Touchstone: from Kirk Russell's "Redback"

Here’s a passage that matters to me, a passage that truly evokes emotion and thought, from the fourth John Marquez eco-thriller by Kirk Russell:

At dawn it was quite cold and he made coffee, ate bread, cheese, and dates, and then walked down to the lake and filtered enough water for the hike up.  He slid the water bottles into the pack.  He slipped the pack on and started up with an ice axe in his right hand.

There was no trail or any real need of a trail.  The weather was fine and he could see ahead and knew his route.  It was steep and long and jumbled with granite and talus, and then he climbed on snow.  It was steep, and there were places where you wouldn’t want to fall, but nowhere did he need a rope.   On the saddle between Banner and Ritter he drank half his water and cleaned his sunglasses before starting up again.  Here, the snowfield steepened and he kicked the toe of his boot in harder and used the ice axe.

When he summitted Mount Banner just before noon he could hear Brad’s voice in his head.  On top, it was cold and clear.  Over the Minarets the sky was dark blue.  He caught his breath sitting on a rock looking down at Lake Ediza, small and beautiful below, and at Thousand Island Lake and east toward the desert, and then down the long reach of the Sierras.  This was a place Brad loved and Marquez walked the summit looking for a spot, then climbed down between rocks and found a place to tuck in Brad’s good luck talisman.

We do things to say good bye that defy rational explanation.  You take what you remember and loved in a human being and you hold it in your heart, but still at times you need a photo or a ring or a piece of clothing, something you can touch, a tombstone to visit where you can talk.  Marquez knew from time to time he’d come back to this mountain.  When he could no longer climb it, the mountain would still be here, and if part of Alvarez’s spirit lingered with it, and if the talisman held any good luck, the mountain would be safer for those that climbed.  What better spirit to guard climbers than Brad?

--Kirk Russell, Redback,
Severn House Publishers Ltd,
Great Britain, 2010/ USA, 2011
(pages 94-95)

Style Tips from Kirk Russell

Kirk Russell's A Killing in China Basin is a fairly recent crime novel set in San Francisco, and I'd like to recommend it to you. There's an engaging central character--veteran homicide inspector Ben Raveneau--compelling supporting characters, a handful of suspects, and the City By The Bay. There are many crime novels and mysteries set in San Francisco, but this one has Inspector Raveneau and, significantly, an unassuming energy that builds and builds, a steady relentlessness that should engage and provoke you to read further and further.

Rather than offer a summary or even a teaser about the central concerns of the novel, I am going to share a taste, a sense of the texture. With this second reading of Russell's novel, I'm most struck by the rich characterization; the spare, focused descriptions; and the interplay between the characters, captured in dialogue and in silence, in what's unsaid. This passage, however, offers an entry into the main character's evolving sense of self and humility through a reflection on clothing, on what to wear to work.

(La Rosa is Raveneau's new partner, a much younger rising star in the department.)

Like a true cop, La Rosa read the arrest article first, and he made coffee. Though it was Saturday and the office empty but for one interview underway, la Rosa had dressed in a coffee-colored suit and shoes to match. Maybe that was for an anticipated meeting with Lafaye, but who knew whether Lafaye was even in town. He got the impression from the website and everything else that popped up on Google that Lafaye traveled a lot. Seeing her nice clothes reminded him of a period of several years when he'd worn nice suits every day and told people that it was out of respect for the dead.

But that respect for the dead had also coincided with when he was most full of himself. Looking back now, he figured he'd known a few very good inspectors and some very bad ones and the clothing hadn't made anyone better or worse. Some of the bad inspectors had dressed immaculately yet couldn't find a soldier on an army base.

The good ones connected to some pulse running through everyone. One of the very best had taken him aside at a retirement party and walked him out into a warm May night on a patio to tell him, 'Dump the expensive suits, you don't need them. I've been watching you and you're the real deal, but you're missing details because you're spending too much time trying to keep coffee off your tie.'

At some point after trying to live larger than he was, Raveneau had figured it out. He sipped the coffee now . . . .

Kirk Russell, A Killing in China Basin, Severn House Publishers, Ltd: Sutton, Surrey, England, 2011--from pages 77-78.

I've just ordered the second Ben Raveneau thriller: Counterfeit Road.

Kirk Russell is also the author of four John Marquez eco-crime novels, and I recommend those books highly. In fact, Shell Games is a particular favorite; that novel begins with murder and abalone poaching on the northern California coast . . . .

Postscript:

The badge isn't quite right to fit the story, as it's a sergeant's badge, #1, for the City of Richmond, not an inspector's badge, not for San Francisco. That's my dad's badge, the retirement version earned through thirty years of service.

This Thursday will be the eighth anniversary of his death. Rest easy, Dad, rest easy.

Kirk Russell's "Dead Game": Read It!

Coffee break after the photo session. What do you expect from merfolk, anyway?

Kirk Russell's Dead Game, the book pictured above, is one of the best crime novels I know. It's about sturgeon poaching in California, but it's a real novel, so it's also about a lot more than that. Great qualities: major characters, minor characters, landscape, plot, and pacing. This is the third of Russell's John Marquez crime novels, and while I love all of them (with a particular appreciation for the first, Shell Games, about abalone poaching), Dead Game shows Russell at his best.

This novel moves, my friends; it has momentum, a quiet momentum that builds continually and surprisingly. The novel carried me along, and yet caught me off guard too. It's thorough and thoughtful, yet in an energetic, constantly pressing way. It has Russian gangsters, sure, but it's not a "Russian gangster thriller." It's better than that. Russell is better than easy generalizations or formulas. So many crime novels bluster, but this one doesn't. I'm not sure how to put the best effects into words, but I've been rereading this novel once or twice a year since it was published in 2005. The great American novelist Richard Ford is on record how he learned much about narrative transitions, about getting from scene to scene, from F. Scott Fitzgerald in his The Great Gatsby; anyone can learn about narrative economy from Kirk Russell.

My copy happens to be autographed by the author. (I am happy that I've been able to tell him personally that I admire and appreciate his work. Others would care more about that John Hancock enhancing the market value of a first edition; I read and wear out worthy books, first edition or not.)

Dead Game opens with the murder of a fish, though you may not realize that's what he's giving us. Eventually, you have to see the crime. The book also opens with the apparent abduction or murder of an informant into the sturgeon poaching and illegal caviar processing . . . so there's plenty of action from the start. Russell's main character John Marquez, the leader of a Fish and Game undercover team, rewards your attention as we watch how he handles both the criminal investigations and his personal relationships with his wife and stepdaughter. Marquez's character enables Russell to explore the themes of integrity, commitment, and friendship.

Kirk Russell understands the evil and the frailty as well as the courage and strength in humanity. He also understands the vitality of life beyond the human sphere, and yet the human responsibility towards such life, those creatures. Aren't those qualities you want in a novelist?

Dead Game: check it out. Check out his other novels as well. Learn more here.

P.S. I'm looking forward to his non-fiction writing too.