HORROR SHOW: Crucified - Michael Slade

Let’s start with the only reason I kept reading this book -- a kind of "wink-wink, nudge-nudge" reference to one of the great mystery writers of the Golden Age:

"How was Ack-Ack stabbed three times in the back when he was the only airman in the rear turret?" [asked] Liz.
"What we have here," Wyatt declared, "is a locked room puzzle. If we solve the howdunit, we'll solve the whodunit."
"But how do we solve it?"
"We seek help."
"Help from whom?"
"From John Dickson Carr."

An invocation to the god! Crucified (2008) is part thriller, part challenging puzzle mystery, part collection of arcane lore and history, and (unfortunately) part splatterpunk horror. The promise of not one, but two, impossible crimes was good enough for me to stick with this hodgepodge of retro pulp fiction and tangential history lessons...and over-the-top gruesome deaths described in surgical detail. It turned out to be yet another example of a subgenre of crime fiction I try to avoid -- extreme sadism as entertainment. Sure there’s an audience for it, but I don’t want to know who they are. And I don’t want to hear them laugh uproariously and high five each other when the characters “get it but good.” All reasons that I also never watch horror movies in a theater anymore.

I did read the first two sadistic torture killing sequences. That was more than enough for me. Anytime some poor character was about to be dispatched with yet another ancient torture implement I skipped all paragraphs with killing descriptions. In some cases they went on for pages. The book is actually easily and more quickly read if you skip every single chapter told from the killer’s point of view. After the first killing the drawn out sequences are pointless. Because they say exactly the same thing every single time he kills someone.

You learn what weapon he uses – one of several torture devices stolen from a museum that houses artifacts from the Inquisition.  (BTW, we are never shown this scene. But we are expected to believe that the killer/thief made away, single-handedly, with seven different and very cumbersome torture weapons, one of which is a chair with a spike embedded on top. So easy to stuff into a bag and stroll out to an awaiting escape vehicle, right?) You learn that he thinks he is possessed by the Devil. You learn that he is driven to protect the Church from non-believers and all those who impede his path. All reiterated seven different times with seven stomach churning methods of murder. And if that isn’t enough for the gorehounds there are three near murders in the finale all performed simultaneously in the same setting.

To spare my sanity I chose to read only the contemporary chapters dealing with lead character Wyatt Rook and the other protagonists and the historical chapters that take place in World War Two era Germany which detail the missions of a British anti-aircraft fighter squad and the crew of a submarine, both of which feature impossible crimes. In the remains of the airplane which crashed in Germany back in 1944 and is unearthed by a modern day German highway construction company a skeleton is found still in the rear gunner’s seat. The gunner’s chair shows stabs marks and a blade embedded in the bones indicating that the gunner was murdered in his seat before the plane crashed and the knife broken off at the handle. But one witness said all men had bailed out using their parachutes. It was believed that the gunner was killed when the tail section where he was situated was strafed by a German fighter plane. So who could possibly have stabbed the gunner and still escaped?

The entire plot hinges on the search for artifacts and documents related to Jesus’ crucifixion. Those damning artifacts which if they were to be examined for DNA would prove or disprove the entire basis of Christianity. An entire religion could be eradicated with a single scientific test. Shades of The Da Vinci Code? Definitely, but Slade's novel is smarter, more suspenseful and more exciting.

Which brings us to the puzzle of the submarine. The artifacts are wrapped in a scroll and taken on board the submarine. The mission was to be sabotaged in such a way that the person with the artifacts could get them off the sub. But the plan backfires, the sub is wrecked. When the wreck is finally located the sub was still completely sealed and the entire crew had perished with the artifacts nowhere in sight. Amazingly, they had been removed from a sealed and completely submerged submarine. How was that accomplished?

I managed to figure out the solution to the submarine puzzle based on one single clue. The gunner murder solution is a bit more complicated and involves the design of the plane’s interior and who could see what depending on where they were situated during the final moments prior to evacuation via parachute. Both are rather clever puzzles even if the airplane puzzle seems a bit disappointing in its solution.

