The Commish loses weight. And his moral compass.

Posted on August 30, 2012 by Bev Vincent

I received two atypical rejection letters this week. The first was for a story that had been with the market for about a year. It was a good market, so I was patient, but I queried about it recently, to make sure it hadn’t fallen between the cracks. It did, in a way, but so did just about everything else. The market was regrouping, the editor told me. Revamping. My story had been read with the new approach in mind, but it wasn’t a fit. I was, however, invited to submit something else to the Doctor Who-like regenerated version, and I happened to have a suitable story. It was written several years ago, but hasn’t been out much because there aren’t many markets for that kind of story. I went through three more drafts, trimmed about 300 words from the original 6100 and sent it in.

The second was returned because the anthology it was written for couldn’t find a publisher. I usually don’t submit to anthologies that don’t yet have a home, but the editor has a good track record. I’m not sure where to submit this one to next. I don’t need to worry about de-theming the story from the anthology’s premise, but I don’t know exactly how to classify the tale, which makes finding a market problematic.

I’m about three-quarters of the way through Dennis Lehane’s Live by Night. Ultimately the book seems to be about a guy who came from a middle-class home with absentee parents who aspires to greatness and achieves it, though illicitly. The question is: at what cost? Also: can he hold onto it?

When Raydor’s “foster child” disappeared on Major Case, I was thinking: good riddance. The kid takes up too much of the show’s valuable time without any sign there’ll be a satisfying payoff. He’s also terribly inconsistent as a character. He was a male prostitute when first encountered, but he’s very well spoken (he has an awesome vocabulary and perfect diction) and he vacillates between whining and espousing some pretty sophisticated philosophies. He’s always annoying, though.

I didn’t expect the turn of events on this week’s Covert Affairs. Annie flies to Cuba with her lover and spy target Simon, where they meet up with a Very Bad Dude who is Simon’s handler. The Very Bad Dude doesn’t like Annie and wants to get rid of her. Simon appears to go along, but after locking Annie into a closet at a cigar factory, Simon slashes his handler’s throat. He’s clearly in love with Annie, who saw the whole thing through the keyhole. My question about that, though, is whether Simon knows Annie saw him. The ending was rather rushed. We have to go, Simon says. If he doesn’t know Annie saw him, there was no explanation of what happened to his “friend.” If he does know, there was no discussion of that at all, and you’d think there’d have to be. The scene in the cigar factory was interesting because I’d just read the exact same thing in Lehane’s book, though it is set in Tampa in the 1930s. The most important person on the factory floor, Lehane says, is the person who reads to the workers. Later, though, that job was replaced by a radio.

When I was trolling around for recent classic series that I’d never seen, several people suggested The Wire and The Shield. I knew they were crime shows, and I knew that Michael Chiklis starred in the latter and that George Pelecanos was part of the creative team of the former. That’s all. I bought the first seasons of both series, but hadn’t gotten around to them yet. Since there isn’t much on the tube these days, I decided to watch The Shield. I was really surprised by it. I saw Chiklis on The Commish back in the 90s when he was a roly-poly jovial guy. Now he’s buff and trim and…dark. I wasn’t expecting the level of corruption in his character. After a few episodes I described the show as a cross between the realism of Homicide: Life on the Streets, the procedural aspects of The Closer and the corruption and violence of The Sopranos. Vic Mackey is cut from much the same mold as Tony Soprano. He’s intensely loyal to his team but brooks no disobedience. The law is only a set of loose guidelines and he will steal, maim and kill to achieve his goals. What are his goals? To rule his squad and maintain peace on the streets. I see parallels with Sons of Anarchy, too. SAMCRO breaks the law but keeps order in their town, too, which allows them to maintain an uneasy alliance with the local cops. The other characters are fascinating. I was familiar with Jay Karnes from Burn Notice, and Catherine Dent seems familiar. Walton Goggins, of course, from Justified. I was hoping for more from his character, but it isn’t well developed in the first season. We know he’s from Atlanta and he’s Vic’s right-hand guy most of the time, but he doesn’t appear in some episodes at all and is much in the background of others, unless he’s in trouble. Hopefully there will be more of him in subsequent seasons. I definitely plan to carry on, now that I’ve finished Season 1.

