ORGAN SYMPHONY - Insights and excerpts

ORGAN SYMPHONY published by Rough Edges Press

Some subjects don’t go away. Organ harvesting is one of them. It crops up in the news from time to time. It’s also the inciting incident that starts this Leon Cazador novel.

Occasionally, I like to book-end a tale – with a quote or image at the beginning and echoing it at the end of the book; for this one, I chose the word ‘heartless’:

August, 2016. Lazzaretto Piccolo, Laguna Veneto, Italy

Gho Jun chuckled beneath his surgical mask and in his high-pitched voice joked, “Soon our rich client will be heartless, no?”

It doesn’t give anything away to reveal the book’s last line, here:

Carlota nodded. “Truly, Leon, those who ban people from listening to music are heartless.”

By no means exclusively, but in my books (and even some short stories) I attempt to feature places I’ve visited. Here, we go to Venice, Charleston, South Carolina, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, Stockbridge, Córdoba and Torrevieja in Spain, and Tokyo. The story ranges from 2016 to 2022.

Book blurb

Leon Cazador is on FBI liaison duty in Charleston, South Carolina when a dead child is found with a kidney missing. Suspecting an old foe, he jumps into action when a convoy of trucks with kidnapped children hits a snag, and a boy escapes. What starts out as a simple cat and mouse chase turns into a convoluted web of deceit involving an underground organ transplant ring that surpasses Leon’s wildest imaginings. He is faced with resourceful nuns and a treacherous snow blizzard, and heartless killers.

‘That scene on the frozen lake at the end of Part One was terrific! Sister Christina is another fine character’ – reader’s comments.)

There is a resolution of sorts, but also death and denial. And the evil supremo eludes discovery.

Five years later—and carrying around the weight of unresolved burdens and having acquired personal assistant Carlota (‘Leon and Carlota make a great team. I thoroughly enjoyed the book!’ – reader’s comments)—Leon runs into suspicious activity in Córdoba, Spain that makes his heart stop cold. Organ traffickers are running rampant, and an investigating team has gone missing and are liable to become unwitting donors. Eager to put an end to this corrupt organization’s misdeeds once and for all, Leon makes finding its leader his top priority. But will he and his delectable personal assistant Carlota have what it takes to bring a modern evil like no other to its knees?

‘Nik Morton is really good at creating characters and describing action scenes.’ – a reader’s comment.

Amazon UK: https://tinyurl.com/szhr9s82

Amazon US: https://tinyurl.com/y2hdryym

Organ Symphony - excerpts:

The gunmen were amateurs, standing in plain view, too cocky with their Uzi machine-guns. Leon rested on his elbows and through narrowed eyes took careful unhurried aim as the Uzi bullets spat sparks from rockery inches from his face. The Magnum slugs lifted them both off the ground and they jumped like ungainly puppets and slammed into the fender of the Chevy.

***

By chance all three stayed together, and were trucked to South Carolina. Here, Rafael was taken away – it must have been about two weeks ago – and returned with a bandage wrapped round his body. One of the older kids showed his own operation scar, proudly displaying it as a badge of honor, and said, “They start on the bits we’ve got two of – like kidneys, eyes, lungs...” The rest was left unsaid.

***

Normally on weekdays they would exercise after waking. With Carlota sitting enticingly on his ankles, he would perform seventy sit-up crunches, alternate elbow to alternate knee, followed by seventy press-ups. Carlota did the same, though she was faster than him – but then again she was younger. After breaking a sweat, they would shower. At the weekend they would refrain and instead perform tai chi in a convenient park for a complete change.

But he’d vowed that on this mini-holiday they would give that form of physical exercise a miss. “Only that form of exercise?” she queried mischievously.

“Quite,” he answered straight-faced.

***

A mountainous landscape populated by dragons strode out of the swathes of hammam’s steam and approached Leon Cazador and Carlota. Leon wasn’t surprised when Carlota stifled a gasp.

