Getting Fast and Fat

The top ten reasons for buying a copy of my sequel novel, The Broken Cross, roll on after a brief hiatus. Clocking in at number 7 is...the food.

I like to bring a smattering of St. Louis culture into my stories by having the detectives grab a meal at a noticeable eating establishment in the greater St. Louis realm. In The Broken Cross, Detectives Ballack and Vaughan head north across the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers to get some juicy ecclesiastical gossip from Father Billy Doyle in Alton, Illinois. Because this bluff town on the river banks is known for one major item (aside from an underrated yet quality row of antique stores) and that is the "Best Bar in the Midwest, Maybe the World"... Fast Eddie's Bon Air.

It's hard to capture in one blog post what Fast Eddie's is like. I first went there in 1995 during my seminary days and today the prices are pretty much around the same area. The Big Elwood steak on a stick remains at $2.99 (at least, the last time Christy and I went there for lunch). The menu is cheap and filling, and the drinks are cold. Since the late Eddie Sholar purchased the joint in 1981, things took off and the results are legendary. Over 400 chairs to sit and over 4000 half barrels of beer per year means people have a great time.

No wonder, you might say once you read the latest Ballack installment, Fast Eddie's snags its rightful place in the pages of literature. Because it's definitely one of the top dives in the world.

On Holy Ground

The #8 reason to check out my second novel, The Broken Cross, has to do with holy ground. No, that's not Providence, Rhode Island, although the Yale Bulldogs might say otherwise after their stunning 79-75 upset of Baylor just a few moments ago in Roger Williams' fair city.

It has everything to do with the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, known to locals as the New Cathedral (to distinguish it from the "Old" Cathedral, which is the Basilica of St. Louis, King of France down by the Gateway Arch). Begun in 1907 and completed in 1914, the Cathedral is unique in its construction. The Romanesque Revival interior contrasts with the Neo-Byzantine exterior. The twin towers on either side of the central dome hearkens architectural wonks to the glory of Hagia Sophia in medieval Constantinople. Four chapels in the four interior corners offer space to pray (including the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin, which figures prominently into Detective Cameron Ballack's case) and the central dome towers 227 feet above the floor.

But it is the mosaic tesserae collection that is the Cathedral's highlight. Begun in 1912 and completed in 1988, the mosaics are made of 41.5 million glass pieces in over 7000 shades of color. The spread of stained glass covers 83,000 square feet and is the largest collection of individual mosaic pieces in the world.

If you're ever in St. Louis, you really need to stop by the Cathedral and take in the wonder, whether you are a follower of any faith or none. It's a breathtaking monument to divine beauty and human creativity...

...and not to mention the perfect place for a most unholy crime of murder. But then we're getting ahead of ourselves and I might ruin your dinner by giving the details.

Speaking of dinner, food makes the list on reason number 7. Until next time...

[Note: The Cathedral's web site, if you're interested, is www.cathedralstl.org.]

All Over the Lou

We continue the top ten reasons to check out The Broken Cross with reason #9...

I thought about calling this post "A Full Court Press" but thought that'd be misleading given that we're getting into the NCAA basketball tournament. The title is due to how my second novel appears compared to the first. In Litany of Secrets, the duo of Detectives Cameron Ballack and Tori Vaughan are neck-deep in a murderous chess match of wills that takes place on a small seminary campus in rural Missouri. While I'd like to say I did this for the sake of heightening the tension of one locale (which in some part it was), I mostly constructed the story that way so I could learn on the fly how to write a novel. One element of the triad of plot, character, and setting had to be simplified yet magnified, so setting was my choice.

While I believe The Broken Cross weaves more elements of characters along with a faster pace, it was a harder book to write. This is primarily because the action goes all over the St. Louis area. From a courtroom battle in Clayton (the county seat of St. Louis County, by the way) to Ballack receiving his SID badge in St. Charles; from grisly assessments at the Cathedral Basilica to a secretary's hideout in Webster Groves; from an attorney's office off Tesson Ferry Road to the greasy spoon of Alton, IL's own Fast Eddie's Bon-Air; from the Drury Plaza at the Arch to the Gaelic football pitch at St. Vincent's Park in Normandy; from Chesterfield to Creve Coeur and back into the city again...our detective hero doesn't keep his wheelchair in one location for very long.

Because of this, much work gets done on the go. Phone conversations are hurried, and travel east up more time than it would compared to the bucolic enclave of St. Basil's Seminary. But I believe it's worth it, because the story takes place in real locations, in real time, and my readers deserve to soak up every moment of life in St. Louis, whether battling traffic on Interstate 44 or quietly touring the Cathedral Basilica.