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The heat is on

Posted on August 27, 2012 by Bev Vincent

I was on light writing duty this weekend. I finished the first draft of my next column for Cemetery Dance, but that’s about it. I’m still thinking deeply about the next short story I want to write, but for some reason it seems to be insisting that I work on it in longhand instead of at the computer. But I still haven’t mustered the gumption to put pen to paper.

Seven years ago this week, we were in Halifax getting our daughter set up for her first year of university. We stayed in a cheap motel on the Bedford Basin while footage of Katrina played on the television. I’ve been keeping an eye on Isaac because every day the storm’s landfall target has moved farther to the west. Looks like it won’t affect us at all (we’re on the so-called dry side of the storm), but who knows what it’s going to do to people along the rest of the gulf coast?

I’m about 100 pages into Dennis Lehane’s Live by Night. I didn’t read the dust jacket copy, so I had no idea what it was about when I started. Lehane’s name on a book is enough for me. So far, it has gone in directions I never expected. It starts with a flash-forward to four years in the future, when the protagonist is being fitted for a pair of cement galoshes. It’s set in prohibition era and the main character is a habitual criminal, the son of a high-ranking corrupt Boston cop. He meets a woman with plenty of moxie during a heist and ends up with her, even though she’s also seeing a big-time mobster. Some of the early dialog is noir to the bone, but there’s something else going on, too.

I’m almost done with my catch-up on The Closer. I discovered another couple of season 2 episodes I hadn’t seen. In particular, the two-parter in which Brenda’s old CIA handler reaches out to her. Watching the early episodes puts a lot into context. I knew about her history with Pope, but I didn’t really appreciate the dynamics of her conflict with Taylor or about her history with the agency. I’m almost done with the third season, and I think I’ll leave it there. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen everything else after that.

I am not happy with the final five minutes of last night’s Breaking Bad. I’ve been intrigued by Mike ever since we first met him—without even knowing his name—in the episode where he cleans up Jesse’s house after his girlfriend dies from a drug overdose. As his role became more substantial, the more I liked him. This part of the final season I’ve called “the season of Mike” because he’s been front and center so often. A take-charge kind of guy with a soft side for his young granddaughter. I don’t know that we’ve ever even seen his daughter—maybe they have a difficult relationship. Who knows? But he dotes on little Kaylee, who’s going to have a pretty good eighteenth birthday, assuming the DEA didn’t appropriate the contents of that safety deposit box. (I’ve never seen Gomez grin quite so maniacally as he did when he showed up at the door to that vault.)

The show has fun with camera positions. There was the famous Roomba-cam scene from a few seasons back. This week, it was the camera-up-the-lawyer’s sleeve as he fed cash into the boxes. Cameras in the safety deposit boxes. A camera in Mike’s go-bag. Fascinating pov shots. But then there was the shot heard around the world—the unnecessary shot, as it turned out. Walt’s lamest line ever is the one where he acknowledges that, oops, he didn’t need to shoot Mike after all because he could have gotten the information from Lydia. What a tragic and pointless end to such a good character. His final words: Shut the *bleep* up and let me die in peace. And then the camera draws back and all we hear is the muffled thud as his body tumbles off his perch and hits the ground.

So, question: what does Jesse do when he finds out about this, assuming he does? Mike was a surrogate father to him. Mike always had Jesse’s best interests at heart. He often counseled him to get away from Walt. But it doesn’t look like Todd’s going to cut it as Jesse’s replace­ment. I kept waiting for something to blow up or for the first lot of meth to turn out to be crap. What do they have in store for us for the mid-season break?

Posted in Breaking Bad, The Closer | Comments Off on The heat is on

In the Crowd

Posted on August 23, 2012 by Bev Vincent

My essay Faces in the Crowd is now up at FEARNet. It tracks the evolution of King’s new short story collaboration with Stewart O’Nan, “A Face in the Crowd,” essentially from the moment King got the idea in 2004 until he threw it out into the audience eight years later, claiming he couldn’t figure out how to write it.

