⇈This image is not mine. It is an official image ripped from the games. Click on the picture to go to my source.⇈

So, a few days ago I went and saw the Ace Attorney (Gyakuten Saiban) movie with a few friends. I’m a BIG fan of the video game series, so I was quite excited and looking forward to seeing what they did with it. And I wasn’t disappointed.

** As usual, this review should be spoiler free. But if you’ve already played the games, you already know most of what’s going to happen.**

Ace Attorney is a live-action Japanese film adaptation of the Japanese Capcom game Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, which is the first in a rather large series. In the games, you play the title character Phoenix and go about solving court cases and striving for truth and justice, using logic and by finding contradictions in witness statements.

All four cases from the original first game appear in this movie, but some of them are only fleetingly seen. That said, it’s done with a purpose. This movie is made to feel like a crime drama, with smatterings of neo-noir but also comedy, and it’s pulled off brilliantly. However it comes at a price, in a way. It means that they focus in on the cases that lend themselves best to this. But it also means they have the time to expand further than the game did into the backstory and motivations, the emotions and tragedy that surround those cases. You don’t just find out who and why, but how and what lead them to that. There are a few eerie, creepy sequences to go along with that, as well as a few pretty crazy and erratic ones taken from the game. For the most part, it doesn’t feel like a video game movie, but a film built on its own worth.

Like I mentioned, the film is Japanese and thus is both set in Japan and spoken in Japanese. This meant the whole thing was subtitles. Before we saw the film, my friends and I were talking about how it’s probably too new to have an English dub yet but, after seeing the movie, I couldn’t imagine it with an English dub. It somehow just seemed to suit it better that it was in Japanese, and the subtitling was so good that it didn’t matter. The subtitles use the localised English names from the games rather than directly translating the names from the Japanese,  and even took into consideration particular accents and wordplay used by the characters, such as the American accent of Lotta Hart or “That’s right, Wright” pun that occurs regularly.

If you’ve never played any of the games before, this movie probably wouldn’t be as entertaining, and could be considered rather weird, and both badly acted and cheesy in places. And this comes down to the fact that this film pay a lot of fan-service. There are frequent jokes and absurdities that either reference or borrow directly from the games. However they’re done in such a way as they fit into the storyline, not detracting from the mood and power of the rest of the film. I was so glad to see the way they used the fact that it’s set in the(no so distant or different) future to incorporate some of the game elements that wouldn’t have fitted otherwise. For example, the use of large holographic screens in the courtroom to announce the verdict, to match the way words just appear across the screen in-game.

Having said that, many fans would say that there were some things missing. One thing I was a little disappointed by was the lack of Phoenix’s characteristic confidence and finger-pointing while delivering the line “Objection” at the top of his lungs. It does occur, but not enough. Other missing gestures are Detective Gumshoe’s confused head scratch and Maya’s general excitability at everything. They are seen, but not nearly as much as I would’ve liked. Furthermore, some characters don’t appear at all, probably most notable Oldbag is never seen, as far as I could tell. However, the audience in the courtroom is full of wacky looking people, so it’s quite possible a few of them are suppose to reference characters from the games. Similarly, the classic Ace Attorney music is incorporated with a variety of new tracks so that it’s not always there but always familiar. There are a few plot deviations from the game’s storyline, but that just keeps fans on their toes.

The only serious criticism I have of the movie as a whole is that there seems to me a few instances where not enough explanation is given as to what’s going on or has just happened. It’s s if there’s a voice-over they didn’t include in the subtitles. Most of the time, a fan can pick it up from their back-knowledge, but a non-fan may have been lost. Even as a fan, I would’ve like the reminders.

Overall, a brilliant adaptation of a well-loved video game favorite to many. Not only that, it stands on it’s own as a solid crime movie, with bits of comedy. I would happily watch it many times.

RATING:

For a fan: 9/10

For an non-fan: 8/10

Have you seen Ace Attorney? Are you a fan of the games? What did you think? Did it live up to your expectations? Have I said anything you disagree with? Tell me & everyone else who passes through here what you think in the comment below, or on the Facebook page.

