Movie Night: A Murder Of Quality

You might recognize some of the men and women in this performance.

This is based off of John Le Carre's novel of the same name, this takes George Smiley, who is "a civil servant" (ie: spy) who is looking into the murder in a small town of the local ... gossip, for lack of a better term. Instead of Alec Guiness -- who played Smiley in the two miniseries from the Carla cycle (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, and Smiley's people) -- we get Denholm Elliot, known best as Marcus Brody from two Indiana Jones films.

This stars Joss Acklund as a professor, a very young Christian Bale as a student at a local school, and

Also, if you haven't already, check out some of the books below.

 

The Timing of Codename: UnSub

As I mentioned the other day, Codename: UnSub ate the original book one of The Last Survivors.

Part of that devouring included the missionary priests who came to San Francisco, trained in hostage negotiation and the conversion of the newly disarmed. While we had considered parts of it -- mostly with how to get these people into San Francisco -- we never really talk about where we put them. How do they relate to the rest of the city? How do they make their mark? How do they deal with the Children of Thanatos?

Also, in Codename: Winterborn I made a mention of "the Burners." They set people on fire. That was it. It's the general shallow thinking of every other thug in San Francisco ... and most thugs in real life. It's taken from the concept of Bum Burning. However, most of these burners do not generally gather and operate in gangs. While they were in a throwaway scene in Codename: Winterborn, they are an entire subplot in UnSub as well as a major plot point.

While Codename: Winterborn ended with the beginning of 2094, literally at 12:01 on January 1, that's because I just wanted to end on a high note. Sure, I could have stretched it out with an additional three chapters, but... no, why? The arc in Winterborn's second half was to show exactly how Kevin's actions are the butterfly effect on acid. I established that when the priests showed up en mass. The priests and their side effects are another story.

So, since the chapters I had down were all about the priests and their introduction to San Francisco society, I would use them to introduce the readers to the society. It's a cheap maneuver, basically the Alice in Wonderland effect (or the X-Men film effect, pick one), but it works.

So Codename: UnSub backs up a bit. The prologue takes place right before Kevin meets the priests at the docks. It shows Kevin having a long conversation at arrow point with some burners, setting them up a little better. Chapter 1 takes place just after the priest pickup that is shown in Winterborn. And then we have a heartwarming Christmas chapter....

And then we have a dead body show up down the block from Kevin Anderson's place that's been beaten to death. Because San Francisco.

Why, yes, I have been to San Francisco, and I've had it swarmed by vampires in one series, and a distopian nightmare in another. Why do you ask?

But all in all, the main action in UnSub takes place a few months after the arrival of the priests. They'll be more of an established force within the city by the time the main action kicks into gear.

And then, the stage is set, and we're ready to nuke the entire city straight to hell. BWAHAHAAHAHAH.

The Anthologies are here

Item the first, I'm still going to be here as time allows, so I may not be on for a while. Though I'm going to try to upload guest posts should I get any. I've got one or two people who have offered posts. We'll see who follows through.

Item the second, all three books are out on Kindle. Pius Origins  and Pius Holidays, both on Kindle. Pius Tales should be out sometime within an hour or so of this post, on Kindle and paperback.

Pius Origins is out, only $.99

Yaaay.

The short stories here include:

One Way to Get out of Jail
Sometimes, a legal defense can be murder.
We Have a Pope!
Spinning a story can go both ways.
Mile High Murder
A killer is roaming an airplane. And no one can stop him. Should anyone try?
Swiss Family Mafia
Being a bill collector can be trying.
Tinker, Tailor, Goyim, Spy
The Bostonian Catholic walks into Mossad. What is this, a joke?

But wait! There's more! Including character interviews and essays on their creation.

Also, ...

Pius Holidays is here, only $.99

Includes some fun stories as

God Hates ... Superman?
Crowd control made easy.
Erin Go Boom
Priest vs. terrorists. Oops.
Boys of the Old Brigade
Beating IRA terrorists 140 characters at a time.
See Something
Say something ... or beat someone's head in.
Let Freedom Ring
Terrorists come to blow up Boston. Nobody can stop them! Thankfully, there's a nobody on call.
Coyote Christmas 
Come for the party, stay for the wild animals.
O Little Town of BethMayhem
Terrorists are going to blow up Bethlehem on Christmas Eve.
Deck the Maul
A mercenary works mall security on Black Friday. Insert your own joke.