I finished Dare Me by Megan Abbott last night. What a great book. It’s about a bunch of high school cheer­leaders who are lead by a girl who is essentially a sociopath. She sets her target on the new coach and all manner of mayhem ensues. There is a murder mystery, too, but that’s almost secondary. I was intrigued by the first-person narrative (not from the sociopath’s POV) and the way that certain things were completely off the teens’ radar. Adults weren’t exactly like the wonk-wonk-wonk parents on Charlie Brown, but sort of. And the athletes involved in the sport they were cheering weren’t on their radar either. Fascinating, compelling, and I’ll write more about it later.

I was going to go on to Justin Cronin’s The Twelve next, but then I got a copy of Dennis Lehane’s Live by Night so I decided to tackle it first. It’s shorter and it comes out first. I’ll save The Twelve for the Labor Day weekend.

I realize now that I picked up The Closer somewhere in the first season. All of the Season 2 episodes I’ve seen in the past few days are familiar. The best one is the Flynn/Provenza caper when they find a body while on their way to see a baseball game (they have skybox seats). They decide to leave it there until after the game (Provenza’s call), but when they get back, the body is gone. Funny stuff.

I’m hanging in with Major Case, but the subplot involving Raydor and the boy who has been left in her custody is a big distraction. Both characters are annoying, so putting them together in the same house is (annoying)². I’m also sticking with The L.A. Complex, but this week’s episode didn’t do much for me. Just about everyone was annoying.

Another good episode of Covert Affairs this week. Nice scenes between Augie and his therapist as he shows her how he navigates the streets, and good initiative by Annie. I was surprised by her decision to transfer away from Joan. She’s showing all manner of initiative these days.

Mid-season finale of Burn Notice tonight. Expect explosions.

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Fear the Reaper

Posted on August 20, 2012 by Bev Vincent

The website for Nancy Kilpatrick’s Danse Macabre anthology is now online. I received my contributor copy last week, and the book will launch at World Fantasy in Toronto. My contribution is “Therapy,” which won the final Wee Small Hours contest when Hellnotes was run by Judi Rohrig.

I finished editing and submitted my essays to Screem magazine this weekend. The main piece was 5400 words long and the companion piece was 2700 words. I won’t reveal the subject matter, but there’s also an interview as part of it.

I also whittled my next Dead Reckoning review piece down to 1500 words, so it was a productive weekend, all in all.

I finished the first season of The Closer. I think I remember some of the episodes, but not all of them, so I may go on to the second season to see if I can find where I picked up on a regular basis. I like the symmetry of the first season, which opened with a mass resignation in protest over Brenda leading the new division and ended with a mass resignation in protest over the complaint Taylor launched against her. The turning point for Flynn was clearly the moment when Brenda backed him in the allegations that he may have planted evidence to convict a serial killer. She never wavered in her support of him, so when the tables were turned, he did the same.

We’re tearing through season two of Justified. That Bennett clan. What a bunch.

Heading into the mid-term break for Burn Notice. A few good explosions and twists in last week’s episode, which I only got around to watching yesterday. All that subterfuge for a couple of initials, but once they had the file, the head of the private security firm just blurt out the guy’s name. I wonder where that will all lead. Apparently the actress who played Angela is a big telanovela star. She and the script were good. I didn’t see that coming.

An interesting turn of events in Breaking Bad. First we had to deal with the blow-back from the final moments of last week’s episode. The entire time they were cutting up that motorcycle I’m sure most people were translating that into a similar process for the boy’s body. A smart way to depict a dismemberment without spilling a drop of blood. Walt then breaks down their options for dealing with Todd and Jesse essentially doesn’t get a say when Mike sides with Walt. But Hank is starting to crawl up Mike’s butt too much, so he’s out. And Jesse’s out. Everyone’s out except Walt, who can’t stand it that he sold his share in his college venture for $5000 and the company he named is now worth over $2 billion. No wonder $5 million seems like pennies to him now. His whole perspective has changed, as Jesse rightly pointed out. A year ago, he would have been happy with a tad under $800,000. The concept of $300 million from the 1000 gallons of methylamine has blinded him.

