Review: "Journey" by Catherine Arnold (Harrison Arnston?)

 

Journey by Catherine Arnold (Harrison Arnston?) iUniverse, 2003     In the early-1990s my parents sprang for a subscription to the bulletin board service Prodigy. Prodigy was a predecessor to AOL and (ultimately) to the commercialized internet we have today. Basically, Prodigy was a bunch of bulletin boards where people with similar interests gathered to chat about what made them excited. I tended to spend my time—or perhaps misspend my time—on boards about books and baseball. One of the boards I frequented was called Harry’s Bar & Grill. Its operator was a thriller writer named Harrison Arnston. He went by Harry in both the real and digital worlds, but his novels were published as “Harrison”. Harry was a renaissance man—cool, successful, and kind. His board was about writing and he knew what he was talking about. When I first met Harry—the digital version anyway—he had published four novels; all paperback originals released by Zebra. In 1984, Harry had sold his successful California “auto-accessory company,” moved to Palm Harbor, Florida, and set out to write thrillers. It didn’t come easy, either. After reading his first thriller, which was never published, one agent told him to find another hobby. But Harry wrote another and then another before he found print with Zebra. Harry was the first “real” writer that took an interest in me, or at least made me feel like he did, and I loved every piece of advice he gave me and anyone else that wandered into Harry’s Bar & Grill. In the early-1990s, HarperPaperbacks became Harry’s publisher and the quality if his work noticeably improved. Jon L. Breen noted that Harry’s legal thriller, Act of Passion (1991), was “unusually well plotted” and every book Harry wrote was better than the last. Harry’s journey ended prematurely in 1996, he was 59, after a brief battle with lung cancer, but I’ve always wondered what he would have produced if he hadn’t died. My point? I think I found Harrison Arnston’s final novel. It was self-published by Arnston’s widow, Theresa Sandford-Arnston, using her pseudonym, Catherine Arnold, with the title, Journey. Unfortunately, Ms. Arnston died in 2016 and so I can’t ask her. I haven’t been able to make contact with any of his or her family, either. And I’ve tried. But after reading Journey—which is a cool take on an X-Files theme—I’m convinced it was written by Harry Arnston because it is stylistically similar to his last few published novels. Another clue, and it is a big one, comes from Harry’s St. Petersburg Times obituary (Feb. 4, 1996) stating his agent was peddling a novel titled Journey. My only hesitation about Journey belonging to Harry Arnston is, back in 2008 I exchanged emails—at least three or four—with Theresa Arnston about Harry and she said his only unpublished book was a thriller titled American Terrorist. Journey had been published five years earlier, but I’m puzzled why she wouldn’t have told me about Journey. Now, a little about Journey. It was obviously written in the mid-1990s because it mentions the first World Trade Center bombing and the Waco siege (both in 1993), and the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, but nothing significant after that. There are a few add-ins, a line here or there that feel like they were dropped in by another writer and don’t exactly fit the overall context. One such add-in is a mention of the 2002 film, The Hours. Journey has that big 1990s thriller feel, too—weighty problems, significant background detail, lightweight characterization, but still richer than most current genre thrillers, and a quality of we can do it hopefulness that we seemed to lose after 9/11. Everything begins when a 747 disappears from an air traffic controller’s radar screen. There is no evidence the airliner crashed, changed course, or exploded. It simply disappeared. The investigation is handed to the FBI, but—against all protocols—the Pentagon assumes control with the blessing of the Department of Justice’s top suits. A development that irks the FBI’s top investigator, Jack Kalman, enough that he takes leave and starts his own investigation. There is a bunch of detail about how air traffic control worked in the 1990s, including the ramifications of when Ronald Reagan broke the union in the 1980s. The action is swift and—especially the first two-thirds while the happening is a still a mystery—intriguing. There are several repetitive passages, but none are overly long, and I bet if this had been published in Arnston’s lifetime they would have been fixed. A strange prologue—strange because it was obviously written by another writer—is attached with little relevance to the narrative and there are a few odd typos in the text. Odd, because it seems like the wrong word was used. But overall, Journey, is an attractive, high-speed, flight that would have been even better if it had been published when it Harry Arnston wrote it. Click here for the Kindle edition or here for the paperback at Amazon.

I wrote a biographical article about Harrison Arnston a few years ago—which you can read here.

“If You Have Another Hobby, Take That Up”: The Thrillers of Harrison Arnston

“If You Have Another Hobby, Take That Up”: The Thrillers of Harrison Arnston

by Ben Boulden

Harrison Arnston – Harry to his friends and pretty much everyone else – wrote nine published novels between 1987 and 1994. The critic Jon L. Breen, in his Armchair Detective column “Novel Verdicts” called Arnston’s 1991 legal thriller, Act of Passion, “unusually well plotted” with a trial that “is expertly covered…with some terrific Q-and-A along the way.” Arnston followed Act of Passion with another excellent legal thriller, Trade-Off, in 1992, but his work wandered across the genre in unexpected ways. He turned the 1991 techno-thriller The Big One – where a super-secret government agency is covering up a new discovery for predicting earthquakes – into an enjoyable and outlandish detective story, and The Venus Diaries, Arnston’s final published novel, is a swift tale about an extraordinarily beautiful and brutal assassin for hire, raised in post-World War 2 France by an embittered veteran of the communist partisans.

