BOOK REVIEW: When Will There Be Good News? (Jackson Brodie, #3) by Kate Aktinson

When Will There Be Good News? is the third installment in the immensely popular  British crime detective series written by Kate Atkinson featuring former police detective Jackson Brodie. Atkinson is an interesting and unusual author; although mostly known for her literate novels with exquisite writing and evocative language, she has also dabbled in writing genre fiction, which often gets unfairly labeled as possessing uninspiring prose (although readers of S.A. Cosby's Blacktop Wasteland and Razorblade Tears would beg to differ!) The Jackson Brodie books were adapted into a very popular British TV series called “Case Histories” which ran for two 3-episode series in 2010 and 2011. All of the Brodie books by Atkinson have tens of thousands of ratings on Goodreads with average scores bear 4.0 on a 5-point scale.

Atkinson's first two books featuring Jackson Brodie are Case Histories and One Good Turn. They are very different from each other and from most books in the British crime thriller genre that I am so fond of. They are both so good that I have been trying to extend the time between reading subsequent entries since there are only a total of five books in the series. The Brodie books most definitely need to be read in publication order as events in one book are referred to in another.

The most memorable aspect of the Jackson Brodie books is Jackson himself, of course. He’s a former Edinburgh police detective and Army veteran who in the beginning of the first book has started to do private investigator work. As with most excellent detective novels, he has a complicated past that led him to pursue this line of work. He left home and joined the military at a very young age after his beloved sister Niamh disappeared when he was about 16 and her naked body was found in a nearby river soon afterwards. Niamh’s murder was never solved and Brodie has had a soft spot for damsels in distress ever since.

Another aspect of the Jackson Brodie books that makes them so compelling is Atkinson’s inclusion of many bizarre (and often horrific) crimes, either depicted from the perspective of the perpetrator or survivor. In fact, although Jackson is the primary character in the books, he often does not appear in the story for vast swathes of time, as “secondary” characters are used to advance the plot and also get first-person perspectives. Atkinson’s books can have multiple chapters that depict interactions between two (or more) non-Brodie characters, sometimes depicting serene, domestic scenes or sometimes incredibly horrific crimes. Then one of the central puzzles of the books is to figure out how those events where Brodie was absent as well as the people involved will be connected to Brodie at some point. In the first three books, the majority of these characters have been women, often people who he becomes romantically entangled with, or would like to be. 

In When Will There Be Good News?, the main non-Brodie character is 16-year-old Reggie Chase who “could pass for 16” and is effectively an orphan due to a freak accident that killed her mother while on holiday with another one of her mom’s problematic paramours. When we met Reggie she’s acting as nanny/babysitter for Dr. Joanna Hunter’s newborn baby despite being a minor child herself. Almost half the book is spent with Reggie, which is a lot of fun, because Reggie is a great character! She has a slightly older brother named Billy who has a dodgy moral compass and is clearly a minor criminal of some kind. She’s quite smart but had decided to leave her expensive private school to go out on her own even before her mom died unexpectedly because. When Dr. Hunter and her baby disappear, Reggie takes care of Sadie, Dr. Hunter’s large German Shepherd, and the two become inseparable for much of the book. Eventually Reggie saves Brodie’s life and asks him to help find Dr. Hunter. 

The other non-Brodie character we spend significant time with is Detective Chief Inspector Louise Monroe, who also appeared in One Good Turn. After the events of that book we aren’t surprised that Louise and Jackson are married at the beginning of When Will There Be Good News? but we are surprised that they aren’t married to each other.

By the end of When Will There Be Good News?, all the mysteries are resolved and there are many surprising developments that will have significant life-changing impacts on all of the main characters in the book (Jackson Brodie, Louise Monroe, Reggie Chase, Joanna Hunter). I’m very excited to see what happens in the fourth Jackson Brodie book, Started Early, Took My Dog.

Title: When Will There Be Good News? (Jackson Brodie, #3).
Author: Kate Atkinson.
Format: Kindle.
Length: 388 pages.
Publisher: Little, Brown.
Date Published:  September 24, 2008.
Date Read: September 27, 2022.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★★  (5.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A/A- (3.75/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: The Blood Road (Logan McRae, #11) by Stuart MacBride

The 11th book in the Logan McRae series written by Stuart MacBride set in Aberdeen, Scotland is one of the best. The Blood Road has all the elements we’ve come to love from a Logan McRae novel: irrepressible humor and awfully funny jokes, ghastly images of murder and mayhem, and extensive details of police procedure as they try to solve truly horrific crimes, some committed by the dregs of humanity and some by people Just Like Us.