Saul had a great scene in the DEA offices. After Hank asked him where he got his law degree, he informed them of the TRO he had a judge issue. The judge didn’t like it when the DEA harassed a senior citizen (sorry, he said to Mike in passing). Walt tried to show a human side, saying that he hadn’t slept for a few nights, but he belied his statement a couple of minutes later by whistling as he worked as if he didn’t have a care in the world. I think that’s the moment when Jesse decided it was time to cash in. He and Mike might have made it, too, if their buyers hadn’t insisted on putting Heisenberg out of business by buying all the methylamine. Note to Mike: watch more TV. It’s never a good idea to tie someone to a radiator. They almost always find a way to escape, even if it means sustaining second degree burns from an impromptu arc welder.

That had to be the most awkward dinner ever. Just about every interaction involving Skyler this season has been difficult to watch because it’s so painful to see her in that position with no way out. I wonder if she’s going to end up killing herself. And once again Mike was on the verge of putting a bullet in Walt’s head. How many times is that this season? And once again Jesse stopped him, because Walt has a surefire solution to their predicament. Everybody wins, he says. Where have we heard that before?

Posted in Breaking Bad, Burn Notice, Justified, The Closer | Comments Off on Fear the Reaper

Better living through chemistry

Posted on August 17, 2012 by Bev Vincent

My August contribution to Storytellers Unplugged is called Writing in My Head, and it’s now live.

I’ve been suffering with lower back pain for a couple of years. I say “pain,” because that’s the standard term, but it’s really a nagging pressure, like a belt that’s pulled to tight or someone has his knee pressed into my lower spine. Discomfort is probably the more accurate term. I’ve made some adjustments. Bought Kangaroo attachments for my desks at home and at work so I can stand or sit at my computer. Got a more comfortable easy chair for the living room. My nurse wife suggested recently that I explore steroid injections. I don’t know why I didn’t before. Perhaps because my doctor called it a “surgical procedure,” which meant I had to make another appointment and it couldn’t be done in his office.

I finally decided to give it a try after physical therapy did nothing. I even tried acupuncture after one of my coworkers had some success. Nothing. I guess if I could subject myself to dozens of needles in my back, a few more couldn’t hurt. A week ago I had the first treatment, a caudal epidural injection at the base of my spine. They warned me the pain might get worse before it got better, but I noticed improvement the next day. Whereas before I had a lateral muscle discomfort on top of the knee-in-the-spine pressure, after a day or so, most of the lateral discomfort had dissipated. Yesterday I had the second treatment. Two more injections at the spinal facets near the problem disk. Less than 24 hours later, I’m noticing even more improvement. I go back to see the doctor in two weeks to evaluate the overall effect of the treatment, but if I remain like this for several months, I’ll be a happy camper. I couldn’t however, see myself getting this done every couple of months.

We watched the season finale of Longmire last night. When the third arrow missed all its targets, I guessed that the shooter was misleading the cops, and I was right. Charles Dutton’s character was funny when he arrived in town. “Where are all the black people?” Then he turned into a bulldog. There have been hints that Longmire and Henry were up to something in Denver in the past, but now there are more indications of what that was. The revelation that his wife was murdered came as a surprise—to his daughter, too. I can’t see how the daughter could be kept in the dark like that. There must have been a homicide investigation. When the case wasn’t solved, you’d think they would question other family members. And how could he pass off her death as being cancer-related? Raises a lot of questions, which will only be answered in Season 2. I’m glad to hear the series has been renewed.

We also finished off season 1 of Justified. I’ve seen it all before, but my wife hasn’t. That last episode is brutal, with Boyd getting pummeled by Johnny and then all of his followers getting wiped out by his father, and the shootout at the cabin. Raylan’s final moment, gun pointed at Boyd, who’s tearing off after the last surviving Miami thug, is classic. Making the sound of a gunshot without actually firing.

Rizzoli and Isles went on a break until November. I was a little disappointed with the revelation at the end of this week’s episode because it was so obvious. I was hoping they were misleading us, but, no, they weren’t. What to make of the delivery to Jane’s door at the end of the episode? That could either be a good development or a deadly one.

I liked Covert Affairs this week. I generally do. The chemistry between Annie and the Israeli spy is terrific, and their case was fascinating, too. Poor guy, conned by a spy into betraying technological secrets. I wonder what she’ll find in the file about her “love interest” target. I liked Augie’s scenes with the psychologist, too.

