Murder on the First Day of Christmas by Billie Thomas

My taste for fictional mystery can be best described as bipolar. On the one side, I love hard-boiled detective novels -- Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Robert B. Parker, and Sue Grafton. On the other side I’m a sucker for English tea mysteries. Agatha Christie. Elizabeth George. P.D. James. I tend to stay within these two comfort zones. However, when a friend, whose writing style I admire, writes a mystery novel, I would be remiss not to take a look – even though it doesn’t fit within either of my fictional mystery comfort zones.

Such is the case with Murder of the First Day of Christmas by Billie Thomas. Ms. Thomas died suddenly in 2011 as she was beginning this series of mystery  novels. Her daughter was looking for someone to finish out the first novel and help honor her mother. She found that person in Stephanie Naman.

Stephanie is a writer with a Birmingham-based ad agency, Luckie & Co., and I would be less than forthcoming if I didn’t tell you that she has done some great work on behalf of Regions. I consider her a friend. And I consider her a terrific writer.

I know the word “murder” is in the title. And it’s called a “Chloe Carstairs Mystery.” But to me the book is really a story about the relationship of a daughter and her mom. It just so happens that there is murder most foul as the background along with a host of great characters. But it’s the relationship between Chloe and her mother, Amanda, that drives the story forward. Chloe is her own person and, many times, is not exactly the person her mother wants her to be. Chloe thinks she has her mother completely figured out only to find that her mother has a few surprises in store for her as well.

The Carstairs decorate homes for Christmas. And, generally speaking, these are over-the-top professional decorating projects that can only be done by people who know what they are doing. In other words, it's more than someone like me sticking a few lighted deer in the front yard. They decorate these homes in particular for well-to-do families who are hosting lavish holiday parties for family and friends.

It’s at these parties that death shows up. Accidental? I think not. Oh, and there’s this whole thing with a disembodied hand. And because of their natural curiosity, the Carstairs are on the case.

The writing is tight and the story moves along at a quick clip. Despite the simplicity of the writing and the directness of the plot, I found that I was easily suckered by more than one red herring thrown in my path by Ms. Thomas. Plus, you get the added bonus of terrific humor. I found myself laughing out loud more than once.

The book is available as a real book in paperback and via Kindle.

I recommend the book and predict you will finish it in one sitting.

Rawhide Down: The Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan

Where were you on Monday, March 30, 1981?

I was in high school. Not sure what class I was in at about 1:30 Central Time but I remember being told that shots had been fired at President Ronald Reagan as he left the Washington Hilton.

As soon as I got home, I planted myself in front of the television and watched the around-the-clock coverage.

In his book published in March, Rawhide Down: The Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan, Del Quentin Wilber does a superb job of narrating the before, during and after of the assassination attempt.

As everyone knows, the delusional John Hinckley took a .22 caliber pistol loaded with devastator shells and emptied it as President Reagan left the Washington Hilton after a speaking engagement. What I didn’t know was exactly how close to death President Reagan actually was.

Wilber’s narrative is incredibly readable with tremendous research that includes excellent background summaries on all the key players. Plus there’s great information regarding the Secret Service and its role in protecting POTUS.

Through Wilber’s research you are brought behind the political scenes that included the chaos leading to Secretary of State Alexander Haig declaring to all the world that he was in charge when, in fact, he absolutely was not.

And Wilber provides even more illustration of the tremendous love that existed between Nancy Reagan and the President.

I would highly recommend this immensely readable well-written book.

Bobby Fischer: A Hero Lost

Trailer from the documentary Bobby Fischer Against the World (2011)

Bobby Fischer, World Chess Champion

It’s a difficult concept coming to grips with the realization that one of your heroes is really a crazy talking jack ass. Robert James Fischer, World Chess Champion, was one of my heroes. I was only 6 years old when Fischer defeated Spassky to win the World Chess Championship in 1972, but it was his inspiration and his games that were used to teach me and encourage me to play chess. My grandfather and I would sit at a little wooden chessboard he owned and which he subsequently gave me (I no longer have it having lost it when my attention to chess waned) and review and replay Fischer’s great triumph at Reykjavik, Iceland.

I was enamored with chess until later in my teens when video games and role playing games drew away my attention, but I still enjoy keeping up with it (quick. . .who is the current World Chess Champion?) and will occasionally take a glance at the New York Times’ chess column.

Despite my drift away from the game of kings, I still held resolute in my idolization of Fischer whose intellectual capacity seemingly had no limit. And, let’s face it, he took on and defeated the Russians at a time when we all wanted to defeat the Russians and stick their chess pomposity in their faces.

But as he grew older and more isolated, it became clearer that Fischer simply held views of the world that could not and should not be accepted. His anti-semitic rants. His anti-Christian rants. His anti-American rants. And, last but certainly not least, his unbelievable rant on 9.11.

