BOOK & BLOG

August 22, 2012

Books of the Week:

Ice, Linda Howard
Devil Said Bang, Richard Kadrey
Trust Your Eyes, Linwood Barclay

I don’t read a lot of romance, but I’ve always enjoyed Linda Howard. Her people always seem like real people, and her great writing skills make the most implausible plot seem plausible and believable. Ice is about Lolly Helton, isolated at her parents’ home by a terrible storm, and Gabriel McQueen, a serviceman on holiday leave who is sent up the mountain to warn Lolly that an ice storm is breaking. Two intruders have broken in Lolly’s home by the time Gabriel gets there, and he has to figure out how to rescue Lolly without dying in the storm himself. Lolly is pretty good at helping herself, though . . .

I’ve read all of Richard Kadrey’s books with enjoyment. His dark fantastic view is unlike anyone else’s, and his books about Sandman Slim have to be experienced. In this episode of his adventures, Sandman Slim (James Stark) is the ruler of hell, through a series of catastrophic circumstances. While there are perks, the job isn’t fun, and Stark’s ready to break out in Devil Said Bang. But the road to the surface world is pretty complicated – of course. I’ve held off mentioned this book because its pub date is in SEPTEMBER.

Linwood Barclay’s Trust Your Eyes is a fantastic read. Though I’ve long been a fan of this Canadian thriller writer, Barclay has hit the target dead-center with this book. Ray Kilbride has come back to his home town after his father’s funeral to settle his dad’s estate after his dad’s odd death. This “settling” includes the disposition of Ray’s strange brother, Thomas. Thomas seldom leaves the house, or his room. He is addicted to an internet program which lets him walk the streets of any city in the world. Thomas is memorizing everything he sees for a purpose we discover, as Ray does. On one of his journeys through cyberspace, Thomas, while “walking” down a street in Manhattan, witnesses what may be a murder. After Ray agrees, the book rockets along. I never looked up when I was reading it. This book is scheduled to be on the shelves on SEPTEMBER 4. Do yourself a favor and read it . . . there are twists and turns galore.

Blog

I’ve had some dark moments during the furor over Missouri senator Todd Aiken’s idiotic statement about rape victims. Gosh, if I had only known (after I got raped) that since it was a legitimate rape my body would reject a pregnancy! What a lot of worry and fear it would have saved me, if I’d known that simple biological fact. Where was Todd Aiken when I needed him most? Would my body have also rejected a venereal disease, since the rape was legitimate?

And in the Fort Worth paper, I read a disturbing series of articles about grand juries who will not return a true bill if the rape victim had been drinking. In one heartbreaking case, the victim awoke from an alcohol-induced sleep to find that she’d been raped while she was passed out, and the rapist had taken pictures of the incident on her own cell phone. Which she showed to the police. And they arrested the rapist. But the grand jury would not return an indictment. In fact, the paper reported, there had been cases where the rapist had confessed . . . and yet, if the victim had been drinking, there was no trial.

This makes me sad, and it makes me depressed. Just when I think that people are correct in their thinking about rape, I’m faced with the fact that I was wrong. What will it take to convince men (and women, I’m sorry to say) that the victim has not got the responsibility for the crime? No matter how drunk a woman is, no matter how “provocative” her clothing, she does not deserve to be raped in consequence.

I’m just sad about this. I’m waiting for the world to change.

Charlaine Harris

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