Michael Lister: The Body and the Blood

Author:  Michael Lister
John Jordan series
Title: The Body and the Blood
Mystery Type:  Ex-Law Enforcement Officer
Setting:  Contemporary, northern Florida
Detective:  John Jordan, prison chaplain

This is one of two series that Michael Lister is writing at this time.  The Body and the Blood is the fourth in the "John Jordan" series, the first of which is Power in the Blood (1997).  He also has another series featuring a P. I. operating out of northern Florida and a number of standalone novels.

This is the first in the "John Jordan" series that I've read, but that didn't pose much of a problem.  Lister was able to sneak in needed background material without being too obvious or providing long expository paragraphs.

This is a family-oriented novel.  Jordan's father is the sheriff of the county where the prison is located, and his brother (no love lost there on either side) is a deputy.  The officer in charge of the investigation just happens to be Jordan's father-in-law, or to be precise, recently reinstated father-in-law.   Jodan's wife had divorced him, but for some reason had failed to file the papers and, therefore,  they had recently discovered that they were still married.   Now, they were attempting a reconciliation.  Daniels, the father-in-law,  is a recovering alcoholic and has gotten past the initial stages.  He has changed considerably, and all, including Jordan, are very pleased with the new Daniels.

Jordan is a chaplain at Potter Correctional Institution, located between Panama City and Tallahassee Florida.  He has received a tip that somebody will be murdered there, date, time, and place provided.  Jordan notified the prison authorities and decided to be present himself at the specified time.  Daniels, who is the Inspector General of the Florida Department of Corrections, is also present because one of the prisoners, Justin Menge, is a prosecution witness in a case that Daniels is personally interested in.


The murder is supposed to take place in the Protective Management (PM)  unit at the prison.  The inmates in this section are those who would be in serious danger if they were housed with the general prison population.  Former members of law enforcement agencies, the judicial branch, homosexuals, and child killers are examples of those found in a PM unit. At time of the murder, the Catholic Chaplain has come to the unit to hold Mass for the inmates.  The mass is being said in the hallway very near the cell doors.

Jordan and Daniels attend Mass with their attention obviously elsewhere--seeing who is there, who is absent, and who is moving about.  Near the end of the service, Jordan notices blood slowly seeping out from under the door of one of the cells.  They find the cell door locked and need to call in to have it released.  All locks are electronic and need to be opened or locked by a guard at the entry port to the unit.  Inside the locked cell is a dead man.  Neither Jordan nor Daniels had seen anyone, except for the victim, Justin Menge,  whose cell this is, enter the cell nor leave it.  It's a classic locked-room mystery, with the added complication of it being in a prison and under observation at all times.

Daniels asks Jordan to assist him on the case, as Jordan is far more familiar with the prison and the staff and inmates than he is.  Jordan agrees, for a variety of reasons.  One is that he enjoys being a detective and feels that he can be a chaplain and an investigator at the same time.  As to be expected, Jordan spends more time in investigating than he does being a chaplain.


The two questions facing  Jordan are why and how.  Once those questions are answered, figuring out who shouldn't be a problem.  There are a number of possible motives, each of which brings in a different set of suspects.  Menge was in the PM unit because he was a homosexual.  He and Chris Sobel were partners.  Was there someone who was jealous of Menge?

In addition, there had been a serious lack of communication among the staff: the person Menge was going to testify against was housed in the same unit.  Menge's death obviously was welcome news to the prisoner. Was he or someone employed by him responsible?  Or Menge could have learned something concerning either a prisoner or a staff member that brought about his death.

Jordan has some issues of his own to contend with.  His reconciliation with his wife and his relationship to a woman whom he had known for almost his entire life are causing him problems for he must choose between them.   Secondly, there's a violent side to him which is being exacerbated by his contact with the prisoners.  As one of the characters in the novel observes, prison changes everybody, and not just the prisoners. 

Jordan spends some time developing the north Florida region in the novel and also the prison setting, both of which are convincing and informative.  I've never been to Florida so I can't comment on the correspondance to the real northern Florida area, but I did teach a class or two every semester for at least five years at several prisons in Arizona.  While I never got as deeply involved as Jordan does, I found nothing in the depiction of the prison setting to contradict my own experiences and memories of teaching there.  

