OPINION

James Kestrel’s Edgar-Winning Five

Decembers: Crime Fiction At Its Finest

As soon as James Kestrel’s Five Decembers was named Best Novel at the Edgar Awards several weeks ago, I knew I had to place it at the top of my TBR pile. I finished it over the weekend, and I found it every bit as gripping as several judges at the ceremony told me it was. At times gritty, bloody, hard-boiled, poignant, intimate, brooding, and torturous, this classic noir novel opens with the discovery of a particularly gruesome crime scene on a dairy farm on Oahu at Thanksgiving 1941, just days prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. As readers we know what lies in the days ahead, but rookie detective Joe McGrady—called out of a Honolulu bar to check it out—dives into the case as if it’s just another day. It isn’t, of course, and as he hunts down the suspected killer across the Pacific, the story evolves from crime thriller to a masterful war epic. Kestrel (a pseudonym for Jonathan Moore) expertly ratchets up the suspense through a believable cast of characters, tight prose, beautifully paced action scenes, and a narrative style that Elmore Leonard would applaud. Example: “Before he had a taste of it, the barman was back. Shaved head, swollen eyes. Straight razor scars on both cheeks. A face that made you want to hurry up and drink.” To reveal any more would cheat the reader out of a marvelous literary experience, so all I will say is buy a copy, and read it now.

How Nora Ephron’s You’ve Got Mail

Could Have Been A Serial Killer Thriller

Almost every moviegoer is familiar with Norah Ephron’s charming romantic comedy You’ve Got Mail, co-written with sister Delia Ephron, and starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. It’s been described as a “capitalist critique,” a “doting literary pastiche,” a “valentine to New York City,” a “paean to mom-and-pop-shops,” and a “tortured love story.” Nowhere would you ever classify it as a serial killer murder mystery but, as Crime Reads’ Olivia Rutigliano writes, an early draft of the screenplay suggests Ephron intended to make much more of an opening scene in which Kathleen Kelly (Ryan) mentions to her staff that she was stood up on a blind date the previous evening. Her co-workers offer up plausible excuses, until George (Steve Zahn) shows her a newspaper headline that reads “Cops Nab Rooftop Killer.” “This is a throwaway moment, a brief acknowledgement of anxiety and plausible treacherousness in an otherwise romantic film,” Rutigliano says. “But the earlier version of the script blows this up; the investigation into the identity of the Rooftop Killer pervades the narrative. [He] has committed a murder on the rooftop of George’s apartment building, and he falls passionately in love with the detective on the case.” Interestingly, You’ve Got Mail is not the first Ephron comedy to include an unexpected serial killer in the background, she says. “The 1994 film Mixed Nuts, directed by Nora Ephron and once again co-written with her sister Delia, is a Christmastime-set, ensemble-esque romantic comedy with its own murderer: ‘the Seaside Strangler.’”

How Did An Ancient Roman Sculpture

End Up At An Austin Goodwill Store?

Have you ever gone to a yard sale or thrift shop and paid a few bucks for a nondescript artwork, only to find out later that it was priceless? Me neither. But it does happen, and last week it was revealed that, in 2018, art collector Laura Young was shopping at a Goodwill store in Austin, Texas when she found a sculpture on the floor beneath a table. She purchased the piece for $34.99 and brought it home, where she noticed it looked very old and worn, and decided to learn where and when it came from. Over the next few of years, Young consulted art history experts at the University of Texas at Austin, and at several auction houses. Turns out, the sculpture was carved sometime between the first century B.C. to early first century A.D., and likely depicts either a son of Pompey the Great, who was defeated in civil war by Julius Caesar, or Roman commander Drusus Germanicus. Eventually, Jörg Deterling, a consultant for Sotheby's, identified the bust as a piece that had belonged to King Ludwig I of Bavaria, who lived from 1786 to 1868, and was part of a full-scale model he built in Aschaffenburg, Germany. The model stood for nearly 200 years, but during World War II, it was severely damaged by Allied bombers. No one knows how the bust went from being nearly destroyed to ending up at the Austin Goodwill, but the UT museum noted the U.S. Army established bases in Aschaffenburg that were in use until the Cold War, so it’s likely that a Texas soldier took it before returning home. As part of an agreement with Bavarian Administration of State-Owned Palaces, Gardens, and Lakes, the Roman bust will be on display at the San Antonio Museum of Art until May 2023, after which it will return to Germany.

