Collected Miscellany

Back to the crime fiction beat for this segment of the Friday review. Most Wanted is a debut novel from former federal prosecutor Michelle Martinez. Her main character, Melanie Vargas, is also a federal prosecutor. Melanie is beautiful, mother of a small child, considering a divorce from her husband, Steve. Melanie is drawn to an FBI agent while embroiled in the investigation of a homicide; a former colleague is brutally murdered in his Manhattan brownstone. The victim has a society wife, connections with the cops and a great deal of unexplained wealth.

The story unfolds immediately with only a brief flashback to Melanie’s childhood in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. The strength of the novel is the author’s straight ahead approach. There’s little mystery in the traditional sense because the reader spends time in the killer’s point of view; the novel is written in the third person, enabling the author to get inside the heads of several key players. These passages are well written, but reduce the story’s tension. Ms. Martinez imbeds some interesting details late in the book about drug traps while keeping Melanie hopping. The resolution of the story is interesting. The bad guys get their due. Steve delivers a speech about what he wants from their marriage that redefines shallow male characters, updating the sterotype to the level of a disposable diaper. That Melanie is somewhat moved by this speech must be ascribed to job stress; her boss, Bernadette, is a stress machine who periodically threatens Melanie with career extinction. The novel hovers during time outs for babysitting crises, a brief interlude of marriage counseling, and the shenanigans of corporate lawyers gone mad. All of Melanie’s key witnesses are murdered by a one man wrecking crew named Slice. How is Slice locating one witness after another?

Most Wanted ends with a romance cliffhanger that signals the beginning of a series. Melanie Vargas is a sympathetic main character, and Michelle Martinez is an able writer. For a series to be compelling Melanie needs to assert more authority on the page; she is passive at times. As for husband Steve, he should run away to a destination resort until three or four more books have passed, then return as a Benedictine monk. Just a thought.

In case you overlooked it, let me tell you about a book I’m looking forward to. Bye Bye Bertie by Rick Dewhurst came out last January. It’s the story of a P.I. who’s looking for love and/or crime in Vancouver, B.C. Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine says, “The author, a Canadian pastor, brings a satirical perspective to all the great religious and moral quandaries and provides plenty of laughs even for readers outside the born-again culture. The Library of Congress subject heading (Christian Life–Humor) is a more accurate tag than crime or mystery novel, but the case is solved after a fashion.”

Of course, it hasn’t been said until Will Duquette says it, and he calls Bye Bye Bertie “remarkably funny book. It’s a mystery novel, and a remarkably odd one at that.”

On Monday, May 16, I watched the webcast from the Heritage Foundation called, “God and Party Politics: A Conversation.” Jim Wallis, editor of Sojourners, represented the Left, and Joseph Loconte, Heritage’s William E. Simon Fellow in Religion and a Free Society, represented the Right. Both said the other misconstrued their words a bit.

Wallis opened by saying “religion should not be ideologically predictable” or loyal to a political party. He called himself “a nineteenth century evangelical,” praising Charles Finney for devising the altar call and using it as an opportunity to sign people up for an antislaveryy campaign. “The Right,” he said, “needs to broaden its thinking on values.” The most surprising of his statements was that Americans had the resources to end world poverty, if we only had the moral and political will to use those resources.

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I seem to be have interview on my brain lately. To keep that spirit going here is another interview from National Review Online. This time it is Ross Douthat, author of Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class, and contributor to one of my favorite blogs The American Scene. Here are a few snippets:

Lopez: So there’s a lot about sex in your book — or at least the Harvard student’s frustrations over it and often pathetic attempts (no offense) to get some, as they say. How big a role does sex actually play in Harvard life?

Douthat: Less of a role than it does at a typical American college, I imagine, in part because the student body contains more than its fair share of dorky and socially awkward kids (of which I was certainly one), and in part because the spirit of the place emphasizes the pursuit of a successful career over the pursuit of the opposite (or the same) sex. Everyone — or at least every male student — spends a lot of time talking about sex and thinking about sex, but this has more to do with the smog of sexual frustration hanging over campus than it does with any real licentiousness. I think that most Harvard students come to college with great expectations for either debauchery, or romance, or both — consequence-free sex and true love, the great promise of the sexual revolution — and for the most part, they’re disappointed by what they find. But this doesn’t mean that anyone’s rethinking the sexual revolution itself; it just means that everyone complains a lot about how little sex they’re having. I’d like to agree with, say, Wendy Shalit of Return to Modesty fame, that we’re poised for a large-scale backlash against the oversexualization of American culture. But I’m not holding my breath.

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Mr. Birnbaum laughs at my inability to transcribe and post one measly interview. Tuesday he was talking with Kevin Guilfoile at the Morning News and today he has a conversation with Courtney Angela Brkic over at Identity Theory. Please add your own adjective to this sentence: Wow, that Robert Birnbaum is [blank]. I believe the traditional response is tireless or indefatigable.

Clearly I am a slacker. Since she isn’t old enough to read this (at 15 weeks), I am going to blame this on my daughter who occupies an ever increasing chunk of my time. I am not complaining as she is adorable and a joy to be around for the most part (except when she balks at taking the bottle when her mother is at work . . . TMI?), but she does cut into the blogging time. I have not yet mastered juggling work, family, reading, and posting quiet yet.

P.s. I promise to stop posting these lame filler type posts soon.

As I should have known, life has indeed intervened and prevented me from posting much content around here this week. We will optimistically look to next week.

Another problems seems to be traffic. Not to be vain or anything, but I do keep an eye on site traffic. I like to see who is linking here and what books, authors, or subject seem to be sending visitors. Alas, last weekend the traffic took a dive and hasn’t recovered. I went from around 250 unique visitors a day to around 130 and then yesterday we only managed 70! I can’t figure out why traffic would just take a dive like that. Site Meter says it isn’t on their end. Are there any techies out there who might have an explanation? If it really is just a lack of clicking on the site then I guess I will have to take my lumps. Odd – and rather lame -how this kind of thing effects you, but somehow it feels personal. Not much of a birthday present . . .

Anyway, look for the Michelle Herman interview and reviews next week. Traffic be damned, we will post even if no one is reading it! Seriously though, I do appreciate those of you who take the time to read and comment here. Thanks.