I was strongly reminded of Larry Underwood in The Stand by this week’s episode of The LA Complex. The rapper finally got tired of the ongoing party at his house, where he didn’t know most of the people, and sent everyone away. Raquel sure has been on a downward spiral this season. Getting fired from a low-budget creature features and taking a role on a celebrity rehab reality show. I’m glad the two comics are putting their differences aside (or are they?), and the threesome subplot involving actors on a religious-themed TV show is funny.

After watching the series finale of The Closer, I decided to go back and catch up on the first season episodes I’d missed. I was impressed by how well-formed the familiar characters already were and by the dynamics around the major case squad, newly formed (though it was called Priority Murder Squad until Brenda pointed out the acronym) in the pilot . Brenda had her trademark bag from day one and her penchant for those foil-wrapped chocolate hockey pucks, too. One of Brenda’s earliest cases was resolved exactly the same as the Terrell Baylor case that haunted her in the final season. She exposed the son of a Russian mobster as an FBI informer and released him to be killed by his family. Pope shrugged it off after she showed him pictures of the two girls he killed. Good to see Stana Katic from Castle in that episode, too, along with discovering how Brenda ended up with the house she lived in. Flynn and Taylor were major asses in that first season. At least Flynn got better.

Posted in Covert Affairs, Justified, Longmire, Rizzoli and Isles, The Closer | Comments Off on Better living through chemistry

The two are very close, but they never actually touch

Posted on August 14, 2012 by Bev Vincent

I wrote my Storytellers Unplugged essay this morning. It’s called “Writing In My Head,” and was inspired by a blog I read in the NY Times. It will appear on Friday morning.

I’m on the verge of starting a new short story. I have the first scene mapped out, and I think I know what it’s about, but I’m not sure what’s going to happen yet. That sounds weird. It is weird. I’ve been ruminating over the scene for a while and it’s sticking with me, so it’s time to do something with it. Hope I don’t get stuck.

I saw the trailer for a new movie called The Words which comes out in a few weeks. It stars Bradley Cooper as an aspiring and struggling writer. His girlfriend is Zoë Saldana. Jeremy Irons is an older man who tells Cooper his story. I’m not sure how Dennis Quaid and Olivia Wilde factor into it, but I’m glad they do. I love the part of the trailer where Cooper says to his father: “I gotta pay my dues” and the father (the always solid J.K. Simmons) says, “No, I gotta pay your dues.” And then there’s this observation: “You have to choose between life and fiction. The two are very close, but they never actually touch.” I liked that so much I wrote it down.

I deleted The Closer from my DVR schedule. Another series come to an end. Seems like there’s been  quite a few of them lately. The show went out with a bang. It made sense to bring back the one outstanding case that’s been on Brenda’s mind lately. Her reaction to the man’s insolence demonstrated that it was time for her to leave, to get away from concentra­ting on the dead (a theme oft-repeated in the past couple of weeks). The team’s parting gift to her was funny, especially considering its contents. They know her so well. Fortunately she’s just moving to another job down the street and not to Atlanta, which means that Jon Tenney (Fritz) gets to keep his job on the spin-off.

It remains to be seen whether the concept of Major Crimes can be interesting on a weekly basis. That is, giving up the confessions of The Closer in lieu of forcing a plea bargain. Young Rusty uttered the show’s status to Captain Raydor: I don’t know you and I don’t like you. I wonder if it will ever become necessary for us to like her to like the new show. Maybe we can ally with Provenza and the other cops in our disdain for her. I sure hope Provenza sticks around, despite what was shown in the trailer for next week.

Posted in movies, The Closer | Comments Off on The two are very close, but they never actually touch

Everyone sounds like Meryl Streep

Posted on August 13, 2012 by Bev Vincent

I spent most of the weekend finishing and editing an essay for Screem magazine. I’m waiting for interview answers to finalize it. It’s currently at about 5200 words, plus a sidebar article that’s another 1000 or so.

