Anyone on the list familiar with MR. BLUR by c.c. dust (name
always given as lower case) published by The Radiant Press in
2004?
It was an impulse purchase today. I love the title and the
cover art features the head of a ventriloquist dummy's head
over a shadowy cityscape. I also liked the cover line
"there's something wrong with reality" as it is a truth I
first learned as a teenager reading Philip K. Dick and have
been reminded of many times over the last quarter century as
I worked in Washington.
The book is labeled "A Paul Bezier Mystery" (with an accent
mark over the first "e") and from the blurb I gather that
he's a private eye in New York's East Village. Also featured
is a detective named Ralf Westerback who in London 1888
"pursues a sinister figure through the blind alleyways of
Whitechapel."
I'm up for a novel that mixes a bit of fantasy or SF into the
PI form, as this one appears to do.
Opening at random I read the following paragraph that
somewhat dampened my enthusiasm:
"Kyoko Jones, a lithe, athletic woman wearing a black leather
catsuit, blocks the doorway. She carries an 8 mm Beretta
strapped to one thigh and a carbon steel throwing knife
pressed against the other. Her eyes are blue as an American
sky but the rest of her face
(except for her hair, which is long and blonde as a valley
girl's) is basically Asian. Her hands are encased in black
Micromesh gloves that look like chain mail and act like a set
of super brass knuckles. They click softly."
I sense some influence here from the modern graphic novel, a
form I should know better than I do. I'll grant the
catsuit--I'm not sure where or when we are in this randomly
selected paragraph--but the 8 mm Beretta gives me some
trouble. Beretta makes a 9 mm and a 7.62 mm
(or whatever .32 caliber translates to) but I've not heard of
an 8 mm. Someone will correct me if I am wrong. If it is set
in a fantasy world, they might have an 8 mm there but in a
writer's group I would nitpick the point.
But what really gives me trouble is imagining this lethal
babe with a sizable handgun strapped to one thigh and a
throwing knife strapped to the other. He talks about her
fingers clicking within her metal gloves, what about those
thighs!? Unless she is as bow-legged as Gabby Hayes, she'd
rattle louder than Elijah Baley with a bad hangover and give
off more sparks than the average Zippo lighter.
Well now, I seem to have reviewed a novel based on one random
paragraph, wildly mixing cultural references as I go along.
So unfair. So much fun. A few more paragraphs like that one
and the novel will have repaid me in entertainment
value.
But I would still appreciate any info or views of MR. BLUR or
mr. dust (who glancing inside again appears to also be a
character in the novel).
Richard Moore
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