Written by Owen Mullen -- It’s brave of a resident of Scotland and the Greek Islands to write a police procedural set in one of America’s most iconic cities, one with a strong and unique culture, history, and personality. Still, author Owen Mullen took the challenge and chose New Orleans for the first in his series featuring protagonist Vincent Delaney – former NOPD detective, now a private investigator.
Well, we've gone and done it. After years of sitting beside each other on long car journeys bemoaning the lack of adventure in our lives, we have now embarked on something we hope will be big, fulfilling and fun.
And Charlie dog is coming too.
We are going to travel around Europe for about a year in a smallish motorhome.Planning began a while ago, before Rob took redundancy, Charlie got a pet passport or I resigned my teaching job.
While each of those was a step along the journey for us, what made it seem really real (yes, that was deliberate) was picking up the van from Banbury last Sunday.
The van handover took about two hours and we made copious notes, none of which made any sense 30 minutes later as we struggled to work out how to get the gas on for our first cup of tea. Then Rob managed to get the carpet muddy as he came in from stomping around in frustration by the gas locker. So, after one carefull owner, our spotless van has already been trashed by ourselves, and that's before Charlie has given it his own post-Pollock mud splash effects. I'm still banking on my theory of house security working for the van too. If it already looks like it's been done, who else will bother us?
I have to admit, the van looked massive parked outside our house, and Rob keeps sighing and muttering about how big it is, but I just can't see how we could possibly live in anything smaller for a year. After all, Charlie dog is coming along too, and even a medium sized border collie/springer spaniel cross takes up a bit of room.
And Charlie dog is coming too.
We are going to travel around Europe for about a year in a smallish motorhome.Planning began a while ago, before Rob took redundancy, Charlie got a pet passport or I resigned my teaching job.
While each of those was a step along the journey for us, what made it seem really real (yes, that was deliberate) was picking up the van from Banbury last Sunday.
The van handover took about two hours and we made copious notes, none of which made any sense 30 minutes later as we struggled to work out how to get the gas on for our first cup of tea. Then Rob managed to get the carpet muddy as he came in from stomping around in frustration by the gas locker. So, after one carefull owner, our spotless van has already been trashed by ourselves, and that's before Charlie has given it his own post-Pollock mud splash effects. I'm still banking on my theory of house security working for the van too. If it already looks like it's been done, who else will bother us?
I have to admit, the van looked massive parked outside our house, and Rob keeps sighing and muttering about how big it is, but I just can't see how we could possibly live in anything smaller for a year. After all, Charlie dog is coming along too, and even a medium sized border collie/springer spaniel cross takes up a bit of room.
We took my sister on a tour of the van via a Skype link by carrying the laptop outside and sat in it for a while, ruminating on the amount of space and where all the blasted cushions, that make up the bed, could live.
Rob put the van to bed the next day in a nearby lock up storage facility until we have time to use it during the February half term. Until then I have to visualise where I will pack all the stuff we're going to need. The cushions are causing me some concern though.
When we bought the van the bed was laid out and I sort of assumed that the cushions would all pack away neatly into ready made spaces. They don't. Two of them do, but another two seem to have to reside in the over-cab space and I had plans for that. The spare cushion that makes up the single bed has no apparent home, though Charlie was eyeing it up. I'd be tempted to leave it behind, but you never know when you might need to kick your husband into the spare room do you? My thoughts are running to sewing a large waterproof bag in some kind of PE kit fabric and putting those three cushions, and the two others that do have a home, into the shower room. After all, we won't be using that for large parts of the day and when we need to we can take the bag out. This should give us space to keep our bedding in and free up the overhead cab for clothing.
So I'm sitting at the computer a lot, searching the internet for van bits. We need a step, a hose, a bucket and some way of attaching European gas bottles. We need to learn about the electrics, hooking up, not blowing fuses and reverse polarity. I've got to get a travel harness for Charlie and find out which campsites are open in Wales next weekend.
Roll on half term.
I am insisting that we travel there via the largest camping shop we can find en-route, if only to get something to go on the floor so that Rob and Charlie can't trash it again.
Oh, and I almost forgot, we've got to hoover the van carpets before we go!
The Beginning
And So It Begins Eq2
For the most part, the character of the Big Easy comes through in the details Mullen chooses to provide, though the deep trauma of Hurricane Katrina receives only a single mention. There’s maybe too little attention to food and the weather, but some nice references to music and, directly related to the story, a reopening of the old wounds of NOPD corruption that have helped poison race relations in the city.
Delaney has three – make that four – issues on his hands. First is a background hazard in the form of Julian Boutte, a mentally deranged African-American man whose brother Delaney killed a decade back when he was still an NOPD detective. Boutte has escaped from prison, and there’s no question about his plans for revenge. The shooting of Boutte’s brother looms large in Delaney’s mind for several reasons, one being that his captain let him hang out to dry for it, prompting Delaney’s departure from the department.