And, finally, Pius Tales, for $2.99 in Kindle, and $7.99 in paperback ... link to be posted. Sorry about that, there was a delay. Should be up today. Period.

Includes .... everything from above, plus additional content, essays, commentary, additional stories, story extras -- over ten thousand words of additional content.

Be well, all.

Call back post -- Bad Romance: How to be a Cynical Romantic

This first aired on my blog four years ago.

It's hard to remember that I had a blog for so long.

Anyway, this kind of tells you where I am as far as personal development goes. I went from "I'm a cynical bastard" to writing romance novels. Who knew?

Anyway, the next few days should be very much like this.  I have a guest coming into New York City for the next few days, and I'm going to be playing tour guide all the way.

This one is a little strange to look at.  The profile on Manana has been modified due to image issues, and the original pic is replaced with the lovely and talented author Kia Heavey.  If you haven't read her books, I do recommend them.

Again, there will be several of these over the next few days, so yes, I'll be out and about. There will be a radio show on Sunday, and that should go up, And I may even have a music post squeezed in somewhere.  But I'll be wrapped up until around Tuesday. And, since my blog audience has more than tripled since then, this should be new to a great many people.

Be well, all.

Enjoy.

#MondayBlogs - Honor at Stake: Government Work

Were I a betting man, I would bet that government will screw up more things than they solve. Why? Go to the DMV and tell me how great government is. Hell, the USPS is  protected from competition by the government, regulated by congress, and is backlogged by tens of thousands of packages. This doesn't even count corrupt politicians.

So what does this have to do with Honor at Stake?

Enter Merle Kraft.

Merle Kraft is one of three -- that we know of -- Kraft brothers.  Merle Eurasian with midnight blue eyes.  Tal is a six-foot black fellow ... with midnight blue eyes.  Dalf is black ... Irish, with -- you guessed it -- midnight blue eyes

It was an offhand statement from my father when I was in high school, maybe early college.  Merle would be a government operative who opened safes ... without safe-cracking tools.  Tal would be a stage magician.  Dalf would be ... something darker. More of that old time religion.

Of course, if you haven't figured it out, these are only their nicknames.  They are Merlin, Taliesen, and Dalf.

Over time, Merle became more of an X-File sort of person.  While he has not met a vampire, he insists that he has a few people in his chain of command because people who read his AARs went insane. He'd never really pinned down anything, or had enough evidence to say "Ah-ha! This was a demon!" Usually, there isn't enough left of the perps to prove if it was something monstrous, or just a Scooby-Doo villain.  But he's had enough run-ins with this sort of thing that he has his own thoughts on the matter.

And he really wants to be wrong.

Seriously, it's bad enough that his brother Dalf taunts him a lot.  Also, when someone took a picture of Dalf once, his eyes glowed red for a few minutes afterwards -- not the photo, Dalf; the camera never worked again after that.  The SD card had the computer virus from Hell, apparently.

So, if there are so many people -- military men and even spies, and Vatican ninjas -- who know of or ran into vampires, why does Merle not know anything about it?  If the army didn't kick it up the chain of command, surely someone else would have, like a spy. Someone should know something.

Well, that part is complicated, and has to do with book two ... and a bit of book three. Let's just say there was a lot of shredding going on in the 90s. And many, many things were never put down in the computer system.

When Merle Kraft is brought into the story, an FBI agent has been murdered. Which, of course, wouldn't be a problem that required Merle ... if it hadn't been the fifth FBI agent to be killed on the same investigation. At which point, Merle ends up facing another adversary who seems stronger and faster and virtually indestructible.

Afterwards, he gets a visit from a redhead named Amanda Colt ... and then Merle's life gets so, so much stranger.

I almost feel sorry for him. 

Tinker, Tailor ... Mossad Murphy?

I'm a little behind this week, so, sorry that everything is slow.  This post will be a short one.