Would we all could dwell at the Cathedral, but have patience. The archdiocesan seat is the subject of reason #8 to come...

More People, More Problems

No, the title does not mean that this is about politics...although I did vote today in the Missouri primary. So concerned was I about the direction of those running for President that I came extremely close to writing in Tony Blair's name on my ballot. Even though Blair himself was Prime Minister, not President. Of Britain. Not America. So he's ineligible to run. But still a lot better than much of the imperialistic hot air running through the zeitgeist.

I'm actually beginning a new series. My second novel in the Cameron Ballack Mysteries, The Broken Cross, has been out since last fall, and to help you spread the word even further, we're doing a top ten list of reasons why this is an engaging read. So we begin with #10: More People, More Problems.

Readers who recall the intimacy of my first novel, Litany of Secrets, will feel a quick jolt after the first murder of The Broken Cross, when Detectives Cameron Ballack and Tori Vaughan find themselves both on a more complicated case and among a party of four. Joining forces with the Special Investigative Division of Metro St. Louis (admittedly a fabricated subset of the police force of my own making...FYI) is a step up in promotion, but meshing personalities on said case with two other detectives is another matter. And when Ballack himself--the only sleuth not walking around on two legs--is given the opportunity to head up the murder investigation, it merely quickens the initial jealousy welling up within his new partners.

This is not the only relationship that experiences strain. A new promotion means a new boss above Lieutenant Scotty Bosco, who is Ballack's boss on the "normal" St. Charles County cases. The imposing yet circumspect Commander Stu Krieger has difficulty making heads or tails of the brilliant yet sarcastic Ballack, causing the tension between them to crack like popcorn for many pages.

That's one major difference--more people. Of course that only makes sense when the story goes from being all under one roof (like in Litany of Secrets) to the helter-skelter all over St. Louis in The Broken Cross. But that's got to wait for #9 on the list in a couple days.

If you haven't ordered The Broken Cross yet, you can do so here.

March Madness and Spooky Connections

My apologies for those hoping for another political post, but with last night's debacle in Detroit--in which I couldn't decide if it was merely the worst Fox News Channel-moderated debate of all time or, due to the rudeness of the carping crowd, we were in a bar watching WWE Summerslam--I would rather provide lighter fare today.

Thirteen years ago, I discovered some fascinating connections as I looked at two incidents in sports history. As one who majored in history during his college days, I know there are a number of freak coincidences in the days of the past. Some people cherish pointing to the oddities between the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy (although a number of those are false comparisons or dubious claims). But with March Madness--yes, the NCAA men's basketball championship tournament--now upon us soon, I believe that the all-timer in the art of Herodotus resides in hoops history, in a comparison between the efforts of two NCAA basketball championship teams: the 1986 University of Louisville Cardinals and the 2003 Syracuse University Orange. Here's what I found years ago that I share with you now:

1. Both teams won the NCAA men's basketball championship in those respective years. Louisville beat Duke, 72-69, in 1986; Syracuse beat Kansas, 81-78, in 2003. Each defeated a team one seed higher than they were (1986: Duke was a 1-seed, Louisville 2; in 2003, Kansas was a 2-seed, Syracuse 3).

2. Both teams' scoring totals in their respective championship games were divisible by nine. Louisville in 1986 scored 72, which divided by nine equals 8. In 2003, Syracuse scored a perfect square of 81, which divided by nine equals 9.

3. Both teams' winning margin in each championship game was three points.

4. In the semifinals of each respective Final Four, both teams defeated their opponents by eleven points. In 1986, Louisville toppled LSU, 88-77. In 2003, Syracuse defeated Texas, 95-84.

5. The scoring totals for both vanquished semifinal opponents in each Final Four was divisible by seven. LSU's 77 points in 1986, if divided by seven, equals 11, while Texas' 2003 semifinal total of 84, when divided by seven, is 12.

6. In 1986, the Final Four was held in Dallas, which meant that Louisville won their semifinal game by beating a team from Louisiana (LSU) in the state of Texas. In a reverse twist in 2003,  the Final Four was held in New Orleans, so Syracuse won their semifinal by beating a team from Texas in the state of Louisiana.

7. In each instance, the Most Outstanding Player for each title-winning team was a freshman! In 1986, Pervis Ellison garnered the honors for the Cardinals, while frosh Carmelo Anthony snagged MOP laurels for the Orange in 2003.

