Sleuthing

Vicki Dodds, a detective sergeant on the Dundee Metropolitan Police, has a hot-headed trainee to wrangle, a preschool daughter to raise, nagging parents to endure and a blind date with a friend of a friend.

And a kidnapping to solve, on top.

Ed James creates Dodds as the central character of an ensemble cast that's trying to figure out why someone kidnapped a brother and sister connected with a dog breeding business and left them in a cage. But before the investigators get very far into their inquiry, another incident occurs, and the probe itself suggests there have been similar cases before. The level of violence is increasing, meaning it may not be long before someone is seriously injured, unless Dodds and the department can track down the criminals.

James writes an excellent by-the-book procedural, revealing as all good procedurals do that detectives wield determination, persistent questioning and checking and re-checking information for clues far more often than they do service weapons or back-room suspect beatdowns. Dodds and company may be fairly standard characters -- Vicki herself is a Modern Career Woman Attempting to Juggle Her Profession and Family Obligations While Looking for Love, Law-Enforcement Model. But James paints them realistically enough to move beyond the stereotype level, recognizing that we have stereotypes because at their roots are actual people from which the types come. His series of crimes seems a little out of place, more suited to a grim-and-gritty psychological suspense thriller than the realism-influenced world he's created, but it sorts out well enough in the end.

Snared is James' first novel from a publishing company; he has six self-published mysteries featuring Detective Constable Scott Cullen also in the Scottish detective genre sometimes called "tartan noir." It's obviously intended as a series launch itself, but is well-done enough to make subsequent entries, if they come, worth a look.

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Rick Murcer traces a similar arc, with several self-published books preceding Drop Dead Perfect, also a product of Amazon's Thomas and Mercer imprint.

Ellen Harper has a temper problem, which creates a number of other problems for her work as a forensics investigator for the Chicago Police Department. Complicating matters for her are a series of murders of young women, all found perfectly dressed and made up yet bearing the same written sign: "Not her." Harper will need to keep a rein on that temper to solve the crime and keep herself from getting fired -- or worse.

Like James, Murcer deals in well-traveled stereotypes. Aside from the twist of the Nearly Burned-Out, Walking-the-Tightrope-of-Barely-Repressed-Rage cop being a woman instead of a man, he offers very little that hasn't been done before. But unlike James, Murcer fails to put those pieces together in any kind of intriguing way or add any flavor to them. We have the requisite scenes in which the killer sadistically toys with and terrorizes his victim, or in which the higher-ups almost lose their patience with Harper but pull back because she's the only one who can get the job done. Weighing all of this down is the leaden style that Murcer uses, maybe a couple of steps above a Stratemeyer Syndicate entry but quickly tiresome.

Murcer's Amazon page shows a lot of approval for his self-published Manny Williams series, so Perfect might be a one-off clunker -- no single Amazon review tells you all that much about a book, but aggregated over several different volumes they can point one way or another. Murcer's own page says he is working on the second Ellen Harper book, and the relatively low price of a Kindle edition means that giving him a second chance is not a particularly big gamble. But that's because a smart gambler only bets what he or she is willing to lose, and a journey into any much higher prices will put Mr. Murcer on the outside of that particular set.

A Good Con

Some scenes from FanExpo Dallas, formerly known as the Dallas Comic Con, a science-fiction/fantasy convention.

-- Northbound I-35E at Lake Dallas is saved from being underwater by a railroad track that runs alongside. On the southbound side, we can see the pillars of the raised roadbed that is under construction. Unfortunately, we can also see various pieces of construction equipment more or less submerged in the risen lake, which would explain why construction is a bit slow these days.

-- Billie Piper, best known in sci-fi circles as Rose Tyler in Dr. Who and who currently stars in Showtime's "all the monsters at once" series Penny Dreadful, is a charming lady who graciously answered all kinds of questions about a series she finished seven years ago from people who didn't ask much at all about the work she's doing now. Not every actor would do that.

-- Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk, two of the stars of Joss Whedon's late, lamented Firefly, are an absolute hoot together. They talked about their current project, the web-based comedy series Con Man, which loosely retells some stories of Tudyk's experiences on the sci-fi and comic convention circuit. They enjoy working together, riff off each other very well and obviously greatly appreciate the "fandom" that enables them to do work they love. The absence of fellow castmate Morena Baccarin, occasioned by her work on the upcoming movie Deadpool, was an unfortunate occurrence but didn't diminish the fun of the panel with Fillion and Tudyk. It does leave me less inclined to pay money for Deadpool, however.

-- As always at such a convention, many people were dressed in costumes as their favorite characters. Some were more obviously homemade, while some were evidence of a lot of work and skill. Some are strictly in continuity and some blend or re-interpret different characters or fictional universes. I like those the best, usually. Most of the "cosplayers," as they are called, are willing to pose for photos if you ask and they are not currently doing something else, like eating their lunch or trying to buy something themselves. The most fun is watching people from different cosplay worlds get excited about taking each other's pictures. I am sure those who worked very hard on their costumes appreciate compliments from others who also worked very hard on their costumes.

-- One gentleman was wearing a male version of Princess Leia's "slave" costume from Return of the Jedi, sans metallic top. He had to have put that on after reaching the convention center, because there is no way he could have walked five feet in public in Texas without someone saying, "Let's get you some pants and a shirt, friend!" If he had demurred and explained he was in costume, I suspect the response would have been, "It wasn't a suggestion, son."

-- It's cool to visit with friends at these events. A ministerial colleague and his son were also present (He blogs here) and enjoying the festivities. My friend's son scored a sweet cast-resin replica of the revolver used by Nathan Fillion's character in the aforementioned Firefly.

-- Four-way tie for the cutest things I saw: 1) A four-year old Drax the Destroyer, complete with shirtless gray torso and orange tattoo-like markings, as well as pre-schooler-sized plastic replicas of Drax's twin blades. Everybody should have taken a picture of this kid. 2) A nine-year-old young lady dressed as Matt Smith's version of the Doctor, complete with bow tie, tweed jacket and fez. 3) The Spider-Gwen in the ticket line next to me. She was not as young as the children mentioned previously, but the obvious enthusiasm and excitement she displayed while chattering non-stop to her companion was contagious and evidence of the main reason to come to a con dressed as a character -- to have a lot of fun. 4) The mom and daughter I saw walking into the center as I left, with the mom dressed as Cruella de Vil and her daughter in a black-and-white polka-dot dress and a spot of black make-up on the end of her nose.

ETA: My comments regarding not paying money for Deadpool do not represent a childish snit against Ms. Baccarin for not showing up, i.e, "She skipped the con so I won't see her movie." No, they represent a childish snit against the movie for wrecking her schedule. Just to clarify.

Foul Bud

At The Daily Beast, William O'Connor summarizes Jon Pessah's new book about Bud Selig's tenure as commissioner of Major League Baseball, and indicates it is just as bad as you might imagine.

Pessah goes into what he claims are Selig's financial shenanigans and his Captain-Renault-like complacency regarding steroids, which he was shocked to find running rampant among the bigger, faster and stronger players who were keeping records high, turnstiles spinning and greenbacks flowing. He also mentions Selig's greatest sin, allowing the 2002 All-Star Game to end in a tie, although O'Connor doesn't include that in his summary. That comes a little later in the book, which makes sense, because once you read something like that you already know the guy's a loser.

Le Potpourri

-- So, I wonder if soccer is happy that the U.S. finally paid it some attention.

-- Rick Santorum has decided to let everyone know that he will not be president from 2017 to 2021.

-- Donald Trump may be planning to tell everyone the same thing, come June 16.

-- An article at Big Think talks about how to make digital branding less insufferable. Since the author didn't type "Stop digital branding" and then quit writing, I pretty much just skimmed.