I finished Fallen by Karin Slaughter this weekend. A good character-centric crime thriller. Reviewed at the hyperlink. Then I picked up Killer Move by Michael Marshall, which has been on my TBR stack for a while. A guy gets out of prison after serving nearly 20 years for a murder he didn’t commit. He’s not a happy guy.

We watched the penultimate Longmire and several episodes of Season 1 of Justified. Love the one about the guy who takes his guards hostage in the Marshal’s office and Raylan gets him out with fried chicken and bourbon.

Last night’s Breaking Bad was intense. The cold open was out of left field. At first I thought it was a young Jesse. Then I was sure the kid was going to find a body. Then I forgot about him altogether. Then there was Walt’s “melt down” in Hank’s office. I loved how Hank wanted to be the good guy, but he was terribly uncomfortable by Walt’s emotions. He gets up from his desk. He paces his office. He’s like a trapped animal. His voice goes up an octave. Finally he has to get out, allegedly to get Walt a cup of coffee. Walt knew how Hank would react: it was (all?) an act to get him out of the office so he could bug it. The bug, as it turned out, saved Lydia’s life. Mike was set to kill her after Hank denied any knowledge of the GPS on the methylamine. However, Hank’s a smart guy and he follows up with Houston, and his conversation is relayed via the bug.

Lydia’s still dancing as fast as she can. She knows about the dead zone in the route the train with the methylamine takes from the west coast. Mike says they’ll have to kill the crew. “There are two kinds of heist,” he says. “Those where the guys get away with it and those that leave witnesses.” After discussing various approaches, Jesse comes up with the winning strategy. Again. Dude must have been taking smart pills during the hiatus. That’s two clever ideas in five episodes.

The dead zone just happens to be in Arizona. Just happens to have a handy level crossing and a trestle bridge. Just happens that the trestle bridge is the right distance from the level crossing. Most of the rest of the episode is a caper, though the writers stacked things in Walt & Co.’s favor. The guy flags the train down at exactly the right spot so it can grind to a halt a few feet from the “stalled” dump truck. Apparently the wind is blowing in the right direction so the engineer and conductor can’t hear the pump, and never notice the people on the train. A bit of a stretch, but such is the nature of the caper. The joker in the deck was the good Samaritan (I described him that way in my head a few seconds before Mike did) with the big-ass truck. Down to the wire and a touch beyond, just like any good caper.

And then the punch line. They turn off the pump and there’s still a motor running. Did they forget something attached to the train, I wondered? No. There he is, the forgotten kid from the beginning. Tarantula boy. During their setup, Jesse had stressed to Todd that absolutely no one could ever find out about this robbery. No one. Ever. People had been speculating that Todd was a plant, an undercover cop. No worries about that. He took Jesse’s message to heart and made sure there were no witnesses. Alas, poor Jesse. I think he’s going to take that badly. He’s becoming the team’s conscience. He’s gone to bat for people a few times recently. It was his scheme, though, that got the boy shot.

Posted in books, Breaking Bad, Justified | Comments Off on Everyone sounds like Meryl Streep

Written in bacon

Posted on August 7, 2012 by Bev Vincent

I’ve been on a book review binge these past several days. I was getting behind so I decided to put everything else aside and clean the stack off the floor next to my desk that’s been nagging at me. Here are the books I’ve reviewed:

The Higashino crime novel is of particular note. His previous book, The Devotion of Suspect X, was nominated for an Edgar. I just started that one this morning. I tore through Salvation of a Saint, which comes out in October. It’s like a cross between an Ed McBain procedural, an episode of CSI, a Sherlock Holmes novel, one of John Dickson Carr’s “locked room” puzzlers and an Agatha Christie. More of a how-dunit than a whodunit. He’s one of the best-selling authors in Japan, but only a few of his books are currently available in English. Can’t wait to read more by him.

I hooked my wife on the idea of Justified after I went to hear the U.S. Deputy Marshals speak a couple of weeks ago, so now we’re about halfway through the first season. It’s good to see the episodes again. Such a great show.

