before). On the surface, these books have very little in common. TPF is a literary thriller and murder mystery that spans 500 years, involves the game of chess and revolves around a Flemish painting being restored by a young woman in contemporary Spain. ADBTW marks the gritty debut of Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro, a team of private detectives from a working-class South Boston background who have stayed close to their roots. DC is a legal thriller about an upper-class Assistant U.S. Attorney who rolls up her sleeves to solve a murder in her father's old neighborhood; it has neither literary nor gritty pretensions, but offers an effective and entertaining story.

In spite of the genre differences, there are some threads that link the books, however. I read (actually re-read) DC because I needed a break from grittiness, and because I was frustrated that I couldn't remember the final twist to the plot. Vicki Allegretti is another Italian-American, Roman Catholic attorney from the Scottoline stable that numbers 12 or more novels. While the Scottoline protagonists are all women, they vary in a number of ways- some are working class, but Vicki grew up with all the advantages of a gated community, an Ivy League education and meddlesome parents who are both lawyers. The book offers a sober look at inner-city Philadelphia by reproducing transcripts from drug trials at the start of each major section. We read on the book's first page from the testimony of a someone who started dealing crack cocaine at age 13. The story itself opens with a nightmare of a night for Vicki: while trying to meet with a confidential informant (CI), Vicki walks in on an apparent robbery. Her colleague, an ATF agent, is killed and so is the CI.

Although this would seem to be a high-profile case, the outbreak of a (related) drug war pulls law enforcement resources in other directions and Vicki decides to investigate on her own. Vicki eventually forms a shaky alliance with the woman, Reheema Bristow, whom she was trying to prosecute, a young black woman who had supposedly bought firearms and then resold them to a criminal. The relationship between Vicki and Reheema starts off about as badly as possible. Not only does Vicki hold Reheema in custody (for a short while) after her only evidence died along with the CI, Vicki is so upset about the death of her partner Morty that she assaults Bristow in the Federal Building, with a public defender present.

Things get interesting when Vicki looks for Reheema's mother, trying to dig for facts about Reheema, and finds that the older Bristow is a drug addict living in the neighborhood where Vicki's father grew up, the tough streets of Devil's Corner. Snooping in the Bristow house and unaware that Reheema's mother has run of with her purse and cell phone, Vicki is surprised to find medals and photos of Raheema's career as a track athlete, supported by her mother, who poses with the team in one snapshot. Mrs. Bristow ends up being murdered that very night, and as Vicki continues to snoop, Reheema confronts her with a loaded gun. Antagonistic, but both wanting justice for Raheema's mother, the two young women slowly form a truce and then an alliance to investigate exactly what the heck is going on and why the police aren't following up on the cases. As the story progresses, the question of how this promising black schoolgirl and athlete became a tough criminal metamorphoses into the question, "Did she ever become a criminal?"

"Devils Corner" encompasses the subjects of decaying neighborhoods, police neglect, political corruption, the drug trade, the utter lack of regard for life that is found in sociopaths who inhabit all "classes" of society, and manages to toss in a love interest for Vicki that she sublimates by getter deeper and deeper into the mystery in a way that only Raheema's help could allow.

Needless to say, this book would not be mistaken for a Dennis Lehane novel or the script for an episode of The Wire. It treats difficult subjects head on, and with considerable detail, but the perspective and tone remain unashamedly rose-tinted under all but the worst of circumstances. Ms. Scottoline doesn't write to expose the rawest nerve endings of a city's lawless drug culture, but she does draw attention to serious problems, including race relations, while telling a good story. So, good for her. Some mornings I just don't feel like waking up to the booze-laden bad breath of Harry Bosch or John Rebus. Some nights I just don't feel like reading about the details of an evisceration, an autopsy or a the last living moments of some unfortunate victim of violent crime. Of course, the people who live out on the street don't get to choose where and when they encounter ugliness and depravity, so I'm very lucky. Nevertheless, only about 2% of my reading solution consists of books like DC.

ADBTW reminded me straight away, before I'd even opened the book, of When the Sacred Ginmill Closes, the early Matthew Scudder mystery by Lawrence Block, whose title is taken from the Dave Van Ronk song Last Call. At first, I mistakenly remembered the song title as "Closing Time". I liked that book so much that I spent about 5 years trying to find the van Ronk tune on CD (Going Back to Brooklyn). The CD was re-released in 2006, and when I finally played Van Ronk's tune, I was not disappointed. Unfortunately, the CD is so unremittingly bawdy that I didn't feel comfortable putting in on when my kids were around (and I still don't- they are 13 and 15). Anyway, do give Dave a listen- he combines jazz, blues, ragtime and folk, and sings in a way that a real Dylan fan can appreciate, but with wider appeal as well.

OK, back to an unremitting murder and mayhem. As you may have read, I had mixed feelings about Gone, Baby, Gone, the recent paperback volume in the Kenzie/Gennaro series. However, I felt the language and tone were excellent, it was the plot that just didn't ring true at the end. However, ADBTW stunned me: this book is a must read.

James K. Bashkin

Technorati Tags:a drink before the war, devil's corner, the flanders panel, crime fiction, literature, fiction, spain, chess, murder, race relations, boston, south boston, philadelphia, dennis lehane, arturo perez-reverte, lisa scottoline
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