Hiroki Kuroda was tattooed over his entire torso and down to his wrists and calves. At a glance, he gave the impression that he was wearing long johns; instead, he was a walking exhibition of body art. Ray Bradbury’s Illustrated Man always sprang to mind when Leon saw him, but this was no fantasy. As a member of the Yakuza—a Japanese criminal organization similar to the Mafia, but much older—Hiroki as a much younger man had endured hundreds of hours of pain from a bamboo sliver simply to show that he could. He waved a greeting with his left hand. The little finger should have been missing at the first knuckle, but a shining substitute appeared grafted in place.

Sitting on the wooden slats of the bench, Leon wore light blue swimming shorts and Carlota, on his left, was skimpily covered by a dark green bikini she’d brought for use in the hotel pool but had yet had the opportunity to christen.

Hiroki adjusted the towel about his waist, acknowledged Carlota, and lowered his huge bulk on Leon’s right.

***

Her heart was hammering away.

She felt alone. A rookie investigator.

At least she could rely on her Spanish. Ask a policeman? Ha!

Then, roughly three paces ahead of her a man strode out from a doorway. He was dressed in loose-fitting black pants and an open-necked shirt.

She stopped at once, sensing a threat.

Her mouth was dry.

***

In the blink of an eye Leon raised the pistol and  harshly whipped Okudara’s face with the silenced barrel.

The man backed against the shelving and rubbed his chin.

“Carlota,” Leon called over his shoulder, “shoot the other guy’s knees from under him if he so much as blinks!”

Leon aimed his automatic at Okudara’s left knee. “I can even things up,” he said. “You can limp with both legs.”

***

“We haven’t packed enough clothing to go gallivanting,” Carlota said. “We were only supposed to spend a couple of days in Córdoba.”

“We’re not gallivanting,” Leon corrected. “This isn’t recreation, my dear, it’s hunting.”

She kissed him. “I like it when you put on your serious face. Sends shivers down my spine.”

He hugged her and traced his fingers down her spine. “This isn’t getting the packing done, is it?”

“There’s time for that, don’t fret, my hunter.” And there was; time for everything.

***

Once they were back in their hotel room, Leon unwrapped the brown-paper parcel. Rose had managed to meet his specifications as to size, stopping power and weight. The Beretta Model 84 weighed a mere twenty-three ounces and was only six and a half inches long, suitable for concealing on Carlota’s person. Its magazine held thirteen rounds.

To fill his shoulder holster he’d opted for a Bernardelli P-018, its magazine holding fifteen 9mm parabellum cartridges. The slightly smaller and lighter Tanfoglio TA90 snugly fitted his ankle-holster; it too held fifteen 9mm parabellum cartridges. Rose had also supplied a spare clip of cartridges for each weapon. Between them they should have enough fire-power to deal with a crop of organ harvesters, he reckoned. And they each had a silencer that would fit.

***

“You’re wet,” he observed. She wasn’t wearing a bra under her clinging white bandeau.

“I can see why you’re a private eye.” She grinned. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to catch my death. The sun and the warm breeze will soon dry me.”

“Hope not – catch death, I mean.” He revved the boat forward.

She stood and moved to his side. “We all die, eventually, darling.”

He hugged her with one arm while steering. “Let us not hasten the inevitable, eh?”

***

That will do, enough to provide a flavour, I hope.

A Dance to the Music of Time (5 of 12)

The first four volumes of A Dance to the Music of Time are reviewed in earlier blogs.

***

Anthony Powell’s 1960 novel Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant begins in the late 1920s and is again narrated by Nick Jenkins, and reveals in flashback his first meetings with Mr Deacon (deceased in the previous book), Maclintick, Gossage, Carolo and Moreland. As before, there is little emotion in the narrative: ‘I listened to what was being said without feeling…’ (p29) – which could apply to the story so far, really. 