Rommel, "The Desert Fox"
plays a significant part in
the historical sections

As for the historical and cultural lore lessons you get more than you ever bargained for. This is apparently a staple of Slade's thrillers. Similar to TV shows like The X Files and Christopher Fowler's Peculiar Crimes Unit mystery novels laden with London lore Michael Slade finds neat ways to insert into his books all sorts of arcana and historical tidbits. In Crucified you learn of the horrifying self-flagellation ritual that Catholic zealots in the Philippines subject themselves during Holy Week as well as the reenactments of very realistic crucifixions there; the existence of a secret police in the Vatican; the nightmarishly cruel methods of the Inquisition and the diabolical machines and devices they used to extricate confessions; the operation of an RAF Bomber Command and the intricacies of fighter plane attacks in their airborne battlefields; the highly unglamorous and unsanitary living conditions on board a WW2 era submarine; Rommel's role in flaunting Hitler's direct orders and his possible part in the failed attempt to assassinate the Führer; and loads more.

Then there is, of course, all the gruesome violence. The body count is excessive and the descriptions are over-the-top. The puzzle aspects of this thriller hold attention, but for me, the murders and torture come as gross out interruptions to all the interesting character work and the inventive manner in which Slade ties together all his disparate plot machinations. Despite a finale in which our hero and heroine are saved by a deus ex machina, delivered so nonchalantly and indifferently in a single sentence as to be utterly laughable, the book provides no catharsis for all the violence and blood-soaked action.

Not knowing that Slade was a torture porn maven I bought three of these books. But I’m afraid I'm not eager to read the others, not even for the other homages to the work of John Dickson Carr and Agatha Christie, both of whom Slade apparently holds in high esteem based on things he has written about each in this book and on his website. A pity because I did enjoy all the history lessons, the impossible crime detection which applies Carr's rules from the famed "Locked Room Lecture", and the several X Files–like pontifications from Wyatt Rook throughout the story. Slade does have storytelling skill, of that there is no doubt. I wish he could do it without the torrent of guts, gore, and body fluids.

For a review of Ripper by Michael Slade (one of the books I purchased) see TomCat's blog post.  He somehow managed to endure the "slaughter" that occurs in a house bobby-trapped with a variety of hidden murder means.

FFB: The Weird World of Wes Beattie - John Norman Harris

THE STORY: Wes Beattie, chronic liar and hapless young banker, is on trial in Toronto for a capital crime. No one seems to believe his fervent and outrageous tale of a conspiracy to frame him. He claims total innocence and is doing his best to tell the truth about a man and woman who have not only framed him for the theft of a handbag but the murder of his uncle. So bizarre is his story that a psychiatrist has turned him into a unique case history and hits the lecture circuit presenting Wes and his grandiose delusions and pathological lying as a treasure trove of psychosis. However, Sidney Grant a lawyer who attends one of those lectures hears something in Dr. Heber's talk that bothers him. Intrigued and fascinated by a kernel of truth in what appears to be nothing but fanciful possible paranoid ramblings, Sidney starts to look into The Weird World of Wes Beattie (1963) intent on proving Wes' story of conspiracy to be truth and to uncover the motive for the frame-up. What he finds is a preposterous labyrinth of interconnected coincidences and random bizarreness that proves more and more that Wes is indeed telling the truth. And when the full story is revealed hardly anyone can believe it including Sidney.

THE CHARACTERS: Though the title seems to indicate that this is Wes' story, the real protagonist is our hero lawyer/sleuth Sidney Grant and his small band of cohorts in truth-seeking. Sidney is dubbed "the Gargoyle" for his menacing and imposing attitude described by his colleagues "like some evil figure leering down from a Gothic cathedral" and "frowning down on his guests like some Mephistophelian judge. Really though Sidney is an attractive and likable young man "called to the bar only a few months before" who respects the law and abhors the abuse and incompetence of his lessers, sometimes even his betters. Sharp as a tack and more than clever Sidney manages to coax his friends and colleagues, along with the daffy June, Wes' sister, as a junior league of con artists and co-detectives as he manages to trick a motel voyeur into revealing the truth about what happened when Wes supposedly stole the woman's handbag from her parked car in the motel lot. This scene is a highlight in a comic novel that satirizes everything from Canadian law to Canadian banks, from the 60s phenomenon of wife swapping and drunken swinger parties to hockey and ice fishing.

