>END GAME 2006

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“When in doubt have two guys come through the door with guns”

Raymond Chandler [1888-1959]

A great line from Chandler who obviously learned his lessons, as I did , from that typical English Public school education at Dulwich College.

Well it is probably time to look back and assess the highs and lows of a year which seems to have whistled by even quicker than 2005. I am convinced that as well as global warming being a reality there is also something Einsteinian occuring, and that as I get older time is speeding up.

This was the first year for a long time that we had not been abroad on holiday, but that surprisingly did not seem to make the year drag, because we were kept so busy with our family chores.

We can’t feel sorry for ourselves about not having had a foreign holiday because in the previous 7 years, we had been four times to the USA , and three times to Italy, as well as touring Spain and Ireland.

FAMILY HIGH: Our son getting a 2:1 Sociology degree from University of Bath, and a fork lift driving licence. I am not sure which will be more useful in the long term.

LOWS: The inevitable funerals and trips to see friends and relatives recovering from illness. When they are younger than you it seems even more traumatic, and quite sobering.

WORLD WIDE WEB:

This was the year I made real use of the internet and met some interesting people online. I was also able to keep in touch with old friends and relatives in Mauritania, Jamaica, Zimbabwe, Sciota PA, Forest Hill, Columbus OH, and Oxfordshire.

In the first half of the year I worked on a game enhancement for a computer baseball game with some helpful guys from Phoenix, Arizona and Portland, Oregon. It was a very successful collaboration, but on those rainy days in Devon one gets a bit jealous when informed about Arizona’s superb weather and Oregon’s wonderful scenery.

Later in the year I started Crime Scraps and met online with a very friendly group of crime bloggers, especially Maxine, Rhian, Karen, and Peter. My apologies if I have forgotten anyone.

ALMOST GOOD REAL CRIME MOMENT:

The conviction of Danny and Ricky Preddie for the manslaughter of 10 year old Damiola Taylor. It had taken 6 years, three trials, and two police investigations to reach this conclusion and frankly the 8 year sentences were too lenient. There can really never be a “good moment” in this sad saga, but at least the convictions brought some kind of justice for young Damiola.

WORST REAL CRIME INCIDENT:

The shooting of five young girls aged between 7 and 13 at a school house in the Amish community of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania.

The lack of anger in the community and their forgiveness for the shooter, who had committed suicide, was an example of their deep faith.

I think these two incidents particularly affected me because I knew both areas quite well, Peckham from my childhood in Camberwell, and Lancaster County from holidays there in 1979 and 1994.

MOST INTERESTING REAL CRIME INCIDENT:

The reappearance of 18 year old Natascha Kampusch near the Austrian home of Wolfgang Priklopil, where she had been imprisoned for 8 years. The full story will probably never be revealed as Priklopil threw himself under a train when he realised she had escaped.

BEST CRIME FICTION MOMENTS:

The discovery of authors Leonardo Sciascia, Andrea Camilleri, Gianrico Carofiglio and Carlo Lucarelli, and enjoying every page they had written.

The realisation that Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo were as good as I remembered after a 15 year gap in reading their police procedurals.

Learning so much history from the wonderful crime fiction of CJ Sansom and David Liss.

And of course delving into all those other crime fiction blogs with their excellent recommendations.

MOST ENJOYABLE CRIME READ OF THE YEAR:

A difficult one this as there were so many good books, but the choice is a triple tie:

The Locked Room by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, Day after Day by Carlo Lucarelli, and The Coffee Trader by David Liss.

I really could not seperate these three novels.

MOST BORING CRIME READ OF THE YEAR:

Another tie between Half Broken Things by Morag Joss, and Predator by Patricia Cornwell.

CRIME FILMS:

I really enjoyed the best of them, History of Violence and Criminale Romanzo, both were exciting and even though you knew the probable outcome very gripping.

At the other end of the scale I nearly walked out of Hidden, and was only prevented doing so by the fact that most of the people in our row were comatose and asking them to move could have been dangerous. A totally hideous film that had all the subtlety of a charging rhinoceros, and none of the excitement.

NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS:

To lose weight, my regular New Year resolution, and to enjoy every day whatever it may bring.

Today the weather is Devonian in that it is dark, very windy and raining, obviously an ideal day for reading about Salvo Montalbano and his problems on sunny Sicily.

“It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books, which are your very own.”