The Logan McRae books have quickly become some of my favorites in the genre of British police-procedural, murder-mysteries. They have all the feature of other similarly labeled books but somehow MacBride is also able to successfully include humor, in multiple forms. The Logan books feature macabre jokes, awful puns, ridiculous encounters, and truly farcical situations. I’m shocked the series hasn’t been adapted for television yet like other series (which are also quite good but not nearly as amusing) Peter Robinson’s DCI Alan Banks, Val McDermid’s Tony Hill & Carol Jordan and Elisabeth George’s Inspector Lynley.

What really makes the Logan books extraordinary is while they are often hilarious they are also suspenseful thrillers and interesting mysteries. The very first book begins with Logan returning to work a few months after being stabbed repeatedly in the stomach and experiencing a near-death experience. In fact, Logan earns the nickname “Laz” (short for Lazarus) by his boss, the astonishingly horrible DI Roberta Steele. Steele is one of the great fictional comic inventions in British mysteries. She’s completely without shame or scruples; she regularly takes credit for Logan’s excellent detective work and is a walking H.R. and P.R. disaster. The interactions between Logan and Steele are the primary sources of comic relief in the books, but there are many others as well; first among these are the antics and descriptions of their eccentric police co-workers.

In The Blood Road, the Scottish police are dealing with multiple major (high-profile) crimes simultaneously: several young children have disappeared recently and the public is increasingly anxious about their whereabouts and safety. The book begins with the body of a Scottish police officer being found in a car—the problem is that same officer had been found dead and buried in an official funeral two years before after a supposed suicide. This means that not only was the officer (known by the sobriquet of “Ding-Dong”) a rotten cop, someone (likely Ding-Dong himself) must have killed someone else two years ago to produce a body that could be mistaken for him and now he’s been killed himself! As usual, Logan gets up to his eyebrows deep in solving multiple crimes (which is odd because after the events of the previous book In the Cold Dark Ground Logan now works for Professional Standards, not Major Crimes).

Overall, The Blood Road is one of the best entries in the series, reminiscent of some of the very best which cemented its appeal for me (books 4-7, in my humble opinion). It has multiple laugh out loud (LOL) moments while simultaneously being legitimately suspenseful. Logan gets put through the ringer again physically and the reader isn’t really sure he’s gonna get out of peril without permanent serious consequences (like death!) All of the best sidekicks from the previous books make appearances in this one (Steele, Tufty and of course Rennie!) and even the though the central crimes are truly appalling the book is quite engaging and enjoyable. The sad part of finishing The Blood Road is the knowledge that now there’s only one unread entry in the series remaining: Book 12’s All That’s Dead.

Title: Ancillary Justice.
Author: Stuart MacBride.
Paperback: 496 pages.
Format: Kindle.
Publisher: HarperCollins.
Date Published: June 14, 2018.
Date Read: November 25, 2020.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★★  (5.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (4.0/4.0).

PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A.
IMPACT: A.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: In The Cold Dark Ground (DS Logan McRae, #10) by Stuart MacBride

In the Cold Dark Ground is the tenth in the long-running, police procedural, crime thriller series written by Stuart MacBride starring Detective Sergeant Logan McRae and set in Scotland. What sets this series apart (and frankly makes it one of my favorite reads in the genre) is the sly humor and wry social commentary MacBride brings to the familiar British mystery story. Additionally, the supporting cast in the series is quite strong, even as it has changed (but not matured!) over the years it has taken me to read the first ten books. Detective Chief Inspector Roberta Steel is a singular invention: an openly lesbian, probably alcoholic, always inappropriate, slovenly terror of a boss. One of the long-running gags is that Steel as been promoted multiple times while Logan is still a lowly DS despite having captured 2 or 3 serial killers and solved countless other major crimes, in spite of DCI Steel's presence and "leadership."

Bizarrely, Logan doesn't feel "hard done by" his lot in life despite having been booted from his original stomping grounds of Aberdeen to a rural suburb of the city in Aberdeenshire, having a girlfriend who has been in a persistent vegetative state for nearly 5 years and still being a DS despite multiple decades in uniform. (Actually, he was promoted to Detective Inspector a few books ago and he really didn't seem to like or appreciate the increased level of responsibility and administrative red tape that accompanied the title change, so that was one reason he decamped to the rural outskirts from the big city.)

One of my complaints about the series has been how much **** Logan has been put through over the years. This is also a running theme of the series. The first book begins with Logan returning to duty several months after he nearly died from of stab wounds to the stomach (technically he did die briefly while on the operating table but surgeons were able to save him) and this near-death experience is why Steel calls him "Laz" (short for Lazarus). But since then Logan has been stabbed repeatedly, fallen multiple times from great heights, nearly drowned, been almost incinerated, unwittingly feasted on human flesh, been beaten up countless times by criminals and seriously injured himself pursuing fleeing criminals on foot and by car. MacBride treats Logan like an indestructible cartoon character.