8. The 1986 championship was coach Denny Crum's sixth Final Four trip and his second national championship. The 2003 title was, at the time, coach Jim Boeheim's third Final Four and his only national title. Crum's six Final Fours to two national titles and Boeheim's three Final Fours to one national championship (at the time of those years) are both 3:1 mathematical ratios.

9. In 1986, Louisville's win over Duke meant they finished with an overall record of 32-7; in 2003, Syracuse's title win over Kansas elevated their final record to 30-5. In both cases, each team's won-loss differential was +25.

10. Finally, and perhaps most spooky of all: Both the 1986 Louisville Cardinals and the 2003 Syracuse Orange were coming off mediocre seasons from the year before. Both teams not only played in the second-tier National Invitation Tournament the year before their respective NCAA championship runs; they each also got to the NIT Final Four in New York City; and they each were defeated in the semifinals and then lost in the third-place consolation game...and each of their NIT consolation game opponents began with the letter "T" and ended with the letter "E"!

     1985 NIT consolation game: Louisville loses to Tennessee by a score of 100-84.
     2002 NIT consolation game: Syracuse falls to Temple by a 65-64 count.

The only conclusion one can draw from all this?

It was truly meant to happen.

What's that about things being written in the stars....?

In Defense of the Political Gentleman

I am a patient man, Donald Trump, but I have really had enough.

I know we are going into Super Tuesday's Republican primary elections watching you hold a significant lead over your main contenders. I'm not denying the phenomenon is occurring. I am merely--and painfully--befuddled as why it is.

I realize that many have run out of patience with politics, the insiders, and these folks are those who refuse to worship at the shrine of coalition and compromise. Yes, I recognize this is the realistic afterbirth of significant impudence over the last quarter-century that hates politics as usual. There is no need to spell it out here when David Brooks identifies this governing cancer with incredible insight. 

But to see the seismic shift of popularity go in the direction of someone like Donald Trump is more than I can handle. The fact that he is running as a Republican is immaterial. This is no small-government, Constitutional vision conservative here. Trump offers a chance for Republicans to bully their way into the White House through especially brutal, authoritarian means. The manner in which Trump conducts himself on this quest is especially frightening.

Whether it is a declaration that news outlets critical of Trump will be sued in a money-grab (goodbye First Amendment on that one), or if it's one of the many vicious ad hominem attacks that Trump uses when opponents like Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, John Kasich, or Ben Carson try to engage him in substantive debate and discourse...or whether he says "Wait and see" or "Trust me" when pressed on how he will execute his agenda (never mind that much of what he declares in his policy full-court press can't be done at the stroke of his pen but must go through Congress)...all of this is a run-roughshod spirit that takes no prisoners, allows for no counterproposals, and squelches the very idea of consensus. 

Whether or not you are a Republican or not, a conservative or not, this much is true: If Trump gets the horns of the GOP nomination, then the party of Abraham Lincoln, Calvin Coolidge, Dwight Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan is officially dead. In its place is a select group of power whores who believe that might makes right. And the extent to which evangelical Christians have gone along with this uncivil bullying is mournfully frightening.

My friends, this is not how governing works. True governance begins with an acknowledgement that all people at all levels of decision-making capacity from Washington D.C. to American Falls, Idaho, have value and potential. These people may differ from you, but part of leadership is hashing through those differences and arriving at consensus. This is how politics works, whether you like it or not. This is how gentlemen behave. At the end of the day, we are all Americans, and we are all fellow image-bearers of Divine Providence. To throw in one's lot with someone whose words and actions deny those essential realities is shameful. And to say, "Well, the other side has been doing those things anyway,"...well, (1) that's a  subjective take on the matter and (2) it's really neither here nor there. If you believe someone else is monstrous, you don't unleash a villain in response. You don't lower yourself in that manner. Ever.

It was when Ronald Reagan ran for governor of California in 1966 that he endured a particularly bruising primary battle with fellow GOPers. Reflecting on what Reagan went through, California GOP chairman Gaylord Parkinson espoused what became known as the Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican. It was a credo that Reagan followed diligently in subsequent campaigns to the letter. I cannot recall a more gracious recent political gentleman than Reagan, whether you agree with his politics or not. He treated people as people, as treasured individuals, and they were valued whether they lined up with his values or not. 

But Reagan is dead, and I fear that the party he re-energized is on the verge of leaving him and trampling the spirit of the political gentleman in the dust. It used to be that how you succeeded in politics mattered as much, if not more than, where you succeeded. Although Donald Trump has tapped into some legitimate worry within the electorate, he has done so by fracturing proper discourse and disdaining men of substance through a might-makes-right scorched earth policy of "insult now to insure power later".