In other news, I bought a Raspberry Pi this week. I’ll tell you more about that when it arrives…

DFTBA,

Nitemice

Related articles

• Why Ace Attorney Succeeds and Hollywood Fails [Phoenix Wright] (kotaku.com)
• Who Else Saw Ace Attorney At The Melbourne International Film Festival? (kotaku.com.au)
• NYAFF 2012 Review: My Objection to ‘Ace Attorney’s Long Running Time (multiplayerblog.mtv.com)
• ‘Ace Attorney’ Takes Home the Audience Award at the New York Asian Film Festival (multiplayerblog.mtv.com)
• Third Ace Attorney musical tells Edgeworth’s story in January (joystiq.com)
• Movie Review: ACE ATTORNEY Is Guilty Of Being Awful (badassdigest.com)

http://www.GumshoePhotos.com

After mucking about with GumshePhotos.com for two years, I’ve given my website a much-needed revamp. I’m not an html whizz, but I am pleased with how it’s turned out. It’s simple, clean, and offers themed galleries of the types of work on which I tend to focus (portraiture, architecture, travel). The website also links to my flickr page (regularly posted work), tumblr (visuals about music, books and photography), and my wordpress blog, where you’re reading this missive. I hope you have a look at the website. You’re welcome to let me know what you think of it.

To purchase this photo, please visit my shop at Imagekind.

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Cover Image

David Dean: A Detective Chief Inspector working the rainy streets of Manchester’s criminal underbelly.

His Job: To track down and apprehend a gruesome serial killer who is brutally butchering the city’s women.

A Vicious Murderer: His black heart holding not an ounce of human compassion. He appears seemingly at random, slaughters his victims… then disappears without a trace!

Can Dean find the killer before he strikes again?

1) As an experiment in Twitter-based flash fiction, I’ll be tweeting a new micro-adventure in my String City Mysteries series of fantasy detective stories. The case opens on Monday 2nd July 2012 at 3:00pm GMT, although our hero is already tweeting his usual brand of strangeness. I expect him to solve the case within a couple of hours. So, if you want to follow the escapades of a weird detective with a remarkable coat, follow StringCitizen on Twitter.

2) My fictional fantasy detective has developed a life of his own and started tweeting across the dimensions all the way from that strange place called String City. His tweets have been appearing for a while now, but apparently he’s got a new case coming in and he’s going to broadcast his investigation live. The case opens on Monday 2nd July 2012 at 3:00pm GMT. Optimistic as he is, he expects to solve it within a couple of hours. If you want to follow his escapades, follow StringCitizen on Twitter.

So which one do you believe?

Before I get to far, lets break down the types of tests into three categories.

• Character vs. Environment – Climb a wall, jump a chasm
• Character vs. Character – Dupe someone, sneak past someone
• Character vs. Exposition – Search the room, research forgotten lore

In the case of Character vs. Environment and Character vs. Character, we as players intrinsically understand the potential complications that come from failure.  If we don’t successfully jump the chasm, we will fall and end up somewhere unexpected.  If we don’t successfully sneak past the guard, the alarm will likely be raised.

In the case of Character vs. Exposition, what are the potential complications of failure? As a person, when I don’t succeed at learning about something, I end up “back where I started” with one door closed. But this isn’t real life…why settle for a closed door?

I am a firm believer that anytime the dice are rolled, especially in Character vs. Exposition, that the state of the game should change. That is to say some new revelation should come to light even as a result of failure.  The nature revelation is fully informed by the success or failure of the corresponding test.

However, the Character vs. Exposition is the hardest one to negotiate. As a person, I am not aware of what my failures vs. Exposition are. I just don’t expose what I was after.  So perhaps we need a list of potential complications related to Character vs. Exposition.

Quick Survey of Game Systems

The Gumshoe system addresses this by stating that investigative skills always work…but it is up to the players to interpret these things.

In Houses of the Blooded, the tests are so easy to succeed at, but it is the wagers that quite literally define the investigations.

In Dungeon World, the game master gets to make a move.  Something is going to change when failure happens.

In Burning Wheel, every failed test should have a pre-negotiated complication. Otherwise, skills advance with little consequence.

What Got Me Going

In our Butcher, Baker, and Candlestick Maker campaign, our group had access to a massive library that was created by the characters’ grandfather. The characters wanted to look up information concerning the magical portal that their grandfather had protected, as well as several other topics.