None of that litany of violence prepared me for what happens to Logan In the Cold Dark Ground where it seems like the author is just being masochistic towards his main character. The difference this time is that in addition to the extreme physical violence of not one but three attempts in his life, a lot of the violence is emotional and mental (which definitely does not make it less traumatic). In fact, the way the book ends it made me wonder if MacBride had contemplated ending the series and focusing on his other series starring DC Ash Henderson. (I hope not! I haven't read the two entries in that series yet and find it hard to believe they will be as good as the Logan series.)

The primary mystery/crime to be solved in In the Cold Dark Ground is just one of the many plot threads in the book. Logan makes an astonishing discovery about his family life (which also impacts his professional life) and he is faced with not one, but two agonizing dilemmas which force him to choose between his current ethics as a policeman and his prior questionable choices/compromises. I'd say he makes the right choice in both cases this time but the ramifications will reverberate for a longer time than the depicted in this book.

There's a lot of resolution for Logan in In the Cold Dark Ground. Most of his primary relationships that have been huge features of prior books (with his girlfriend Samantha, with Aberdeen's crime kingpin Wee Hamish Moffat and even with DCI Steel) go through massive "phase transitions" which will mean the subsequent books in the series (so far there are only two more, The Blood Road (2018) and All That's Dead (2019)) will need to deal with the repercussions. And I can't wait to read them!

Title: In The Cold Dark Ground.
Author: Stuart MacBride.
Paperback: 400 pages.
Publisher: HarperCollins.
Date Published: January 16, 2016.
Date Read: July 11, 2020.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★★  (5.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A/A- (3.83/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A.
WRITING: A.

CELEBRITY FRIDAY (BONUS): Rise, Sir Andy Murray!

Andy Murray, former World #1 and 3-time major tennis champion, finally received his knighthood from Prince Charles at Buckingham Palace this week. The honour had been announced in December 2016 after Murray won Wimbledon a second time as well as a Gold Medal at the Rio Olympics and finished the year at World #1 in the rankings.

BOOK REVIEW: Shatter The Bones (DS Logan McRae, #7) by Stuart MacBride

I love how MacBride is constantly raising the stakes for his main character DS Logan McRae. Shatter the Bones is the seventh book in the best-selling police procedural, murder-mystery series set in Aberdeen, Scotland. The case this time is truly insane: a mother-daughter duo who are leading a televised American Idol-style reality show are kidnapped and the public is being extorted for the ransom. To goose the pot the kidnappers are releasing videos and bits and pieces (i.e toes) of their hostages every few days. leading to wall-to-wall media coverage and general public hysteria. The pressure on the police to solve the crime and capture the perpetrators is intense. Meanwhile Logan is making very bad decisions as he works on other cases, and that eventually ends up producing life-changing consequences for him and his current girl friend Samantha (who works in the Coroner's office) who he has only recently committed to fully. One of the entertaining aspects of the books is that Logan is not one to follow the rules and the ways that he forges his own path while solving every case he faces is lots of fun. MacBride does a very effective job of injecting humor and near-farce into Logan's professional interactions with his nominal boss, the morally questionable DI Roberta Steel and his amusing sidekick, DC Simon Rennie. If it takes a village to solve a crime, Rennie is the village idiot. As usual with the high-profile cases Logan finds himself ensnared in,  there is someone from a rival police force who is brought in to assist Aberdeen's Finest; the professional jousting and office intrigue are a wonder to behold. Overall, the Logan McRae mysteries are some of the most enjoyable British police procedurals in the mystery crime-thriller genre: amusing, action-packed and always very clever. Title: Shatter The Bones. Author: Stuart MacBride. Paperback: 438 pages. Publisher: HarperCollins. Date Published: January 6, 2011. Date Read: October 22, 2017. GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★★ (5.0/5.0). OVERALL GRADE: A (3.67/4.0). PLOT: A. IMAGERY: A-. IMPACT: A+. WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: Close to the Bone (DS Logan McRae, #8) by Stuart MacBride

Close to the Bone is one of the better entries in the DS Logan McRae series by Stuart MacBride, although one feature of this grisly, amusing detective thriller series set in Aberdeen is its consistently high quality.

MacBride seems to like taking on various aspects of society and in Close to the Bone he dissects both Hollywood star-crushes and the whole young adult magical fantasy craze. A series of truly horrifying murders are taking place while the movie adaptation of the popular WITCHFIRE book is being filmed around town. Plus there seems to be some kind of incipient gang war between rival marijuana suppliers. And a teenage girl who gets violent when she’s off her anti-psychotic meds and her villainous American-raised boyfriend have disappeared.