Numerous times when writing about Scott Murphy, I've made reference to another fictional character, George Smiley.  Originally a character in a John Le Carre spy novel, Smiley was a plain little man, in a plain little suit, who tried to offend no one, only answered questions with questions, and was no one really important.

Except that he was a spy.  He taught them, he ran them, he designed plans for them.  In some of Le Carre's books, Smiley ran the entire plot from behind the scenes, and never once made an appearance.

Many, many moons ago, three of the novels that starred Smiley were put into film.  Tinker Tailer Soldier Spy was one, as well as the sequel, Smiley's People.  Both times, it starred Alec Guiness.  A third film was made, called simply A Murder of Quality, starring Denholm Elliott .... if you've ever seen the Indiana Jones films, you might know him better as Marcus Brody, one of the sidekicks.

Now, granted, Scott Murphy has a lot of differences.  He's got all sorts of tricks and tips for committing mayhem. Just don't ask him to punch anyone ... or shoot anyone farther than ten feet away ...

So, why am I explaining all of this?

Well, because they've remade Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, with a whole bunch of interesting actors. Since Guiness is dead, he's been replaced by Gary Oldman -- who I mentioned as this generation's Alec Guines not too long ago.  Smiley's sidekick is played by one Benedict Cumberbach, who BBC fans may recall from last year's Sherlock.

Now, it should be interesting to see how they play the movie, considering the original was six hours long, though my family has estimated that three hours could have been easily sliced out due to the speed of the film (eg: see Smiley walk. Walk, Smiley, walk), or due to the fact that much of the film was told in flashbacks, and stories, and interviews. The original film was interested in the methods and mechanisms of spycraft ... if one cut out a lot of that (which is repeated over, and over, and over again), then there's the plot and the character.

We'll see how it works.

Building Character: Scott "Mossad" Murphy.

**Spoiler alert.  Be sure to read O Little Town of Bethlehem and Tinker, Tailor, Goyim, Spy before reading the blog.**

Two of the short stories posted on this site have, thus far, been about Scott “Mossad” Murphy.  Mysteriously, they all seem to fit with the end product of Murphy in the novel. I think it helps that I essentially wrote a short biography for Scott, like I have for all of my other characters. The character becomes alive in my head, and all I need to do is drop him into a situation and let him play.

Though it wasn't until I wrote Tinker, Tailor, Goyim, Spy that I realized how much of a stiff Scott really was. But, then again, I don't know too many party animals who want to be accountants when they grow up.

And by the time of O Little Town of Bethlehem, I only just managed to hint at Scott's isolation. Not only did he not fit in anywhere in Israel, even his own office, he had just killed or arrested most of the people he had spent the previous three weeks with. At that attrition rate, it's hard to keep a long term friendship going.

And then I started considering how much the character of Scott Murphy fit with the end product in the novel.  Despite all of the new things I discovered about his character, and the more his past has developed in front of me, the puzzle pieces of his life still fit together.
[More below the break.]

Bad Romance: How to be a Cynical Romantic.

“[T]hink about it ... You know how good this is? .... How right it feels?  .... How easy it was? .... It just isn't f**ked up enough to really be you and me.”  ~Harry Dresden, in Jim Butcher's short story "Love Hurts."

In case the readers of this blog have not caught on yet, I'm a little strange.

At which point, I can just see each of you recollecting every other instance of borderline schizophrenia that I have described in my blogs on writing, and answering: “Duh.”

In this case, I have two very strong streaks in my personality. Lots of cynicism, and lots of romanticism …

On the one hand, I believe that all people are essentially good ... on the other, I believe that groups of people are stupid.

I believe in meeting someone, and being in love with them for the rest of my life ... and I go into first dates wondering how fast the phrase “let's just be friends” will appear in the conversation.

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth, and in Jesus Christ His only Son Our Lord ... and on the other hand, if one more person mindlessly spouts random Bible passage without knowing ANYTHING about the context or the meaning, I will be sorely tempted to hurt them.

And my problem is that I see nothing contradictory about the above statements. “Good” does not equal “smart;” and when people get into large groups, the average IQ only goes down. “Belief” doesn't automatically mean “theology scholar;” and if someone becomes a monomaniac about a favorite passage of Revelations (which reads like the author is on magic mushrooms), it's hard to do anything about it.