Just one episode of The Closer left. They didn’t leave the mystery of the leak in the department until the end, thankfully. I nailed it, too. As soon as they introduced the character responsible, I figured there was a good chance that person was involved. I consider it a bit of cheat that they dredged someone new out at the twelfth hour rather than make it one of the regular characters, but with most people continuing on with Major Crimes, I guess they couldn’t do that. The scene where the other character learns of the betrayal was well done. And you have to love Provenza. He can be such a goof-off at times, but he can also be deadly serious when he needs to be, such as when he ordered the D.A. out of his crime scene and when he stood up for the wounded party at the end. I imagine next week will be mostly about whatever causes Brenda to leave.

I read an interesting analysis of the birthday bacon scene in this week’s episode of Breaking Bad. Walter, Jr., who is basically clueless about what’s going on in the house around him, complains that Skyler forgot to use Walt’s bacon to make his age on his breakfast plate. Skyler relents, but there’s not enough bacon. Only a small piece left to make the “1” in “51” (which is also my age, as it happens). The blogger wrote that that symbolized her hopes that the year would be “a short one” for Walt, i.e. his cancer would come back and he’d die. Then, when the menfolk make a noise about that and Skyler switches the short piece for a long one from Walter, Jr. ‘s plate, that symbolized the impact Walt’s actions have on the family. Wow. That was pretty deep.

The tension between Walt and Skyler has been really creepy this season. You can tell that Skyler is completely repulsed by her husband, but she’s trapped, and he seems oblivious. Kissing her and touching her, when I keep waiting for her to run away screaming, leaving her skin behind like a molting snake. Finally, after her little drama in the swimming pool, she and Walt get down to brass tacks. What a scene. Emmy awards all around.

I found it funny that Mike chastised himself for not killing Lydia after figuring out that she was pulling a con with the supposed GPS on the methylamine, calling himself sexist for giving her a break. Jesse had the gumption to stand up for her, though I’m not sure why. He only just met her. Maybe he thought she was hot. I wonder how Hank’s promotion is going to play out, too. On another show, the character would have turned down the promotion so he could keep his hands on The Most Important Case of His Career, but in real life, you take the promotion (if only because, yes, your wife might kill you if you don’t).

I’m not sure why Walt doesn’t just make his own methylamine. He’s a chemist after all. It’s becoming the McGuffin of the series.

Posted in Breaking Bad, Justified, The Closer | Comments Off on Written in bacon

The Cure

Posted on August 3, 2012 by Bev Vincent

Sold another short story today. Always a good feeling.

I’ve been catching up with book reviews these past couple of mornings. Wrote the first draft of my next contribution to Dead Reckonings and posted reviews of Tess Gerritsen’s The Silent Girl and Chelsea Cain’s Kill You Twice to Onyx Reviews. Started Salvation of a Saint by Keigo Higashino this morning. A man tells his wife he’s going to divorce her because she can’t bear children. She goes away for the weekend. His young lover (his wife’s assistant) finds him dead the next day, his coffee presumably poisoned. A good start!

I finished Love Is the Cure: On Life, Loss, and the End of AIDS by Elton John last night. It’s essentially a treatise on the current state of the AIDS crisis from someone who has been at the forefront of the battle for many years. The EJAF is essentially a fund-raising machine that then uses other existing organizations to make sure the money gets into the right hands, where it can do the most good. That way, the foundation’s overhead remains low and they don’t need to recreate infrastructures that already exist. He pulls no punches in singling out people who he believes could have done much more, and frankly accuses politicians in several countries of being personally responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths. He also castigates himself for failing to do more in the early years. On the other hand, he has kind words for some of his political opposites. He found a supporter in Orrin Hatch, a man with whom he has otherwise virtually nothing in common, and expresses his gratitude to George W. Bush for a surprising speech that re-emphasized the need for increased funding AIDS research, education and prevention. The same speech in which he justified the decision to invade Iraq, ironically. Elton met Bush once, and they had a productive discussion on what each other could do to further the cause. Again, the two have nothing else in common philosophically, and some of the former president’s other stands repel him, but they were able to work together to do good. In fact, that’s pretty much the book’s theme: though money, science, medicine and social work go a long way, the AIDS crisis won’t be ended unless people have more compassion for the victims. Some countries have a long way to go on that front, including the Ukraine, India and South Africa, just a few places that he cites. Very little of the book is about his life or career, except insofar as it relates to the AIDS crisis.