These are the mysteries that Logan has to deal with this time, except he’s also saddled with a (temporary) promotion to Detective Inspector while his torturous (and wildly inappropriate) boss Roberta Steel is now Detective Chief Inspector in charge of the entirety of Major Crimes and still determined to have Logan do most of her job while hectoring him to make sure he does his as well. But the most serious thing is that 2 years have passed since the events of the previous book, Shatter The Bones. Logan’s girlfriend Samantha is still in the hospital and he’s living in her old caravan, despite the fact that there’s been more than enough time to repair the apartment that was firebombed (which was the incident that led to both their injuries in the first place). He visits her every night but something seems off....

MacBride is a master at combining multiple seemingly unrelated plot threads into a compelling and thrilling police procedural which is both funny and intriguing and he does some of his best work in Close to the Bone.

I’ve already started pacing myself in reading the books because there’s only 2 more left in the Logan McRae series to date and  I enjoy each book so much.

Title: Close to the Bone.
Author: Stuart MacBride.
Paperback: 511 pages.
Publisher: HarperCollins.
Date Published: January 17, 2013.
Date Read: February 2, 2018.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★★  (5.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A/A- (3.91/4.0).

PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: The Missing and the Dead (DS Logan McRae, #9) by Stuart MacBride

The Missing and the Dead is the ninth book in the Detective Sergeant Logan McRae series, a collection of murder-mystery, police-procedural, best-selling books set in Aberdeen , Scotland written by Stuart MacBride. In this book, however, Logan has been transferred to the rural suburbs of the city called Aberdeenshire as a professional development opportunity which could strengthen his case for his long-delayed promotion to Detective Inspector.

The first body that is discovered is that of a very little girl, roughly the same age as Logan’s own biological child (he is presumptively the spad, i.e. sperm dad, of the daughter his lesbian boss’s wife had 5-6 years ago). That boss is the singular Detective Chief Inspector Roberta Steel, who abuses Logan constantly and has an expansive (some would say "situational") view of police regulations. Steel was the subject of her own recently published spin-off, Now We Are Dead, in 2017 which in my opinion was not a very successful outing. 

One of the main features of The Missing and the Dead that is very different from previous entries in the series is the focus on local policing. Logan is the deputy head of a rural police station with some unusual characters. The Logan McRae series are generally police procedurals but this entry takes the details  (and monotony) of actual policing to the extreme. The typical crimes Logan and his fellow officers have to deal with are shoplifting, domestic violence and illegal drug use (as well as teenage vandals who delete in spray-painting large images of "willies" on public billboards) . More seriously, there’s also an ongoing crime wave of ATM machine thefts (smash and grab) as well as a known ring of pedophiles who appear to be disappearing and turning up dead.

Happily the distinguishing element of Logan McRae books from most other works in the genre of British police procedurals is very present here and that is the amount of humor (and nearly incomprehensible Scottish slang) that are always included.

Overall, I don’t think this entry is as effective as the earlier books in the series were, primarily because it is too long (there are multiple overlapping and intersecting criminal threads and an entire romantic arc that simply complicate the plot without improving the story). The series is highly sequential and so now that we are in Book 9 things that happen to Logan and other However, The Missing and the Dead  is rescued by a Cracker Jack thriller of an ending that positively affected my overall impression of the book.

Title: The Missing and the Dead.
Author: Stuart MacBride.
Paperback: 592 pages.
Publisher: HarperCollins.
Date Published: January 15, 2015.
Date Read: April 12, 2019.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★☆  (4.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

PLOT: B+.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: In A House of Lies (Inspector Rebus, #22) by Ian Rankin

The DI John Rebus series is quite mature and familiar now that it is well over 20 entries long. Author Ian Rankin has done an excellent job of revitalizing the series recently by raising the profile of DI Siobhan Clarke (whom we have seen grown and develop from a uniformed officer to a seasoned criminal investigator under Rebus’ tutelage). Rankin had initially introduced Malcolm Fox as an “Internal Affairs” Officer who initially tried to investigate and prosecute Rebus for his past misdeeds in a few "spinoff" novels like The Impossible Dead and The Complaints but in the last few Rebus books the two have worked together to solve crimes (often cold cases).

In a House of Lies is the latest Rankin mystery and features Rebus, Clarke and Fox. Rebus has been retired for several years now so DI Clarke is the primary investigator of a case which revolves around the discovery of a car with a desiccated body with handcuffed ankles in the boot (trunk). The case involves Sir Adrian Brand, a prominent real estate developer, and Jackie Ness, a producer of low-quality, cheap movies who have feuded for years. When the body turns out to be identified as an openly gay private investigator who had disappeared over a decade ago after meeting with Ness and had been dating the son of an Edinburgh cop, the corrupt mistakes of the missing person investigation (mis)conducted by Rebus and his contemporaries are brought to the fore. This attracts Fox’s boss, who sends him back to Edinburgh to review the old files.