His friends Maclintick, Moreland and Barnby are intent on going to Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant. Apparently, ‘there used to the New Casanova, where the cooking was Italian and the decoration French eighteenth century. Further up the street was the Amoy, called by some Sam’s Chinese Restaurant. The New Casanova went into liquidation. Sam’s bought it up and moved over their pots and pans and chopsticks, so now you can eat treasure rice, or bamboo shoots fried with pork ribbons, under panels depicting scenes from the career of the Great Lover.’ (p32)

Powell’s narrator doesn’t involve the reader greatly in the scenes: ‘Maclintick and Barnby ordered something unadventurous from the dishes available; under Moreland’s guidance, I embarked upon one of the specialities of the house.’ (p34) You have to wonder if Powell could actually name any Chinese dishes; and the phrase ‘from the dishes available’ seems superfluous, as would ‘from the menu’.

Following from these reminiscences, we move to the 1930s and Nick reveals he has been married to Isobel, ‘perhaps a year’. (p58) The scandal about Mrs Simpson and, ultimately, The Abdication, is the talk of the town.

Lady Warminster is quite a character. She was ‘prone to fortune-tellers and those connected with divination. She was fond of retailing their startling predictions.’ (p74) Echoes of Nick’s Uncle Giles’s friend Mrs Erdleigh! One of her statements about the novelist St John Clarke: 'I always think one ought to be grateful to an author if one has liked even a small bit of a book’ (p75) is damning with faint praise indeed! By now, Clarke was ‘forgotten by the critics but remembered fairly faithfully by the circulating libraries…’ (p80)

Nick had lost touch with Widmerpool, primarily because his wife Isobel didn’t care for the man. ‘In any case I should never have gone out of my way to seek him, knowing, as one does with certain people, that the rhythm of life would sooner or later be bound to bring us together again.’ (p101)

When we do meet Widmerpool, he is more pompous than ever: ‘I regret to say that few, if any, of my school contemporaries struck me sufficiently favourably for me to go out of my way to employ their services… It is one of my principles in life to surround myself with persons whose conduct has satisfied me.’ (p122) And clearly he is not prescient: ‘Setting aside a European war, which I do not consider a strong probability in spite of certain disturbing features, I favour a reasoned optimism.’ (p123)

Maclintick is a sad figure, with a marriage that doesn’t work, he and his wife constantly arguing: ‘… for a moment I thought he was going to strike her; just as I had thought she might stick a dinner knife into him when I had been to their house…’ (p148)

There is a rare stab of emotion, however: ‘I suddenly felt horribly uncomfortable, as if ice-cold waer were dripping very gently, very slowly down my spine…’ (p151) when reminded of his old love Priscilla.

The narrator excuses his lack of emotional commitment in part: ‘... it is doubtful whether an existing marriage can ever be described directly in the first person and convey a sense of reality… if one has cast objectivity aside, the difficulties of presenting marriage are inordinate… I thought of some of these things on the way to the nursing home.’ (p96)

At the nursing home he meets Moreland and, of all people, Widmerpool. Here, Nick reveals to Moreland, an expectant father, that Isobel has just had a miscarriage. Moreland is not particularly sympathetic, bemoaning the fact that his wife Matilda’s constant false alarms were likely to make him bankrupt. (p98) These were the days before the National Health Service.

There’s a preponderance of names beginning with the letter ‘M’ – Moreland, Maclintick, Mona, Members, Milly, Magnus, Mildred (dumped girlfriend of Widmerpool), Mortimer, Matilda ( wife of Moreland)… Reminds me of the story ‘The Empty House’ in The Return of Sherlock Holmes: ‘My collection of M’s is a fine one…’ (p20) Though perhaps in this book’s case there’s an overabundance of names beginning with that letter.

Next: 6 – The Kindly Ones.

