Schemers - A Review

I have been reading Bill Pronzini's nameless detective books since I was in high school. During that span of over 25 years Pronzini has been cranking out these noir classics of the pulp collecting detective. Over the years Nameless has gone from a single operative to a family man who has operatives working for him.

This has allowed Pronzini the ability to write multiple cases at once intertwining a theme throughout the narrative. The 2009 nameless installment Schemers has two cases involving nameless and his operative Jake Runyon matching wits against an emotionally unstable stalker and the perpetrator a seemingly unsolvable book heist.

Pathos and description are two of Pronzini's signature traits. He deftly handles both in Schemers. From the eerie prologue to nameless's closing victory over an old friend/nemesis, Pronzini shows why he was recently named A Mystery Writers of America Grand Master.

In terms of storyline and character development Pronzini was not at his best. There were some plot points that I thought were not as fully explained as some of his previous points. There was some ambiguity that I thought would make the story more palpable if it could have been resolved. That being said, Bill Pronzini's Schemers is still a worthy addition to this long running series.

Next Time: You only have what they wrote.

How to handle stress

Tim of Families Again checked in again with this week with some good questions for the Men's Monday Meme:

How do you deal with stress? Is there really a good way to do it? Is there a Biblical way? Is there a medical way?

Generally I don't deal with stress well. There are basically 2 ways to deal with stress outside of the biblical way externalize it or internalize it. Basically to me that means give yourself high blood pressure or give it to someone else. I tend to do both. This past month my daughter has been learning the biblical antidote to stress found in the 23rd Psalm:

1 The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.2 He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters.3 He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake.4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You have anointed my head with oil; My cup overflows.6 Surely goodness and loving kindness will follow me all the days of my life, And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

Such a simple stress reliever! I remember a comic strip I read the year I graduated High School. It was the comic strip Kudzu by the late Doug Marlette. The real star of the strip was the Reverend Will B. Dunn. In this particular strip Dunn is reading the 23rd Psalm in a modernized version. He reads: The Lord is my therapist. I shall not freak out.

Funny at the time, but actually a pretty good dynamic equivalent translation. I tend to freak out a lot while trying to educate my children. God's "therapy" is to restore my soul.

One way to increase stress in your life is to put undue and arbitrary pressures on yourself and family. Sometimes we can even take the things in our life that relieve stress and twist them in a way that increases stress. For example, I noticed that Tim of Families again is a daily blogger and part of NABLOPOMO (National Blog Posting Month). In my second month of blogging, February 2009, I tried my hand at NABLOPOMO and it was horrible for me. I felt under so much pressure to blog each and every day. No one forced me to blog each day, but I took that stress on.

These days my blog is what I intended it to be a creative and emotional outlet. It's been almost a week in between posts. I have plenty of topics I want to get to, but I am not putting that extra stress on myself or my family. To See this Weeks Men's Monday Meme click here.

Next Time: Schemers

Now it's the Cubs Turn

There are 5 major professional sports teams in the city of Chicago. In 1985 the year I turned 21 none of these teams had won the championship in their league in my lifetime. The 1985 Bears took care of that very quickly and defeated the New England Patriots in early 1986 in the Super Bowl. 5 and 1/2 years later the Chicago Bulls led by Michael Jordan won the NBA championship and did so again 5 more times in the next 7 seasons. In 2005 my beloved Chicago White Sox won their first World Series since 1917.

Tonight the Chicago Black Hawks defeated the Philadelphia Flyers 4-3 in overtime to win their first Stanley Cup since 1961.

As I type this, people are shooting off fireworks in celebration in my small suburban neighbor hood. Congratulations Hawks! Now there is just one Chicago team left to win the championship in their sport, the Chicago Cubs. Now that the Hawks have broken through maybe the Cubs will be next.

Good help and a good book are hard to find.

My wife and I both love books. She loves reading them and I love having them. See. I'm a keeper and she's not. Don't get me wrong she's definitely a keeper. She's worth keeping around and then some, but she doesn't need to own a book once she's read it. I probably have 100 or more books at home that I have never read. She probably read 100 books this year that she does not own.

So when Amy read a book earlier this Spring and wanted to read it again, and now tells me she wants to own it, I knew it must something special.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett is indeed, something special. The story takes place in 1960's Jackson, Mississippi during the Civil Rights period. Stockett turns in a beautiful, poignant book that is at turns hilarious, harrowing and heartbreaking. (The alliteration society called and they want their h back.)

The Help is one of those books that tells first person narrative of the same events in multiple voices. It has been my experience that in books like theses,one of the voices is usually more realistic or fleshed out than the others. When that happens I generally wish they told us the story in one strong voice rather than adding in several lesser ones. This is not so with The Help. Skeeter, Abileen and Minnie, are all complete characters adding their own distinct pathos to the tale.

The tale itself is the story of how African American domestic servants raise white southern children from birth, often becoming closer to these children than the parents themselves. It is a story of how these 3 heroic women from diverse backgrounds begin to chronicle the good, bad and ugly of this way of life in the deep south.