However, this being Rankin of course there’s more plot threads in addition to the central "misper/murder" (missing person murder) case. This time that involves an open and shut case of a teenage high school dropout who was convicted last year of murdering his Queen Bee girlfriend but Clarke is convinced by the boy’s uncle to take another look in hopes of getting the uncle to help her take down some corrupt Internal Affairs cops who had targeted her before for potential leaks of sensitive murder inquiry information to the media. She passes the case on to Rebus (something to keep him occupied instead of interfering with her investigation of his old missing person case which turned into her dead body in the trunk case) and the reader gets to enjoy Rebus’s unique methods of unraveling the motives and secrets of a murderer. The truth about what happened is both surprising and heart-breaking, raising the question of whether it is always better for the truth to come out. 

In a House of Lies is another excellent John Rebus mystery, even though it also stars DI Clarke and Malcolm Fox. The British police procedural aspects are very familiar but the mysteries (both of which get resolved in the end) and the complications of Rebus’ problematic past make this book an enjoyable and compelling read. My only caveat would be that the depiction of Rebus as indispensable to the resolution of both crimes seems a bit far-fetched and appears to indicate that Rankin is still quite attached to his most well-known character, despite including some characteristics that indicate Rebus is human. He's suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD), so the reader is on notice that the detective won't live forever, in fact its likely he won't live very much longer.

OVERALL RATING: 4.5 STARS.

Title: In a House of Lies.
Author: Ian Rankin.
Paperback: 416 pages.
Publisher: Orbit.
Date Published: November 27, 2018.
Date Read: March 16, 2019.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★½☆  (4.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A/A- (3.83/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A.
WRITING: A.

2016 WIMBLEDON: Murray Wins 3rd Major (2nd Wimbledon)

As expected, Andy Murray defeated Milos Raonic to win his 3rd major title. The score was 6-4 7-6(3) 7-6(2).

CELEBRITY FRIDAY: Andy Murray's Wife Kim Had A Baby Girl This Week

Andy Murray, just over a week after losing in the finals of the Australian Open for the fifth time, got a consolation award of a sort when his wife Kim had their first child, a baby girl weighing 8 pounds and 10 pounces, in the middle of the night on February 9. Judy Murray, who is now a grandma, tweeted out the picture above of Andy's famous post box (which was painted gold after he won the Gold Medal at the 2012 London Olympics) with pink ribbons.

Congratulations, Andy!

Curiously, now all of the four highest ranked players at the top of men's tennis are fathers. Novak Djokovic is expecting his second child, Murray just had his first. Roger Federer has two sets of twins (ages 2 and 6) while Stan Wawrinka has one child with his ex-wife.

Marriage Equality Goes Into Effect In Scotland!

Marriage equality has officially come to Scotland, as today is the first date that people who were previously in registered partnerships can have them converted into legal marriages, the BBC reports.

The law on same-sex marriages has already changed in England and Wales.
The change in Scotland comes as a survey revealed a huge rise in support for same-sex marriage over the past 12 years.
More than two-thirds of people (68%) agreed that gay couples should have the right to marry, according to the figures from the Social Attitudes Survey, which tracks public opinions on a range of subjects.
The figure compares with just two-fifths of the public (41%) in 2002.
The 2014 survey suggested fewer than a fifth (17%) of Scots were against same-sex marriage, compared to 29% in 2002.
Younger people were more likely to believe gay couples should be allowed to wed than older Scots, with 83% of 18 to 24-year-olds in favour compared to 44% of those aged 65 and above.

Hat/tip to Joe Jervis

Marriage Equality In England and Wales Goes In Effect Today

Good news from "across the pond"! Marriage equality in England and Wales has now gone into effect. And the Queen just gave her royal assent for Scotland's marriage equality law.

Pink News reports:

The bulk of same-sex marriage legislation came into effect at midnight, meaning couples who have entered into same-sex marriages overseas are now recognised as married. 

Before today, same-sex couples who got married overseas had their marriages treated as a civil partnership in England and Wales, but the Equalities office says from today “they will instead be recognised as being married”. 

Unwed couples still have to wait until March 29 before getting married, as new marriages require a 16 day notice period, but they can now declare their intent to marry. 

However, couples who have already entered into civil partnerships in the UK have to wait until later this year before they can convert them to marriages.

Jolly good show, what what!

GRAPHIC: Marriage Equality Throughout Europe

With England's completion of the enactment of same-sex marriage earlier this month, it's instructive to review the geographic distribution of marriage equality throughout the European continent. The above map indicates that Spain, Portugal, France, England, Scotland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Iceland, Denmark and Norway are all dark-blue marriage equality states. Additionally, there are many other states in Europe which have other forms of legal recognition for same-sex couples. Of the dark-blue marriage equality states only Iceland and Norway are NOT members of the European Union.

