"Dead Watch"

I'm dying here. Between the falling dollar and rising oil, proposed Democratic budget and tax increases and Republican unrestricted trade and seeming indifference to global warming, to the nation's credit crunch and our town budget proposal. We're growing corn to burn more fuel so that we're running out of grain for food and feed. We decimate sharks for soup and other fish because we get paid. And blah blah blah blah blah blah...

I'm depressed. I'm afraid for my children's future. I don't see any way out of it. I can't even seem to make myself care about illegal immigration. My only real hope is that the media constantly harps on the worst possible angles of the most unsavory stories and we're not really any better or worse off than at any other point in modern history.

Except for that global warming thing. That's a big one.

TV's painful because my basic cable service from Time-Warner combined with a cable modem costs over a hundred dollars per month. Beneath the total should be a statement that says: This is why you hate us. Love, TW. And then, of course, it's still TV.

Thank god for books. Open the cover, turn the page, and get me the hell out of here.

Clearly, as I mentioned a few posts ago, I'm not coping so well. For years and years I haven't been able to read books about three things: politics, Hollywood, and sports. They are typically filled with cliched cardboard cutout characters placed in situations so far out from what I can identify with they are about as interesting to read as the latest Party vs. Party diatribe for the upcoming election.

That doesn't always stop me from trying, however. I really liked Richard Condon's The Manchurian Candidate but it was published a long time ago. Recently I read John Sandford's Dead Watch and I'll be damned if Sandford didn't handle it with all the skill and inventiveness that he's brought to his two series (the Prey and the Kidd books).

Politics are inherently interesting. American politics are inherently distasteful (to me; maybe it would be different if I was Portugese or something but I don't know). Dead Watch introduces us to a new character, a typical Sandord man's man: bright, clever, socially adept, knows how to get along with the ladies. The plot revolves around political intrigue as plausible as anything occurring in real life but without the cliches, without the tiresome comparisons to American presidents past, and without any preachy or attempted redeeming message about the great American Way.

What it does do is tell a damned good story. As I've said here numerous times, Sandford is one of the few contemporary authors I know of that consistently gets better as time goes by; he's resisted falling into a self-parodying formula or rehashing of previous works and comes out swinging every time. I can't think of anything I'd rather read about (for pleasure) than a book with a political setting (or Hollywood or pro sports). But Sandford makes it work because, I think, he puts the story above all else.

There should be a writing Rule in there somewhere, I think. Aw, but then someone would just come along and break it. In the meantime, I think I'm behind one Prey and one Sandford standalone. Those ought to keep me away from the world for a while.