June Beattie is one of the best characters of the books. She's the antithesis of her uptight and haughty wealthy family members, entirely devoted to her brother for whom she feels ample amount of sisterly love. Moreso than anyone she understands why Wes has retreated into his fanciful world and why he cannot help but embellish the truth with his overly active imagination. In some respects this satirical mystery novel is a retelling of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" taken to utterly absurd extremes. You can't help but join in June's caring for her brother when she relates in her amusing narrative voice just why Wes is the way he is.

There are also some fantastically rendered minor characters who come into the story for such brief moments but leave long lasting impressions. Sidney recruits a "second story" man who he had previously helped acquit of burglary charge due to lack of physical evidence. This thief along with the reliable June travels with Sidney to the Ontario backwoods where he assists Sidney in breaking into a cabin in a remote forest to find incriminating evidence that will help prove the guilt of one of the conspirators. What they find in the cabin only further complicates the already mind-boggling plot.

INNOVATIONS: The modern reprint of The Weird World of Wes Beattie touts the novel as "the first truly Canadian mystery". This is a gross exaggeration that publishers like to plaster on their books to help sales, but after completing the novel I can see why the original writer of that phrase felt it necessary to label the book as such. It certainly is filled with every Canadian cultural tidbit that you can think of -- hockey, ice fishing, officious banking to name only a few. Harris works very hard to tie the book to his native Toronto and its environs and the book really feels like it could not have taken place anywhere other than Canada. But as far as the first Canadian mystery that is far from the truth. The prolific writers Grant Allen and Frank Packard were publishing well before Harris was born and Douglas Sanderson (aka "Martin Brett") was writing thoroughly Canadian private eye novels set in Montreal a full decade before Harris' novel was published.

Notably the entire structure of the book recalls the intricately plotted and coincidence-laden novels of Harry Stephen Keeler who practically invented the "webwork" crime novel. The Weird World of Wes Beattie is one of the finest examples of this kind of maze-like storytelling where everyone and everything is tied to a seemingly simple crime like the theft of a handbag. The conspiracy to frame poor Wes Beattie is an ingenious and awe-inspiring work of finely tuned plotting and a brilliant use of apparently innocuous events -- the way an old school chum is snubbed in a mechanic's garage, for example -- that all fall into place like a skilled magician shuffling a pack of cards. As in real life it's the oddities the characters tend to remember and these odd incidents, no matter how trifling or insignificant, have great importance and are compounded tenfold within Harris' truly awesome plot.

The climax takes place in a Canadian courtroom and Sidney's expert cross examination of one of the key witnesses is on par with -- perhaps even surpasses -- the legal fireworks and melodramatic courtroom pronouncements of Perry Mason at his ruthless best. So astounding is the preponderance of incredible evidence that Sidney in essence gets a confession from the witness stand without the testifier actually verbally admitting his guilt. A real coup in crime writing, I'd say.

John Norman Harris (age 23)
in his RAF uniform, 1938

THE AUTHOR: John Norman Harris (1915-1964) was a former RAF pilot with an astonishing wartime life that included being shot down in Germany, taken as prisoner of war, and planning "one of the greatest prison breaks of all time" which he used to form his award-winning short story "Mail" (Maclean's, 1950). He worked in public relations for Bell Canada as well as advertising for Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, two careers which obviously provided him with ample fodder to lampoon in his first novel. In addition to the two comic crime novels featuring lawyer Sidney Grant, Harris wrote about military life and the Canadian air force in Knights of the Air: Canadian Aces of World War I (Macmillan, 1958).