There are ten European countries (in red) which have constitutional bans prohibiting recognition or legalization of same-sex marriage: Belarus, Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Serbia and Ukraine. Half of these countries (Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland) ARE members of the European Union.

It will be interesting to see how the European Union will resolve the question of marriage equality. I would guess that the EU will have uniform laws recognizing same-sex couples well before the United States does.

Hat/tip to Joe.My.God

2013 WIMBLEDON: Andy Murray Wins!!

As I predicted, Andy Murray of Scotland won his 2nd major title at the 2013 Wimbledon Championships by defeating World #1 Novak Djokovic of Serbia 6-4 7-5 6-4 in 3 hours and 9 minutes, becoming the first British man in 77 years to win his country's major tennis championship.

More later...

CELEBRITY FRIDAY: Iain [M.] Banks, Sci-Fi Author (1954-2013)

I finally decided to blog about some sad news, the death of best-selling Scottish author Iain M. Banks. Banks was unusual in that he was well-known both for his genre works in science fiction (published using the name Iain M. Banks) as well "regular" non-genre works of fiction published under the name Iain Banks. The only books of Banks that I read were his science fiction ones, namely the ones set in his famous "Culture" series.

I read the most recently published Culture novels The Hydrogen Sonata (2012), Surface Detail (2010) and Matter (2009) as well as a few of the earlier ones like Use of Weapons and Excession. The only one that I thought was truly outstanding was Matter. They tend to be quite long books, with intricate plots the author uses to comment wittily on different aspects of our own (western) culture using (very dark) humor. I also read one of his earlier books, The Algebraist (mainly because the title seemed mathematical).

Banks had apparently announced earlier this year that he had terminal gall bladder cancer but his death a mere two months on June 9 later came as a shock. His final book, The Quarry was published just days later in Europe. It's not another Culture novel, but a semi-biographical book about the final weeks of middle-aged guy dying of cancer. Write what you know, I guess!

Banks passing was noted by several famous British authors like Neil Gaiman, Ian Rankin and fellow scot Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting).

Queer Quote: Scottish Cardinal Confesses Sexual Sins

Cardinal Keith O'Brien, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, and one of the most prominent homophobes in Great Britain, suddenly resigned his post recently, leaving the country without a cardinal to represent them in the next conclave to select the next Pope. O'Brien's resignation came after the circulation of multiple anonymous accusations of improper sexual conduct between the cardinal (who was also an archbishop) and at least three priests. O'Brien denied the charges at the time but recently released this statement:

"In recent days certain allegations which have been made against me havebecome public. Initially, their anonymous and non-specific nature led meto contest them.
However, I wish to take this opportunity to admit that there have beentimes that my sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected of meas a priest, archbishop and cardinal.
To those I have offended, I apologise and ask forgiveness.
To the Catholic Church and people of Scotland, I also apologise.
I will now spend the rest of my life in retirement. I will play no furtherpart in the public life of the Catholic Church in Scotland."

I think we'll take that as today's Queer Quote, shall we? O'Brien's case is stunning for its sheer hypocrisy, because he was proud to be the face and voice of the primary opposition to the marriage equality bill currently working its way through the British Parliament, calling marriage equality “grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right” while all the time he was a gay man who had sex with men himself, men who were presumably under his authority, since they were Catholic priests and he was the top prelate in all of Great Britain.

That a virulent homophobe turns out to homosexual is no longer a surprise, it is almost a cliche. After all, for most people homosexuality is not a top issue of concern. So when someone is so vocally homophobic it is often motivated by a burning desire to eliminate some part of their own identity, or to try to be so anti-gay that no one would ever dare to think that such a person could be gay themselves. But a long history in gay activism has shown me that obsession with homosexuality is typically limited to homosexual, either openly so or not.

MOVIE REVIEW: Skyfall

The James Bond films starring Daniel Craig have instilled that 50-year-old movie franchise (the longest in movie-making history) with a new frisson of sexual energy and creative juices that have been surprising to many. The latest entry, Skyfall, is no exception. This is primarily due to the quality of the creative team brought to bear in its production. The director is Sam Mendes (Oscar winner for American Beauty) and Skyfall has the high-powered talents of Oscar winner Dame Judi Dench (Shakespeare in Love), Oscar winner Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men) and Ralph Fiennes (Harry Potter films, The English Patient). Upcoming British actors like Naomie Harris (28 Days Later) and Ben Whishaw (Cloud Atlas) also have pivotal appearances. Even Sir Albert Finney (he’s not dead yet!) makes a significant contribution to the 3^rd act.