Scott Murphy's Notebook: Spytech

Scott “Mossad” Murphy hates guns. He can't hit a target with a handgun, and any weapons he can use aren't easily concealed. However, his spycraft is second to none, and he's great with improvised weapons, traps knows enough spy craft to survive when talking very, very fast doesn't cut it. He's the sort of person who takes notes on a tv show called Burn Notice—which looks like one part MacGyver for the dark side and the A-Team.

This is a page from the notebook of Scott Murphy:

#####################

* Ammonium Iodide—take one part ammonium, one part iodine, and stir well. Let it settle overnight, and then, later, strain through coffee filter paper. Be very careful with the resulting little green crystals. Enough crystals to cover your palm will be enough to blow off your leg if you step on them.

* How to bulletproof a car. Yellowpages can stop a non-Armor Piercing bullet; they penetrate an inch into the phonebook, and they stop. If you add steel plate, it will only only penetrate a ¼ inch—line the walls of the car with the phone book: put them and the steel behind the panels of your car, unless you like swimming in phonebooks and yellow confetti. Put foam in the tires to make them bullet resistant, and use dual layer plexiglass for the windows.

* Molotov cocktail: a classic that never goes out of business, mix some high proof alcohol into a glass bottle, slip a rag into the mouth of the bottle... light rag, throw bottle, and you have a nice little firebomb.

* Homemade hand grenades: A New York street gang in the mid twentieth century adopted a science geek. He took a test tube and a stopper, then filled it with some interesting chemicals: glycerin, nitric acid, and sulfuric acid. They separated the chemicals with a layer of parafin wax—basically, you can use melted candle wax on each level of chemicals. Drive a nail through the stopper, and then through the rest of the layers of wax, shake well, and throw away quickly before you blow your hand off: you have just created nitroglycerin.

* Take a metal chain and wrap it around two power lines, and you've created an electrical circuit. It certainly makes sparks fly, and acts as a great distraction. Highly illegal, so you better have a great reson for taking out the power of up to two or three city blocks.

* Wrap a metal wire around the prongs of a plug—a paper clip will do. Plug it back into the wall, watch all of the lights go out when the circuit breakers disagree with the effect.

* Use a cigarette as a time delay switch, and matches as a detonator. If you put multiple aerosol cans in a garbage can, the cigarette burns down to the matchbook, and flares, heats the aerosol cans, which are already under pressure. The effect is like puncturing the oxygen tank in Jaws, only on an obviously smaller scale.

* Security cameras as easily overloaded. Flash the laser into a camera, you've just created your own blind spot.


* An optical bug uses a laser against a window pane to pick up vibrations, enabling the listeners to hear everything in the room. To detect it, take the infrared filter off of a digital camera, and it will pick up a great big red spot on your windows. Your pictures won't be something you want in your photo album, but you can be certain you're not being bugged.... unless you are being bugged, in which case, you wan to give your listeners nothing but noise. With a listening device in your room, you can always turn on a television, a shower, or a radio. With an optical bug, you can put a vibrating back massager against the window; if the laser bug picks up vibrations, the massager will give them pure static.


# In the middle of Queens, New York, a Chicklet's factory exploded. The reason: there were enough dust particles in the air and on the floors to create an issue. A spark went off; that spark ingited a wave of fire that set each individual particle of dust on fire instantaneously. You can recreate the effect with baking powder made into a dust cloud. Or, for something a little simpler, use powdered nondiary creamer powder to cut gunpowder, and you get a fireball full of sound and fury.


# If you must beat someone over the head with sports equipment, use a golf club, not a baseball bat: the golf club has a smaller surface area, and the force isn't as distributed.

Review: Always a Spy.....

REVIEWS OF BOOKS YOU (PROBABLY) NEVER HEARD OF. PART 1: “Once a Spy”

Since this is the summer, and beach reading is in fashion, I figure it's time to have a slightly more leisurely look at some of the books that are not written by King, Patterson, or Cornwell. These are books that have not had millions of dollars in advertizing dropped on them, but are suburb nonetheless.

Let's start....