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle [1859-1930]

HAPPY NEW YEAR

>BEL CASINO

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“(ANSA) – Police arrested about 100 people in the southern city of Bari and in several northern Italian cities on Tuesday as they smashed a powerful mafia organisation which was run by women.Eight of those arrested were women believed by investigators to have held ‘management’ positions in the Valentini clan which is based in the town of Bitonto near Bari.The women’s first job was to communicate the orders of jailed bosses to the rank-and-file members and then see that they were respected. But after that they acted autonomously and reportedly demonstrated an aptitude for crime in no way inferior to that of the men.Prosecutors accuse them of belonging to a mafia association, a range of drug crimes and extortion.According to investigators, the female bosses also ensured that the families of jailed mafia men received support and paid all legal expenses.They also paid weekly wages to clan members. Drug pushers received 250 euros per week, drug trade organisers 1,000 euros and district mafia chiefs 5,000 euros. When members were arrested it was up to the women to find a new place to keep the clan’s arms arsenal.The Valentini clan has been fighting a feud with a rival family in Bitonto for years and has until now managed to stay on top, acquiring considerable influence. Police on Tuesday froze bank accounts connected to the clan and seized businesses, apartments, land and cars worth 25 million euros.The organisation was able to smuggle drugs into prison with relative ease. One of the few times such an operation was intercepted was in 2004 when prison police found a shoe full of cocaine that had been thrown over the wall into the prison courtyard.The feud with the Conte-Cassano family is believed to have produced at least six killings since 2003, although the bodies of the victims have never been found.”

It is nice to know that some of my favourite authors will never run out of inspiration as long as real crime in Italy produces such interesting plot lines.

“Never, ever, set up a direct debit in this country. Not unless you’ve been introduced to both the bank and the billers. Don’t ever put a cheque in the post, because you can’t tust the post, let alone the postman.” [The Dark Heart of Italy: Tobias Jones]

>MONTALBANIAN LITERATURE

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I am reading Excursion to Tindari, as stage two of my Camilleri/Montalbano marathon read.

In the book Salvo Montalbano as well as investigating the murder of a young man and the disappearance of an elderly couple, is reading Manuel Vazquez Montalban’s crime novel The Buenos Aires Quintet.

Montalbano reading Montalban, is there a nicer word than incestuous for such an event?

>BEAUTY OF BLOGGING

>Thanks to Rhian at It’s a Crime!(or a mystery…) who informed me about the very interesting reading program at Bensenville Community Public Library near O’Hare airport, Chicago.

The program aims to get participants to read 52 books in 52 weeks, and the website has a lot of advice on starting a reader blog, and how to organise your reading.

Plus……..

Now that have your own reader blog set up, you may be saying to yourself, “What should I write about?“ That’s the beauty of blogging. You can write about whatever you wish! There are a lot of reader blogs in the blogosphere, and no two are alike.
Visit some of our favorite reader blogs to get some ideas for your own reader blog:

Blog Happy
Crime Scraps
Dear Author
It’s a Crime
Journal of an Avid Reader
The Misadventures of Super Librarian
Occasional Book Reviews
Paperback Reader
Rosario’s Reading
Thrifty Reader

No my son/daughter/cousin/great aunt/uncle or nephew isn’t a librarian in Illinois. It is a little bit frightening to think readers will come to these blogs expecting to get inspiration for their own blogs.

Input equals inspiration, and therefore I need to get back to my reading.

Behold she stands beside her inland sea
With outstretched hands to welcome you and me
For every art, for brotherhood she stands,
Love in her heart, and bounty in her hands
Chicago, Chicago, Chicago is my home
My heart is in Chicago, wherever I may roam [early pre 1920 city anthem]

>SANTA CLAUS

>

This Christmas my children bought me some crime linked presents.

My constant hints over the last few months actually worked and because I know their funds are very limited I really appreciated the thought.

My wife bought me an outrageously expensive Swiss army knife [called the Champ or Chump] with every attachment you can possibly think of; so that I cannot use the excuse that I have not got the right tool when faced by a task around the house.

Well there has to be a downside to every holiday.

Syriana won the 2006 Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture

>VIOLIN CONCERTO

>

I have finished stage one of my Montalbano reading marathon,

The Voice of The Violin, and am about to start Excursion to Tindari.
Reading a detective series is a comforting and comfortable experience, it is nice to return to familiar characters, and learn a bit more about their lives. While the author has to be careful that his, or her, detective fiction does not become a pastiche or parody.
The series must continue to contain interesting plots, rather than just wallow in the weird behaviour of the characters. Fortunately Andrea Camilleri has not fallen into the Patricia Cornwell trap of having increasingly quirky characters without any plot development.
But perhaps Camilleri could even get away with that literary sin because of the humour, gastronomic delights, clever interplay, and inherent charm of Montalbano that abounds in the books.

In fact in The Voice of the Violin there is plenty of plot and action. The story begins with Montalbano finding the naked body of the beautiful Michela Licalzi, who has been suffocated, and left in the house she is renovating.
The Inspector and his team begin an investigation and there are several suspects in Michela’s murder:

Maurizio Di Blasi, a shy besotted admirer, who has learning difficulties.
Dr Emanuele Licalzi, her elderly husband.
Guido Serraville, an antique dealer from Bologna, and Michela’s lover.

and even perhaps her close friend Anna Tropeano, another beauty whose charms Montalbano appreciates, while it is apparent that the attraction is mutual.

