Obviously, It's a Wonderful Life it ain't, unless George Bailey really did steal all that money from the savings and loan, and mean old Mr. Potter brought in a hitman to whack him. The resulting film is so dark, even the man who dreamed up the twisted, twisty plot is a bit shocked.
"I was surprised at how closely they hewed to the structure of it and how much of the details remained intact,” says Phillips. “Particularly my filthy dialogue."
A screenwriter himself, Phillips had hoped he'd get to write the script if his novel ever became a film. But when he found out who was anxious to adapt the book—filthy language and all—he was happy to step aside. After all, not every writer's lucky enough to have a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist (Empire Falls author Richard Russo) and an Academy Award-winning writer/director (Places in the Heart auteur Robert Benton) interested in turning his book into a screenplay.
"Besides my high esteem for their work, I knew that their reputations would attract talent that mine couldn't,” Phillips says. “And lo and behold we ended up with John Cusack, Harold Ramis, and Billy Bob Thornton."
Hold on. Harold Ramis? Bill Murray's slacker/soldier pal in Stripes? The tallest, skinniest Ghostbuster? The man who stepped behind the cameras to bring the world Caddyshack and National Lampoon's Vacation?
Yes, that Harold Ramis. Though he's had a long career as a comic character actor and director of lightweight farces, Ramis was eager to try his hand at noir when Benton decided not to direct The Ice Harvest himself. It's not the first time Ramis has mixed comedy with crime: He directed and helped write the Sopranos Lite flicks Analyze This and Analyze That. And according to Phillips, Ramis's films weren't always as frothy and cheerful as they might at first appear.
"People thought it was weird that Harold would be considered to direct it because he's done comedies forever,” says Phillips. “But to me there's always been a real dark thread running through all his movies, and he certainly walked that fine line here between bleak despair and belly laughs."
In fact, Ramis didn't just walk that line, he crossed it: His first cut of the film featured an ending so harsh (and faithful to Phillips's book) he eventually had to scrap it.
"They did change my ending, because mine was so shocking the test audiences were trying to burn down the screen afterwards,” Phillips jokes. “Harold was nervous about showing me the new one. Which I understand, because it could certainly sink the whole thing if the tone was wrong. But I saw it in New York during post-production and thought it was perfect—very much in the spirit of the book."
So while Ramis's adaptation of The Ice Harvest won't feature the novel's vicious suckerpunch of an ending, at least no one ends up learning “the true meaning of Christmas” or thanking Santa Claus for saving the day. And as far as Phillips is concerned, that's a happy ending in and of itself.
"I'm one of the few authors you'll ever talk to who's completely satisfied with an adaptation,” he says.
Kathy Reichs is another one of the few, the proud, the pleased with an adaptation. So far, at least.
Not that Bones, the Fox series based on Reichs's bestselling mysteries about forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan, is completely faithful to her books. It's not.
"It differs quite a bit,” Reichs says. “It's not the same Tempe. She works in Washington, D.C. [instead of North Carolina and Quebec, like in the novels]. She works with an FBI agent [instead of a hunky detective]. But I think my readers will like it because it's more Tempe, even if it's a different manifestation of her."
The small-screen “manifestation” is also substantially more youthful than her paper-bound counterpart: Bones's heroine is played by twenty-seven-year-old Emily Deschanel, who's at least a decade younger than the character Reichs writes about. But the author says she didn't mind seeing her creation take a sip from the Fountain of Youth—as long as that sip didn't turn into a gulping chug.
"One of the issues that I made very clear from the outset was the age of the character. I didn't want her turned into a twenty-year-old psychic,” says Reichs. “And [the producers] understood that. But it was a compromise. The Tempe on television is a little bit younger than the Tempe in my books.” Even over the phone, you can almost hear Reichs shrug. “That's Hollywood."
In addition to shaving a few years off her age, the television Tempe got to add a new career to her résumé. Though by day she uses her science savvy to fight crime as part of a team of experts at the fictional “Jeffersonian Institution,” by night she writes a bestselling series of mysteries about a forensic anthropologist named ... Kathy Reichs.
"I think my readers are really going to get a kick out of that,” says Reichs, who's a busy forensic anthropologist in real life, splitting her time (like the Tempe of her novels) between North Carolina's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner and Quebec's Laboratoire des Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale.
Reichs's devotion to forensics comes through in her books, which don't skimp on scientific (or gory) detail. And that's part of the reason she's so pleased with Bones. As a producer on the series, she can make sure it gets right what some forensics-heavy TV dramas get wrong.
"I was out there for the shooting of the pilot and I worked with the actors, particularly Emily, showing how you reconstruct a skull and that sort of thing,” Reichs says. “I worked with the props people to make sure that Tempe's kit for crime scenes is correct and that the body parts look real. And I'm on e-mail or the phone every day with the researcher or one of the writers working with them to get the science right and the storylines realistic."