The characters attempted a handful of “Research” tests, and failed. The result was a frustrating “You learn nothing” and “Mark a difficult Research test.”

As a player, I was at the end of my patience concerning information.  We spent several days in the library to learn nothing.  I asked myself what was the point of the test? Why did some of the characters get to mark a test for her Research?

If I were at the helm, choosing the consequence for failed research I would have started with “Okay if you fail the test, you’ll learn how to find the portal, but you won’t like the price.”

With the failed research, I would’ve had them stumble upon a passage that said “To reveal the portal to the next generation of guardians, the first born of the new generation must be sacrificed.” Or some such ominous thing.  After all, every single characters’ belief is tied to protecting their family. The stakes are high so keep them elevated.

This is why the Adventure Burner beats it through your skull to separate Task from Intent.

Without consequences of failure in the Character vs. Exposition arena, test mongering becomes standard. In fact, I fired off a string of successive Astrology tests out of frustration and desperation, knowing that the consequences for failing even an OB10 test were going to be “And I mark a Challenging Test.”  In fact, without Astrology, we would be completely lost…but it is an unreliable means of story exposition.

A particularly astute reader of the Sorcery section will notice that tests already have backed in complications.  Especially when attempting a First Reading.

So, in an attempt change my micro-culture I’m going work hard to demand a consequence before I roll for a test. I ask that players in my games, be they Burning Wheel or otherwise, do the same.  I think this method of positing two outcomes before determining one is good practice as well as helpful in getting the creative elements going.  We build our narratives not only on the paths we take, but by those we’ve considered taking.

P.S. After enough closed doors and brick walls, most every player I know will eventually throw caution to the wind. In this case, my character recklessly sought out a poisoner, committed arson, and dangerously attempted to cast her first reading of Flame Breath. I’ve been playing games a very long time, and this kind of behavior is what leads to TPKs and wilting campaigns…as the players may very well be looking for sweet release.

P.S.S. VSCA‘s hopefully upcoming Soft Horizon may address this in another interesting way. From Brad Murray on a limited thread on Google+ –

“I am taking a more general approach: if you are rolling a simple check to succeed, then failure means a conflict in which you are at genuine risk. If a check is not worth a conflict, then you succeed.

A conflict could be lost, but the objective of the check successful (ie. you open the chest but the trap rips your arm off). My preference is for the more extreme: you fail to figure out the Machine and it tries to take over your brain.”

Most people live not just one life but many. I reckon that, as a writer, I’m on my fifth. If writers share any kind of DNA with cats, that means I’ve still got four to go. I wrote about my first and second lives here and here. On with the third.

Life 3 – Size Isn’t Everything

After cutting the cord with Voyager Books, I wrote a dark fantasy novel called Panopticon. The title referred to a magical prehistoric structure that, from the outside, appeared to be unbroken stone. When you went inside, however, you found yourself faced with twelve windows, each of which looked out on another world. The story was told through the eyes of an illustrator called Armstrong Campbell who discovered that, just by drawing what he saw, he could summon living creatures through the windows and into our world.

I wrote Panopticon longhand in half-hour bursts while sitting in a train carriage on the way to my day job. A totally different way of working for me, and a process I came to love. It took about a year. When the manuscript was done, I packaged it up and sent it along with my bibliography of published work to a longish list of agents I’d compiled. I got a little interest and plenty of rejections, and finally hooked up with Dot Lumley of the Dorian Literary Agency. Dot duly sent the manuscript on a tour of likely publishers, none of whom liked it nearly as much as we did.

Looking back, I now see Panopticon as a kind of transition piece. There’s heaps in it that I like (and that may yet see the light of day in some form or other) and just as much that needs serious attention. It’s big on character and atmosphere and thin on story. But it’s got a good vibe, you know?

After Panopticon, I tried out a number of ideas for novels, all of which stalled after the first few chapters. I expressed my frustration to Dot, who told me to stop worrying and enjoy the process of experimentation. Oh, and by the way, had I ever thought of trying some short fiction?