EASY TO FIND? Those interested in a first edition may not be too lucky. I found my US edition with the rare DJ a few months ago on eBay for a pittance and it was in very good condition. But a search of used book markets show very few US or UK hardcover editions from the 1960s when it was originally published. There are numerous paperback reprints (Corgi in the UK, Popular Library in the US) offered at very affordable prices. But the best news is saved for last. Happily, ...Wes Beattie was reprinted by Felony & Mayhem several years ago. (Such good news for a change, eh?) Harris' last novel published after his death -- Hair of the Dog (1989), a sequel of sorts featuring Sidney and his new bride June -- was also reprinted by Felony & Mayhem this year and with it came a new edition of The Weird World of Wes Beattie. Both books are available in either paperback or digital format. If you prefer eBooks you need to buy it directly from Felony & Mayhem. Click here and you'll be taken to the page for the book with Kindle already selected for you. They also sell the book in EPub format. Use the pull down menu to find the other digital version.

FFB: Requiem at Rogano - Stephen Knight

THE STORY: Having just retired from the police force Inspector Reginald Brough is not finding a life of leisure to his liking. Fortuitously, he receives a letter from his nephew Nicholas who invites him to collaborate on a book called The History of Murder. Their research leads them to the discovery that a series of murders in London attributed to a killer dubbed "the Deptford Strangler" by the tabloid press are actually replications of murders that were committed in an Italian village called Rogano in the 15th century. Further research links the prophecies of Nostradamus to both sets of murders, and some startling revelations that lead them to believe that the present day victims as well as the Deptford Strangler are reincarnations of the Italian victims and killer.

CHARACTERS: In Requiem at Rogano (1979) Inspector Brough and Nicholas Calvin meet a variety of eccentrics all of whom uncannily have information related to the murders in Rogano. From Dr. Orchard who telephones Brough with an urgent message and arranges to meet with him privately to the strange old man who gives Nicholas his personal translation of some obscure passages in Nostradamus' book of eerie prophecies everyone seems to be privy to the disturbing parallels between the Deptford Strangler and the murders in Rogano. Nicholas has been having blackouts and weird dreams which he vaguely recalls. He says he was putting his hands on the necks of people he has never seen. Then Nicholas is told that he is the reincarnation of Antonio Aquilina, one of two brothers executed for the Rogano murders centuries ago. Adding to overall paranoia of the novel Nicholas keeps encountering a mysterious figure he calls "The Man with Odd Eyes" who seems to be following him everywhere. Eventually the mystery man steps out of the shadows to introduce himself as Rudolf van Galen. Galen joins forces with the two researchers when he reveals that he is the reincarnation of Giuseppe Aquilina, brother of Antonio.

All three of our main characters find it necessary to travel to Rogano to complete their research. The novel comes alive in this section. The lecturing and info dropping gives way to thrilling incidents of adventure hearkening back to cliffhanger thrillers of silent cinema and Victorian sensation novel plotting. The story increasingly becomes more and more paranoid, imbued with sinister occult influences. All the time Knight has been concocting a clever murder mystery. The final three chapters deliver several unexpected turns of events that make the book something of a tour de force in supernatural and mystery fiction.

INNOVATIONS: For the first half of the book I could not stop thinking that this fell into a subgenre of reincarnation thrillers that were so popular in the 1970s with The Reincarnation of Peter Proud and Audrey Rose probably the most well remembered thanks to their movie adaptations. Knight tries his best to put forth his understanding of reincarnation by drawing parallels from the German legend of the Doppelgänger to the Norwegian myth of the fylgja, "a soul or spirit as mortal and physical as the body itself" that emerges and forms alongside every human from the minute they are conceived. At first the notion that every character in the book is a reincarnated soul from 15th century beggars belief. And yet by the time the characters set foot in Rogano Knight manages to make sense of his idea because the novel really belongs to conspiracy theory fiction.