Netflix’ The Lincoln Lawyer Is Slick,

Lurid, Well-Acted…And Just Plain Fun

The 10-part Netflix original series The Lincoln Lawyer debuted last week to (mostly) positive reviews from critics and fans alike. As noted by Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun Times, “This reboot is a slick, easily digested and well-acted legal thriller featuring an outstanding ensemble cast and a juicy, lurid murder mystery that keeps us guessing throughout—not that we can’t see some of the twists coming a mile down the road. That’s even part of the fun of shows such as this one; We feel smarter than most of the people in the room, except, of course, our hero, who’s always one step ahead of everyone else, even when it appears as if he’s stumbled down yet another rabbit hole.” While Manuel Garcia-Rulfo is not Matthew McConaughey, Roper notes he “still has a kind of effortless charm and creates instant empathy with his portrayal of the flawed but goodhearted defense attorney Mickey Haller, first seen on the beach in Los Angeles, staring out at the waves and reliving a near-fatal accident from a year and a half ago. Mickey essentially fell off the grid—but now he’s back in the game after a former colleague, defense attorney Jerry Vincent, was murdered in a parking garage and for reasons unknown left his entire and potentially lucrative practice to Mickey.”

COLD CASE

Canadian Murder Case Remains

Unsolved After Almost 50 Years

In 1974, 22-year-old Beverly Lynn Smith was found shot dead in her kitchen while her 10-month-old baby slept unharmed in the next room. An upcoming Amazon docuseries dives into the murder, exploring how Beverly’s husband Doug was a small-time marijuana dealer at the time of the murder, when he wasn’t at his job at the nearby General Motors assembly plant. He was at work on December 9, 1974, when he called to check in on Beverly, and their infant daughter, Rebecca. When Beverly didn’t answer the phone, Doug called one of his customers who lived in the neighborhood, who peeked through a window and saw Beverly lying on the kitchen floor. The local police department was less than a year old, and according to Toronto Life, the responding officers had been drinking alcohol at a Christmas party when they were summoned to the Smith home. The alleged inebriation led to incomplete interviews, bad police work, and crime scene contamination, and reportedly caused investigators to believe Beverly had let a marijuana buyer into the home and was shot when she returned from getting it from upstairs. The case quickly grew cold and remained that way until 2009, when authorities set up an elaborate sting to nab a man they suspected of the murder. Alan Smith, no relation to Doug or Beverly, was subsequently arrested, but all evidence in the case was thrown out due to a Canadian Supreme Court decision in another matter. The case remains unsolved to this day.

Every writer needs a good editor, and mine has suggested a few excellent revisions to the manuscript for Indigo Road. Now I’m tightening the plot, cutting some extraneous scenes, and adding a couple things to help with the pacing and the overall tone of the story. No pub date yet, which gives you plenty of time to catch up on the other books in the series (see link, below) and check out what some notable bestselling authors have said about them:

“Palmetto Blood is a winner. It sweeps you in with intrigue and authority and never lets you go. I want to go riding with Jack Connor again.” —Michael Connelly

“Reed Bunzel peels away the layers of mystery like a master of the genre.” —T. Jefferson Parker

“Reed Bunzel lights up the Southern sky with taut, exciting action and a memorable cast of characters led by Jack Connor, a protagonist sure to become a major favorite of crime fiction fans.” —Michael McGarrity

"Tightly plotted and skillfully written, Carolina Heat makes clear that Reed Bunzel has created a winning series." —Alafair Burke