               
It's an interesting series, and I'm curious as where it goes.  I am planning on reading the first book,  Power in the Blood, because I would like to see if Jordan is still the same in the fourth book as he is in the first book in the series.

Two mysteries by unexpected authors

One of these I discovered by accident, browsing I no longer remember where, while the second I learned of from Yvette over at her blog, In So Many Words.  One of her regular features is a commentary on a forgotten book and this was one she mentioned.  I was so intrigued by the author and the subject that I immediately searched out the book.

I do reveal significant plot elements and developments.


C. P. Snow
Death Under Sail
Mystery Type:  talented amateur
Setting: England
Time:  1930's

C. P. Snow was a distinguished physicist and novelist, best known for his lecture The Two Cultures, in which he laments the gulf between scientists and "literary intellectuals."  According to Snow, it was the job of the literary intellectuals who were supposed to make science available to the non-scientific world, and they had failed to do so.  Snow is also known for his series of novels collectively called Strangers and Brothers,  which  concentrated on "depicting intellectuals in academic and government settings in the modern era."  Consequently it was a surprise when I stumbled across Death Under Sail a short  time ago, especially since it was his first published novel. (Quotations from the Wikipedia entry on C. P. Snow.)

Several nights ago I watched a dramatized version of P. D. James Death in Holy Orders.  It also included a short film of P. D. James discussing writers and settings.  She talked about mystery writers and what they do when setting up and writing a story.  One of the points she brought up was that it was very useful to set the story so that there were only a limited number of suspects.  The English country estate is a classic setting for many mysteries.

C; P. Snow was well aware of this for he set his mystery and murder on a small private yacht, with only six people aboard, all of whom, supposedly, were friends.   But, as in all good mysteries, the surface view bears little relationship to the real situation.  Roger, the host and owner of the yacht, has invited five of his friends about his yacht for a cruise. And, it is Roger, who is murdered, by someone he considered a friend.

He is found one morning at the tiller of the yacht, dead from a gunshot.  No weapon can be found, but some items, a cord and the ship's logbook, are missing.  Since no gun could be seen and autopsy showed that he died instantly, suicide was ruled out.  However,  I would suggest that fans of Sherlock Holmes might recognize the situation as being similar to one of his cases, "The Problem of Thor Bridge."  So, I was sure that I had cracked the case, very early on.  However, as the story progressed, the situation became more complex and I began to have doubts, still convinced though that it would turn out to be a suicide.

The crime actually was not solved by the police, although the office in charge, blessed with some unusual characteristics, wasn't as dumb as the others thought.  The narrator, a late arrival on the yacht, persuaded the others to invite a friend of his, Finbow by name, to join them on the yacht.

Finbow was a civil servant in the diplomatic corp who had spent considerable time in various obscure places about the planet.  But what was most important was "his only passion--the watching of men and women as they performed their silly antics for his amusement.  He watched in a curious, detailed, scientific way;  I  remember the astonishment I felt when he told me more than I knew myself about an absurd romance I had whilst I was in China. The chief impression which he made on me was of an amused and rather frightening detachment."  I think there's definitely a Sherlockian flavor here.   The narrator's idea, of course,  is that Finbow would be able to identify the killer.

While dragging the river at the point where the murder had been committed, the police found the gun tied with the missing cord to the missing heavy logbook. But, as Finbow points out,  the question is, therefore, whether Roger committed suicide and tried to make it look like a murder so as to get even with those aboard the yacht, or was this a murder which was first set up to look like a murder, but eventually would be revealed to be a suicide, and therefore allow the killer to go free.

The major disappointment is this:  I wish C. P. Snow had written at least one more mystery featuring Finbow.

Recommended for those who have enjoyed  C. P. Snow's novels and would interested in reading his first novel; for those who enjoy the more cerebral type of mystery; and for those who enjoy the mysteries of what is called "The Golden Age" of mysteries.