Coincidentally, I’d just finished reading a pile of short fiction anthologies, including a Dashiell Hammett collection. Feeling all noirish (and suspecting that Dot’s throw-away suggestion hadn’t been nearly as throw-away as it sounded) I wrote a short story called The Wooden Baby, a light-hearted fantasy-noir mash-up. To my delight, Shawna McCarthy, editor of the now sadly defunct short fiction magazine Realms of Fantasy, bought it.

Before long I was smack in the middle of my third writing life. I was writing short stories and novelettes, some of which were getting published. I was also getting very good at writing novels that never got past the 20,000 word mark (I’ve amassed quite a collection of these: a dragon book called Shikari, several versions of a book I may yet still write called The House on Memory Street, a space opera called Unsuitable Worlds … oh, and umpteen others).

More importantly, I’d learned to relax. I can’t deny that part of my mind was still fixated on producing the Next Big Thing, but mostly I’d rediscovered the simple pleasure of writing for writing’s sake. The creative urge is a curse, but indulging it is the most powerful form of therapy going. I suppose if I wasn’t cursed I wouldn’t need the therapy, but that just makes the whole process a kind of karmic wheel. Or a vicious circle, depending on how you look at it.

Even though I’d grown to love writing short fiction, I still felt a growing urge to create something a little more substantial. I had more ideas for novels than I’d ever had before, and less ability to decide on which of them had any merit. And I still couldn’t get past that damn 20,000-word barrier. To make matters worse, I’d become intimately acquainted with the demon called Doubt. You’ve probably met him yourself. He’s the guy with claws who perches on your shoulder, stinks of sulphur and asks constantly if what you’re doing is really any good.

How was I going to break the deadlock? It wasn’t writer’s block – I was actually more productive than I’d ever been before – just an inability to see a long-term project through from beginning to end. Luckily, just as the demon on my shoulder started assuring me that I’d never finish another novel in my life, an opportunity came along.

In order to take it up, however, I was going to have to become a ghost.

Next time I’ll tell you about my fourth writing life, during which I wrote. And wrote. And wrote.

The vast majority of my engagement with the world of social media (I’m still waiting for a ring) rests with this very blog.  I suspect I am drawn to its more pedagogic format: you may like to imagine me in gown and mortar-board speaking from behind a desk on a raised dais.   I do occasionally dabble in Twitter and Facebook, but mostly as an outlet for material too brief, too transient or of such poor quality than even I’d be embarrassed to make it into a post.  This dabbling has been exacerbated by ownership of a mobile ‘phone which permits me to share such material when out-and-about: the ‘phone may be smart, but the operator is as limited as ever.

Twitter seems to me like a one-to-many version of the old SMS text, though does not seem to have acquired the same degree of vowel elision.  Of course, trying to fit your message into a minimum number of characters is nothing new.  The telegram, and I assume the telegraph before it, encouraged brevity – though, I’m not aware of a 19th Century version of txt-spk (however, I am extrapolating from the work of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, so am willing to be proven wrong.  STOP).

Even in the more recent past when I started work, email (if it existed at all) was only available to members of CERN or DARPA.  Fax had been invented, but was thought of as fearfully expensive, so any need for rapid, text communication in the office was handled by Telex.  Telex only allowed capital letters and almost no special characters (so, for example, the £-symbol was rendered as GBP or BPS) and you were charged by the letter, so the incentive was to keep ones natural loquacity in check .  Once again, little use was made of abbreviations back in my telex days – text-speak would definitely have saved money, though may have confused the foreign distributors who were the normal recipients of my terse communiqués.  Hard to believe I know, but when I first started work – after three years of pure mathematics – my writing was extremely short and to-the-point, verging on the career-limiting when used in memo form.  I do wonder if my subsequent writing “career” (including GofaDM) is some sort of overcompensation?

Be that as it may, this post was supposed to be about Twitter – and my less than competent use thereof.  Readers who have glimpsed Condensity will have seen my occasional use of the Tweet – these are cast out into an uncaring world and I think nothing more about them (certainly, there is not even the briefest pause to consider the suffering they may cause).  Earlier in the week, my clumsy fingers working in conjunction with a soi-disant smartphone brought up a previously unfamiliar part of the Twitter “app”.  This revealed that two people, neither followers of my Twitter “feed” (though, there is little nourishment available at that particular electronic teat) nor known to the author, had replied – and both to the same Tweet!  I have, inadvertently, ignored this response from the world beyond Fish Towers for several weeks – and feel this probably represents appalling Twitter etiquette.  Where is the DeBrett’s for the modern social media whore?  In the world of near-instantaneous communication, I am operating like the mail before Thomas Telford (or worse).  Can the situation be salvaged?

