JN DRINT
Bad Deeds
KTRT NEWELL
Pmnacie. SJ SO
Detective noveLs are like sculpture
Or doowop records from the Fif
ties Or architecture Form follows
function around and around in a fineh
patterned dance What we respond to
is choreograpihv. the skill with which
the form is fulfilled, the route bv
which the conclusion is reached
When the sculptor or the vocal
arranger, or the detective novelist
brings it off with a sense of novel tv or
surprise, then we've got beautv
Bad Deeds is a beaut of a detective
novel It's got everything genre fan
ciers crack the covers for: a private eve
protagonist with a hard-boiled hide
and a touchable heart, a secretary who
calls him Boss,' a full complement of
Irish cops, close scrapes and a sense of
danger that accelerates like Al Haig s
pulse on entering the Vi ar Room
Arme Kahane springs into action
when a tockey friend is the victim of a
brutal assault ‘Before long. Kahane is off
and running—finding out more than
he wants to know about doped fillies.
LA racetrack politics and a bent fatcat
with designs on the circuit's foremost
female jockey
He also dodges toromygun-toung
Filipinos, reads Dick Tracy comics.
bowLs. drives out to the beach at mid
night to clear his head (like Chandler s
Marlowe). and falls into near love with
an airhead dame who's "good in bed ."
Kahane is believable (within the
well-posted boundaries of the form)
His pals and predators are well drawn
and fall into their assigned roles with
gusto Best of all. they waltz and bop
around a pkx that keeps us turning
pages fast 'i ell before halfway into
Bad Deeds 300-odd pages, we find
ourselves trvmg to beat Kahane to the
mystery's solution: who clubbed
Wayne Teagueworthy"' Who stands to
lose the most if the goon is unmasked,
and why did somebody pump lead
into the quiet motel room where Amie
was shacked up with the gal jocko
Speed and action are Bad Deeds
chief virtues That and in appropriately
economic prose (Vagrant witness
Horace Ipps is described as wearing a
filthy Salvation Army suit that was
bagg\ enough for two of him" lpps
temporan address Bushes. Victory
Park racetrack Forwarding address
Bushes. Hialeah. Florida") Newells
accomplishment is that he applies
fresh twists and a sense of newness to
a genre that, itself, has been worked
over like a rummy, backstreet stiff
Good gib.
Gene Sculatti
Sixty Stories
DONALD BaRTHELME
C.P Putnam s Sons t/5 95
Scxn Slones combines works from
the author s seven previous collet
lions with nine uncollected pieces and
a section from a novel. The Dead
Father It is a chartering fat gnome of a
book, an enchanted little beast with a
startling satchel of sorcerer s charms,
including:
Chaos: I produced chaos she
regarded the chaos chaos ls handsome
and attractive she said and more dura
ble than regret I said and more
nourishing diaii regret she said
Dtam pewter snake tea had
#6 shern serviette, fenestration,
crown, blue
Repetition butter butter butter
butter butter butter
Philosophy The death of God leh
the angels in a strange position
Allusion Judge de Bontons arrises
earning flowers
The 100 proposition story 84
Should 1 go hack for the Band Aids'5
Tile epistolary tale Dear L>r Hod
der, 1 realize that it is probably wrong
to write a letter to one s girlfriend s
shrink but
And much much more, not the least
of which is literan theorv Some
people Miss R said run to conceits
or wisdom bui 1 hold to the hard
brown, nutlike word
Effects cm the reader are (11 wonder
1 2) admiration (3) frequent sporttane
ous, and unfeigned chuckles (4J fre
quent trips to the tal Webster s <S)
recognition o( common American
speech patterns (6) is he pulling my
leg? (7) recognition of American follies
and dreams (8) recognition of our
(mankinds) common awareness of
mortaiiti (9) gratitude, etc
Surprise to quote a character m
one of the stories out of the original,
sexual context, keeps the old tissues
tense There is a kind of clean,
surgeonlike workmanship in sn if ping
apart the cluttered tapes of literan
loopage in the storage bins of our
brains Reading this book ls like having
a tumor! ike regret taken out
^jrna
Death Notes
ki m KENDiu
Pantheon fit inks S') 95
Death b\ misadventure is the vrr
diet when Sir Manuel Camargue
is found frozen beneath an icy pond
on his Sussex estate The frigid lata! as
of a world famous flautist may hair
been nothing more than accident Bui
no acodent can explain to kings mark
ham (duel Inspector Reginald Wexford
the mysterious visit made earlier to
Camargue by a woman claiming both
to be and not to be his estranged
daughter, or Camargue's announced
intention to disinherit Natalie Camar
gue Amo — an intention he did not
live to fulfill