Sadly, I feel he might have succeeded.

Making the Big Turn in The British Isles

Yes, it's been a while since I posted. Not that there hasn't been a great deal of substance, just very few blogging blocks of time in which to comment. Because so many seem to be doing so in less than helpful fashion, I'll leave it to the rest of the blogosphere to chime in there. I've got other things on my mind. Like football.

Not American football, mind you. What the majority of the world calls football. If you are thinking, "Oh, you mean soccer", well...if you must call it that.

There is much to talk about in the glorious state of the game in the United Kingdom. The Barclays Premier League (BPL) is enjoying (or for some teams and followers, enduring) a season so dynamic, crazy and capricious that it seems as unpredictable as Prime Minister David Cameron's policy decisions from 10 Downing Street. Throughout the rest of the Isles, things are heating up as we pass the two-thirds-of-the-way-through-the-season mark in various leagues. And while I am no expert on the game (my two years as a head coach and two as assistant at the high school level must suffice for experience), I am a huge fan. Thus begins my running commentary on intriguing storylines of British soccer for this season, in no particular order:

(1) Possible FA Cup history in the making: With a fifth round proper matchup with Hull City looming next weekend, Arsenal is gunning (pun intended) for a third consecutive title in the oldest existing football competition in the world. Alexi Sanchez, Olivier Giroud, Mesut Ozil, Danny Welbeck, and company are complementing solid defense and great goaltending by Petr Cech in making the "sweet sixteen". Having conquered Hull City and Aston Villa, respectively, the last two years in the finals, if the Gunners run the table here on in, they will join the Blackburn Rovers as the only three-peat FA Cup champs. For the record, Blackburn did that trifecta in '84, '85, and '86. By the way, that's 1884, 1885, and 1886. Special, indeed.

(2) New TV contract windfall: Although the old adage is that every game counts, success is more critical this year in the Premier League. That's because the more-than-five-billion-pounds-sterling TV contract penned by Sky Sports and BT Sports for live UK coverage of Premier League games is going to cover the members of next year's circuit in so much jack. What this means is that--if approximations are accurate--the team that finishes LAST next season will still get a TV payout of nearly 100 million pounds, which will give a significant boost to player signing power. Even the middle-of-the-road teams like Watford, Swansea City, or West Bromwich Albion will have the purse power to outspend most professional teams on the European continent, tilting the balance of power most definitely toward Britannia and the BPL. Elite players and managers the world over will have a hard time resisting the lucre from the land of the Three Lions.

(3) Coaching carousel: Aside from the peppered sacking of managers throughout various flights of English football, this year has seen a number of BPL managers shown the door and given the "left foot of disfellowship" (to use a brutal Presbyterian term). The double firing of Dick Advocate (Sunderland) and Brendan Rodgers (Liverpool) on October 4th began the piling of the trash heap. Tim Sherwood never got the Prince William-beloved Aston Villa FC out of the cellar, so he was gone three weeks later. After one win in twelve league and cup games, Swansea AFC boss Garry Monk was gone in the early days of Advent, leading to improved effort by the Swans. All this was a lead-up to 17 December, when defending champion Chelsea, mired in sixteenth place, had enough and owner Roman Abramovich gave manager Jose Mourinho the axe. Even Manuel Pellegrini is leaving Manchester City at the end of the year to make room for Bayern Munich head man Pep Guardiola. The only question is who will be the next one to fall, and although Remi Garde could be the next to get a pink slip as Aston Villa's fortunes haven't improved, my money is on...

(4) Louis Van Gaal. The former Ajax, Bayern Munich, and Dutch national team manager is fighting an uphill battle as the head man for Manchester United. The sheer number of boos cascading from the stands at Old Trafford this year makes one wonder how much time LVG and his autocratic methods still have. The sterling efforts of goaltender David De Gea have largely gone wasted this year as ManU averages less than 1.3 goals scored per game. As for how the rest of the roster jells together, well, they have been hurt by injuries, but something is just not right about Wayne Rooney and company, leading us to conclude that Manchester United might be a worse hot mess than the present Louisiana state budget crisis. The only thing that makes less sense is that co-chairmen Joel and Avram Glazer (when not distracted by their ownership of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers) might put Jose Mourinho in charge after LVG, a move that makes as much sense as Donald Trump off his meds.