A Dance to the Music of Time (4 of 12)

Anthony Powell’s fourth book in his series, At Lady Molly’s (1957) is set in the early 1930s. As before, the narrator, Nick Jenkins seems cold and detached. ‘I always enjoy hearing the details of other people’s lives, whether imaginary or not…’ (p211)

 

Nick has achieved some modest success with his writing: ‘Written a couple of novels, and moved from a firm that published art books to a company that produced second-feature films.’ (p16) Clearly heavily influenced by Powell’s own work at Duckworths, the publishers and his later stint as a scriptwriter for Warner Brothers in England. ‘I on what is called the “scenario side”. I help to write that part of the programme known as the “second feature”. For every foot of American film shown in this country, a proportionate length of British film must appear. The Quota, in fact.’ (p55)

When we last shared Nick’s life, he was romantically involved with Jean Duport. Now, that was over and he was ‘fancy-free’, aged twenty-eight or so, and open to his confederate Chips Lovell’s suggestion to visit his aunt –Molly Jeavons. Previously married to Lord John Sleaford, Molly lived in the mansion Dogdene; Sleaford died of Spanish Flu in 1919; she was now married to Captain Teddy Jeavons. ‘Molly remained a big, charming, noisy young woman, who had never entirely ceased to be a schoolgirl. When the Dogdene frame was removed, like the loosening of a corset of steel, the unconventional, the eccentric, even the sluttish side of her nature became suddenly revealed to the world.’ (p159)

Molly is quite a character. ‘… exceptionally kind-hearted. The house is always full of people she is doing good turns to. Children stay here while their parents are fixing up a divorce.. Penniless young men get asked to meals. Former servants are always being given help of one sort or another…’ (p164)

While at Lady Molly’s, Nick comes across Widmerpool who is in the company of an older woman, Mildred. Powell’s strengths are his character descriptions, such as this sighting of Widmerpool: ‘He was wearing a new dark suit. Like a huge fish swimming into a hitherto unexplored and unexpectedly exciting aquarium, he sailed resolutely forward.’ (p46)

In this fourth outing it is obvious that certain characters will continue to surface in Nick’s life. ‘Widmerpool was a recurring milestone on the road; perhaps it would be more apt to say that his course, as one jogged round the track, was run from time to time, however different the pace, in common with my own.’ (p47)

Nick is surprised to learn he is getting married to Mildred, which is quite shocking news…

Other news concerns the rumbling in Europe caused by the ascension of Herr Hitler. Widmerpool has a leaning towards the ‘socialist’ political spectrum. ‘People talk of rearming. I am glad to say the Labour Party is against it to a man – and the more enlightened Tories, too.’ (p66) This is another one of those lengthy speeches Powell’s characters indulge in. ‘What is much more likely to be productive is to settle things round a table…’ (p67) So, while the bohemians and businessmen enjoy their chatter over cocktails, all of Europe sleepwalks towards a world war.

Later, mention is made of the embargo on arms to Bolivia and Paraguay, the ‘Smash Fascism’ group, the worries about Mosley, and the independence of Catalonia, and free meals for schoolchildren. (p120) And, briefly touched on, the conflict between Japan and China (p203).

Again, Nick meets Quiggin and the Tolland family, notably Erridge. The arrival one evening of Susan and Isobel Tolland is quite seismic for Nick: ‘The atmosphere changed suddenly, violently. One became all at once aware of the delicious, sparkling proximity of young feminine beings. The room was transformed.’ (p136) Powell doesn’t go in for emotion. The books are observational, dealing with manners, pomposity, venality, and the narrator is virtually invisible. ‘Would it be too explicit, too exaggerated, to say that when I set eyes on Isobel Tolland, I knew at once that I should marry her?’ (p137) There’s much about marriage – and divorce, too. Nick’s friend Peter Templer said, ‘Women may show some discrimination about whom they sleep with, but they’ll marry anybody.’ (p187) And Nick himself contemplated that blessed union, too: ‘I, too, should be married soon, a change that presented itself in terms of action rather than reflection, the mood in which even the most prudent often marry: a crisis of delight and anxiety, excitement and oppression.’ (p201)

While there are no great laughs, despite this being described as a humorous novel, there are moments that raise a smile. One of these is Erridge’s butler, Smith. An alcoholic who imbibed from the cellar, he was shaken when asked if there were any champagne in the cellar.

