The Wheelman by Duane Swierczynski (2005)

Just finished The Wheelman, by my friend Duane Swierczynski, and was moved to write this review at Mystery Ink Online.

Buy this book now. It's the coolest thing I've read in ages. And I'm not just saying that because Duane is a friend of mine. This is one of those books that make me want to grab people on the street and demand that they read it. I've mostly stopped doing that, though, on advice of my therapist and probation officer.

What a Great Idea!

All of your favorite mystery-writer/fan/critic blogs* brought together in a festival of linky goodness. It's new! It's cool! It's CrimeSpot.net !

*Oh, and this blog is there, too.

Metaphor? Simile? Either Way, Hillary Clinton is the Antichrist

Or at least that's the way the so-called "liberal media" would have you believe in the latest (and long-overdue) installment from the always-brilliant Udargo.

A FEW LARGE CHUNKS

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Recently, the literary world was rocked by the controversy surrounding James Frey’s so-called memoir, “A Million Little Pieces.”

The book, (hereinafter referred to as “AMLP”) is supposedly the harrowing story of Frey’s battles with drug addiction, alcoholism, and crime. “I am an Alcoholic and I am a drug Addict and I am a Criminal,” Frey repeats over and over, while calmly reciting some of the horrible experiences that particular trio of personal demons put him through.

The books begin with Frey hitting rock bottom: on a plane bound for Chicago, with no ID or money, wanted in three states, missing four front teeth, beaten, bloody and covered in his own vomit. (Boy, The Transportation Safety Administration was really asleep at the switch THAT day.) Of course, through rehab and personal gumption, Frey makes it back to sanity by the end of the book.

Well, no one loves a good recovery story as much as Oprah, who put Frey on the map and made his fortune by featuring “AMLP” on her show. Oprah herself was reportedly reduced to tears by the book, as were members of her production staff, who went on camera, eyes all damp and shiny, to describe how the book had moved them.

As we know, anything that makes Oprah & Co. cry is bound to make the cash registers ring. The book hit No. 1 on the New York Times Best Seller List. It’s reportedly sold over three million copies and, we can assume, made Frey rich.

Unfortunately, it turns out that “AMLP” might just be a BOSPOBS, which stands for “Big Ol’ Steaming Pile Of” — well, you know. An investigation by the online muckracking site, “The Smoking Gun,” revealed that a lot of the incidents that supposedly befell Frey were totally fabricated.

It began innocently enough with TSG trying to track down a picture for its popular “celebrity mugshot” feature. They couldn’t find one from some of the more lurid crimes Frey claimed. They dug a little deeper. TSG reporters could find no police records to back up some of the felonies he said he’d committed.

He wasn’t actually involved in a horrible train wreck that took the lives of two girls, at least according to the girls’ parents. And so on. In the end, it turns out that Frey had originally written “AMLP” as a work of fiction, but it went nowhere. Repackaged as a memoir, however, the book was publishing gold.

You know me, folks. When I read something like this, I move quickly from “this is an outrage!” to “where can I get me a piece of it?” So, in my ongoing effort to make Dan Brown money off this publishing thing, I offer my own memoir, tentatively titled “A Few Large Chunks.”

I never knew my parents; I was found abandoned on the steps of a cut-rate Filipino tax preparation service in Slidell, La. As a child, I was bounced around between a series of orphanages, reformatories and opium dens. My first brush with the law came when I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. I was seven years old at the time.

I first turned to drugs at the age of five, when I discovered you could get high by snorting Nestle’s Quik through a rolled up copy of Highlights magazine. Since then, I’ve ingested marijuana, peyote, heroin, psilocybin, uppers, downers, screamers, laughers, dried banana peels, glue, paste, mucilage, LSD, DMT, STP, ABC, CNN, TLC, Sterno, Drano, Bondo, Ketamine, Dopamine, glucosamine, Ovaltine, and Krispy Kreme.

And I once did all of them in the same night. I woke up two weeks later, hanging upside down by my knees from a tree limb in Duluth, Minn., and singing the Aria from “Die Fledermaus.” In German. And I don’t even speak German. That’s how I rolled.

I once killed a stripper with a fondue fork and disposed of the body using an electric pencil sharpener. It took 14 hours.

I kidnapped the Lindbergh Baby. I was the shooter on the grassy knoll when Kennedy was shot. The only reason I missed is because I was completely plastered on cheap tequila and absinthe.

I know Tom DeLay personally.

There. That should just about do it. And hey, who cares if it’s true or not? Certainly not the American reading public. After Frey’s book was exposed, it didn’t budge from its #1 position on the New York Times’ Nonfiction Paperback Bestseller list.

The equally truth-challenged sequel, “My Friend Leonard,” perches at #1 on the Hardcover Nonfiction List. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction, but apparently, if you can erase the lines between the two, it’s like minting money. And it makes Oprah cry, which is just icing on the cake.

Dusty Rhoades lives, writes and practices law in Carthage. Or so he says.