(5) Leicester City in first place: Speaking off off one's meds, the play of the Foxes has been nothing short of amazing and unprecedented. Not to mention it overturns all conventional thinking about winning football. Going into yesterday's narrow 2-1 loss at Arsenal (which, after weekend play, still leaves the Foxes in first place by two points), Leicester was 18th in the league out of 20 teams in time of ball possession (40.9%) and nineteenth in number of passes completed. Yet they were first in average goals scored per game and at the top of the table in overall standings. What? How does that happen. But it appears that Claudio Ranieri doesn't care how it gets done, just so they keep winning. The energy has carried over from last season, when LCFC was mired in last place at only 17 points total, but escaped relegation with inspired play over the season's final weeks. It remains to be seen if they can hold off Arsenal, Manchester City, and hard-charging Tottenham Hotspur, but the Foxes have made this season fun by showing a smaller-budget squad can make it good.

(6) Manager of the Year choice: I'd have to say Renieri for what he's been able to deliver at Leicester. But former Borussia Dortmund boss Jurgen Klopp has made football at Anfield enjoyable again since taking over at Liverpool, so I foresee the Teutonic Care Bear winning this award in either of the two following seasons.

(7) More circuits: The Welsh Premier League sees a hot race at the top between second-place Bala Town and top-of-the-table The New Saints that could come down to the last week. Belfast teams Crusaders and Linfield continue their tussle for the title in the Northern Irish Premiership. The big rumblings are coming out of Scotland, and the reasons for that are...

(8) Renewing the Old Firm: There are rivalries and then there are feuds. Then there is the Old Firm, which really needs to be in our school's History of Global Conflicts class curriculum. Think Ohio State-Michigan football, Yankees-Red Sox baseball, Carolina-Duke basketball, Canadiens-Bruins hockey, mixed with the European continent when Archduke Ferdinand was shot in Sarajevo in 1914, add steroids, and stir vigorously. Glasgow clubs Celtic FC and Rangers FC have played each other 400 times over the years, and to say they have drawn blood is no overstatement. This old-fashioned hate-fest slathers over political, religious, and socioeconomic lines, but those lines are still drawn brightly. The Rangers have brooded over the past years as they have gone through liquidation and severe multiple demotion, only to claw back and be at the top of the Scottish Championship League, one step below the Scottish Premiership, where Celtic leads that table. If the Rangers gain promotion...my friends, this rivalry is so back on I can taste it. And maybe the sheer drama of moments like this one can return:

(9) Speaking of relegation and promotion, as in every division of British football, some move up and some move down. For the sake of space, I'll just focus on BPL teams relegated to the English League Championship (second tier) and who is coming up.

We have a chance for another unprecedented item this year. Since the top tier became known as the Premier League in 1992, at least one team promoted to the BPL each year has been relegated for the next. We do have a shot at overturning that rule this year, as newly promoted Watford (9th place), AFC Bournemouth (15th), and Norwich City (17th) are all clear of the relegation zone [teams placed 18th-20th in the twenty team league are demoted to the League Championship division] for now. I do think Aston Villa is headed for demotion. The team is in disarray, can't score, and they just put in an immobile effort in a 6-0 loss to Liverpool today. While I believe either 18th-place Newcastle United or 19th-place Sunderland will be one of the other demoted teams, I like Sunderland's chances to stay in the BPL better. They beat Manchester United yesterday, 2-1, at home and made ManU look like FIFA diarrhea in the process. Newcastle got shell-shocked at Chelsea in a subpar effort, and their squad looks like its losing its moxie. In truth, I believe Norwich is likely headed for relegation, given its leaky defense is showing greater regularity, as it did in the extraordinarily fun yet defensively deplorable 5-4 loss to Liverpool weeks ago as seen here (ignore the Stoke-Leicester banner; it really is Norwich-Liverpool):

So my demoted teams are Newcastle (finishing 18th), Norwich City (19th), and Aston Villa at last, which is bound to disappoint Villa's biggest fan, Prince William.

So who is replacing them from the English League Championship? Most likely Hull City will return, and I have them penciled in as the most likely ELC champions. Middlesborough is showing themselves tough to beat, and I believe they have incentive to return to the BPL. The tricky part is guessing the third team for promotion, as ELC teams that finish third through sixth in the standings will engage in a playoff for that final spot. As they look to be peaking at the right time, I think Sheffield Wednesday has the best shot to emerge and gain promotion. It will be a sweet sight for that 124-year old clock above Hillsborough Stadium's South Stand to look down next year as the Owls get back to BPL action.

If you've read all the way to the end here, you're a true fan. Of association football or the blog, I'm not sure. But thanks for reading...and give feedback if you want!