Knight's universe is one in which no human is controlled by free will, but rather at the mercy of a previous life. Behavior and personality are predetermined by an ominous force that allows for this transference of souls over the ages. Some specific examples: Nicholas finds himself repulsed by the sight and smell of meat. He learns he has visited a male brothel and apparently had sex with another man. Why? Because Antonio Aquilina, his former soul, was both a vegetarian and a gay man. Or so he learns from Rudolf van Galen. The truth behind Nicholas' strange behavior transformation is, in fact, much more bizarre.

If the reader fully embraces that Requiem at Rogano is actually a form of conspiracy theory fiction, then the book that readers may find it easier to draw comparisons to is The Da Vinci Code. It is not only Knight's obsession with Nostradamus's writings that made me think of Dan Brown. The climactic revelation about the motivation for the Rogano murders having to do with the viability of Christianity was his crowning touch. The solution and killer's motive are jaw dropping quite frankly. It made me reassess the entire structure of the novel. When Brough delivers the truly shocking conclusion the reader discovers that all along the novel was an ingeniously plotted detective novel with all the evidence and clues right there in front of him.

QUOTES: "The idea of the fetch, once prevalent in Great Britain, is revived every time we read newspaper reports of ghosts of the living appearing at the moment of death to relatives and or dear friends. In Ireland the fetch is often thought to haunt its own human double."

"I am inured against shock in such cases. [...] The great lesson I learned [in India] from first-hand experience was that almost anything is possible."

"Herr van Galen has only demonstrated what you say you have believed all your life, what Christians have been taught for nineteen hundred years. Man has a soul. What's so monstrous about that?"

"We speak of enormous issues, far beyond our comprehension, and yet we use words like certainty and truth with such confidence. Most of us don't even know for certain that our heart will make its next beat. Do we, in fact, really know anything at all?"

THINGS I LEARNED: As mentioned above Nostradamus and his oracular writing are featured prominently. I learned that there are numerous translations, some of which tinker with his original wording in order to make the prophecies more adaptable to modern events and historical figures. Knight draws on some of these translations but also treats us to literal translations and his own interpretation of those sentences. Much of it is laughable, but some of it is clever. Reading someone's interpretation of a prophecy applied to a man called Hitler who will rise to power in the year 1939 in a book set in 1902 and yet published in 1979 is hardly impressive or awe inspiring as was probably his intent. The characters are impressed, but I was not.

Learning about the fylgja was an eye-opener for me. Knight only briefly mentions it in the novel, but further online research was enlightening. The word means "follower" in Norwegian. The concept as I learned on a Norse mythology website is more akin to the idea of a witch's familiar and the fylgja is always in the form of an animal. In some variations of the myth the human can actually shapeshift into the fylgja.

Towards the end of the book there is a lot of talk about the Inquisition which I learned was not geographically confined to Spain. There were acolytes of the Inquisition carrying out punishments, torture and executions on heretics all over Europe including Italy, France and even England.

Stephen Knight in 1979 as seen on
the rear DJ of the US edition
(photo: Fay Godwin)

THE AUTHOR: Stephen Knight was a reporter for most of his life. Requiem at Rogano was his only novel. Prior to this book he was known for his non-fiction true crime book, Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution (1976), quite the bestseller during his lifetime. While working as a reporter he met a man who claimed to know the truth behind the murders and the identity of the infamous serial killer. Clearly that investigative work influenced the conspiracy theory aspect that permeates Requiem at Rogano. I think his 1976 book was the work that started the mad obsession with solving the Ripper case; it certainly was one of the earliest and best selling versions. It has had multiple printings since 1976 with the most recent being a reissue in 2000 from HarperCollins.

EASY TO FIND? The quick answer is the best answer for the majority of you out there. Valancourt Books has reprinted the book under its original British title Requiem at Rogano. Their reprint includes a brief foreword by Bernard Taylor, horror writer and one time collaborator with Knight on a true crime book. As with most small press distribution methods these days the book is available only through internet book sites. My experience says that they unfortunately do not distribute to brick and mortar stores. For those of you who like the smell and feel of an old book I found 55 copies of the 1979 edition for sale, a mix of US and UK editions, and nearly all of them offered at less than $5. Such a deal!