The Mechanical Dick

Phillip K. Dick, that is. The fabulously twisted science fiction writer, who gave us the print versions of Blade Runner, Minority Report, Total Recall, etc. has been memorialized in what I can only call a highly appropriate manner. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the PKD Android. "With an artificial intelligence based persona based on the life and works of Philip K. Dick, the robot depicts the author with stunning accuracy. Using cameras in his eyes, the Android is able to recognize individuals in a crowd and can carry on conversations."

Don't worry. If it gets loose, we can send Harrison Ford to hunt it down and kill it.

A Medical Explanation for 21st Century "Conservatism"

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DOCTOR: OK, nurse, who’s the next patient?

NURSE: It’s Mr. Jones, Doctor. In Room 3.

DOCTOR: What seems to be his trouble?

NURSE: Well, his family brought him in. They say he’s been acting strangely.

DOCTOR: Hmm … it says here on the chart he’s a political conservative.

NURSE: Yes, doctor, and the family says that he’s been saying some odd things.

DOCTOR: Well, let’s take a look.

(Enters room)

Good morning Mr. Jones, how are we today?

MR. JONES: I feel fine, Doc. Why am I here?

DOCTOR: Well, your family had some concerns. I’m just going to ask you a few questions, and we’ll see if there’s anything wrong.

MR. JONES: Well ... OK.

DOCTOR: What do you think of when I say the words “Bill Clinton”?

MR. JONES: I think of a corrupt, arrogant president who showed contempt for the rule of law, of course.

DOCTOR: That’s fine, Mr. Jones. Now, how do you feel about President Bush’s claim that he can ignore laws regulating electronic surveillance?

MR. JONES: President Bush is a great man. He’s just what this country needs to fight Islamic fascism. If laws get in the way of that, then he should be free to break them. After all, Bill Clinton did the same thing and said it was OK.

DOCTOR: Hmmm. (Takes notes). OK, tell me your opinion of the United Nations.

MR. JONES: The United Nations is a joke. It’s like Ambassador Bolton said: You could chop off the top 10 floors of the building and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.

DOCTOR: Umm-hmm. And tell us why you think we invaded Iraq.

MR. JONES: We had no choice. They were ignoring United Nations resolutions.

DOCTOR: OK, Mr. Jones, I think we’re zeroing in on your problem. Just a couple more questions. How do you feel about the criminal justice system?

MR. JONES: I think it’s a disgrace that criminals have all the rights in the system. If they weren’t guilty they wouldn’t have been charged in the first place.

DOCTOR: What do you think of when I say the name ‘Tom DeLay’?

MR. JONES: He’s totally innocent. He’s being railroaded by an out-of-control prosecutor.

DOCTOR: OK, Mr. Jones. Just sit tight, I’ll be right back. Come with me, nurse.

NURSE: What’s the matter with him, doctor? Is he crazy?

DOCTOR: Not exactly. Mr. Jones is suffering from a serious irony deficiency.

NURSE: Irony deficiency?

DOCTOR: That’s right. Mr. Jones has lost all sense of irony.

NURSE: I don’t understand.

DOCTOR: Here, maybe this American Heritage Dictionary can help.

NURSE (under her breath): Oh, lord, not the dictionary again …

DOCTOR: Here we go. … “Irony. An incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs.” See, since Mr. Jones is a conservative, you’d expect him to be for limited governmental power. You’d expect him to despise anything Bill Clinton ever did, and to ridicule the United Nations. Yet he cites Clinton’s actions as a justification for President Bush’s, claims the president isn’t bound by law, and says we had to go to war to enforce the resolutions of the U.N.

NURSE: Wow.

DOCTOR: Wow indeed, nurse. Mr. Jones thinks criminal defendants are guilty or they wouldn’t be charged, but when a Republican is in the dock, he claims it’s a put-up job. I’ll bet, if you asked him, he’d say that the federal government has no business telling states how to run their business, and in the next breath defend the No Child Left Behind Act and Congress’ trying to intervene in the Terri Schiavo case. He doesn’t recognize the irony there.

NURSE: But, doctor, isn’t that just being a hypocrite?

DOCTOR: An irony deficiency can lead to hypocrisy, yes.

NURSE: Is there anything that can be done for the poor man?

DOCTOR: Well, it’s very difficult. First, of course, you have to get through the layers of denial. After that, there’s the reflexive avoidance. Mostly, that involves trying to change the subject to Bill Clinton. But the sooner we get started, the better. We’ll begin with a little shock therapy. Come on.

(Back into the room).

DOCTOR: OK, Mr. Jones. Just a couple more questions. I’m going to read a statement to you, and I want you to tell me what you think of it. “Our Constitution applies in times of peace and in times of war, and it protects the rights of Americans under all circumstances.”

MR. JONES: Sounds like something some bleeding heart Democrat would say. We’re at war with an implacable enemy who wants to kill us. ...

DOCTOR: Mr. Jones, that statement was made Monday by Judge Samuel Alito, President Bush’s nominee for the Supreme Court.

MR. JONES: (Long pause.)

DOCTOR: Mr. Jones? Mr. Jones?

MR. JONES: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

DOCTOR: Looks like we’ve got a lot of work to do, nurse.