Dennis Lehane - Gone, baby, gone

Gone, baby, gone is the second book in the Kenzie and Gennaro serie I read. You might be more familiar with the movie though which I haven't seen yet but will in the near future. This story takes place around the abduction of Amanda McCready. A four years old little girl from Dorcester whose mother is negligent enough to go drink, while Amanda sleeps alone their unhealthy apartment, in a watering hole named Filmore tap. A place where vermins and other low-life criminals hang out. Right off the bat you can tell this story's gonna question your own morality. But what's great about this book is that even if you're expecting it, the way it questions our morality, our perspective on society, on the ugliness hidden in plain sight that surround all of us, is overwhelming. Gone, baby, gone kept me turning the pages whenever I had the time to, even brought the book at my job so I could read during breaks. 

Besides the thrill of the story itself, I got surprised a few times and I love it when I'm surprised, I have to give the first star to Remy Broussard. Lehane built one of the most interesting characters I've read about so far. He's a gritty detective, clever, athletic and good looking with almost 20 years of service in different departments such as vice, narcs and the CAC, crimes against children. He's on the McCready case with his partner Poole, a cop nearing retirement. Broussard is the kind of guy that can be very hard with the whom he loathes and very warm and caring with the one he loves and he loves children. That multiple dimensions/ layers type of personality makes him alive and go beyond the tough enough policeman who has seen too much shit he'd never blink an eye anymore on misery and deprivation. When he and Poole told their story about the kid they've found in a barrel with cement still liquid and the way he looses his temper during the Cheese Olamon's interrogation are good example of how well built Remy Broussard is. He's also the character that will challenge your morality the most.  

Lehane has not only my respect and admiration. He rightfully deserve a place in my favorites authors list and I won't wait long to read another of his books. He's that good.          

Received my Kindle today

I must say that I'm impressed. It took only 3 days to arrive. Normally  it takes more than one week to receive packages I order. More often two. The first thing I did after unpacking it was to order BEAT to a PULP: Hardboiled and The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology because they're the first two publications of a friend of mine Ben Lelièvre. You can read him at Dead End Follies. He's a smart and interesting guy to read. I guarantee it's worthwhile 

I'm going to finish Gone, baby, gone by Dennis Lehane first and then I'll attack these two collections of short stories and I must say they look as promising as Ben's future as a writer.

Also, The Lost Children is for the benefit of PROTECT and Children 1st Scotland.

I'll probably blog my thoughts about them in a near future. Stay tune and get your copies on the kindle store.

By the way, the Kindle looks like a kick-ass gadget. I might had just got it out of the box and quite frankly I wasn't really informed about it when I ordered it. I just did. But man this thing is cool. It looks like a toy I had back in the days I was a kid. You know the drawing board that worked with magnets and little marbles trap behind the screen. You had to turn the two knobs left and right in order to draw something. Well the kindle sure is more precise than this crap toy but the screen feels the same. I think I'll enjoy it a lot.

Edit : My bad, I reread myself and it sounded like the whole collections were written by Ben. Actually he wrote a story in each of the book mentioned. As for all others writers, I must admit I don't know much about them and will have one or two more clues after reading their stories. 

I'm finally back

I know I know. My last post was in June and it said that a new site was coming. My apologies. I had other worries. I worked a lot, limiting my free time. On top of that, I've experienced a very frustrating and depressing period. I wasn't complaining or anything but I simply shut out. When I wasn't drunk and playing bass I was sleeping. I don't think I need to explain myself more than that but I'll add a little something.

I went through many strong emotions and you may know, if you read my blog that I often associate humans with animals. In order to survive, many animals rely on violence. Over the past few months I had many violent fantasies. Don't get me wrong I didn't fell for them. I'm civilized. I know I can't use violence to take care of my problems. You can't simply punch someone in the face, even if he deserved it but you can feel the need to be violent. To act like an animal. To let your frustrations out. 

Humans are violent in many ways other than the physical way. One of them is psychological. If you can get in trouble for using physical violence, you won't get much, in the sense of the law, about the psychological. You can fight back but for many reasons, if your attacks don't hit the target then you still feel unavenged. Why is it important? I don't know. If someone comes to me and punch me. I may not counter and call the police instead. That's still using something violent in response. Call it civilized or smart in a way to solve the issue, for me it's still retaliation. You put the other in trouble by calling the police. Look at the big and the small history and you'll notice the same pattern : someone get offended and he retaliates. That's how it goes.

So when you can't find anything within what's socially accepted to retaliate against someone who hurt you what do you do? You get over it. Well for me, it was to work long hours, drink a lot and rock by bass. 

Now I'm back and I'll have a lot more to say as this shitty phase turns out to be an inspiration. 

Smooth Criminals Reading Challenge 2012

I was invited to sign up for the smooth criminals reading challenge by Ben Lelièvre from Dead End Follies and I gladly accepted for two main reasons. The first one is for the fun of it. I've never participated in a challenge like this. Second, I really started reading more recently so I had many titles to choose from. Among the books I've read so far, very few were crime novels. I thought this challenge to be the perfect pretext to really get into it and get a feel of the intense primal violence buried deep down inside me, inside most of us.

So here's my choices

Hardboiled classic

The chill by Ross Macdonald

Noir classic

The killer inside me by Jim Thompson

Prison book

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Book written by a writer who did time

A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation by Saint Thomas More

Book with a psychopath protagonist

The Collector by John Fowles

Gothic novel

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Classic crime novel

The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon

The "Why the hell am I doing this to myself?" book

Plato: Republic by Plato

If you're interested in signing in to this challenge hosted at Dead End Follies for 2012, simply click on the image above.