Of course, as realistic as the storylines might be, Bones is no documentary. For one thing, most FBI agents aren't nearly as photogenic as co-star David Boreanaz (who set pulses to pounding as a devilishly handsome bloodsucker on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel). Reichs concedes that her everyday work isn't quite as hi-tech and glamorous as what the series portrays.
"In the show, Tempe's lab is this...” Reichs pauses, lost for words, then bursts out laughing. “[Executive producer] Barry Josephson thinks big! Tempe has this incredible lab. But we're trying to keep it realistic even if we do have fun with it. One big advantage we have is that I'm a practicing forensic scientist. We won't have to go begging for help. If we have a question, I can just call up a colleague or walk across the corridor at the lab and say, ‘Hey, have you got a minute ... ?’”
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Booked & Printed by Robert C. Hahn
While the large commercial publishers continue their pursuit of bestselling blockbusters, small presses—independent, non-profit, and university—are playing an ever larger role in discovering new writers and supporting the careers of mid-list authors. Though not large, Bleak House Books, Wordslinger Press, and Poisoned Pen Press are part of the expanding and diverse mystery publishing landscape.
Bleak House has recently published the second fly-fishing mystery by John Galligan, The Blood Knot ($23.95). The story takes place in an isolated rural area of Wisconsin and is infused with the grit and desperation normally associated with urban, noir novels. Ned Oglivie, known to his friends as Dog, a nickname derived from his full name, thusly neD OGlivie, is a tortured soul on the run from himself and seeking escape, if not oblivion, on a three-year fishing trip featuring minimal contact with other humans.
Dog's adventure begins with an encounter with a territorial beaver while wading upstream in pursuit of a hooked trout. A short while later it becomes even more surreal when he encounters a ten-year-old boy firing shots into the partially submerged body of the painter known as the “Barn Lady."
The iconoclastic Dog is swept into the odd world of the Kussmaul clan with its own divisions and territorial claims and its odd relations with and among the area's surrounding Amish families. The dead woman, free-spirited Annie Adams, a k a the Barn Lady, had had her share of disputes with various Kussmaul males who resented her making money from the pictures she painted of their uniquely fitted barns—pictures she painted without
their permission and money she kept to herself without a twinge of regret. Now she was dead and Dog had seen with his own eyes young Deuce Kussmaul firing at her body with his .22.
Galligan demonstrates many strengths in this novel which uses fly-fishing as metaphor and philosophy and as the fulcrum by which Dog and Deuce begin to connect in a strange sort of apprenticeship. In the Kussmaul clan, Galligan has created an unforgettable group of shiftless strivers, always just getting by and always looking for an edge, legal or not. And in Eve Kussmaul, Deuce's mother, he has created a wonderfully complex woman who balances a bewildering array of contradictions in utterly convincing fashion.
Dog's gradual shift from disinterested witness to involved investigator is artfully accomplished and the question of who killed the Barn Lady and why Deuce shot her should puzzle readers till the end. It's worth the effort to find a copy of The Blood Knot and make the acquaintance of Dog and the denizens of Avalanche, Wisconsin.
Randall Hicks transports readers to a totally different scene in The Baby Game (Wordslinger Press, $22.95). Hicks's breezy mystery debut introduces Toby Dillon, an adoption attorney who has seemingly stumbled his way into a lifestyle unusual for an attorney but which suits him perfectly.
Toby's family runs a prestigious San Diego law firm begun by his grandfather, but Toby isn't part of it. And Toby's degree isn't even from a recognized school, prestigious or not, but is derived instead from a form of apprenticeship. Toby has stumbled happily into a solitary practice specializing in adoption where he can help people without working too hard and still have time to help out at the tennis club in exchange for room and an office.
Toby's best childhood friends, Brogan Barlow and Rita MacGilroy, have become movie stars and husband and wife. When they turn to Toby to help them with an adoption, Toby's world is changed radically. The adoption begins to take odd and ominous turns, and all of them find themselves confronting frightening changes with a baby's life at stake.
Hicks is an adoption expert and an attorney, and he uses his expertise to great effect in fashioning a mystery that provides an intimate look at the convoluted laws and processes that make adoption a minefield of mistakes waiting to happen. And while Hicks is adroit at exploiting the comic possibilities of his characters, he doesn't sacrifice a serious plot to do it.
The result is extremely satisfying as Hicks's facile prose converts his technical expertise into a solidly entertaining mystery debut.
Nicholas Kilmer makes an impressive return to print with Madonna of the Apes (Poisoned Pen, $24.95). After a four-year hiatus, Fred Taylor and Clayton Reed, the odd couple who are featured in five previous art-themed mysteries make a welcome reappearance.
Fans of the series get a bonus since Madonna of the Apes is a prequel that details how Taylor, a man with a violent and secret past involving action in Southeast Asia, and Reed, a rich, elderly, and reclusive art collector, meet in Boston and form their unique partnership.