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T. H. White
The Darkness at Pemberley
Mystery Type:  first part is police procedural; the second part is thriller.
Setting:  first part at Cambridge University; the second at Pemberley Estate in Derbyshire
 Time:  the 1930s


Having just read P. D. James novel, Death Comes to Pemberley, I had to read this one when Yvette featured it on her blog:  T. H. White?   the author of one of my favorite fantasies--The Once and Future King.    Coincidentally, it was published in 1932, the same year that  C. P. Snow first published Death Under Sail.  This was White's second or third novel.

And, yes, Pemberley is the marvelous estate that Lizzy Bennett thought being mistress of would be wonderful.  The present inhabitants of Pemberley are Charles and Elizabeth Darcy, brother and sister, who are descendents of THE Lizzie and Darcy of Pride and Prejudice.

Part One takes place at barely disguised Queen's College, Cambridge and is a traditional police procedural.  Several murders have been committed, one of which takes place in a very ingenious locked-room setting.  Mr. Beedon, a history don, was found dead with a gun nearby in a  locked room,  That gun was later found to be the same gun that had killed a student at about the same time, and, therefore,  it seemed clear that Beedon had killed the student and then committed suicide because of guilt. 

Inspector Buller, of the Cambridge police, was not satisfied.  for there were several anomalies, one of which was that Beedon, it was later discovered, had died first.  The first part,  therefore, is of Inspector Buller's investigation in which he finally works out the identity of the killer.  Unfortunately, he lacks proof, but he informs the killer that he is known, hoping I suppose, to dissuade the killer from committing any more murders because the police are now aware of him.

It is at this point where the novel gets strange.  Buller is invited down to Pemberley for a vacation and participation in war games, with small, but very real, cannons.  It was a passion of Charles Darcy.  Buller had met Charles and Elizabeth Darcy several years ago on a vacation trip.  He had been driving by the estate when his front tyre was destroyed by a cannon shell that came over the wall.  Invited in while his tyre was replaced, he became friends with the Darcys, and eventually fell in love with Elizabeth.  Being a police officer, he was of a much lower social status than the Darcys, even though Charles had a prison record, and Buller, therefore, considered his situation hopeless.  But, being fiction, I could only wonder just how hopeless his situation was.

Buller tells the Darcys about his last case and that the killer, even though known, couldn't be arrested for the two murders.  Charles Darcy, a bit on the headstrong side, goes to Cambridge and  confronts the killer.  The killer immediately decides, once Darcy's connection to Inspector Buller is revealed, to kill Darcy for revenge and to show Buller just how helpless he is.

At this point, the novel turns into a thriller in which Buller desperately attempts to keep Charles alive.  It soon becomes clear that the killer has somehow managed to invade the Pemberley mansion and seemingly moves freely about the place regardless of the efforts of Buller and the estate staff, all of whom are devoted to the Darcys. Buller knows, though, that it's just a matter of time before the killer tires of the game and will move to kill Charles.  But, where is the killer hiding and how can he move about the mansion without being discovered?

Overall Comments:  it's a strange mix of cerebral mystery and an action-oriented novel   What makes it even stranger is the tie-in with Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.   For those looking for something a little bit different, I would recommend this one.

While I no longer have the room to keep everything I read,  I have decided that these two are keepers.

Combination Plate 18

Warning: I will discuss significant plot elements and endings.


Mike Ashley, ed. The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes and Impossible Mysteries, a collection of short mystery stories

Somtow Sucharitkul, Mallworld, a fix-up SF Novel

Fantasias and Trons: clones by Disney

Death Race (2008), SF film

Bernard Knight, "The Crowner John" series
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Mike Ashley, ed. The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes and Impossible Mysteries
Carroll and Graf


This collection contains thirty short stories that focus on perfect crimes, supposedly those so well planned out that the perps couldn't be identified, and those that couldn't possibly have happened, such as the man in a glass telephone booth, in plain sight, who was killed by an ice pick or a man who entered a cable car alone and is found dead when the car reaches the bottom even though the car was visible the entire route.

Some of the authors are Mike Ashley, Richard A. Lupoff, Bill Pronzini (author of the Noname Detective novels), Peter Tremayne (author of the Sister Fidelma historical mysteries), Barry Longyear, and Bernard Knight (author of the great "Crowner John" historical mystery series).
I knew Richard A. Lupoff and Barry Longyear from their SF stories and wasn't aware they wrote mysteries also.