The measure of the success of a Bond film is often about the quality of the villain, the beauty of the Bond girl(s) and the exoticism of the locales visited. Sometimes the Bond theme song can be the most memorable thing about the film (I defy you to tell me what Live and Let Die is about).

Skyfall has an excellent villain (played with just the right amount of quasi-homophobic creepiness to not go over the line by Bardem), an excellent theme song (by Adele of course) and some of the various locales visited by Bond are Istanbul, Shanghai, Macau and London.

One interesting aspect of the latest Bond films has been their willingness to explore the vulnerability and fallibility of James Bond himself. For example, in both Skyfall and Casino Royale Bond’s body undergoes substantial abuse (naked torture in the latter and a gun shot to the chest in the former) but Daniel Craig’s body is in clear and constant focus of the camera. Both clothed and unclothed, the camera’s eyes, and thus the audience is drawn to the sculpted nature of his frame. Even in a suit, the tight-fitting contours of Bond’s finely tailored suits leaves enough to the imagination to enthrall and excite. I’m not sure how much Bond’s straight male viewers react to another make being the subject of the camera’s gaze, but as a gay man this is something of a treat, especially in a mainstream, big budget Hollywood action movie ostensibly aimed at (and marketed to) pubescent boys. The general belief has always been that “women want to be with him and men want to be him” but does this still apply when James Bond’s antics can get you declared dead by your own government and your digging bullet fragments out of your own tautly muscled chest in front of a mirror? There is some clearly some subversion of the typical hero fantasy going on here.

One of Daniel Craig's best assets that he brings to the role of Bond are his eyes. Craig’s eyes are an almost unnatural cerulean blue, and the director uses all sorts of cinematographic tricks to get us to see them in various lights, exhibiting various emotions. Bond has the kind of eyes which can instantly suss out whether you are a threat to him or his mission and can also communicate to you that you better get out of his way because he has a license to kill. It almost is irrelevant to what Bond is doing, because just watching him doing it is so entertaining (and requires little or no cogitation by the audience).

That being said this time the story revolves around computer hacking of MI6 (the British equivalent of the Central Intelligence Agency) to obtain a list of secret NATO agents embedded in terrorist cells around the world, who will obviously be executed if they are exposed. The real attack is on whoever is at the head of an agency who has suffered such an egregious security failure, which in the case of MI6 is “M” (short for Minister, of course), played by Dench in every Bond film since Goldeneye in 1995 (the last 6 films). 

It becomes clear that the cyberterrorist is a former 00 agent named Silva, played by Bardem, who in a confrontation reveals his hatred for M because she traded his life away for 6 hostaged agents and when Silva tried to kill himself in captivity by activating a tooth with cynanide gas, the method did not kill him, but only grossly disfigured him. 

After another attack at the Houses of Parliament where M is testifying, Bond and M go off together to Scotland, to a safe house which turns out to be Bond's ancestral home, cleverly named "Skyfall."

I don't want to give a spoiler in this review so I will conclude the plot summary here. However, Skyfall is a well-directed, well-acted film with a very attractive lead who appears in almost every scene. The action is fast-paced and almost non-stop. The plot is irrelevant but relatively easy to follow if you decide to, and there is a somewhat surprising ending. You will leave the theater realizing that despite the fact the Bond franchise is 50 years old, it is still as fresh as ever and that they will be making these movies for a long, long time.

Title: Skyfall.
Director: Sam Mendes.
Running Time: 2 hours, 25 minutes.
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for intense violent sequences throughout, some sexuality, language  and smoking.
Release Date: November 9, 2012.
Viewing Date: November 21, 2012.

Writing: B+.
Acting: A.
Visuals: A.
Impact: B+.

Overall Grade: A- (3.67/4.0).

Olympiad XXX Tennis: Murray Routs Federer For Gold

Somewhat surprisingly, Andy Murray beat Roger Federer 6-2 6-1 6-4 to win the biggest match of his life in just under two hours and secure the Men's Singles Gold Medal at the London Olympics. Murray won his first 5-set match against Federer in great style, breaking the 17-time major champion five times and gliding across the grass like a cat, displaying his improved confidence with newly found aggressive hitting.

Federer had two breakpoints in the very first game of the match and had a look at an easy backhand passing shot after getting a lucky loose let cord, but he hit the tape. Federer would end the match with 9 break points (one less than Murray) but was unable to break the Scot's serve.
Federer did not play badly but Murray was sharper throughout, hitting 27 winners to 17 unforced errors, while his opponent made 31 unforced errors and only 24 winners.

Although this was not technically a major final, 7 games is the lowest total Federer has ever won in a 5-set final.

It will be interesting to see if this newly improved Murray can translate to improved results at future Grand Slam tournaments; The 2012 US Open starts in almost exactly 3 weeks.