Was Camargue's death accidental’ Is
the woman who calls herself Natake
Amo his rightful heir’ These are the
obvious questions in Death Notes, less
obvious are the questions Wexford
must ask himself as to what constitutes
an identity Is it something fixed and
permanent like a passport, or a fluidity
within us that alters not only because
of how and where we live but from
generation to generation’ In Death
Notes Wexford must read between the
lines
His suspicions take him to Califor
nia, following the Pacific Highway for
possible dues left in Los Angeles sub
urbs or Carmel motels where Amo
may have lived- On that trad Wexford
seeks as well an understanding of him
self as an aging detective in a modem
world
Questions of identity sun Ruth Ren
dell Author of 20 mysteries and two
collections of short stories, the British
ex-journalist writes two very different
kinds of novels The Wexford series of
police procedurals moves at the pace
of Kingsmarkham itself, a middle-sized
village feeling the intrusions of city
life These are sharp portrayals of or
dinary people who find themselves ex
traordinarily linked by violent death.
Rendell's non-series novels (such as A
Demon m My View, which received
the 1975 British Crime Writers Associa
tion Gold Dagger Award) explore the
forces that lead individuals to commit
outrageous acts Her criminals are
themselves victims of the necessary
transition in English society from its
past structured social classes to a chaos
of class less ness
Death Notes can be read at any point
in the Wexford series with equal plea
sure and respect for Rendell’s mastery
of the genre Those reading the
eleventh Wexford adventure need not
return to the first for full appreciation
of detective or author, and will find
themselves satisfying the hunger mys
teryphiles share for deeply-rooted
characters and suspenseful plotting.
R. Sue Smith
America Now: The
Anthropology of a
Changing Culture
MARVIN HARRIS
Simon & Schuster, tl2.95
To many Americans, it would seem
the American dream has finally
turned into a nightmare of cosmic
proportions. One need only read the
morning’s headlines for confirmation
of America's sad realities — seen in an
evergrowing miasma of bloody vio
lence, decaying morals, sexual confu
sion and economic uncertainty. But
while many Americans simply throw
down their newspapers in despair or
stop reading them entirely, Marvin
Harris attempts to sort out the whole
mess via anthropological methods that,
while not exactly scientific or original,
do make for mildly amusing cocktail
party conversation.
After spending a lifetime studying
cannibals and kings, Harris, an an
thropologist at the University of
Florida, has turned his eye to analyzing
America's problems in a pedestrian
book entitled America Now: The An
thropology of a Changing Culture.
Here he examines the seemingly unre
lated phenomena of American culture
(including the rise of homosexuality,
cults, crime, shoddy goods, women's
liberation and inflation) and theorizes
that they are all causally linked.
Acknowledging that we are a nation of
manipulators and manipulated, Harris
traces the root of our cultural troubles
to the drastic changes that have oc
curred in America’s economy and so
cial structure since World War II. The
twin terrors of American big business
and American government are blamed,
the former for uniting into all power
ful oligopolies, the latter for being an
inefficient bureaucracy that excells at
proliferating more inefficiency. To
gether, says Harris, they’ve worked to
destroy the very foundations of the
American dream. But writing about
cause and effect relationships is a
tricky matter; while Harris takes on
some interesting issues — like why
there's high unemployment among
blacks, deteriorating nuclear families,
women who work and vocal
homosexuals — he fails to completely
convince us of the connections be
tween these phenomena. The most in
teresting chapter is that on homosexu
ality, in which Harris discusses the
practice in primitive and vanished cul
tures.
Many of the questions Harris raises
simpl/ cannot be answered because
American society has no yardstick by
which to measure itself, being a
unique nation of diverse ethnic and
cultural entities without a common
thread. In addition, and quite obvi
ously, the new technologies of our
time are going to affect America in
ways we cannot yet predict since we
have nothing to which they can be
compared. One thing Harris’ book
makes quite clear—in an age of decay
ing morals, traditions and economy,
America has very little to comfort it ...
and much to fear.
L. R. Htga
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