Burn Notice was a little unusual in context last night. Though Michael is clearly targeting the people who were responsible for the death at the end of last week’s episode, he seemed mostly unaffected by it. With his main suspect cleared, though, it’s hard to figure where the search goes next.

I’ve been sticking with The L.A. Complex and still liking it. It’s a bit soap-opera-y, but the characters and situations are interesting. Where else but in L.A. would an actor get “hired” to play an actress’s boyfriend and his real girlfriend is okay with it. Sort of. At first, at least, until the reality of it kicks in. The tug of war between the two stand-up comics is interesting, as is the trajectory of the closeted gay rapper, which ended on a surprising note this week after the rapper showdown. I like the new kid and his sister, too. Innocents abroad.

Though I mostly enjoy Rizzoli & Isles, my biggest problem with the show is its uneven tone. It tries way too hard to have funny bits, but they aren’t all that funny or are absurd. The whole subplot with the pregnant woman who is either carrying Jane’s father’s baby or Jane’s brother’s baby was agonizing. And what happened with Maura’s birth mother? They aren’t even talking about her any more. Injecting humor in drama is a delicate act, and they haven’t quite figured out how to do it well yet. Or to my liking, at least.

Things sure ended on a downer on Covert Affairs this week. Auggie gets dumped, gets in a bar fight and is lead away in cuffs. Annie’s sister is moving away and she’s being transferred back to Joan. Unlike with some shows where the team is split up at the end or beginning of a season (NCIS, for example), I actually didn’t mind that Annie was reassigned and got a new boss. I liked the new boss. But I expect the actress playing Joan might have had other thoughts on the matter. The assumption that Annie’s cover was blown is still somewhat in play, even though she’s still seeing her target. If they hadn’t shown the scene of him doing the hand-off, I would still be open to the possibility that he’s not a bad buy after all.

Posted in books, Burn Notice, Covert Affairs, Rizzoli and Isles | Comments Off on The Cure

Riddle me this

Posted on July 31, 2012 by Bev Vincent

I finished polishing the new short story (final count: 4100 words) and delivered it to the person who solicited it this morning. When I say “finished” I mean: I forced myself to stop revising it, which is about the same thing when it comes to writing.

Seven years ago, Brian Freeman and I embarked on a project for Cemetery Dance called The Illustrated Stephen King Trivia Book. It’s really a cross between a trivia book and a quiz book. We asked members of the SKEMERs e-mail group to send us questions and answers, along with references so we could easily confirm the answers. Brian and I then wrote a bunch more questions on our own and I wrote hints for each question that usually aren’t terribly helpful and often contain more trivia instead of clues to the answers.

A unique aspect of the book was that it was profusely illustrated by Glenn Chadbourne, and the illustrations are themselves trivia quiz questions. The book was so successful that it was reviewed by Harriet Klausner. It also sold out. Are the two related? May-be.

Earlier this year, we decided to update the book to cover everything that had been released since 2005. So, here it is, the Revised & Updated second edition, with over a hundred new questions and ten new Chadbourne illustrations. Plus a new afterword by Kev Quigley. The standard edition is a $20 trade paperback, but for hardcover aficionados, there will be a signed/limited hardcover edition, but it’s only on sale for 30 days. You can see some of the new illustrations at the link. Click the “Artwork” tab.

The antepenultimate episode of The Closer last night was a shocker. The murder itself was bad enough, creating a rift between the police department and the church and inspiring more “Pope” jokes than absolutely necessary (if you’re not familiar with the show, the chief of police’s name is Pope), but then there was an unforeseen event in the final moments that will be sure to have significant repercussions next week. I say unforeseen, but I had a sense of dread when Brenda headed toward the room in question and I was pretty sure what had happened the moment she opened the door. The open question (other than “Who’s the Mole?”) is: Why will Brenda no longer be associated with Major Crimes? We know she won’t be, because there’s a spin-off with her team led by Captain Raydor. Will she be killed? Will she quit or be fired? Will she take Will’s advice and apply for a new job elsewhere, perhaps to look after her father? We shall soon see!

Posted in The Closer | Comments Off on Riddle me this