This is a great collection to have when there's only short periods available for reading.


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Somtow Sucharitkul, Mallworld, a SF novel?


Sucharitkul's Mallworld, although marketed as a novel, really is a collection of short stories that could have been published separately in SF magazines and are loosely connected by a frame. Earth has been quarantined by a galactic federation because humans are too violent and unpredictable. The entire solar system out to Saturn has been enclosed in a small pocket universe. Humans can't get out, but tourists can visit the reservation. The linking is simple: every so often, a member of the federation government comes to observe humans to determine if they have matured enough to be allowed back into the universe. The stories, therefore, represent examples of human behavior upon which the Observer will make his decision.

All stories take place on Mallworld, a huge shopping mall the size of a planet built out around Saturn's orbit. It's the biggest shopping center ever built and has over 20,000 shops and claims to have over a million visitors every day. It was built after the quarantine was imposed. Apparently, the humans decided that if they couldn't explore the universe, they could at least go shopping.

The stories tend toward the comic and the bizarre. One of the establishments at the mall is a suicide parlor where one can select from a list of over three hundred types of suicide. One of the most popular choices is "death by vampire." Another store is Storkways, Inc. where one can order a custom-made baby. But, miss a payment and the repo team is dispatched.

This is also a great book for those times when only short periods are available for reading. One can ignore the interlinear links, and each story is independent, although a few characters do appear in more than one story.

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Fantasias and Trons

In 1940 Disney presented the world with Fantasia. To call it simply another cartoon is to grossly devalue the film. It was, and still is as far as I'm concerned, a revelation in Light, Color, Motion, and Sound. It is Disney's creative staff strutting their stuff, saying "Look at what we can do." It's a perfect marriage of the visual and the audio sensory worlds. It's one of my favorite films, and one which I view regularly.

Forty-two years later, in 1982, Disney gave the viewers something new and exciting--Tron. With the use of SFX, Disney opened up the world of cyberspace. He used the new special effects techniques to show us a possible view of what the inside world of those techniques might look like. The story line was acceptable, but the SFX made the film a very enjoyable viewing experience. I immediately thought of Disney's earlier masterpiece Fantasia. All Tron lacked, I thought, was the blending of Sound to Color, Motion, and Light at the level of Fantasia.

Then, inexplicably, in 1999, Disney comes out with Fantasia 2000--almost sixty years after the first film and seventeen years after Tron, which was a celebration of newer techniques. It, sadly, was just a remake of the original film with different music and visuals. It added nothing that hadn't been already accomplished in the original film. I was disappointed. It was good, but I found it nowhere as creative or innovative as the 1942 Fantasia.

In 2010, as should have been expected, Disney produced a second clone, Tron: Legacy. The plot was very similar to the first one (and the first one wasn't really that terrific). Surprisingly, I thought the 1982 version seemed to be more typical of a digital world than the 1999 version. Since I've never experienced the "digital world" of cyberspace, I'm obviously only guessing at this. But, it seemed to me that Tron: Legacy seemed to be in a more organic world than its predecessor. It frequently seemed to lack the sharpness of light and color, and the objects found there were rounder? softer? --characteristics I would associate more with the organic/analogue world than the digital world of cyberspace. Obviously, I'm not too sure of what I mean here and I'm really groping for the right words.

I don't know why the clones were produced, unless it was simply for profit. There's a psychological principle known as the Recency Principle which states that people remember best what they experienced last. That means that my memories of Fantasia and Tron have now been overlaid by the memories of the clones. That's sad. I think that the most effective cure would be to see Fantasia (1940) and Tron (1982) again.

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Death Race

This version came out in 2008. It is based on an earlier film, Death Race: 2000, which appeared in 1975. I don't remember seeing the earlier version, but the IMDB listing says that this is a new script, so it may be quite different.

The plot--well, it does have one. Jensen Ames, in a economically depressed US, sometime around 2015 loses his job and is framed for the murder of his wife. He ends up in Terminal Island, a privately run prison. He is persuaded to take part in the Death Race, a televised special that has high ratings. The drivers are prisoners who take part because one who wins five races gets released.