A group of mostly African-American small business owners from the North Le Moyne neighborhood seek Delaney’s help, because they’re being forced to pay protection money they can ill afford. They insist the authorities aren’t brought in, and the lack of trust between community and police rings true. It’s even more justified when Delaney’s investigations reveal the extortionists are themselves a couple of rogue cops.
The third problem, and the one that takes up most of the book’s plot, deals with that bizarre phenomenon of American life the child beauty/talent pageant. In a prologue set at the Little Louisiana Pageant in Baton Rouge, a five-year-old boy named Timmy McDonald wins with a memorable Charlie Chaplin imitation (the inspiration for the book’s striking cover), only to end up dead a few minutes later. This case helps galvanise law enforcement’s response.
Though it takes authorities a while to realise a serial killer is at work, once they do they are not averse to throwing plenty of resources at the issue, which is why good investigators like Delaney are asked to help. Delaney’s niece Molly is a pageant participant, which gives him an ideal opportunity to meet organisers, participants, obsessed parents and, possibly, the killer.
Because the problem crosses state lines, the FBI leads the investigation. However, the number of such pageants is so great – some 5000 in the US every year – they cannot begin to cover them all. While the culprit in Mullen’s tale is more obvious early on than the elusive true-life murderer of pageant participant JonBenet Ramsey, still at large after 21 years, the child beauty pageant racket is a plot line ripe for exploration. It’s a venerable, but not necessarily pretty social phenomenon, and Mullen does a nice job highlighting the different motivations of several sets of parents and their young daughters.
It soon becomes apparent that the killer sees Delaney’s participation in the investigation as a challenge, and the murders increasingly take place in Southern Louisiana in order to taunt him. In a few rambling passages narrated by the killer, the extra-added risk of continuing the murder spree with Delaney on the scene has become part of the thrill. These passages are the only break from the first-person narration by Delaney himself and are probably unnecessary.
If his work-related challenges weren’t sufficient, Delaney also has woman troubles. He’s worried Boutte may try to harm his girlfriend Stella, as he did Delaney’s former fiancée Ellen before he was locked up. Preoccupied with the pageant case and the extortion victims, he pulls back without explanation. Stella doesn’t like being shut out, and their relationship travels a rocky patch.
Meanwhile, Delaney has a mostly good relationship with his sister and brother-in-law, as well as several friends still on the force. Mullen describes the interaction between Delaney and his family and friends warmly, and they feel real. This is the first in a new series, so watch this space…
If you like stories set in the Big Easy, Casting Bones by Don Bruns delves more deeply into the city’s tourism, voodoo, and Krewe cultures. There is James Lee Burke’s award-winning The Neon Rain, and Ray Celestin’s The Axeman’s Jazz was one of the top crime books of 2014.
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CFL Rating: 4 Stars
Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research, Volume 5, Issue 1, pages 7–8.
Preface
Jyrki Korpua
The cornerstone for Finfar – The Finnish Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy Research was installed in a meeting after the Finfar seminar at Helsinki Finncon 2013. I participated at the seminar and Finncon, as I had done the previous 10 years. There, also, the idea for Fafnir, our own journal, was for the first time spelled out: we should have our own research journal focusing on fantasy, sci-fi and all the wide spectrum of speculative fiction. And as Liisa Rantalaiho in her historical account for Finfar writes, “[W]hy not make it a Nordic one at the same time, we have the contacts already!” (Rantalaiho 60).
At the journal’s launch at the restaurant Kahdet Kasvot, I happened to sit side by side with Päivi Väätänen and Hanna-Riikka Roine. Maybe that was the reason why we three were declared the first Editors-in-Chief for our – then unnamed – journal. Of course we did not object to such an honorary position. Anyway, we knew each other from Finfar seminars and unofficial meetings. Before that, I had been an Editor-in-Chief for Avain – Finnish Review for Literary Studies in 2012, edited a scholarly article collection, and worked previously as a freelance journalist. Because of that experience I was the one who originally formulated our year table and editorial policies, as well as policies for our peer-review process, in cooperation with the other editors and Merja Polvinen, Chair of our Advisory Board.
In September 2013, Finfar-society’s Chairperson Irma Hirsjärvi had sent me, Merja Polvinen, and Liisa Rantalaiho a draft for our journal’s guidelines and future goals. We have followed these precepts ever since. Fafnir got its great name at a meeting of the Finfar board at December 17th, 2013. There was a public naming contest where people could propose name for our journal. Altogether eight names were nominated. So Fafnir could as well now be “Outo”, “Väentupa”, or “The Invisible Child”. From those names the Advisory Board voted their favorite and suggested that the journal should be named Fafnir, which is of course an anagram of Finfar, but also a dragon (and a shape-changing dwarf-prince) in Norse mythology. A powerful name for powerful journal!