Both response were positive reactions to my idea for an android private detective, A.I.P.I. – though I can no longer remember what prompted this particular thought – and can only guess as to how they stumbled across it given my tendency to eschew the hashtag.  Also, in Twitter-space, I have a stalled Twitter novel to complete and this too involves a gumshoe.  Could there be an opportunity here to weld these two ideas together into a winning format?  Let’s face it, if there is one format the world needs more of it’s detective fiction (well, that and talent, cookery, property and antiques-based TV programming) and I owe it to the fans to reveal what that delivery contains… (oh yes, I do know – though what happens thereafter is a little nebulous).

Here at Guns, Gams, and Gumshoes, we write a lot about serious issues.  Today, we’d like to offer a smattering of items, from investigation news, handy resources and even some fun stuff.  Yeah, fun stuff.  It’s Mother’s Day.  Time to smile a little.

Private Investigators in the News

Click on a link to read article:

Private Eyes Spy on Staff (The Portside Messenger)

Private Eyes Spy on Exam Sheets: Private Detectives May Be Called in to Catch Any Internet Cheats (The Connexion)

Piles of junk prompt St. John’s to hire private eyes (CTV News)

Private investigators are selling access to financial and criminal records (The Guardian)

Handy Resources

Click on link to read more about service/product.

Read-Notify: Track your email. Know when emails you’ve sent get read, even from what city.

Convoflow: Harvest real-time social media conversations.

Changedetection.com: Be automatically notified when any web page changes.

Google Keyword Tool: Evaluate the usefulness of keywords before using them in websites and blogs.

Fun Stuff

Click on a link to check it out:

Quick Quiz: Check Your Knowledge of the FBI in Pop Culture (Brought to you by the FBI)

FBI Widgets (Want “10 Most Wanted” on your Cell? An “FBI History” widget? A “Wanted by the FBI” module?…All brought to you again by the FBI, who’re showing you they can be fun, sorta, too).

Inside Private Eye: A video look at the inner work of the satirical UK publication Private Eye

“Another Whacko Process Service: Is It Time to Quit?” On a sister site, one of the Guns, Gams, and Gumshoes’s PIs debates the process-serving biz after escaping a woman wielding a frying pan.

Have a great Mother’s Day, Writing PIs

Related articles

• Maloofs’ Private Eye Investigates Business Owners’ Letter To NBA (sacramento.cbslocal.com)
• Story Foibles in Private Eye Fiction (writingpis.wordpress.com)
• Going for the Best: When Private Investigators Hire Other Private Investigators (writingpis.wordpress.com)
• Answering Writers’ Questions: What Records Can PIs Legally Obtain? (writingpis.wordpress.com)
• Private Investigators and Murder Cases (writingpis.wordpress.com)
• Excerpt from How Do Private Eyes Do That?: How PIs Are Used in Cases Where DNA Evidence Is Employed (writingpis.wordpress.com)

I think it will be quite enjoyable once we have played it for a bit. My players are the type to enjoy a solid game of role playing and not just adventure – thrill seekers, so I believe we will have a good time immersing ourselves into this system. The thing that is different about this game is that it is designed for the players’ characters to achieve – to progress. They find clues – there is no role or doubt about it. What they make of the clues, and to what dread truth they are driven by them, is another thing.  Ultimately – as it is Cthulhu mythos – their characters will be dead or more likely quite unusably insane.

As the system is set up in a ‘gumshoe’ fashion/flavour and the characters are meant to find the clue which leads them to the next ‘scene’ it is a whole different way of thinking about running a campaign. It is a mystery novel format unlike other systems that will definitely stretch my minds way of thinking.

This could be a very good thing.

I have this character in my writing who is a Private Investigator in a paranormal world and making my mind work in a linear, clue discovering, gumshoe campaign can only help strengthen the character and world of my writing. By working through the RPG mystery it may train my head to think as a mystery writer more and lead to being a better mystery writer for my paranormal P.I.

