Barbara Ludman
REIGN IN HELL by William Diehl (Heinemann, R99,95)
LUCKY YOU by Carl Hiaasen (Macmillan, R84)
Thrillers reflect Americans’ concerns more accurately than CNN – and when one has books by two bestselling writers focusing on right-wing militias, it’s a fair bet that that phenomenon figures in American nightmares.
Militias rose to general consciousness when the FBI blundered in and wiped out a community of gun nuts in Waco, Texas, five years ago; they’re groups of, mostly, men who have taken legitimate concerns like tax laws designed to drive small farmers off the land, intrusive government and cold- hearted bankers, and used them to build a racist and gun-centred movement.
Reign in Hell takes militias seriously, adds a young and slippery president and an upstanding prosecutor, and comes up with a highly readable look at litigation, military-style manoeuvres and churches based on racial hatred.
Illinois Attorney General Martin Vail specialises in Rico cases – an acronym for racketeering-influenced and corrupt organisations, so all-encompassing that the state can use it to prosecute just about any offence.
Vail has just brought down some very nasty executives dumping effluent in the state’s few remaining wild places when he gets a call from Washington. Right-wing militias are moving the country closer to Armageddon, with military operations not unlike cash-in-transit heists, but far bloodier; the toughest militia – which includes a military wing and a fundamentalist church – is headed by a much-decorated military man; and the best weapon at hand is a Rico case.
The action moves continually, from church to court to battlefield, as Vail struggles to stay alive and build his case. These militias are scary stuff indeed.
Or are they? In Lucky You, the militias are represented by a couple of petty hoodlums on the trail of several million dollars to finance a group they call the White Rebel Brotherhood until they discover it’s the name of a rock band.
Here’s Hiaasen’s take on militias: “Bodean James Gazzer had spent 31 years perfecting the art of assigning blame. His personal credo – everything bad that happens is someone else’s fault – could, with imagination, be stretched to fit any circumstance … The roaches in his apartment were planted by his filthy immigrant next-door neighbours. His dire financial plight was caused by runaway bank computers and conniving Wall Street Zionists; his bad luck in the South Florida job market, prejudice against English- speaking applicants. Even the lousy weather had a culprit …”
Bodean hooks up with an unwashed lout called Chub who owns a machine that turns out counterfeit handicapped stickers for car windshields. One drunken Saturday night they play the lottery, and the next morning discover they’ve won. But someone else has also picked the winning numbers, and they’ve got to share the R28-million. “Probably a negro,” says Bodean gloomily. He’s right.
JoLayne Lucks – the other winner – lives in Grange, Florida, a small town distinguished by its miracles, among them a weeping fibreglass Madonna whose plastic feeder lines sometimes develop a crimp between the eyelids and the reservoir bottle, clogging up. Never mind; the longer the pilgrims wait on line, the more they spend on holy candles and sunblock.
The thugs find JoLayne – a young, tough animal-lover, a typical Hiaasen woman – beat her up, steal her ticket and head for the Bahamas. JoLayne and a reporter on the run from his editor (as well as an irate husband) head out in hot pursuit.
Hiaasen, Miami Herald columnist and former investigative reporter, is moving back on track after lately losing his way. He’s not there yet, but this book is better than the last two. Both villains and supporting actors are back to the bizarre, and JoLayne’s a treat.
And who’s to say, after all, that
Hiaasen’s view of the militias isn’t more accurate than the FBI’s?