Pulp Fiction’s Non-Linear Storyline

Reassembled In Chronological Order

     Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction is well-known for many things, but it’s particularly notable for it non-linear structure. Although the film’s events take place over the course of the same two days, they're told out of order. The result, says Angelo Delos Trinos in CRS, is “an otherwise straightforward crime anthology set in Los Angeles' underworld told in the most exciting and unpredictable ways possible. Combined with [the director’s] unique and iconic dialogue, this was one of the most unexpected and freshest ways to revisit the oversaturated crime genre during the '90s. This wasn't the last time Tarantino deployed this framing device, but it's definitely his most famous and influential use of it."

     By following a scrambled timeline, Pulp Fiction begins and ends in a surprisingly poignant way that a traditional series of events wouldn't allow. “This framework also makes every time that the characters cross paths more surprising and impactful than they would've been in chronological order,” Trinos says. “The non-linear format isn't just one of Pulp Fiction's most defining writing and editing choices, but a core part of its story, subtext and identity.”

     That said, Trinos rearranged the movie's eight vignettes in proper order just to see how the characters' days really went, clear up some questions, and give longtime Tarantino fans a new perspective from which to view this watershed movie.

The Archetype Of The “Crazy” Female

Protagonist Stems From Classic Lit

     There are so many female archetypes in literature—the femme fatale, the damsel in distress, the angel of the house…and the madwoman. As Caroline Wolff recently wrote in Crime Reads, “Alternately an object of fear and pity, the madwoman is often erratic, occasionally violent, and usually stowed away unseen, haunting the edges of the story until some climactic moment of confrontation with the hero. She’s a foil for the pure of heart.

     “Often when this trope appears in classic literature, the author expects the reader to scorn or pity the character’s behavior even when she’s put through the trauma wringer—which is usually the source or trigger of that behavior in the first place.” The easiest place to start, Wolff says, is with Jane Eyre’s Bertha Rochester, the originator of the madwoman as we’ve come to know her. “Bertha’s husband brought her to a new country, locked her in a room when she exhibited ‘a violent and unreasonable temper’ (his words, not hers), then proceeded to hold her hostage while he went on to marry another woman.” [Note: although Bertha has come down to us as an unsympathetic monster, modern readers are likely hip to the fact that it’s actually Rochester who is the monster.]

“Think also of Hamlet’s Ophelia, defenseless against the whims of a mercurial maybe-lover who eventually kills her father,” Wolff continues. “Or Wilkie Collins’ titular ‘Woman in White,’ a poor young woman locked up in an asylum for accidentally harboring a secret that poses a threat to her kidnapper. When we lift the hood on these characters, we can see that their behavior is actually pretty logical, considering that their circumstances offer no productive recourse.”

DNA COLD CASE

Suspect Accused Of Killing Teen In '96

Dies By Suicide After Police Interview

     A Montana man accused of killing a 15-year-old girl in 1996 died by suicide last month, one day after police questioned him about the teen’s cold case. Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office announced last week that Paul Hutchinson, 55, was interrogated by authorities July 23, after DNA evidence collected in Danielle “Danni” Houchins’ death made him a suspect. The victim was last seen leaving her home on Sept. 21, 1996, at around 11 a.m., and she was reported missing by her family after failing to return. Her mother found Danni’s truck later that night at the Cameron Bridge Fishing Access Site on the Gallatin River.

     Two brothers who lived nearby searched the area, and one of them eventually spotted Houchins’ body; she had been raped, suffocated, and left alone face down in shallow water. The case went cold after years of investigation, which involved interviews with a number of suspects and collection of DNA evidence. The sheriff’s office revisited the case in 2019 and hired a private detective in 2021. Modern forensic technology was able to point to Hutchinson last month as a suspect in the teen’s death.