Only time will tell but in the mean while I have some H.P. Lovecraft to reread.

The ebook in question is called Girl in Pieces. It’s the fifth instalment of The String City Mysteries, my series of hardboiled detective fantasies published by 40k Books, and it’s fresh out today. It’s a heart-warming story of golems and gangsters and a girl who’s, well, in pieces. Will our intrepid hero find a way to put her back together before the spiders get him? And what exactly does happen when a thunderbird the size of a city block gets caught in Medusa’s glare?

To find out more about the story – and to read an extract – click here. If you’re feeling brave enough to face the spiders without further ado, below is a link to download the Kindle edition direct from Amazon (if you prefer your ebooks in flavours compatible for iPad or Nook, come back in a few days, when they’ll be ready and waiting for you).

• Download Girl in Pieces for Kindle

Girl in Pieces by Graham Edwards was first published in the April 2008 edition of Realms of Fantasy. It was nominated (long-listed) for a Nebula Award and reprinted in Ellen Datlow’s anthology The Best Horror of the Year Volume One. This is its first publication as a stand-alone ebook. So what are you waiting for?

I’ve been running through character generation in order to play in John Adamus‘s (@awesome_john) Tinker Tailor Vampire Die campaign. He’s even been posting the entire campaign at Enworld. My cloud agent, Ezra Corvus, was a blast to build. Character generation is an important part of any game system, and NBA gets it right. There’s plenty of options, but they don’t overwhelm. Character history and motivation is baked right in.

As part of character generation, I took the existing character sheet (Excel spreadsheet) found here (made by Kevin Kulp) and fiddled with it a bit to get my own version. I’ve included the PDF version here in case others may get some use out of it. I might be persuaded to include the excel version too, if there’s interest.

Have you played Night’s Black Agents or GUMSHOE? What did you think of it?

 

1. Which author of ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ created the French detective C. Auguste Dupin?
 

2. From 1980-1988, who played the title character on Magnum, P.I.?
 

3. Which crew member of the U.S.S. Enterprise-D enjoys playing private eye Dixon Hill?
 

4. Murder on the Orient Express features Agatha Christie’s most famous detective, Hercule Poirot. What country is this detective from originally?
 

5. Several dozen of G.K. Chesterton’s stories feature which crime-solving Catholic priest as the protagonist?
 

6. The League of Frightened Men, Over My Dead Body, and Too Many Cooks featured Archie Goodwin, an assistant to which New York-based detective?
 

7. Name the sibling of Sherlock Holmes who was his intellectual equal.
 

8. In which 1941 film does Humphrey Bogart play private investigator Sam Spade?
 

9. What is the first name of Agatha Christie’s spinster crime solver, Miss Marple?
 

10. In which U.S. city is Raymond Chandler’s detective, Philip Marlowe, based?

 

All rights reserved. Please contact me if you wish to use any material in my blogs.
 

***

For those of you who took a stab the Trivia Grab Bag, here are the answers:

1. The Ides of March refer to which date?

Answer: March 15. Prior to the assassination of Julius Caesar, the Ides of March were linked to the phases of the moon, so the date varied somewhat. After the infamous assassination, though, the Ides of March became forever linked to the Roman leader’s date of death.
 

2. Which raincoat-wearing detective was portrayed by Peter Falk from the late ’60s until the early ’00s?

Answer: Columbo
 

3. If each angle within a triangle is 60 degrees, what type of triangle would it be?

Answer: equilateral
 

4. Willy Loman is the main character in which Tony- and Pulitzer Award-winning play?

Answer: Death of a Salesman
 

5. Who took over as the Prime Minister of the U.K. on May 11, 2010?

Answer: The Right Honourable David Cameron
 

6. In The Empire Strikes Back, Han Solo reveals that he won the Millennium Falcon from which old friend?

Answer: Lando Calrissian
 

7. In Roman Catholicism, Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel are what type of heavenly soldier?

Answer: archangel
 

8. Most modern hospitals have one or more phlebotomists on hand. The Red Cross also employs them. What is the primary responsibility of phlebotomists?

Answer: Phlebotomists draw blood, be it from people or animals.
 