When you have a story with heroes, you need villains and The Help has one of the best (worst) evil characters that I have seen in print in quite a while. Skeeter's childhood friend puts a face on racism. Hilly shows us from the first chapter that above all else she cares about keeping the lines between black and white clear, distinct and unequal. Watching Hilly ruin the lives and livelihoods of anyone who dares cross her is sobering.

Stockett does an excellent job building tension in The Help. She would bring out some snippet of character development and then let us ruminate on it for 100 pages before developing it further. There were also several unexpected twists and turns along the way.

The best part of the Help is the dialogue. Each of the main characters has a lovely way of expressing themselves rich in colloquial expressions. My favorite part was when Abileen told her young charge Mae Mobely about a special man from space, Martian Luther King, who was hated because he was green.

The first book I read during my Summer reading plan, is always the best I've read at least until I finish another. After starting with The Help, I am not sure how any books will be able to overtake this one.

Next Time: Conventional Wisdom

An Open Letter to Tim of Families Again

I really like The Men's Monday Meme that appears each week at Families Again. I feel sympathy for Tim, as it seems that very few people participate each week. No one hardly ever participates in my Things Fortnightly. Perhaps a week from Thursday, he'd like to give it a go (Subtlety has never been my strong suit.)



I don't always know how to set up my answers. Should I just have you click here to read Tim's article? Should I spend a few paragraphs explaining it? The main point of this week's rant (his words not mine) was that churches seem to judge some sins and turn a blind eye to others. His questions for any men to answer this week were:



What do you think about my above rant? Am I being to harsh on churches and Christians? Are there certain folks that should not be allowed into a church because of their sinful behavior?



As you may have surmised by the title, I have decided to answers Tim's questions directly this week.



Dear Tim,



Thanks for mentioning me in your post last week. There have been a few of your meme's I have wanted to participate in over the past few weeks. I just have not had the time or could not find the words to express my feelings appropriately.



This week's post really got me to thinking. It made me think of my college years in the late 80's early '90s. At the time, homosexuality was much less accepted even by the non Christian public than it is now. Each year on our campus the Gay Student group would participate in an event called Denim days. You were supposed to signify your acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle by wearing jeans. I always thought this was a bit of a trick since jeans were (and probably still are) the clothing of choice on a college campus. It would be like telling a group of motorists to signify their support of a tax hike by having air in their tires. In order to "speak against" homosexuality many people had to plan their attire in advance.



This was a very emotional time on campus and many unchristian and hypocritical things were voiced or acted out against homosexuals. At the time, I wrote many op-ed pieces for the campus newspaper. I decided to write a piece that pointed out the hypocrisy of using the Bible to condemn one sexual sin when a vast amount of students were practicing other more conventional ones. I argued that all sex outside marriage between and a woman was sin and not just the same sex ones.



In my article I did speak out against homosexuality, but since I also spoke out against other sexual acts and hypocrisy, many in the homosexual movement embraced my article. I was even asked to read it at a campus gathering on the issue.



So, Tim, I must say that I understand and agree with your rant. We can't pick and choose what sins are horrible and what sins are just bad. Now I Corinthians 6:18 does say: Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. (NIV) However, I think that is a reason to flee from sexual sins, not a reason to say that those sins should be considered better or worse when compared to other sins.



After all. all have sinned (Romans 3:23) and not everyone has sinned sexually. The result of any sin is death (Romans 6:23) and Jesus died to forgive sins (1 Corinthians 15:3). He didn't have to die twice for the sexual sinners and only once for the liars.



In answer to your question as to whether you were being too harsh. I think only you can answer that question. If handled improperly, blogging could become a platform for the kind of gossiping you and scripture rightfully condemn. Personally, it doesn't sound to me like you were gossiping, because a) you didn't name names and b) you gave general examples. However, If there are specific people in your church who are committing the sin of gossiping, have you brought it to their attention following the scriptural model?

I will answer your question as to whether there are certain folks that should not be allowed into a church because of their sinful behavior once I've made a distinction. The church is not a building, the church is a body of believers. I Corinthians 5:9-13 says

9I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. 11But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. 12For what have I to do with judging outsiders?Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? 13God judges those outside."Purge the evil person from among you."

Too often we judge those outside of the church. It is those that claim to be believers and continue in sin that we are to remove from the body, not from the building. The purpose of this removal is always repentance. Earlier I referenced the Biblical model of addressing sin to a believer. As I am sure you know, it is found in Matthew 18:15-17. In the NIV it reads like this:

15"If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. 16But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that 'every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.
17If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

I think Biblical discipline intertwines Matt 18:15-17 and I Corinthians 5:9-13. Such a model was used at a church I was a member of a few years before I got married. At the time, I was involved in sins that no one at the church was aware of. When the church followed this scriptural method on a friend of mine involved in a similar pattern of sins, it was the first step God used in bringing me to repentance, restoration and eventually marriage as the forces of darkness were using my sinful pattern of behavior make me feel unworthy of God and marriage. I left the state to court my wife prior to finding out what happened to my friend. But the process of expelling an immoral believer had a profound impact on the spiritual life of myself and many others in my church. More so than gossiping or judgemental hypocrisy ever could.

Thanks Tim for bringing up such an important topic and reminding me of the power a Biblical acting church can have on a believer in persistent sin.

Dave (Home School Dad)

Next Time: Good Help and a Good Book is hard to find.