The beginning of our journal also benefited greatly from a grant of almost €5,000 from the Finnish Association of Science Editors and Journalists (Tiedetoimittajain liitto ry). That grant made it possible to hire our original sub-editor Juri Timonen and form our website and archives. So thank you very much, FASEJ!
After it all went official, my cooperation as an Editor-in-Chief with Päivi Väätänen and Hanna-Riikka Roine proved to be very fruitful. Our first journal came out on 18 March, 2014, only three days later than I had calculated. What a great achievement on scholarly publishing! It was quite a peculiar thing that our first issue included articles from all three of our editors. Of course those articles went through double-blind peer-review, as all our articles do. Stalker lost alpha console commands. Hopefully that was an indication that our Editors-in-Chief knew their craft and research topics.
Päivi Väätänen co-edited eight issues of Fafnir with me and Hanna-Riikka (from Issue 1/2014 to Issue 4/2015). There was lot of editing work, many published articles and eight great editorials, almost all of them starting with a relevant quote – a bit of a characteristic feature from me. Päivi, a philologist, was perhaps the most pedantic reader of us three, so her stepping out from the editorial post forced other editors to dive more carefully into the world of MLA.
Hanna-Riikka Roine co-edited three more issue of Fafnir with me alongside our next Editor-in-Chief, Aino-Kaisa Koistinen, who was named Päivi’s successor at the meeting in December 2015. Hanna-Riikka ended her term as an Editor-in-Chief after Issue 3/2016. After that we started to search for another editor who could fill her language skills and precision as an editor. Aino-Kaisa proved to be extremely meticulous and efficient in her work. We truly have been fortunate in Fafnir that there have been so many professional scholars and skillful sub-editors who are all willing to contribute to scientific publishing even without monetary compensation. This shows how important we find our scholarly field to be.
Fafnir’s Issue 4/2016 was a themed issue on graphic novels, comics, and animations. Because of that, we had a comics scholar, Katja Kontturi, as a visiting Editor-in-Chief. At the same time, we searched for a new full-time Editor-in-Chief and found him in Norway. When Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay started at Fafnir, our journal officially became the “Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research”. Of course there had been members from other Nordic countries on our Advisory Board, but this was an important step for our journal for many reasons. Bodhi brought us knowledge on international dimensions of science fiction outside Europe; he’s also the first native English speaker on our editorial team. Later this international dimension spread even wider, when I stepped out as an editor after our Issue 3-4/2017 and Laura E. Goodin became Fafnir’s newest Editor-in-Chief. At the same time, Fafnir established the position of Reviews Editor, and one of my fellow Tolkien-scholars, Dennis Wilson Wise, took charge of that position. So now Fafnir truly is an international scholarly journal!
These have been a remarkable five years for Fafnir, our society, and also myself. I hope you all enjoy the journal, a bit of an adopted child of mine. I also congratulate Fafnir on its five years of existence and hope for prolific future!
References:
Rantalaiho, Liisa. “FINFAR – A gift from Fandom to Academia.” Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research, vol. 1, no. 1, 2014, pp. 58–60.
Biographical information: Dr. Jyrki Korpua was one of the three first Editors-in-Chief of Fafnir and from 2014 to 2017 the Chairperson for Finfar – The Finnish Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy Research. He is currently a university lecturer in literature at the University of Oulu, Finland, and a member of the Advisory Board of Fafnir. Korpua’s research interests include, among others, fantasy, Tolkien’s fiction, dystopian and utopian fiction, Bible studies, graphic novels and the Kalevala.
Tomorrow, Saturday, January 23, I start my journey to Alaska, to begin the 2010 Census. The enumeration must start early in Alaska because those villages still dependent on subsistence hunting and fishing disperse at the beginning of the spring thaw. We must start early to have a successful count.
We begin in the Inupiat village of Noorvik, a little above the Arctic Circle. It’s a village of about 600 or so people. (Outside temperature at this writing, -26 degrees Fahrenheit) We arrive on Sunday, January 24. Thanks to our gracious hosts we’ll be able to sleep Sunday night in their beautiful school’s classrooms. The first enumerated household will take place early afternoon on Monday, January 25, marking the real official start of the 2010 Census.
While we are bringing quite a crew to document the symbolism of the moment, it is a real beginning, with census takers completing their work within about a week’s time. Following our policy regarding American Indians and Alaska Natives, we first consult with the village leader to be respectful of the village culture and later will ask him to review the list of housing units to make sure we haven’t left off a unit. To do this the village leader takes the oath of confidentiality that applies to every census taker as well.
I’ll try to post other insights from this event as it transpires, to give all a sense of how we do the enumeration.
It’s starting!
And So It Began Quilt Shop
Director Robert Groves