Alvah's Books

Nothing is Strange with You
By James Jeffrey Paul
Xlibris Corporation
278 pages
$29.99

Reviewed by Randall Radic

October 2, 1930.  Gordon Stewart Northcott asked for a blindfold.  After receiving it, the floor opened beneath his feet and Northcott plunged down.  The rope around his neck brought his fall to an abrupt halt. Northcott died and justice was served.

Chilling.

There’s a curious field of suppressed energy about this book.  It’s the true account of a man named Gordon Stewart Northcott.  He was a real piece of work, as they say.  Exaggerated, quaint, and absurd are adjectives that come to mind when trying to describe him.  And of course, don’t forget insane, demented, crazy, deranged, and mad as a Hatter.

Northcott kidnapped his own nephew, because he needed help.  Northcott was a child molestor and a murderer.  He abducted little boys, violated them sexually and, usually, killed them.  Northcott forced his nephew, Sanford Clark, to help him procure his victims.  After Northcott was done with them, he forced Clark to help him bury them.  Sometimes they weren’t quite dead when they were buried.

Northcott’s father, George, knew what his son was up to.  But because he loved him, he didn’t try to stop it.  In fact, with an air of simplicity both charming and suspect, he almost encouraged the secretive work.  Northcott’s mother, whose name was Louise, doted on her little boy.  She had a commitment to him that could not be disrupted.  So she killed for him.  None of the three family members – George, Louise or son Gordon – could speak anything remotely resembling the truth.  They were all pathological liars.  

Written by James Jeffrey Paul, who put years of labor into researching his material, the story is told with in a coldly detached voice, which accentuates the spookiness of the tale.  No wonder Clint Eastwood took one small part of the story and made it into a fascinating movie.  The movie was called The Changeling and starred Angelina Jolie.  Only most people don’t know that the unseen, dark monster behind the events of the movie was Gordon Stewart Northcott.          

Included in the book are actual court transcripts of what was said, and by whom, at Northcott’s trial.  As one reads it, one comes face to face with Northcott’s brooding absorption with his secret ideas – the caprice of intrinsic deviancy.  Also included are the letters that Northcott wrote to his parents from his cell on Death Row at San Quentin Prison.  The letters are disturbing, formless, chaotic, devious.  It would appear Northcott had an obsession with complication as an end in itself.          

Nothing is Strange With You is a remarkable book.  Why?  Because it operates a priori – it attempts to infer the truth of murderous, horrifying events, directly from the nature or condition in the mind of the perpetrator of the events.  And does so successfully!  The success is this:  the perpetrator – Northcott – is presented as a passenger, a listless subhuman hominoid, who is too preoccupied in depravity to recognize his stage in dying.  And in the end, when the State of California executes him, all they are doing is confirming his death. 

This is a book that needed to be written.  This is a book that needs to be read.

Prophecy of Power
by Andrew Parker
Bedside Books/American Book Publishing 2009
242 pages. 
$22.00

Reviewed by Randall Radic 

The title of this new religious thriller sums it up:  a prophecy of power, potential and talent reside in the author, Andrew Parker.  All the elements of a rock ‘em sock ‘em bestseller are in his novel, Prophecy of Power. 

There’s a skeptical rabbi, who wonders if Judaism is indeed the one, true religion.  The rabbi, whose name is Jacob Droutman, begins comparing one religion with another, as he searches for the truth.  The quest leads him to a seminar on the Book of Revelation.  The seminar’s speaker – Dr. Renton – is a slick purveyor of the most irresistible type of religious snake oil – prophecy.

There’s a mysterious femme fatale, too.  She hands Jacob Droutman an envelope containing information about three missing students, who may or may not be dead.  Soon afterward, Droutman’s landlord is found murdered.  As the police homicide unit investigates, two CIA agents show up, informing the police that they are taking over the case “for reasons of national security.”  Suspicious of everything and everybody, the police decide to continue an unauthorized investigation. 

The story is now cooking with gas! 

Rabbi Droutman, pulled in ever deeper, finally goes to Israel to try and find the three missing students.  If he can find them, maybe he can discover their ‘secret.’  A secret so potent, world governments are willing to kill for it.

Now we are talking!  Prophecy of Power has every ingredient necessary for a thrill-a-minute ride.  Almost.

Parker writes well.  For example, his description of Lansky Lounge, a local bar where the good rabbi indulges in a daily health regimen is a doozy:  “Lansky Lounge was the Jewish gangster Meyer Lansky’s old boardroom and they kept his hideout dark and dangerous.”  And Parker’s ear for conversational sound-bytes is finely tuned.  There’s nothing phony or affected in the speech patterns of the characters.  In other words, the dialogue isn’t forced.  Rather it’s smooth and natural.

There are, however, a couple of glitches in the story.  For one, the story unfolds too fast.  It’s like taking a hit of crank and then watching Jason Statham – who is also high on crank – as he tries to keep his heart rate up in the action flick of the same name, Crank.  The overall effect is one of supreme twitchiness.  One scene jumps into another scene before the first scene is over.  Which means the reader is left breathless and wishing he was allowed to inhale before he was forced to exhale. 

For two, the story and the characters – which are definitely intriguing – lack development.  Which is directly connected to the first glitch of too much velocity.  Most readers want to watch the characters and the story evolve.  In Prophecy of Power, they explode.  Which means readers can’t enjoy the nuances and flaws of the people populating the story.  Nor can they relish the interactions that result because of all those human flaws.        

All in all, Prophecy of Power is a good book.  It has a zippy plot with lots of electrifying hanky-panky.  Who doesn’t like tales revolving around the Book of Revelation?  The Apostle John’s apocalypse has it all:  demons, angels, Second Advent, Rapture, Armageddon, Gog and Magog – and oodles of prophecy.  Combine all that with the writing talent of Andrew Parker and, well, it could be one hell of a story.

But it’s gotta be developed just a little bit more.  If that had taken place, then a good story would have become a kick-ass thriller.