99¢ BOOK OF THE WEEK

LOCAL RAG – News to Die For

til Aug. 26 at

https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B003DS6LEU

Do you believe everything you read in the newspapers? Jim Mitchell doesn't.

He's a journalist and the publisher and editor of a community newspaper, The Sentinel. He gave up a career with big media because he couldn't justify their choice of what to cover, couldn't tolerate the way they edited his stories and would not be implicit in misleading the public to benefit some hidden corporate agenda.

When he bought The Sentinel, he thought all that would end. Being owner of "the local rag," he could select the stories, edit the copy and make sure the interests of the community were served. He would print the truth - no slant, no bias, no spin, and he'd make a living doing it.

He was wrong.

From the beginning, Jim's brand of reportage rankles some powerful people, people who pay his bills. Then there's the new competitor, a multinational media conglomerate that's expanding its generic community newspaper format into The Sentinel's market area. Soon it's a struggle for The Sentinel to make a profit and for Jim to keep true to his uncompromising ethic.

When his best friend, Anthony Bravaro decides to run for mayor Jim hopes he'll be an honest politician. Hope turns to dismay as Jim watches the quest for power turn a good man bad. Tony's campaign tests Jim's professional objectivity and personal integrity. When Jim confronts his friend with damaging information that could end his run for public office he finds out how far Tony's prepared to go to win the mayor's seat - farther than he could ever have imagined.

- 5 STARS for having given his readers a story which pits an individual trying to do what's right when it comes to reporting the news against those who would rather keep the status quo in keeping what happens somewhere stays there.
 
... a dose of reality not seen on most major media. His story highlights the control over the minds of the public by special money factions. Readers have only to see similarities with today.
 
... engrossing and exciting story that moves quickly. The narrative comes alive because the characters are three dimensional. This is a novel well worth reading. Highly recommended.
 
Raglin ... grips the readers' attention from the very first page. He managed to put so many levels in this book - corruption, drugs, murder, threats, politics. Yet, there is also place for love and friendship ... he challenges his readers to get actively involved, to start asking questions and reconsidering their own life decisions.
 

...a well-designed, masterly written, and realistic murder mystery. (5 STARS)

Local Rag should appear to the careful reader much more than a well-designed, masterly written, and realistic murder mystery.

Local Rag is, in my opinion, a philosophical parable on the ultimate meaning of truth in our earthly lives. The last pages will clarify the individual relevance of the initial Aurelian quote in this story.
By the way, the closing image of the book is a powerful visual allegory about where humanity as a whole is heading fast, if not for a sharp change of route.
- Thomas Dalcolle, Author of Five Urban Stories - And Something Better

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Teresa Mendoza was once attached to a talented drug smuggler in Mexico. That is, until he started skimming off the top and got himself killed. She had to flee to the back end of Spain. But her story doesn’t settle down into a quiet life there. More drugs, organized crime, and heart break ensue.

Set in the 1980s, this is a sweeping story about endurance. Teresa was born into a world where there are few paths out of poverty. When fortune gave her a chance, she took it, though it eventually cost her dearly. Teresa was a fascinating character. She starts off relatively innocent. She’s not above doing a little weed now and then or getting drunk or having sex with her drug smuggling boyfriend. But she herself has nothing to do with the business. She still has her little job, is young, and just having fun. But once he’s killed and the narcos come after her (because they not only take out the man, but also his woman) she can either lay down and die, or pick up that handgun and even the playing field.

She makes it to Spain partly because she is smart and lies low but also because a friend owed her now dead man a favor. There she works at a seedy bar and has sworn off the drug smuggling life completely. That is until a Gaucho shows up and makes her heart flutter. Once again, she is pulled back into that world. However, this time she refuses to be an ignorant hanger-on. She makes it her business.

Every step she takes, she gets tougher. She’s really very practical about it all by the end, like nearly all the emotions have been wrung out of her through the years. It is an amazingly well done story arc. I so enjoyed watching her transformation. Her time in prison was especially interesting because it was filled with inner reflection and a sad humor, and books.