This makes for an interesting sub-plot of will they or won’t they, get involved throughout the novel.

Salvo has other problems as his long distance relationship with Livia is facing a traumatic incident. On top of this he also has major difficulties with the new Commssioner Bonetti-Alderighi, and the new chief of the crime laboratory Dr Arqua.

At one point Bonetti-Alderighi actually takes the investigation away from Montalbano and puts the Montelusa flying squad captain Ernesto Panzacchi in charge, with predictably disastrous results.

Once again I really enjoyed this book and hope the others in the series are as good, and I can’t wait to find out how Salvo and Livia sort out their problems.

Outside the Sicilian city of Agrigento, Camilleri’s model for the city of Montelusa, stands the Greek Temple of Concord [440BC], by far the best preservedof the ruins……..against the protests of conservationists, historians, and people of good sense, a large unsightly hotel was built directly behind the archaelogical site….[from the notes by Stephen Sartarelli]

A visit to the city of Exeter would show that it is not only in “corrupt” Sicily that such planning crimes are committed. Within yards of a beautiful medieval cathedral the city is building a monstrous shopping mall that seems to have been designed by Attila the Hun, although that may be unkind to that barbarian.

>CREATIVE STORMAKTSTID

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I had suspected some reviewers of not having read the book they were reviewing, but this reviewer beat that by a wide margin.

The story comes from The Local Sweden’s news in English with thanks to Sarah Weinman.

A book reviewer who slated a book that had never been written has been fired.Kristian Lundberg, an author and poet, wrote book reviews for the Helsingborgs Dagblad newspaper.
“The foundation of all journalism is credibility. This is also true of culture journalism. We have therefore decided that Kristian Lundberg will no longer review books for Helsingborgs Dagblad,” said the paper’s culture editor Gunnar Bergdahl.The paper had published an article by Lundberg late last week in which he said that Britt Marie Mattsson’s book ‘Fruktans Makt’ (The Power of Fear), had a “predictable” plot and one-dimensional characters. But despite having appeared in publisher Piratförlaget’s autumn catalogue, Mattsson had never got round to writing the novel.While ruling that Lundberg will no longer write reviews for the paper, Bergdahl said he might still commission creative pieces from the writer.
James Savage

This gives a new meaning to the phrase “creative pieces”.

>GOODBYE TO THE ASHES

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The Australians regain the Ashes in 15 months, after England had previously taken 16 years to retrieve them.

The euphoria of 2005 has indeed turned to ashes.

Inadequate preparation, loss of key players to injury, ludicrous selection policies and underestimating the determination of the Australians to regain the urn, were the cause of the defeat.

Roll on 2008 when battle will be recommenced on England’s green and pleasant cricket grounds.

England’s players will probably face a virtually new younger team with many of Australia’s great players due for retirement, and it will be a very interesting series.

But for now, well done Australia.

>RETURN TO VIGATA

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I have started reading another Andrea Camilleri, The Voice of The Violin; and also have Excursion To Tindari, and Rounding The Mark on the to be read list.

Sicily, beautiful women, and fantastic food make an interesting combination. Perhaps that should be fantastic women and beautiful food, but I am sure you get my drift.

I am finding the character of the bumbling policeman Catarella a little disconcerting, because Stephen Sartarelli has translated what I presume is a Sicilian dialect, and made Catarella sound like Chico Marx.

Marx used an Italian accent for his on-stage character; stereotyped ethnic characters were common with Vaudeville comedians, and all the Marx brothers sometimes performed “dialect characters” early in their careers, but Chico was the only one to continue this into their films.
The obvious fact that he was not really Italian was referenced twice on film. In their second feature, Animal Crackers, he recognizes someone he knows to be a shady character, impersonating a respected art collector:
Chico: “How did you get to be Roscoe W. Chandler?”
Chandler: “How did you get to be Italian?”
Chico: “Never mind — whose confession is this?”
In A Night at the Opera, which begins in Italy, his character, Fiorello, claims to not be Italian, eliciting a surprised look from Groucho:
Driftwood: “Well, things certainly seem to be getting better around the country.”
Fiorello: “I don’t know: I’m a stranger here myself.” [from Wikpedia]

At the moment Montalbano is on the track of the killer and the book is full of interesting suspects, but no Groucho or Harpo.

“as first course, he served him a large dish of macaroni in a light sauce dubbed foco vivo or “live fire” [olive oil, garlic, lots of hot red pepper, salt], which the inspector was forced to wash down with half a bottle of wine. For the second course, he ate a substantial portion of lamb alla cacciatora that had a pleasant fragrance of onion and oregano. He closed with a ricotta cheesecake and a small glass of anisette as a viaticum and boost for his digestiev system.”

It is a hard life in the Italian police, no “bacon butties” for them.

>PEACE AND GOOD HEALTH IN 2007

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A wish for a peaceful 2007 to everyone, and especially to those friendly crime bloggers I have met online since I started Crime Scraps.