     When Hutchinson was questioned, investigators saw that “he sweated profusely, scratched his face, and chewed on his hand,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement. “When shown a photo of Houchins, Hutchinson slumped in his chair and exhibited signs of being uncomfortable [and] upon release, his behavior was observed to be erratic.” The suspect called the nearby Beaverhead County Sheriff’s Office at 4:17 a.m. the following morning, saying he needed assistance. Responding deputies found him on the side of the road with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

8 Must-Read Legal Thrillers That Will

Hook You With Courtroom Drama

Anyone who’s a voracious reader of legal thrillers most likely does so because they’re unyieldingly curious people. More than simply wanting to know whodunnit, they have a deep-rooted need to understand the minds of criminals and to make sense of the incomprehensible things humans can be capable of doing. As Marisa Fertitta recently wrote for Murder-Mayhem, “For some, it's the comfort that comes from recognizing everyday law professionals as heroes. Yes, things can go badly in the world, but they can't be that bad if a regular, everyday person can put the criminals behind bars, right?"

     Not necessarily. "Even though America believes in ‘equal justice under the law,’ justice is a fickle moral concept that looks different to everybody," she says. "Justice to the readers of legal thriller books may look like putting the bad guy in jail to rot, but to the bad guy in question, justice probably looks like murdering the person their spouse cheated on them with. Or robbing the bank to get back at the government who chose not to help them when they were poor."

     This isn't a justification for immoral behavior, she says. Murder and robbery are wrong. But playing devil's advocate is one reason why authors of legal thrillers keep writing them, and why enjoyers of legal thriller books keep reading them. Here’s her list of eight that you simply must read.

Finalists For 2024 Ngaio Marsh

Awards Announced Last Week

Now in their fifteenth season, the Ngaio Marsh Awards celebrate excellence in mystery, thriller, crime, and suspense writing from Aotearoa New Zealand story-tellers. The 2024 finalists were announced last week, and some of the finalists include:

Best Novel:

• Dice, by Claire Baylis

• The Caretaker, by Gabriel Bergmoser

• Ritual Of Fire, by DV Bishop

• Pet, by Catherine Chidgey

• Devil’s Breath, by Jill Johnson

• Going Zero, by Anthony McCarten

• Expectant, by Vanda Symon

Best First Novel:

• Dice by Claire Baylis

• El Flamingo, by Nick Davies

• Devil’s Breath, by Jill Johnson

• A Better Class Of Criminal, by Cristian Kelly

• Mama Suzuki: Private Eye, by Simon Rowe

Coming Tuesday, September 10

The Fall Of Vivaldi

On a rainy night across Europe, several seemingly unrelated

incidents unfold in quick order:

• In the City of Light, a beautiful young Parisian newscaster

named Gabrielle Lamoines is brutally murdered in her bed,

just as…

• A disgraced British billionaire takes a dive from the top floor

terrace of a luxury resort on the island of Cyprus, at the same time that…

• Reporter Carter Logan causes the death of a former lieutenant

of the Italian mafia in a narrow street in Rome, not far from…

• The Tuscan farmhouse where Alessandro Bortolotti, the head

of a hard-right neofascist movement, is plotting a deadly

attack on the G20 global summit, while…

• A notorious Russian oligarch named Georgy Sokolov plans to

auction off a kidnapped American teen named Abby Evans in

an online event streamed from his villa on the island of Ibiza.

Each of these random events has one thing in common: Retired assassin Ronin Phythian, once known as “the most dangerous man alive”...

Now Available!

Beyond All Doubt

[Reed Bunzel writing as Hilton Reed]

“Beyond All Doubt is an edge-of-your-seat fast-moving thrill-ride, kicked off by the reappearance of a dead man and propelling the reader along to the final bullet—and beyond.”— S.J. Rozan, best-selling author of The Mayors of New York

​

“Beyond All Doubt is a taut, smart, and emotionally rich thriller. Reed has a sharp eye for character and a screenwriter's feel for action. This tale is sleek as a mink and fast as a bullet.”— T. Jefferson Parker, author of The Rescue and Desperation Reef

“Beyond All Doubt is not a 'who done it,' but a twisty, compelling 'who did what.' Cameron Kane is a sympathetic, yet unrelenting bulldog in his pursuit of the truth about his wife's death. Intriguing and intense, Beyond All Doubt is a winner!”—Matt Coyle, bestselling author of the Rick Cahill crime novels