Monthly Archive for April, 2011

Serial Killer’s Daughter – Library Journal Review

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May 5, 2011  6:30 – 8:00
Mysterious Bookshop, 58 Warren St, NYC, NY 10007

LIBRARY JOURNAL

Gould, Heywood. The Serial Killer’s Daughter. Nightbird. Apr. 2011. c.258p. ISBN 9780981957258. $25.

After a major hiatus (one book since 1988), novelist Gould (Fort Apache, the Bronx; Cocktail) is back with a noir thriller, full of action, dark humor, multiple killings and a swath of eccentric characters plucked from the American heartland (bungling bad guys, a lawyer of dubious sanity, and a reverend with a unique take on eternal damnation). The story involves Hannah, the daughter of an incarcerated serial killer, who fears for her life. She ensnares Peter, a hormonally charged and quip-literate English major, as protector. Since English majors are more renowned for parsing sentences than defending princesses, this is a stretch. But the unlikely hero fulfills his role with aplomb, dark humor, lethal efficiency, luck and his repertoire of weak jokes. The masterly scoop and delineation of the story has inherent cinematic fell, not suprising coming from a screenwriter and director.
VERDICT
Apart from the clichéd sexual gambit, this high-caliber redemptive road trip is quick-witted, stylish, and highly entertaining.

  – Seamus Scanlon, Ctr for Worker Education, CUNY

Serial Killer’s Daughter – Booklist Review

Please join us for a Launch Party and Book Signing

Saturday April 30, 2011    6:30 pm
Eagle Eye Bookshop, 2076 N. Decatur Road, Decatur, GA 30033
www.eagleeyebooks.com

Sunday, May 1, 2011  4:00pm
Peerless Bookstore, 8465 Holcomb Bridge Road, Alpharetta, GA
www.peerlessbookstore.com

BOOKLIST
Issue: May 1, 2011
The Serial Killer’s Daughter.
Advanced Review – Uncorrected Proof
Gould, Heywood (Author) May 2011. 258 p. Nightbird, hardcover, $20.00. (9780981957258).

       Gould is a movie guy (screenwriter for Boys of Brazil, among other writing and directing credits), and it shows in the big-screen style he brings to this novel. no essayish exposition, just snappy dialogue and narrative set forth in sentences bursting with energy. Peter Vogel, English major and uber-nerd, is approached by the beautiful Hannah for help with term papers. He happens to be there the night a jock slips her a roofie. He rescues her, and in the days to come, he realizes he has to keep rescuing her. After a few fights and chases, he learns she’s the daughter of a convicted serial killer. Someone could be punishing her for her father’s sins. Or just maybe the serial killer is a victim, too. Revelations come in layers as the violence escalates, accompanied by conversations about guilt and atonement that explain the action while advancing it—like a movie. As Peter learns to handle himself in this world, Hannah, like Lady Macbeth, grows alarmed at what she’s created. The reader gets to “watch” a fine thriller unfold.

— Don Crinklaw

Are Terrorist Trials A Plot Against America

REPRINT from November 25, 2009

Igor Yopsvoyomatsky, editor-in-chief of paranoiaisfact.com,
answers readers’ questions.

Dear Igor,

When the upcoming terrorist trials were announced my husband Todd rented a back hoe and started digging an underground bunker in our front yard. He’s down there now, about sixty feet underground, and won’t even come up for cuddles. Todd says the trials are the first step in the terrorist takeover of our country. That Obama is a sleeper agent of Al Qaeda, charged with sowing discord and confusion and leading to the dismantling of democratic institutions in the name of security, forcing conversion to Islam and imposition of Sharia on the US. Is this paranoia or fact?

Sara P.
Anchorage, Alaska.

Dear Sara,

This is paranoia with a germ of fact. Obama is not an agent of Al Qaeda. But he is a dupe. The naivete of his administration is matched only by its serene self-assurance. They are like the chess player who makes a move without considering his opponent’s response.

Look for three unintended consequences of the trials.

1. SECURITY. The NYPD will establish a security perimeter around the courthouse. Within this perimeter it will be discovered that there are hundreds of Arab, South Asian and African Muslims selling halal food, souvenirs and clothing. Millions of man hours and hundreds of millions of dollars will be spent vetting each of these individuals and a number of them will be questioned because of association with mosques, imams and/or organizations on the watch list. There will be an outcry from the Muslim community. Ethnic profiling will be alleged, lawsuits commenced, predictable positions taken on both sides of the issue. In the end the US will be made to look like the polarized polity that it is fast becoming.

All employees of the NYPD, Corrections Department and Federal Marshall service will be checked. Muslim officers will object, saying they are being singled out, their loyalty questioned. In addition the net will drag up compromising information on all employees. Harassment and invasion of privacy will be alleged. Unions will threaten job actions and litigation.

2. THE JURY. It will not be possible for these men to tried by a “jury of their peers.” No normal person would expose him/herself to the inconvenient and perhaps hazardous interruption of their life for months. Not to mention the danger it might pose to their families when (not if, because it will happen) their identities are revealed. Only those with a secret agenda will vie to be accepted—zealots of both persuasions, publicity seekers who will try to profit from their jury service and, last but most troubling, possible terrorist moles. It would only take one recalcitrant juror to force a mistrial, which would be a huge propaganda victory for the enemy. The prosecution, fully aware of this, will try to impanel a foolproof jury. Everybody in the pool will be secretly vetted by the FBI. When (not if, because it will happen) this is disclosed there will be the inevitable reaction. The eventual jury, no matter how diverse, will be labeled as “stacked.” Its decision, no matter how carefully deliberated, will be seen as “fixed” by most of the world. Obama’s intention to show that the US is a nation of laws will backfire.

3. A SENSATIONAL OUTBURST. Terrorists are master manipulators of the media. This trial will give them the opportunity to take the world stage. Condemning the US is old news. They know they’ll need something sensational to dominate the news cycle. Look for one of the defendants, maybe KSM himself, to rise in open court and declare:

“I must clear my conscience. I was recruited, paid and trained by the CIA and Mossad to carry out this operation. The intent was to cause world outrage and justify launching the war against Islam and the invasion of Iraq. I was never waterboarded or tortured in any way. On the contrary I have lived in luxury since my alleged arrest and have been told that the CIA and Mossad will provide plastic surgery, millions of dollars and a new identity for me once this travesty is over.”

This cynical confession will ignite an explosion of controversy. There will be violent protests against the US, Israel and the so-called moderate Arab nations that will be seen to have been complicit. Tens of thousands of demonstrators will descend upon the Federal Court Building. New York will suffer paralytic gridlock.

The terrorists know that the first blow is the one that impacts global consciousness. Neither the US nor Israel nor the Saudis will be able to successfully disprove this lie. Tens of millions will be added to the millions who already believe that 9/11 was a US-Israeli plot.

Todd is right, Sara. An ordeal lies ahead. My advice is to keep a low profile. Do not say or do anything to draw attention to yourself. Stay in Anchorage where you’ll be safe.

Your friend,
Igor