Early Autumn by Robert B. Parker
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

"'I could not love thee, dear, so much,' I said, 'loved I not honor more.'
'Shit,' Susan said."

What a guy that Spenser is! Not only does he quote Shakespeare, Robert Frost, or Richard Lovelace, but he can also beat anyone to bloody pulp. And during breaks between reciting top-shelf poetry and pummeling villains, he deeply cares about fellow human beings. What a guy!

Early Autumn (1981) is the seventh installment in Robert B. Parker's saga about the indomitable, intrepid, brilliant, and witty private eye from Boston. I am continuing my quest to read all the novels in the series in chronological order.

A woman whose ex-husband took away their 15-year-old son, Paul, despite having lost the custody fight, hires Spenser to find the boy and bring him back. A victim of neglect and indifference by the feuding parents, a pawn in their bitter fight, Paul hates both of them equally.

Spenser finds Paul and returns him to his mother. Three months later, though, an attempt is made to kidnap the boy, and the mother hires Spenser again, to live with them and guard the boy around the clock. Spenser feels for the boy, seeing all the psychological damage inflicted on Paul by the parents. The selfishness and vacuity of the parents is painted with a broad brush. They seem like caricatures embodying all the wrong things that parents can do.

Spenser frequently dispenses more or less clever witticisms, a standard for the series. The author has an opportunity to provide some bitter observations, like the following fragment of a dialogue between Spenser and the boy's mother:

"'Why is being married so important?' I said.
'Because that's where the bucks are, [...]Men have the money and the power and if a woman wants some, she better get hold of a man.'"

There is a painfully sad seduction scene, fortunately, it ends on a funny note. Hawk shows up in the plot and becomes almost a completely positive character. Spenser's care about Paul is well-meant, yet it may seem naive to a cynical reader (like this reviewer). Overall plausibility of the plot is not a strong point of the novel. Still, a very marginal recommendation, mainly for being slightly different from the earlier Spenser novels.

Two-and-a-half stars.


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Smoke on the Water: The Deep Purple Story by Dave Thompson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

" [...] this is the story of a band as it forms, develops, succeeds, and survives in a world filled with other bands; a document of the ideas, interactions, and inspirations that, for over forty years, have shaped and sharpened, shattered and shadowed the musicians whose names will forever be associated with the one group that they all have in common."
(From the author's Introduction; note the super cool alliteration!)

Deep Purple would certainly be included in any list of Top 20 bands in the history of rock music, probably in Top 10 lists for many people. Arguably, this is the band which brought the so-called "hard rock" genre into existence, and provided one of the main stimuli for the emergence of "heavy metal."

Smoke on the Water, with its unforgettable guitar riff, is the most famous song by Deep Purple. (The riff is attributed to Ritchie Blackmore, who said that he composed it as an interpretation of inversion of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.) While the riff is indeed extremely catchy, and I often subconsciously hum it when in a good mood, I am not a particular fan of this song. I admire Deep Purple mainly for another work, Child in Time, a 10-minute piece of art rock, innovative, dynamic, and exhilarating, one of the best examples of progressive genre in rock. One can watch Deep Purple performing Child in Time live in 1970, in the so-called "official" version, on YouTube. The entire performance is stunningly brilliant, particularly, Ian Gillan's vocals, Jon Lord's keyboard work, and Ritchie Blackmore's guitar.

Dave Thompson's Smoke on the Water. The Deep Purple Story (2004) presents a meticulously researched, extremely detailed history of the band, from 1967 to 2002, and, additionally, individual histories of many musicians that at one time or another were members of the band.

There were eight incarnations of Deep Purple, meaning eight different sets of the band's personnel (they are named "Mark I" through "Mark VIII.") For me - and, likely for the majority of Deep Purple's fans - Mark II was the "real" Deep Purple - the three musicians mentioned above plus Roger Glover and Ian Pace. Deep Purple existed in the Mark II setup three times. First time was the peak period for the band, between 1969 and 1973, when Child in Time , Smoke on the Water, and many other famous songs were recorded. The tensions between Ritchie Blackmore and Ian Gillan caused the singer and Roger Glover to leave the band. They re-joined the band in 1984 but left again in 1987. The second reunion happened in 1993, but it lasted only a few months not only because of the differences in creative and artistic visions but also because of a deep personal animosity between Blackmore and Gillan.

