RED DRAGON BY THOMAS HARRIS

Will Graham is an FBI forensics expert recruited by his friend Jack Crawford to track down and stop a psychopathic killer known as the Tooth Fairy.  The problem is Graham is damaged goods.  He’s one of the few Hannibal Lecter victims to get away with a functioning liver.  Graham has the scar to prove.  So screwed up is Graham by the experience, he moved to Florida got married and became a diesel mechanic.  And who could blame him. 

Graham puts the memory of his liver potentially being a finger food treat at a Lecter party behind him and joins the hunt.  Why, because secretly his new life is boring the shit out of him.  This isn’t in the book, but you have to figure.  FBI agent who tracks down the nastiest of the nasties becomes a diesel mechanic swatting skeeters in Florida.  No way. 

Graham jumps in with both feet, but not all is well.  Remember, he’s damaged goods.  The reason he’s a successful manhunter (the name of the first movie) is because he has a creepy talent for empathizing with the nutcase killers he tracks down.  This talent makes him question his own sanity.  So while he’s an eager beaver he’s got issues he needs to work out.

 

While Graham goes on the hunt.  The prey is batshit crazy killer Francis Dolarhyde.  But don’t blame him.  He’s bad because momma left him with his equally batshit crazy grandma.  So naturally, like all boys raised by crazy women, he’s got issues with the ladies.  His cleft palate isn’t helping.  Francis, the name alone would cause him problems getting laid even if he didn’t have a cleft palate, gets this thing for a painting called THE GREAT RED DRAGON and the WOMAN CLOTHED with the SUN.  (I wonder why Harris didn’t use this as the title of the book.)  Too freakin long is why!  Anyway, Francis gets his grille fixed, starts doing P90X, gets a job, but he can’t get this Red Dragon thing out of his head.  Instead of stepping back and admiring the dragon he wants to be the dragon.  Why, because he’s batshit crazy, remember?  He bites his victims with his grandma’s choppers for God’s sake!  Sick bastard!

So Grahams on the case.  He starts poking around, watches home movies of the victims and realizes the killer must have been watching the families before he killed them.  Bingo!  He gets a clue. 

Meanwhile, Francis falls in love with the only woman who could ever find him attractive blind Reba; she's blind, horny and not too bright.  Reba is hot to trot so she hooks up with Francis.  The dragon whips his tail and likes it.  (Hey, Mikey, he likes it!)  But wait a minute, here comes the after sex remorse.  Francis goes, “Am I a slut?  No, she’s a slut! No she isn’t! Yes she is!” and decides Reba the blind bimbo has got to go.  Why because she’s messing with the dragon’s mojo and Francis is batshit crazy.  Meanwhile, Graham is closing in.  He figures out the home movies are the key, duh!  While this is going on, people are dying all over.  That’s okay because we aren’t that into them anyway.

 

Francis feels the cops closing in.  He wants to be the dragon and he wants Reba too.  He has a mean jealous streak and does an O.J. on a guy walking Reba home one night.  (Is that wrong to say?)  To come up with a happy ending, Francis consults the batshit crazy manual and decides the only way to have it all is to kill Reba and himself.  Of course, like all the plans in the manual things don’t work out and Reba escapes and Francis becomes Puff the Magic Dragon.  Or does he?  What happened?   READ THE DAMNED BOOK.  Don’t be lazy.

Red Dragon uses omniscient narration smoothly from chapter to chapter and scene to scene.  The reconstructions of the murder scenes are awesome and Will Graham is super relatable.  The hunt for the killer is methodical and believable enough given the historic time frame and world of the story.  An easy read and it will make you want to watch both movies made from the book: Manhunter and Red Dragon.  Go get it.



The Church of the Dead Girls by Stephen Dobyns (1997)

           Post 911, small town hysteria seems like an interesting topic for social commentary to use as the backdrop for insanity and murder.  However, The Church of the Dead Girls was written well before the planes flew into the towers or the pentagon or dove into a field in Pennsylvania.  So while the reaction to the deaths in Aurelia, NY seemed plausible given the natural fear human beings have for the unknown, especially when the unknown is the identity of a killer on the loose, the book spends an extraordinary amount of time building the town and its inhabitants at the expense of a real story. 

            The novel begins with a prologue (which is really a flash forward) describing the entombment of the three missing dead girls in our killers attic.  As hooks go, sentence one is awesome: “This is how they looked: three dead girls propped up in three straight chairs.” (pg. 1)  For me, it doesn’t get much better than that.  The prologue (flash forward) goes on in great (by great I mean really great) description of the condition and location of the three dead girls.  By the end of the prologue, I’m like a heroin addict who has waited too long for a fix.  My skin is crawling wanting more. 

            I extend my arm and tie off my vein as I read the first sentence of chapter 1: “Afterward everyone said it began with the disappearance of the first girl, but it began earlier than that.” (pg. 9).  I think, here it comes, and it does for a while.  I feel the tingle and the warmth, but soon, my high dissipates.  This ain’t the good shit I was promised. 

            Chapter 1 and most of the chapters that follow are not bringing me closer to ecstasy but further away.  Sadly, it isn’t long before I begin to skim pages, index finger extended, searching for a verb to latch on to.  I was being told so much about everyone I don’t care about anyone. And it goes on and on, chapter after chapter that way.  My mind draws doodles in the margins.  99 bottles of beer rings in my head.

            Soon I’m wondering who the hell is telling the story.  I get this idea I’m reading a twisted version of a Claymation Christmas program narrated by a disembodied Fred Astaire and the town is really the island of the misfits.  Old Fred knows what everyone does and thinks and feels.  He knows their fears and their prejudices.  He sees through their eyes and hears what they hear.  HE IS GOD.  And like GOD his name is unknown.  I guess to speak it is to burst into flames.  The narrator mocks me “I am that I am” is a booming Cecil B. Demille Moses burning bush voice.  For those who may not converse with the almighty, the phrase translates into “shut up and accept it.”  So I try, but now my heart is filled with blasphemy. 

            Finally, some 300 pages later we get to the meat or what is supposed to be the plot.  I will not spoil it for those still wanting to read the book, but let’s just say that as a southpaw I was truly insulted.  As a reader, turning the pages with my right hand fingers, my reaction was more like, REALLY? IS THIS ALL THERE IS?  Yes, my reactions sometimes are in caps.  Talk about cliché plot!  OMG!  What Ever Happened to Baby Jane comes to Aurelia.

            Listen, who am I to criticize, right?  The writing is poetic in word selection and usage and description of the town and it’s beautiful the way Dobyn’s builds the community and you feel like you’re there and blah-blah-blah.  I was setup to read a scary suspense story and I didn’t get one.  Call me jaded.  Call me unsophisticated.  Call me slug.  Call me a victim of too many Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies or Children of the Corn viewings, whatever.  Hell, I’m not even going to go into the issues with POV anymore than I have already.  Sadly, for me the best parts of the book began and ended with Steven King’s blurb.  I would have like to have read that book.  This was no Needful Things. 

            My name is Dwight Jolivette and I approve this message.