9. On how many voyages to the Americas did Christopher Columbus embark between 1492 and 1503?

Answer: four
 

10. Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Charley Pride, Jennifer Rush, and Huey Lewis and the News all recorded a song that had the same title. (That is, the songs were completely different from one another but all shared the same title nonetheless.) Name the song title.

Answer: ‘The Power of Love’
 

This latest story sees our gumshoe hero playing Scheherazade to the biggest behemoth in the cosmos, not to mention trying to keep his cool before a force of corrupt zombie cops and a fallen angel whose kisses taste like heaven. Sounds weird? Why not decide for yourself …

• Download Still Point for Kindle
• Other formats arriving shortly

I’m a private eye. 

I have a degree in international studies, i have worked in civil engineering, i have tried and failed to go back to school 3 times to pursue a creative career in design.

I have severe self-diagnosed ADHD, a wicked ability to self-deprecate for hilarity’s sake, and i pass my days talking to five dogs and cats and making myself margaritas.

Oh, and surveilling shady characters. 

All while being a shady character.  Who wears lipstick and high heels. 

 I’m okay with making ex-cop old fogey P.I.’s look bad.

And so it was when I listened to Hite’s interview on The Game’s the Thing. The episode was mostly about Night’s Black Agents — itself a game I thought I wouldn’t want, but have since reversed position — but host Ron Blessing brought up Adventures in Darkness, a super hero universe created in an alternate history where Lovecraft survived his cancer and developed a writing studio to populate the pages of a comic book line.

I’d read about Adventures in Darkness before and thought it was a little too off my usual topics to be interested. But when I hear people talk about it and share their enthusiasm, I get enthused too. Now my appetite is whetted and I’m thinking about snapping up the Mutants & Masterminds edition. But I know what would or will happen: I’d page through it and enjoy the prose, never putting the game material to work.

In the same episode, I had a similar reaction to the mention of Bubblegumshoe, a GUMSHOE iteration for teen mysteries. Totally not my thing, until Hite included John Bellairs‘ young adult occult mysteries as one of the sources. I think that’s the first time I’ve encountered someone in gaming wanting to draw on Bellairs’ oeuvre, which is a rather exciting prospect.^[1]

^[1] Until such time as a kindly reader reveals someone else has done it better, faster, earlier.

Rating: 4 of 5
Author: James Blakely
Format: Paperback, Kindle

Gumshoe Sonny Busco is broke.  Worse than broke, he owes everyone – big time.  With loan sharks on his tail and his security gig not paying enough to keep up with the bills, he struggles to get from one end of town to the other in his junker car.  Enter Pixy – young, attractive, in trouble, and willing to pay $2500.00 up front for Sonny to simply deliver a package to Santa Fe.  What could be easier?  Exactly.  Too easy, and Sonny knows it.  Things quickly breakdown and Sonny finds himself beaten and confused.  Whose side is he working for anyway?

James Blakely’s “The Steal Deal” reads like an homage to Mickey Spillane Mike Hammer novels replete with witty repartee and smug confidence displayed by Blakely’s larger than life PI – Sonny Busco.  With female character names like Pixy, Bambi, and Bevel Brand, it is no surprise Busco throws out lines like there is no tomorrow.  The novel’s overall voice and narrative is perfectly executed. Just take a read of this passage:
“…the figure’s deep-set eyes, red-veined and volcanic, fixed an unflinching gaze directly on me.  When the figure’s stiletto-then lips split, a hideous smile lunged for me…”.  Great stuff!

This book was a lot of fun to read.  No one talks the way Busco talks, but that is sort of the point of it all.  Enjoy the character for who he is.  Beyond the wonderful characterization and unique voice, there are also a number of surprising plot twists and turns and just when I thought I had it all figured out, I was surprised again.  If this is your style read, you’ll love “The Steel Deal”.

I look forward to future Sonny Busco cases.

Note: A complimentary copy of this work was provided in return for a review.

Talking of electricity, in this latest story, my wise-cracking gumshoe comes up the business tycoon who runs String City’s power plants. You don’t want to know what he uses for fuel. There’s also a beautiful woman who happens to be half-bird. When she sings, for the sake of your everlasting soul you’d better hope you’ve got your earplugs in. It’s a tricky case, mostly because it hinges on that most mysterious of things.

Love.

Syren is published by 40k Books.

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