Kilmer, a teacher, former Dean of the Swain School of Design, and an art dealer, has ample credentials for the artistic matters that ground his mysteries as he uses the works by (or attributed to) John Singleton Copley (Man With a Squirrel) or James Abbott McNeill Whistler (Harmony in Flesh and Black), and so forth. In each novel, the paintings or the dealings involving the art works are an integral part of the mystery that Taylor must unravel.
Madonna of the Apes is built around a work of art that just might be by DaVinci. At the same time that Taylor and Reed are taking each other's measure and trying to sort out the various scams that are being played out around a room full of artworks of questionable provenance, Kilmer is riffing with considerable skill on the life and art of Leonardo DaVinci. The scams range from crude to sophisticated to deadly, but they help forge the form the unique friendship between Taylor and Reed.
For those who have yet to make Kilmer's acquaintance, Madonna of the Apes is an ideal place to start since it is chronologically the first and it amply demonstrates the strengths of the series: good plotting, interesting characters, strong sense of place, and an intriguing background intelligible even to those with no knowledge of the art world.
Poisoned Pen has reprinted the five previous Fred Taylor mysteries in trade paperback format each available for $14.95. The next most recent, Lazarus Arise is also available from Poisoned Pen as a hardcover for $24.95.
The chain bookstores aren't going to have huge displays of any of these books when you walk through their doors, but it's worth time and effort to seek out copies from specialty mystery bookstores or directly from the publishers.
All Points Bulletin: Veteran author William Murray whose horse racing mysteries featuring Shifty Lou Anderson established him as a kind of “American Dick Francis” has returned to the track once more with Dead Heat (Eclipse Press, $24.95). Dead Heat is less a mystery than a racing novel, but it is filled with the same kind of colorful characters that populated his series fiction. Instead of Shifty Lou, the focus is on Sal “Bones” Righetti, a former enforcer who makes a living from betting the horses. One of his friends is trainer Jake Fontana, who's struggling to make a go of it while fighting against depression. Jill Aspen, a young woman fleeing a past and hoping to find a future as a jockey, earns a chance to shine while working for Jake. Murray has an excellent feel for the kinds of people who make up the racing crowd from stable hands to bettors to owners and trainers. A.S.A.P. Publishing of Mission Viejo, California, is reissuing Margaret Coel's first mystery novel, The Eagle Catcher, first published in 1995, in a 10-year anniversay edition and featuring an introduction by the author and illustrations by Phil Parks. Set among the Arapahos on Wind River Reservation in Wyoming, Coel's series spans eleven novels. The hardcover anniversary edition of The Eagle Catcher is priced at $45.00.
Note to Our Readers:
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The Story That Won
The July/August Mysterious Photograph contest was won by Sandra Woelfl Paulson of Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Honorable mentions go to James A. Knoop of Clay, Michigan; J. F. Peirce of Bryan, Texas; Rick Deal of Hickory, North Carolina; Gigi Vernon of Freeville, New York; J. Patrick Alsop of Charlotte, North Carolina; Todd Outcalt of Brownsburg, Indiana; Thomas Polick of Chicago, Illinois; Rudy Uribe, Jr. of Valley Glen, California; and Pamela Karavolos of Rosamond, California.
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Forgettable by Sandra Woelfl Paulson
"Please step inside the room for questioning, miss.” It was just standard procedure. My name was on the list. I shared homeroom with THEM during the school year. I wasn't nervous. Don't mistunderstand me; I was guilty, but I wouldn't be caught. It started on Monday morning. My calloused hands vigorously scraped gum off the bottom of the bleachers. THEY had fun synchronized swimming during summer vacation. I didn't. I also didn't wear designer clothes or drive a BMW. I was unnoticable.
"Hey, what's-your-name, I ain't paying you to stare at those girls. Get back to work!” I was even forgettable to my boss, but I needed the money, and he paid cash; no paperwork.
I went to the locker room to wash up before lunch. “Excuse me!” one of THEM said as I almost bumped into HER. “Only students are allowed in here!” SHE stated, pounding HER foot and pointing toward the exit.
"You've got to be kidding!” I thought. That's when I lost it. See, on Mondays, I cleaned the pool. That Monday, I put something other than cleaner in the pool. The next day when THEY flipped upside down, well, I think you get the picture.
I told the cops my story: I knew nothing. “Thank you, ummm, miss. You're dismissed,” the cop stated as he fumbled through the paperwork. Everyone assumed it was
that girl who cleaned the pool last night. There was only one problem. No one remembered who she was.
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Solution to the Mysterious Cipher
I saw her thumb slide very gently towards the safety catch. She didn't know much about guns, but she knew that much.
—Raymond Chandler
From “Trouble is My Business"
troubleismynpqvwxzacdfghjkABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
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Visit www.dellmagazines.com for information on additional titles by this and other authors.
AHMM, Jan-Feb 2006 Page 28
