Gus Lee and the Chinese in America

I finished my previous blog, about Gus Lee's legal thriller No Physical Evidence saying I liked enough to go looking for more of his stuff. I really enjoy legal procedurals but Lee actually seems to be doing something different and interesting. His books are semi- autobiographical, but in different genres. He was a prosecutor and No Physical Evidence is, I believe, a fictionalized description of a case he prosecuted involving child abuse, but maybe recounts his experiences in a more general way. His first novel, China Boy, deals with childhood and maybe coming of age for a Chinese kid growing up in California in the 60s-70s--I think. I haven't read it yet.
I've just finished Tiger's Tail,, a thriller set in South Korea in the 1970s. Our hero is again a Chinese American, serving as a lawyer in the U.S. military's judge advocate's corps, investigating the disappearance of a fellow officer, but finding much more sinister goings on.
I've just started his second book, which picks up where China Boy lets off, with a fictionalized version of Gus Lee going to West Point, as he did.
I like books which set the protagonist within a community-bureaucracy like the army or the legal system or big company, where he must work out his destiny, which is to be an honorable person.
But being honorable as a Chinese and as a West Point freshman are two different things, and similarly, as a middle officer in the army and as a troubleshooter among enemies in Korea far from his superiors.
As in No physical Evidence, the hero of Tiger's Tail, is wrestling not only with evil people but with personal demons which have destroyed his religious faith.
But the mystery he must solve for the army leads him to a local Korean shaman, to his own mixed Christian-Taoist spiritual upbringing,his own guilt for misdeeds committed in the Vietnam War, and his own spiritual void.There is a romantic subplot that involved being faithful to a doubtful relationship as well.
The action at the level of techno-thriller is hard to follow but the characters are vivid and the revelations about the different cultures--military, Korean and Chinese--are convincing and fascinating.
The clashes of culture are often humorous and the story is always gripping. For me, the spiritual quest of the hero is what makes this book worth blogging about. It is well done, and respectful of all the faiths involved. (Although, there is a stereotypical reference to the Inquisition which indicates little knowledge about that institution.)It's a good read of a different sort from his first book.
Lee also gives workshop on leadership and with his wife has written a book about it and readers of his novels will be unsurprised to see that, for him, ethical behaviour is a major component.
I think the next blog will be about Lee's book on West Point.

Gus Lee's brilliant No Physical Evidence

I've just finished "No Physical Evidence" by Gus Lee and I liked it very much. It's the second time I've read it and I'm guessing I liked it the first time too; one of the blessings of a failing middle-aged memory is it gives you (at least) twice as many books to read.
The raison d'etre of this blog is to write about genre fiction with Christian content, and not about the genre of Christian fiction. So how does it measure up?
I can't honestly tell from this one novel whether Lee is a Christian, but it's my blogsite so I am claiming there's enough Christian content for it to be in here. The hero is certainly angry enough at God to have stopped believing in Him by the beginning of the story, but the question of his belief remains unanswered throughout, and many of the significant characters in the book are believers: his Chinese mother; his American wife; and the teenage rape victim whose case he prosecutes. There is no preaching, no discussions of religion, but no cheap shots at religions either. There are plenty of good people whose faith position is unspecified, but, as I said, some good people whose faith is explicit and not incidental to their goodness. It is one of those stories, pretty common in legal fiction for some reason, where the protagonist starts the story in a state of emotional and/or moral collapse, and in the course of pursuing an important case, also deals with his demons.
I like these novels best, where the hero makes some progress internally. Consider in contrast the novels of James Swain, discussed in a previous blog: Swain's heroes go throuch external tribulations but remain somewhat two dimensional and static.
Another element I enjoy that is key to Lee's book is that of politics: both the internal politics of the district attorney's office, and the external politics of an approaching election that affects the district attorney and several judges involved in the rape case.
While the eventual resolution of the rape case seems to depend on quite a bit of luck at the end(as if Lee was rushed for time or space and had to wrap his final plot reversals too quickly), what seems implausible in terms of real life works well dramatically. That is, the acceleration of pace and twist in the final pages, is an excellent way to end a book that is part legal procedural and part thriller.
Which brings up another thing I like about this book: the pacing is sometimes fast, sometimes slow. There were times I could put it down, knowing I had good reading ahead, and times when I couldn't let go.
For those who like courtroom drama (me), there is plenty, with the odds stacked heavily against the protagonist.
And finally, back to the deeper themes: there is realistic depiction of the impact of beloved child's death on a family and on individual parents, and a satisfying treatment of such impacts as grief, despair, the sin of sloth or acedia and of recovery from these wounds and wrongful attitudes. A moral tale with a realistically conflicted protagonist. I'm looking for more books by Lee now.

Genre fiction

What is it about genre fiction? And to dig deeper to its essence: what is it about reading all the books by the same author of genre fiction? It's about knowing what you'll get and not minding, in fact, counting on, getting that same reliable mixture of pleasing ingredients.
Real literature, I'm sure, isn't done this way. Those engaged in it are always experimenting with new forms and subjects, growing as artists. But what I like to read are writers who are happily, or at least profitably, digging themselves into the rut of their success. And I will happily follow them there.
James Lee Burke, for example, will write another Dave Robicheau novel about the recovering alcoholic, social justice Catholic detective who rides roughrod through the lives of the Louisiana rich and powerful. A conflicted hero, often given to self-loathing, occasionally to insane violence. Burke manages, I think, to create literature from within this genre, but others would disagree. What do you think?

Wow! big gap since my first blog. Frankly,it was an exceedingly chaotic time for me. Now I'm back at.
I picked up a couple of Dean Koontz novels at a second hand store.Whispers and Winter Moon. But I can only read these one at a time; i.e., they are so intense I will take a break between the first and the second. Koontz fits my core idea for this blog: his novels are for the reader of thrillers and of supernatural or gothic thrillers. His religious views are evident but not intrusive, and evident in two ways: first, his characters often are Catholics and attend mass or confession or consult priests as a matter of course--no big deal. Second, the underlying moral/spiritual universe is Catholic. There are angels, there are ghosts, there are miracles and there are good and bad. There is a belief in the sanctity of life that stands against, for example, euthanasia and cloning.
Still, I'm never sure i'm going to like the next Koontz. Nearly all his books take place in the space of a few days. I prefer stories that change the pace: crime novels generally do this: slow detecting for weeks or months or (in the James Ellroy novel I just finished, Clandestine, five) years. Frenetic action, then life goes on, then more frenetic action.