C'Mon, Lankford: Stop Whining and Write!
Amazon says:
|
Author: Terrill Lee Lankford
Title: Earthquake Weather Genre: thriller It’s said that there are two things in this world that are certain; death and taxes. To that I add a third near-certainty: complaining about one’s job. If you work for someone else (and maybe even if you don’t), it’s a pretty sure thing that you complain. Admit it: you do – even if it’s not every day. Perhaps you have a personality clash with your boss; maybe the idiots you have to deal with get dumber every day; or it could be you’re pretty certain you’re underpaid and overworked. Whatever the case, lots of people don’t like what they’re doing, who they’re doing it for, or why they do it; maybe even all three. Funny thing, though, most of us don’t get paid for complaining about our work – unless we’re Terrill Lee Lankford. Mark Hayes hates his job, which shouldn’t come as a surprise. He also hates his boss, Dexter Morton, a big-time producer for whom Mark toils as a creative executive in a Hollywood studio. Hayes hates the commercialism, detests the schmoozing, abhors the “insider’s club,” can’t stand a single thing about Hollywood. But still he stays on, ‘cause he has a dream and he just knows he can make a difference. While just barely hanging on as he tries to scrape together sufficient liquid assets to mount his own production, Mark’s world is rocked – not by the Northridge Earthquake (although that event is the opening scene), but by finding his boss’s body floating in the pool at Morton’s mansion. Since the big man’s unexpected departure means that he’ll soon be out of a job, Hayes has some proprietary interest in finding out who offed his boss. Could the killer be Dexter’s rejected crack-whore girlfriend, Charity, who’s suddenly living in Mark’s apartment? Hayes’s downstairs neighbor Clyde, whose history with Dexter has turned out to be pretty stormy? Or maybe it was Wilkie the rewrite guy, who was being ripped off not only by Dexter but by Hayes as well? All Mark knows is that he didn’t do it – but he’s not so certain the cops are wise to that little fact. Hayes drifts through his life, the last few days of his job, and the mean streets of LA while he ponders fate’s ineffable cruelty – but by the time he gets done pondering, you – frankly – won’t really care. Remind me again, will you? never pay attention to those glowing word-bites from your favorite authors on the book jacket. “…one of the best novels about the dark heart of Hollywood…” said Michael Connelly – well, of course: Lankford plugged his first two novels in the text! “Terrill Lankford… uses a scalpel to peel back the… veneer we call civilization,” intoned Joe Lansdale. That comment must be why Lansdale got an acknowledgment. “Lankford has written a great one, a savagely funny take on the right and wrong sides of the studio tracks,” says Scott Phillips. Of Phillips I merely say, “who?” Here’s what I think: Terrill Lee Lankford is a darned good writer who didn’t have much to say but said it anyway. Earthquake Weather, bracketed in time by the Northridge Quake (January ’94) and the Simpson murders (June ’94), is about exactly the same thing as that era’s most popular television show, “Seinfeld” – it’s about nothing. What have you got? a gaggle of whiny studio execs, a brace of burnt out writers, a bevy of slutty starlets, a posse of stereotypical African-American gangstuhs. All the ingredients are there for just one more whine about how “this town” is a town of users and abusers. Well, duh. I did say Lankford’s a talented writer, didn’t I? Well, he is – and more’s the pity, since the book’s such a waste of his talent. Is it savagely funny? No, though it is mildly, embarrassingly funny, much in the same way that watching a friend make an idiot of himself is funny. Are the characters real? Nope – I can’t say they are; since they’re about as caricatured as you can get. Is the plot interesting? Anybody can gripe about his job and, frankly, it sounds the same no matter who’s doing the griping. Earthquake Weather is nominally a mystery, and indeed it has some of the elements – a dead body, a handful of suspects, a police investigation. Investigating the murder of Dexter Morton, however, takes a definite back seat to Lankford’s kvetching about Hollywood through the voice of Hayes. Nobody but him, apparently, has any talent or scruples (this coming from a writer credited for the script of 1988’s “Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers”). When all is said and done and Hayes learns the identity of the killer through the time-honored epiphany method, he takes this information (and an incriminating tape recording) to the police, who tell him, “Tell you the truth, we already have enough on your buddy… we’re just waiting for the paperwork…” Feh! Skip it. all content copyright © 2014 by scmrak
|