-- This is a neat article about the Wham-O corporation's "Super Ball" toy, but the coolest thing about it is learning that the polymer which makes up the bouncy sphere is called "Zectron." No word on whether or not one should taunt Zectron, but I'm guessing no, based on the fact that "Zectron the Malevolent" is a phrase that comes all too easily to the tongue.

Engage Brain Before Speaking

Some scientists studying at the Beacon of Light, Knowledge and Decency in This Corner of the Universe (aka Northwestern University) have discovered that we began to understand some abstract concepts as babies, well before we could talk or express them.

The study showed infants around seven months old pairs of objects, and then placed a barrier in front of them and either changed the objects around, replaced one of a pair of identical objects with a different object, or some other different manipulations. The babies looked longer at the different objects than they did at the pair of identical objects, which is the usual sign in infant research that a baby is thinking about something. A longer stare is baby-speak for, "Well, what's all this then?" while a shorter glance means the baby has become bored and wants to look at something else. Teenage children often exhibit the opposite behavior, staring at something for many hours while frequently proclaiming boredom.

Now here might be the place where you would expect me to make a joke about how we lose the habit of thinking before speaking as we age -- we do -- and linking that to politicians. That would be a good joke, but not necessarily good enough. Nor would it be entirely true.

In fact, politicians actually develop higher perceptive skills as they gain experience. You and I look at what we have earned or what we own and we only see what we own. But simply by looking at a person, group of people or a company, politicians are able to discern differences in those very same things. They look at what we have earned or what we own and see which part of it belongs to us and which part of it belongs to them.

The part about them not thinking before they speak used to be more true than it is today. Today there are spokespeople, media relations firms and PR folks who spend most of their working hours saying the things that the politician would say if the politician were thinking before speaking. Often those things are what a poll tells the media management people that voters are thinking, but sometimes those things are things that the politician might actually say or believe. Wonders never cease.

Generation Which?

This post at Aeon may go a little too far, but there's some truth in it: A lot of times, the characteristics that are ascribed to a generation don't really apply well to the people in that generation -- or they apply at some times in life but not others. In which case they are probably more descriptive of a time in life than they are of some kind of generational cohort.

I recall that in the mid to late 1990s, "Gen-X'ers" were seen as disaffected slackers. There was something to that, but since a generation is usually taken to span about 20 years, it didn't apply across the board. I was a Gen-X'er, but from the earliest end of that time frame and didn't have all that much in common with the alienated goofball of Reality Bites. But on the other hand, the alienated goofball represented real people as well. Some of their alienation remained as they aged, but not all, and truth to tell, disaffection is not uncommon to late teens and early 20-somethings.

Major events can affect large groups of people -- World War II made the generation that fought it something it never would have been otherwise. Other events can affect a wide range of people, but not as deeply. People my age take note of things like the murder of John Lennon, the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan and the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, and we will probably always remember them and what we felt when we learned of them. But I can't see how even the three of those added together could have the same kind of impact brought on by the most massive conflict in humam history.

Plus, a lot of the research into generational characteristics focuses on Western or developed nations, and often only on the U.S. What a Rwandan teen saw in the 1990s probably worked on them a little differently than, say, the death of Kurt Cobain did on American kids.

I often work with college students, young adults and youth, and I try to keep abreast of the kinds of things written about them. Some of them ring true, but some of them don't. The Aeon writer has some points about how a significant amount of the stuff I read oversells the ideas of generational characteristics and differences, but there's some baby in that bathwater and I can't buy the suggestion it's time to toss them out completely. But I would make sure there's some salt handy.

Gratitude, In Memoriam

A Dutch village remembers the sacrifices made by U.S. soldiers on their behalf by tending the graves at a World War II military cemetery. In some cases, the third generation of a family is now visiting the graves, placing flowers, and remembering what was given.

That's a pretty good thank you.