‘Champagne, m’lord?’

‘Have we got any? One bottle would do. Even a half-bottle.’

Smith’s face puckered, as if manfully attempting to force his mind to grapple with a mathematical or philosophical problem of extraordinary complexity. His hearing suggested that he had certainly before heard the word “champagne” used, if only in some distant, outlandish context; that devotion to his master alone gave him some apprehension of what this question – these ravings, almost – might mean… After a long pause, he at last shook his head.

‘I doubt if there is any champagne left, m’lord.’ (p143)

Nick’s friend Stringham seems dominated in some manner by Miss Weedon, Tuffy, who may have designs on curing Stringham of his affection for alcohol. Nick ‘found her a trifle alarming. She gave an impression of complete singleness of purpose: the impression of a person who could make herself very disagreeable if thwarted.’ (p163) We shall see more of her in volume 5.

Molly’s sister Lady Warminster is a widow and a hypochondriac, and ‘awe-inspiring. Something of the witch haunted her delicate, aquiline features and transparent ivory skin: a calm, autumnal beauty that did not at all mask the amused, malicious, almost insane light that glinted all the time in her infinitely pale eyes. When young, she must have been very good-looking indeed.’ (p205)

The book begins with recollections of Nick’s family’s distant relation, General Conyers and almost ends with him in the flesh, paraphrasing Foch: ‘War not an exact science, but a terrible and passionate drama? Something like that. Fact is, marriage is rather like that too.’

If I’d been reading these books when they were first published, I may well have lost the thread and interest, waiting a year or more between each ‘episode’. Being able to read them in close proximity (even if interspersed with other books), the characters do tend to live – even if essentially uneventful lives.

The cover depicts Kenneth Widmerpool by Mark Butcher; a fleeting resemblance to Reginald Maudling (1917-1979), British politician.

Next: 5 - Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant.

Editorial comment:

Still huge unbroken paragraphs, also in speech, which is totally unrealistic.

Again, there’s not a great deal of description of the scenes that contain the characters, the reader can’t actually ‘be there’.

As observed above, Powell’s character descriptions are a delight.

Book review - Upon Dark Waters

Robert Radcliffe’s  2003 novel is Upon Dark Waters written as if the events and characters were real, and the author succeeds, even though the ending is disappointing. Real life can be disappointing. But it can also be glorious, romantic, colourful, dangerous and touched by remarkable bravery.

It’s 1942 and the narrator, Stephen Tomlin, is a new Midshipman on the corvette Daisy; the ship is one of several tasked with convoy duties in the North Atlantic. The depiction of the convoys is excellent, and the ship’s crew are believable characters, from the captain to the lowliest crewman.

One of the characters on Daisy is Sub Lieutenant Michael George José-Luis Quemada Villiers, RNVR. His story is told in the third person, and essentially the book is about him. He was born ‘sputtering and bloody into the world…’ in Uruguay. His mother was a beauty, Aurora who married an English diplomat. It reads like a family saga, but it’s interspersed with the survivors in a rowing boat in the Atlantic. Well researched, with an intense feeling for the people of the pampas, the story races towards the historic Battle of the River Plate.

An excellent, well-written novel.

At the front is a double page spread diagram of the ship:

Robert Radcliffe is the pen-name for Robert Mawson.

Book review - The General

C.S. Forester’s fiction covered a wide range, though there was a heavy leaning towards historical stories. The General (1936) is virtually a biography of a fictional Army officer. It begins with Lieutenant-General Sir Herbert Curzon, KCMG, CB, DSO being wheeled in his bath-chair along Bournemouth’s promenade.  Local opinion in Bournemouth ‘is inclined to give Sir Herbert more credit than he has really earned, although perhaps not more than he deserves.’  That ambivalent, cryptic observation then leads into a flashback that covers almost the entire book.