The Canada Masters Series tournament, the Rogers Cup, starts tomorrow. MadProfessah will be attending the semifinals and finals in Toronto next weekend.

Juan Martin de Potro won the Bronze Medal by defeating defending Bronze medalist Novak Djokovic 7-5 6-4.

The Bryan Twins won the Men's Doubles Gold Medal 6-4 7-6(2) over the French team of Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Michael Llodra. The other French team of Julian Benneteau and Richard Gasquet won the Bronze.

Scotland Plans To Enact Marriage Equality By 2015

The Government of Scotland has announced that it intends to enact marriage equality legislation in the near future. After a careful analysis of the issues, the government concluded that the public policy change was the correct course of action.

The Scottish government conducted a "consultation" whereby they ask the public to provide them feedback and input on the proposed policy.

The BBC summarizes the consultation results:

• The Scottish government held a public consultation into the issue of same-sex marriage.
• It had the biggest response of any Scottish government consultation.
• There were 77,508 responses in total, with 14,779 from outside Scotland.
• Some 64% of those who responded [including postcard and petition responses] said they were against same-sex marriage.
• Excluding postcard and petition responses to the consultation from within Scotland the outcome shows 65% were in favour and 35% against.

The reason for the extended timeline that would result in a law going into effect on January 1, 2015 is that is roughly the time which similar legislation in England and Wales would go into effect, according to the United Kingdom government headed by Prime Minister David Cameron.

In Scotland (and  the rest of the UK, i.e. England, Wales and Northern Ireland) same-sex couples currently have the option to enter in civil registered partnerships, which are what we would call civil unions (or comprehensive domestic partnerships) which provide "all the legal rights and responsibilities" of marriage except for the word. Civil partnerships do not generally have a religious component like marriages do and this has been a key sticking point.

The Scottish government is resolving this last question in favor of allowing same-sex marriages to be performed in churches, but the religious organization can opt out, and can not be forced to conduct a marriage ceremony against its will.

The Scottish government said;

• it would work with UK ministers to amend equality laws to protect celebrants from legal or disciplinary action if they refuse to take part or speak out against same-sex ceremonies.

• a bill would be brought forward to the Scottish Parliament later this year to bring in the change.

Scotland's deputy first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said: "We are committed to a Scotland that is fair and equal and that is why we intend to proceed with plans to allow same-sex marriage and religious ceremonies for civil partnerships - we believe that this is the right thing to do. 

She went on: "The Scottish government has already made clear that no religious body will be compelled to conduct same-sex marriages and we reiterate that today. Such protection is provided for under existing equality laws. 

"However, our view is that to give certainty on protection for individual celebrants taking a different view from a religious body that does agree to conduct same-sex marriages, an amendment will be required to the UK Equality Act."

The heterosexual supremacists know they have lost this battle, so now it is turning into a war of attrition of delay and dismay.

BOOK REVIEW: The Impossible Dead by Ian Rankin

The sequel to Ian Rankin's The Complaints is The Impossible Dead. These two books are the first in a new series written by the best-selling Scottish author which features a police detective named Malcolm Fox.
I previously reviewed The Complaints and enjoyed it enough that I put the next book, The Impossible Dead, on my Amazon wish list for Chrismuhkwanzakkuh.

Fox is in The Complaints division of the Edinburgh Police Department, which is basically the equivalent of what we would call the Internal Affairs division in the United States. In The Impossible Dead Fox has been assigned to the far-away backwater town of Fife to investigate whether a potentially crooked cop was able to convince his colleagues to lie for him in court by declaring him innocent. However, this being a Rankin story, the first mystery we encounter is only the beginning of the tale, and not necessarily the primary focus. In The Impossible Dead the story leads us to 1970s Scottish Nationalist bombings and tracking down the people that were involved then who are now at the upper echelons of Scottish society and politics.

In the end I did not find the second book as engaging as the first, though I'm not exactly sure why. I think its because Fox's colleagues (or sidekicks) have a more prominent role, but we really are not given sufficient background on these characters to treat them as people that we should invest emotional energy caring about. That's not true about Fox, by the way. Rankin does his usual excellent job of making his central character a nuanced, fascinating person who seems real. It's not clear yet if Fox will have the longevity and dedicated fan base of Rankin's previous creation of Inspector John Rebus who inhabited 19 books, but it does seem like Detective Inspector Malcolm Fox will be around and investigating malfeasance by cops (and criminals) in Scotland for quite a few books to come.

Title: The Impossible Dead.

Author: Ian Rankin

Length: 400 pages.

Publisher: Reagan Arthur Books.

Published: November 21, 2011.

OVERALL GRADE: A/A- (3.75/4.0).

PLOT: A.

IMAGERY: A-.

IMPACT: A-. 

WRITING: A-.