So obviously I am in love with Teresa Mendoza. Let’s talk about everything else. The plot, the pacing, the side characters, the sex – they too are also very well done. I loved all the Spanish and Mexican vocabulary and cultural references tossed in. I was never too sure where the plot was going, but I was thoroughly entertained and totally engrossed in finding out what would happen next.

The tale is told in two voices: Teresa’s and a reporter who is tracing her life for an in-depth biography. So sometimes we know that Teresa must have made it through some pinch because the reporter is talking to her or someone else about the incident in the past. Using the reporter character allowed us readers to see sides of Teresa or the collateral damage of her work that we wouldn’t see through Teresa’s eyes. It was clever. This was a very satisfying book and I look forward to enjoying more of Perez-Reverte’s works.

Narration: Lina Patel was the perfect voice for Teresa. She has a beautiful Mexican accent and I loved her fluid pronunciation of all the Spanish words, including the long strings of insults. She had distinct voices for male and female side characters as well.

This is the story where Tintin comes on his own. While it was still written in a serialised form when it first appeared back in 1934, this story has a proper story arc where Tintin stumbles on a sophisticated drug smuggling ring that stretches across the entire Eurasian continent. It is here that Tintin's companions begin to be developed (namely the Thompson twins) and we also begin to see Tintin going on real adventures and chasing after a singular bad guy. Where Tintin in America seemed to be a hodge podge of different stories thrown together, here we begin to see a well constructed adventure.

Tintin is on a Mediterranean cruise (much to Snowy's annoyance - and here we begin to see the character of Snowy, the loyal and faithful companion, developed as well) when he runs into the first of Herge's many absent minded professors, Dr Sophocles Sarcophagus. He is travelling to Egypt to uncover a lost tomb. Tintin also meets one of the recurring villains of the piece, the film mogul Rastapopolous. Herge developed this character very well in this book because we do not, at this stage, realise that he is the bad guy, and in fact when the master of the drug ring falls off a cliff at the end, we are left wondering who it was and whether we will ever find out.

While this story can be read on its own, it does carry over to the Blue Lotus, however I never got to read the Blue Lotus until a long time afterwards. As for this story, it is by far my favourite of the Tintin adventures. Some have suggested that Herge had not got the culture element right here, but we will note that after the Blue Lotus, Herge begins to create his own countries where the adventures are placed, and maybe it is a move away from raising clearly raising his concerns to being much more subtle in his criticism.

Yet we do have criticism within this story (as we do with the next one as well). It is not until Tintin reaches India that we are confronted with the destruction that a lot of these drug smuggler's are causing. While as a kid we read this book and considered that drugs smuggling was bad because Tintin is out to get them, it is when he meets the Raj of Gaipajama that the major concern is raised. The Raj is out to stop the smugglers because of the suffering they cause his people (and Herge is obviously trying to raise awareness of the practice, which still occurs today), namely that the smugglers force the peasants to grow opium poppies and purchase the poppies off of them at a significant discount. However, because the peasants are growing poppies they are unable to grow their own food, and as such are forced to purchase food off of the smuggler's at a significant premium.

The comedy is ramped up a lot here as well. Tintin in America was simply silly in a lot of cases, but now we have the Thompson twins, two Interpol Agents (I believe, though the English versions suggest that they are Scotland Yard) who bumble their way through the investigation, and but end up being the assistance that Tintin needs to crack the case. The most amusing part was where they think they see Tintin sitting behind a dune and whack him on the head with a cane only to discover it is a sheik. In the next panel, Tintin arrives at a city that is being mobilised for war because one of their sheiks was attacked. Then there are the three huge Indians let into Tintin's cell, to teach him a lesson, and then we hear the sounds of fighting, and an ambulance rushing off to pick up the wounded, only to discover that it was the three Indian dudes – golden.