It's a throwback to the days of the Roman games, specifically the chariot races, when blood, carnage, and death were the main attractions. In fact, one of the encounters in this film comes directly from the famous chariot race in the film Ben Hur. In this modern version, the cars are heavily armored and armed with 50 cal. machine guns and whatever else they can scare up. Generally the survival rate is around 60%. The powers-that-be decided one race wasn't enough to take up the 90 minutes, so it's held in three heats.

Acting skills are minimal, except for the Coach, who is played by Ian McShane. His laid back attitude contrasts with the rest of the cast who specialize in macho-a-macho glowering throughout most of the film, and that includes Hennessy, the female warden played by Joan Allen, who must have seen too many Nazi concentration camp films during her formative years. Coach just looks around and smiles, possibly the only person in the cast who realizes how silly all this is.

Overall Reaction: recommended for those who enjoy demolition derby "races" featuring armed and armored vehicles.


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Bernard Knight "The Crowner John" Series
Historical mystery, technical detective category


Earlier, when I discussed the collection of stories about impossible crimes, I mentioned Bernard Knight, the author of the superb "Crowner John" series. I first encountered Knight in a novel by Priscilla Royal, Wine of Violence. It was an enjoyable read, and one of the most interesting characters in the novel was the crowner, an king's appointee who served as the king's representative for that area. Royal at the end of the novel stated that she based the character of the crowner on Bernard Knight's "Crowner John" series. So, I went looking, found them fascinating, and am now busy reading my way through the series, which now includes fourteen novels.

He has also begun a new series, featuring a forensic pathologist who sets up a private practice in England in 1955. Knight has spent many years as a practicing forensic pathologist in England and is past president of the Forensic Science Society.

The "Crowner John" series is set during the late twelfth and early thirteenth century in Exeter. Sir John de Wolfe has been appointed to his position by Richard the Lion-Hearted and is one of the first individuals to hold that position. His responsibilities include protecting the king's interests, mostly financial, by recording "all serious crimes, deaths and legal events for the King's judges." The quotation comes from the six page glossary provided by Knight.

Sir John de Wolfe, therefore, is the first coroner in Exeter. He is the second highest law officer in the area, second to the sheriff. Unfortunately the sheriff, Sir Richard de Revelle, is also his brother-in-law who strongly resents de Wolfe's presence in the area for two reasons. One is that he doesn't like someone looking over his shoulder; it cramps his grasping for ill-gotten wealth. The second is that de Wolfe is a strong supporter of King Richard, while de Revelle has thrown his support to Prince John and has been involved in several schemes that bordered on treason. Because of the marital relationship, de Wolfe kept quiet about what he knew of de Revelle's part in several plots to overthrow King Richard.

Those who enjoyed Ellis Peters' "Brother Cadfael" series will like this one. Both Sir John de Wolfe and Brother Cadfael are survivors of the various European conflicts and crusades. Both have gained considerable knowledge of wounds and injuries and the types of weapons that might be responsible. And, both, after long years in the military, have picked up considerable knowledge about diseases and possible cures.

Knight has also gathered several interesting characters as de Wolfe's aides. His assistant is Gwyn of Polruan, a huge Cornishman, who had been de Wolfe's bodyguard and friend for many years on the battlefield. His battlefield experience helps de Wolfe in various ways, from various incidents involving hand-to-hand combat to the simple autopsies that were possible at that time. Since neither he nor Gwyn could write, de Wolfe relies on Thomas de Peyne, a defrocked priest to keep the necessary records. His knowledge of Church rituals, rites, and rules also comes in handy at times, as is his ability to work his way into the confidence of the local clergy, most of whom are unaware of his disgraced status.

The first book in the series is Sanctuary Seeker. I found it surprising just how involved the whole procedure of claiming sanctuary really was. While each novel does stand alone, I would recommend reading them chronologically as the relationships among the characters--de Wolfe, his wife, the sheriff, de Wolfe's mistress, Gwyn, and de Peyne--do vary a bit.

Overall Reaction: a great series, one of the best historical series I have found--especially recommended to those who liked the Brother Cadfael series.