Luckily, the personalities of Blackmore and Gillan do not dominate the author's narrative; he writes in depth about other members of the band, both permanent and temporary. A lot of space is dedicated to Jon Lord, a great keyboardist, and the one member in the band that kept pulling it toward classical music. He was the singular force behind the famous Concerto for Group and Orchestra; he composed the music and persevered in convincing the band to overcome the initial communication difficulties with classical musicians. The concerto was recorded in 1969, and it features the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Malcolm Arnold), in addition to the band. In 1970, Mr. Lord followed with another merger of rock with classical - the Gemini Suite (this time with London Symphony Orchestra).

Mr. Thompson's biography of the band is superbly informative. In addition to the detailed narrative, it contains the discography of the band, solo discographies, and the list of records, for the total of 80 pages of appendices. I strongly recommend the book, which probably deserves a higher rating than mine. I am only interested in the 1969 - 1973 "progressive period" of the band's musical output. It is a good read, although perhaps too packed with details.

Three-and-a-half stars.



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The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken: A Vish Puri Mystery by Tarquin Hall
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Puri would never forget the meal as long as he lived. The marinated mutton was so tender, so succulent, that it melted in his mouth. The yogurt-based gravy was a revelation; creamy with a perfect blend of coriander and chilli and just a hint of lemon. He lapped it all up with the crisp pieces of roghini naan, wiped the container clean with his finger and sucked every last bit of marrow from the mutton bones."

I read The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken (2012) by Tarquin Hall on a recommendation from an outstanding student of mine. It has been a very interesting read, less so in terms of a crime/mystery novel, but much more as a primer on life in Kashmir, India. I have never been to the soon-to-be most populous country in the world, and despite having Indian students and faculty colleagues, I have never known much about the country. Obviously, one should not readily generalize one author's observations, but Mr. Hall, originally a news reporter, had lived in India for many years, and has garnered quite a reputation among literary community for the accuracy of his social commentary, so I tend to have a high degree of confidence in the picture of the country he paints.

This is the third installment in the series of mysteries featuring Vish Puri, "India's Most Private Investigator." We meet Vish (a gourmet, nicknamed "Chubby" by his wife), as he commences work on a strange case where the owner of the longest moustache in the world, nurtured and groomed for more than thirty years, has his treasure stolen "from right under his nose."

Yet this is not the main case whose solution we are following in the novel. The father of an internationally famous Pakistani cricket star dies of poisoning during a well-attended dinner at a luxury hotel in Delhi. Mr. Puri's British friend, the head of the anti-corruption unit of the International Cricket Federation, asks him to help solve the case. There are suspicions that the victim's son participated in a match fixing scheme. As the captivating plot progresses, we learn that the case may have connections to historical events from the past.

For me, the vivid and compelling portrait of Indian life and society is the most valuable aspect of the novel. I found precious the social commentary about the basic ways of life in India (the story happens in the Punjab area; I am not sure how representative it is for other regions of India). The ways of "getting things done," are so very different from our Western norms. Using family and personal contacts is the main way of achieving most objectives in life. The ubiquity of bribery and corruption must be a bit stunning for a Western-born reader (not for me, accustomed to moderate degrees of corruption and bribery in my native country). It is also illuminating how different the crime solving process by a private investigator in India is from the one in UK or US. More importantly, the reader will learn about the horrors of the 1947 Partition of British India into independent India and Pakistan, when at least half a million people lost their lives.

My opinions about the literary aspect of the novel are mixed. I did not particularly care for the prose - I found it hard to focus on the text, generously peppered with Hindi/Punjabi words and phrases. True, it added to the overall feeling of authenticity, yet it made it difficult for me to focus. While the glossary of Hindi/Punjabi phrases at the end helped, I found using it disruptive in my reading.

Also on the negative side, Vish's miraculous escape from the near-death situation seems artificial and not fitting the rather somber tone of the story at that juncture of the plot. It sort of reads as a contrived way of adding "excitement" to the plot. Also, while I like how irreverent the narrator's approach to Mr. Puri's investigating excellence is, the presence of a big army of his helpers offsets the humor.

The best thing in the book, from the literary point of view, is - to me - the author's ability to gradually change the mood of the novel from light and full of humor to very dark and serious. I did not expect this, and I appreciated it a lot! I love when the author does things that I do not expect they will do.

Compellingly readable novel, highly recommended! Thank you, LF!

Three-and-a-half stars.

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