Tag: crime

#BookReview Cuz by Danielle Allen

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9781784708122About the Book

Aged 15 and living in LA, Michael Allen was arrested for a botched carjacking. He was tried as an adult and sentenced to thirteen years behind bars. After growing up in prison Michael was then released aged 26, only to be murdered three years later.  In this deeply personal yet clear-eyed memoir, Danielle Allen reconstructs her cousin’s life to try and understand how this tragedy was the end result. We become intimate with Michael’s experience, from his first steps to his first love, and with the events of his arrest, his coming of age in prison, and his attempts to make up for lost time after his release. We learn what it’s like to grow up in a city carved up by invisible gang borders; and we learn how a generation has been lost.  With breathtaking bravery and intelligence, Cuz circles around its subject, viewing it from all angles to expose a shocking reality. The result is both a personal and analytical view of a life that wields devastating power. This is the new American tragedy.

Format: eBook, paperback (256 pp.)   Publisher: Vintage
Published: 6th September 2018            Genre: Non-Fiction, Biography

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My Review

Part memoir of her cousin, Michael, part devastating analysis of the US justice and penal system, I found Danielle Allen’s book, Cuz, utterly fascinating and thought-provoking. I don’t read a lot of non-fiction (although I think perhaps I should) but this book jumped out at me on NetGalley because of the intriguing story and the author’s personal connection with its subject.  (A note on the book’s title – Michael was Danielle’s cousin, of course, but we also learn that ‘cuz’ was a term used by a particular gang in Los Angeles.)

In the first section of the book, one quickly recognises the author’s feeling of regret that her attempts to help Michael make a new life for himself on his release from prison in 2006 ultimately ended in failure. She questions whether she could have done more but perhaps Michael’s rehabilitation could never have been managed in the manner of a task list. What the author and the family didn’t know at the time was that there were always people and connections pulling Michael back in the direction of the criminal subculture.

The author’s academic rigour is evident in her assembling of the available evidence and her analysis of the systemic issues raised by Michael’s life and death.  Allen examines the complex web of factors that led to Michael’s involvement in the original carjacking for which he was convicted, his sentencing and his imprisonment. Her descriptions of the soulless and depressing experience of visiting him in prison are especially powerful.  There are also particularly interesting sections on the concept of the ‘parastate.’

I’ll be honest and say that, at first, I found the structure of the book, with its frequent changes of timeline, a little distracting. The author has chosen not to tell Michael’s story in a linear, chronological fashion but to start with his murder interspersed with his release from prison, only addressing his childhood and upbringing towards the end of the book. However, in a way, I can now see this structure mirrors the author’s own journey of discovery about Michael.  He was perhaps never the person he seemed from the outside; instead he was troubled, lacking in direction, open to being manipulated by others and tempted by easy options.

The book contains wonderful photographs of Michael and his family, including many from his childhood. I found the contrast between the happy, smiling child in the photographs and the troubled adult described in the book very sad and quite moving. Sadly, one gets a sense of someone always on a trajectory to the untimely death that eventually awaited him.

Reading Cuz gave me a fascinating, if troubling, insight into many of the social issues facing the Western world today: gang culture, drugs, racial inequality, the effectiveness (or rather, ineffectiveness) of the justice and penal system. The author proposes a particular solution to the problems she outlines but I was left wondering if there will ever be the political will to pursue such a course. I somehow doubt it in the current political environment.

I received a review copy courtesy of Random House UK via NetGalley.

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In three words: Moving, detailed, thought-provoking

Danielle AllenAbout the Author

Danielle Allen, James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University, and Director of Harvard’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, is a political theorist who has published broadly in democratic theory, political sociology, and the history of political thought. Widely known for her work on justice and citizenship in both ancient Athens and modern America, Allen is the author of The World of Prometheus: The Politics of Punishing in Democratic Athens (2000), Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship since Brown vs. the Board of Education (2004), Why Plato Wrote (2010), Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality (2014), Education and Equality (2016), and Cuz: The Life and Times of Michael A. (2017). She is the co-editor of the award-winning Education, Justice, and Democracy (2013, with Rob Reich) and From Voice to Influence: Understanding Citizenship in the Digital Age (2015, with Jennifer Light). She is a Chair of the Mellon Foundation Board, past Chair of the Pulitzer Prize Board, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.

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Lying in Vengeance by Gary Corbin

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I’m delighted to welcome back my guest today – Gary Corbin, author of Lying in Vengeance, the follow-up to the award-winning courtroom thriller, Lying in Judgment. You can read my recent interview with Gary about the book here. However, I’m pleased to say that today I have an extract from Lying in Vengeance to bring you.

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LyinginVengeanceAbout the Book

Peter Robertson, 33, once fought a man on a remote forested road and left him to die. Six months later, he served on the jury that freed a wrongfully accused man—and let his own secret slip to a beautiful but manipulative fellow juror, Christine Nielsen. Two months later, Christine wakes him in the middle of the night with a threat: kill Kyle, the man who stalks and abuses her, or have his own murderous past exposed. Peter pretends to go along as he seeks another, less violent solution, and his best friend Frankie threatens to expose the conspiracy to the police. But Kyle makes his move, breaking into her house in the middle of the night and then later kidnapping her at gunpoint. Peter’s daring rescue gives him the opportunity to fulfil her request—and he walks away, consequences be damned. The next morning, Kyle turns up dead, and the police arrest Frankie, of all people. Peter knows he’s innocent, but can he prove it without directing the finger of blame at himself—for both murders?