My adoration of Fischer and my later disenchantment with him was confirmed once again as I read his most recent biography, Endgame, by Frank Brady and watched the Liz Garbus documentary, Bobby Fischer Against the World. Both capture the essence of Bobby Fischer and how mystifying it is to watch such a unique genius remove himself from the world and the game that he loved – all because of his rude behavior and offensive talk.

Fischer died in January 2008 at the age of 64 – the number of squares to be found on a chessboard.

Want to know more about Fischer? I would highly recommend Brady’s book, Garbus’ documentary and, if you really want to get into the 1972 match, the book Fischer vs. Spassky: The Chess Match of the Century by Svetozar Gligoric.

Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks

It all started innocently enough. Representatives from the Decatur Public Library came and spoke to the 8th graders at Oak Park Middle School. Among the other opportunities for knowledge gatheirng that one can only get at the library, they also talked about a particularly special opportunity for those who were interested. It seems that the library was sponsoring groups of people who were playing and being introduced to a game called Dungeons & Dragons.

They saw it as an opportunity to fire the imaginations of children and it involved interactive play and strategic thought. I thought, “Why not?” So I asked my mom to drop me off at the library at the appointed time and I was introduced to the world of multi-sided dice, dungeons, monsters, dungeon masters, dwarves, and elves. I suppose I was primed for this opporutnity seeing that my favorite author at the time was Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian, and I had read the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings triology at least twice by this point. I was (and am) a huge sucker for science fiction and fantasy.

It wasn’t too long after that brief introduction that my friends and I began playing D&D on a regular basis. We would gather in the upper room of Jason’s backyard storage building late on a Friday and play through to Sunday. Some would go home to sleep. Some would sleep there. We thrived on sodas, Chicken McNuggets and whatever else Jason’s incredibly patient mother would provide. The walls were covered with maps. We all came with our character sheets, graph paper, and dice. In my mind’s eye, I can still look around the room and see Jason, Eric, Bruce, Roger, Patrick, Chris, Don, and others. It was an incredible time and I had a ton of fun. Early on I had started out with a number of characters but I had one character that came through all the adventures stronger, grumpier and more crass than ever. For the life of me, I can’t remember his official D&D name but his nickname is as clear to me today as it was then – Stumpy the Dwarf. I received a note a few years ago that Stumpy, along with some of the other original characters, had been officially retired.

At some point around my junior year of high school, I began to find other things to do on the weekend. And, eventually, I walked away from D&D. But there has always been and always will be a soft place in my heart for that RPG and those days. If I were to be honest, I could easily be drawn back into that world easily given the time.

During all of the time I played D&D and the time since then, it had never occurred to me once to ask “Why?” Why did I play and become obsessed with D&D? It’s an interesting question and it’s a question explored by Ethan Gilsdorf in his book, Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks.

Using his own experience as a gamer in New Hampshire (interestingly enough around the same time I was playing), Gilsdorf sets off on a quest to discover why people (himself included) immerse themselves in fantasy gaming. He starts with D&D. He visits LARPs. He delves into the digital space (think: World of Warcraft). He visits Cons (conventions). He seeks out the creators of D&D. He becomes a part of SCA (Society of Creative Anachronism). And he also visits Middle Earth (New Zealand).

For me, the two most compelling chapters of the entire book are the Prologue and Chapter 1. It is in these chapters that Gilsdorf introduces us to his mother (The Momster) and his own exeperiences as a young man playing D&D. The later chapters are solid but not as compelling. Gilsdorf introduces us to a number of other “fantasy freaks and gaming geeks” but only on a superficial level. About the time we begin to get interested in someone we’ve met, it’s time for Gilsdorf to move on. Given that this book is essentially about Gilsdorf’s quest to discover some part of himself, it could be that these superficial relationships reflect his own inability to connect with his girlfriend (an important theme that colors his adventures).

All in all I enjoyed the book but, frankly, as he mentions in the afterword, I look forward to another book that explores in more depth his early childhood. But it is also tempting to over-analysze essentially an opportunity for people to simpy have fun. I’ve always resisted the label of D&D or any other role playing fantasy game as escapist. To me, it’s no more “escapist” than any other hobby such as hunting, where many men disappear into the woods for entire weekends; golfing, where people disappear to manicured courses for hours at a time with incredibly expensive equipment; or, for that matter, the Saturday fall ritual of attending a college football game dressed in all manner of “costumes” and, in many cases, painted from head to waist.

I agree with what Gilsdorf writes toward the end of the book: “It seems as a culture, we have two options: We can be terrified of fantasy games, books and movies and continue to marginalize them and their players. Or we can understand them, and see that fantasy in all its strips has its proper place alongside other amusements.”