The ‘virtual biography’ stems from the style and point of view of the writing: ‘The day on which Curzon first stepped over the threshold of history, the day which was to start him towards the command of a hundred thousand men, towards knighthood – and towards the bath-chair on Bournemouth promenade – found him as a worried subaltern in an early South African battle.’

At the time, Curzon was in the cavalry fighting the Boers. By chance rather than design, he distinguished himself in the battle of Volkslaagte and earned a DSO. Curzon is depicted as a man of honour without much imagination. He desired to conform to type, particularly as his family history could not compare with that of the majority of officers. ‘… it is assumed that it is inherent in the English character to wish not to appear different from one’s fellows, but that is a bold assumption to make regarding a nation which has produced more original personalities than any other in modern times.’ (p20)

The years passed and then the First World War was upon them. Forester captures a great deal of the feel of the time: ‘There never had been a mobilization like this in all British history…’ (p28) They conveyed some three thousand horses to France for the expeditionary force.

Curzon believed in the maxim, ‘Feed the horses before the men, and the men before the officers, and the officers before yourself.’ (p29) He didn’t like to command his division by telephone, as other commanders did: ‘He was still imbued with the regimental ideal of sharing on active service the dangers and discomforts of his men.’ (p148)

Curzon had not mastered French, ‘which the civilians talked with such disconcerting readiness. He had early formed a theory that French could only be spoken by people with a malformed larynx…’ (p29)  This is only one instance where Forester employs his humour and irony. Another is: ‘Her Grace is not at home, sir,’ said the butler at the door. By a miracle of elocution he managed to drop just enough of each aitch to prove himself a butler without dropping the rest.’ (p68)

At length, Curzon was promoted to Major-General and given the Ninety-first Division, to relieve a rather aged officer – ‘a doddering old fool’ - and take his residence. The outgoing officer and his wife were not pleased. ‘Until this morning they had felt secure in the pomp and power of their official position. It was a shock for old people to be flung out like this without warning… With the tenacity of very old people for the good things of life they wanted to spin out their stay here, even for only a few days.’ (p88)

Eventually, Curzon marries well, the daughter of a duke. ‘The Bishop (he was a Winter-Willoughby too; by common report the only one with any brains, and he had too many) went through the service…’ (p102) Afterwards, at the reception, Forester presages the doom looming: ‘The sparse khaki amidst the morning coats and the elaborate dressed would have been significant to an attentive observer. Those uniforms were like the secret seeds of decay in the midst of an apparently healthy body. They were significant of the end of a great era.’ (p103)

While Curzon might have been a bit of a snob, he was not as out of touch as his in-laws: ‘… it gave the Duchess an uneasy sense of outraged convention that aeroplane bombs should slay those in high places as readily as those in low. She described the horrors of air raids to Curzon (on leave) as though he had never seen a bombardment.’ (p175) The Duke’s sense of proportion was less warped, if marginally so.

There are a few moving passages where Curzon’s stiff upper lip almost falters with regard to his wife. ‘Curzon actually had to swallow hard as he kissed her good-bye; he was moved inexpressibly by the renewal of the discovery that there was actually a woman on earth who could weep for him.’ (219) [We’ll ignore the repetition of ‘actually’…]

As the war gets under way, Curzon’s 91^st Division is scheduled for Gallipoli, but he wants to face the Hun and manages to get the orders changed. To the Western Front – Flanders’ fields…

Written just before the next global conflict, The General shows that the adage ‘lions led by donkeys’ might have been good left-wing or liberal propaganda, but it was unfair. The methodology of warfare had been outstripped by the weapons. Common sense should have indicated that throwing thousands of infantry at barbed wire and machine-guns was no way to wage war. ‘… a convention had grown up under which the prowess of a division was measured by the number of its men who were killed.’ They were playing a numbers game, not dealing with human beings who had dreams, hopes and families.

Although Forester didn’t go into combat, he manages nevertheless to convey some of the horror of trench warfare.  The General is an excellent examination of a brave First World War officer thrust into a situation largely beyond his understanding where his beliefs and ideals are shattered by modern warfare.