Format: eBook (281 pp.), paperback (306 pp.) Publisher: Double Diamond Publishing Published: 13th September 2017                         Genre: Thriller

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Extract: Lying in Vengeance by Gary Corbin

Peter Robertson bolted upright in his darkened bedroom, awakened by Santana blasting “Black Magic Woman” on scratchy, poorly-amplified speakers. Why, he wondered in his melatonin-aided stupor, would an aging seventies band break into his ninety-year-old Portland bungalow and wake him at this hour? And why on such awful sound equipment?

Something lit his bedside table with a flickering glare. His stupid cell phone. That meant bad news. He rolled across the queen-size mattress, found the phone, and held it to his ear. “Christine?” he said. It kept playing music. Dammit! He pushed the answer button, and the music stopped.

“Well, good morning, Sunshine,” she said, all chipper and happy. She sounded like she’d been up for hours, probably drinking double espressos and scheduling Twitter messages to promote her various clients’ brands. “Have you missed me?”

“Do you know what time it is?” He propped two pillows up against the headboard and sagged into them. Closing his eyes didn’t help. He only imagined every detail of her pretty face in front of him, from the thin, black eyebrows and long lashes to her brilliant smile, bright red lipstick and perfect sun-bronzed skin. He opened his eyes again and stared into the blackness. A faint glow seeped in through the edges of blackout curtains covering the window across the room. Beautiful or not, he did not welcome this call from her, regardless of the hour.

“It’s breakfast time in New York,” she said. “Which means it’s mid-morning for you. About nine-fifteen, right?”

“Try three-fifteen.” Peter rubbed his temples with his free hand. “You got the time change backwards.”

“Oh, silly me,” she said. “I’m sorry.” She didn’t sound the slightest bit sorry. He even thought he heard her laugh. Typical Christine. She loved making his life miserable, in so many ways. Like making sleep next to impossible. She managed that even without three a.m. phone calls.

“Well, now that you’re up, let’s get that dinner planned that we talked about—what was it, a month ago now?”

“Two months.”

“You’re so right. Time does fly when we’re busy, doesn’t it?”

Peter scowled and turned onto his side. Monday morning was earning its awful reputation. “Christine, what do you want?”

“I just told you. I want you to buy me dinner.”

“I’ll mail you a gift certificate to Arby’s tomorrow. Good night.”

“Don’t you dare hang up on me!”

Peter’s finger paused an inch above the end call button. Even with the phone held a foot in front of his face, he heard her throaty warning with perfect, chilling clarity. He sighed and returned the phone to his ear. “I’m still here.”

“Good.” Amazing how her voice could transform from dark and dangerous to soft and sexy without missing a beat. “I thought we could go back to Pazzo’s, for old times’ sake. Remember our first date there? You were so nervous.”

“It wasn’t a date. We had lunch. And it wasn’t our first anything. We’d had lunch together before.” He adjusted the pillows behind him. Suddenly he couldn’t get comfortable.

“Yes, but at Pazzo’s, you paid, like a gentleman, courting the object of his desire.”

“I was not—” He stopped himself. To be honest, he had been courting her—at the time. And he had to admit, he’d enjoyed her company. Maybe he was judging her too quickly. Maybe she really did want to date him after all. “How about someplace new?”

After a beat, she countered, “A place we’ve never been…? Say, perhaps, Florentino’s?”

His blood froze in his veins. He’d known, deep down, as soon as he gave her the opening, she’d remind him of the restaurant where, eight months before, he’d followed Marcia, now his ex-wife, and her lover. That foolish decision triggered events that changed—ruined!—his whole life. The scene of, if not the crime per se, at least where it all had been set in motion. The fancy restaurant where the victim of the crime worked, a man named Alvin Dark—a man whom Peter had never met before that terrible night. The victim whom Peter had later mistaken for his wife’s secret lover. The man he’d confronted, beaten, and—

“S’matter? Cat got your tongue?”

He shook himself out of the foul memory. “No. Not there. Not Florentino’s.” His hoarse voice took him aback, increasing the chill spreading across his naked body despite the summer heat. “I’m never going back there.”

“Fine. I tell you what. Surprise me. I’ll be back in town later this week. Pick me up at my office Thursday at six.”

“Thursday I have plans.”

Her voice grew hard. “Make new plans.”

She hung up without saying goodbye.

Intrigued? You’ll have to buy the book to find out what happens next…

GaryCorbinAbout the Author

Gary Corbin is a writer, actor, and playwright in Camas, WA, a suburb of Portland, OR. Lying in Vengeance continues the story begun in his debut novel, Lying in Judgment, released in March, 2016. Lying in Judgment, a courtroom thriller about a man who serves on the jury of a murder trial for the crime he committed, was selected as Bookworks.com “Book of the Week” for July 11-18, 2016, and was the feature novel on Literary Lightbox’s “Indie Spotlight” in February 2017. Gary’s second novel, The Mountain Man’s Dog, came out in June 2016. The sequel, The Mountain Man’s Bride, was released in February 2017.

An award-winning playwright, several of his plays have been produced in the Portland, OR area, some of them multiple times. In addition to his own scripts, Gary writes, ghost-writes, and edits scripts. He specializes in tight, realistic dialogue involving sharply drawn, interesting characters in complex relationships. As well as writing and editing for private sector, government, individuals, and not-for-profit clients, his creative and journalistic work has been published in BrainstormNW, the Portland Tribune, The Oregonian, and Global Envision, among others.

A home brewer as well as a maker of wine, mead, cider, and soft drinks, Gary is a member of the Oregon Brew Crew and a BJCP National Beer Judge. He loves to ski, cook, and garden, and hopes someday to train his dogs to obey.

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