Once A Spy, by Keith Thomson, opens with Drummond Clarke, a retiree lost in the fog of Alzheimer's. He spends his time making a pot of chicken and stars soup, and promptly, for reasons he can't really remember, pours it into the plant next to the windowsill. The plant is made of plastic.

Across the street, men wonder what happened to the listening device they planted in Drummond's home.

Charlie Clarke, degenerate gambler, prefers not to see his father. But, like clockwork, the day after Christmas, he gets his annual phone call. His father is seen wandering the neighborhood. Charlie hopes that this is the last time he'll have to deal with his always-distant father. He has plans to seal Drummond away in a nursing home, and use what little cash the retired appliance salesman has to pay off Charlie's own debt to some unsavory Russian loan sharks. Charlie has particularly high hopes when Drummond insists that he used to work for the CIA. Obviously, the old man has lost his marbles.

Until, that is, Drummond saves Charlie as his house is blown up, and hotwires several cars as father and son are shot at in a running chase through Brooklyn.

And now, Drummond and Charlie have the unusual experience of father-son bonding while under fire. With each new experience, Drummond has lucid moments that keep them alive, and one step ahead of their adversaries.

Now if only Drummond can remember why people are trying to kill him....

“Once a Spy” is a very well put together thriller that doesn't slow down until you finish the novel. While the fight / chase scenes are intelligent and creative, the real fun of the novel comes in between battles, in the quiet moments while Drummond Clarke is still lucid and remembers everything from his former life as a spy. This is when Charlie learns about his past, from moments as simple as why his father missed his high school graduation (Drummond was off the coast of Saudi Arabia in a wetsuit), to why he wasn't allowed to go into the local candy store (couldn't have a young Charlie ruining a covert dead drop, now could they?). The father and son moments are lightly handled, and not hitting the reader over the head with hammer labeled SUBTLETY. Instead of bonding over a camping trip, or fishing, it's over the body of a newly knocked out assassin.

The action / spy sequences are also well done. No one, adversary or protagonist, is stupid in this book. While Drummond is useful in a firefight, the adrenaline can only last so long, and so can the lucidity. It is up to Charlie in these moments, and he's being graded on a sharp learning curve.

It's certainly worth the ride.

Buy it here, now: Once A Spy

A Public Service Announcement: How to Spot a Suicide Bomber

I live in New York City, so a certain amount of paranoia is reasonable. How much is too much? Great question. However, given that the New York City skyline has a relatively recent hole in it, I don't think it's too much to consider that someone, sooner or later, might want to consider rendering more damage to the city.

Over the past few years, I have come to the conclusion that most people—even those with limited knowledge of weapons, tactics, explosives, or anything harmful—can plan a better terrorist attack than some of the “masterminds” currently operating out in the world.

For example, one of the most likely scenarios in any major urban environment is suicide bombing. Load some people with bombs onto the A and the 6 trains in rush hour, or in the midst of time square—then you can start seeing examples of terror.

Suicide bombers are easy to spot. They give out all sorts of signs for the simple reason that they are, by definition, all first timers. Israeli counterintelligence wrote the defensive playbook, using pragmatic observation and psychological insight, and came up with a 12-point checklist, 11 for women—you'll see why. If you want to see the list being applied, I recommend Lee Child's novel “Gone Tomorrow.”

Now, the twelve signs that you might be looking at a suicide bomber.....

A note on religion, characters, and who do you trust.

Not too long ago, a friend of mine read through the first fifty pages of A Pius Man. She was struck by something odd. The first priest who made an appearance was rather shifty looking. Her note was “is he supposed to look that menacing?”

Answer: Yes.

It occurred to me that I should address something: there might some people who think that, because I'm Catholic, means that A Pius Man is going to have an easy answer: Pope Pius XII was a saint and an action hero who could do no wrong.

This goes double for those who believe that, just because I go do church every Sunday, I must be super Catholic. (I have a disturbing vision of me in a cape that's Lenten purple. I then desire to acid wash my brain) Believe it or not, I have had people tell me this, to my face, even though it's more or less a minimum requirement.

If you fall into any of the above categories, then, good, that means you'll be surprised for most of the book.