[For the rest of the article click here to go to Dark City Underground...]

THE THIRD ILLUSION by Harrison Arnston

Harrison Arnston’s The Third Illusion, published by Harper as a paperback original in 1993, is a nicely played hybrid of the private eye and thriller genres with a tricky plot that Alfred Hitchcock would have found intriguing. It is Mr. Arnston’s eighth novel, after the legal thriller Trade-Off (1992), and his second to last published novel, preceding The Venus Diaries (1994).

David Baxter, a former CIA operative, is a hunted man. A Palestinian terrorist group has sentenced him to death for thwarting an attack and killing its leader. With the help of the Agency, David faked his own death, changed his name to Jack Slade, and lives a secluded life in a California mountain town. When a wealthy and politically ambitious businessman, who knows David’s real identity, lures him out of hiding with a hard luck story about a missing daughter, David’s carefully orchestrated life unravels.

The Third Illusion is what a thriller should be: entertaining, complex and fun. Its first person narration is smooth and provides the reader with an unobstructed view of both the action and David Baxter. Its plotting and pacing are pitch-perfect, and while the book runs 452 pages in mass market, there is plenty of story from the first page to the last. The climactic twist is achieved with what must have been a cutting edge technology in the early-1990s, and still feels a little science fiction, that stretches belief, but in Arnston’s expert hands this reader didn’t much care.

THE THIRD ILLUSION by Harrison Arnston

David Baxter is a wanted man. He is a former CIA operative who, six years earlier, stopped a terrorist attack and in the process killed a man named Nadi Amur. Amur was the leader of a small Palestinian terrorist organization that will do anything to kill Baxter. David took an early retirement from the Agency and now lives a secluded life in a California mountain town. His new name is Jack Slade and no one but a select group knows where he went or even if he is still alive.

Baxter’s carefully planned life explodes when a wealthy businessman with political ambitions and a wayward daughter contacts him. He wants David to find his estranged daughter so he can make amends in a very public way. Baxter takes the job against his own better judgment and finds the girl in short order. Unfortunately the whole thing feels too easy, like he is being led down a carefully arranged path. And when the businessman releases a recent photo of Baxter along with his real name his carefully arranged world crumbles.

The Third Illusion is a 1990s thriller with a perfect set-up and delivery. The narrative is first person and the prose is clean and simple. It is loaded with dialogue that sounds just right and enough–but not too much—philosophy scattered into the storyline to make it interesting.

“I didn’t answer. Instead, I opened my attaché case, removed Ronald Webster’s business card, and threw it on the bed. “This guy works for Steel. He’s the one who bearded me at John Gull’s funeral. He got a good look at my car, and I sensed he knows who I am. In fact, he’s the only person in the last few weeks who’s had a look at my car, other than some people I trust.”

The style and narrative give the The Third Illusion the feel of a private eye novel with a heady dose of thriller plotting. The prose is medium-boiled—not too smooth, but certainly lacking the aggressive and gritty toughness of hardboiled. The characters are standard, but likable and interesting within the context of the story. And the story absolutely zooms! It runs 452 pages in mass market, but it doesn’t feel nearly that long.

The Third Illusion is an example of some of the better genre pulp of the early 1990s. It is entertaining, swift, and damn fun. The plot is tricky without any gimmicks and while the climax stretches belief a bit, it is done expertly enough that the reader doesn’t much care.

The Third Illusion was published by Harper in 1993—it was a paperback original. It was Harry Arnston’s second to last novel and it was, if not his best novel, damn near the top of his body of work. But his work improved with each novel and I can only imagine what he would be producing now.

To read some biographical information about Harry Arnston click Here.

Other Gravetapping reviews of Harry’s work:

Act of Passion
The Venus Diaries

THE VENUS DIARIES by Harrison Arnston

I’ve written about Harry Arnston before—I reviewed his novel Act of Passion earlier this year, and in that post I categorically stated that I have enjoyed every Arnston novel I’ve read. And that feeling hasn’t changed one bit since then. I recently re-read the last novel Harry published before his death: The Venus Diaries.

The Venus Diaries is a little different than Arnston’s other work—it fits quite nicely in the thriller category. It is the story of Josephine, a young woman who lost both her father and mother in World War Two France. After the war ends a silent and brutal man adopts her—he was a leader in a partisan group during the war, but when the Nazis were driven out he was declared useless. The man takes his frustrations out on Josephine until she can take no more. She is moved into a school for troubled girls where she excels academically, but there is something missing in Josephine: she doesn’t think like other children.

Josephine looks for weaknesses and angles to manipulate people for her own ends, but she is intelligent enough to cover her motives and convincing enough to make people believe she is anything but the ruthless sociopath she is. When Josephine turns sixteen her beauty attracts a top model agency where she is groomed to be a star—this is where she meets her destiny. A man who calls himself a spy contacts her to help with special jobs. She play-acts at seducing men of power, and then she steals the information they have.

The Venus Diaries spans more than fifty years. It begins in the war torn regions of France, but it doesn’t end until it reaches the highest levels of power in the United States of 1994. There is a large cast of characters that fulfill their obligation to the sprawling plotline well and keep the story interesting. The plot is well formed and intriguing—it has the feel of a sweeping epic without bogging down with too much information and character development. The prose is light and smooth. It captures the story with stark and appealing descriptions of characters and places.

If The Venus Diaries has a weakness it is the limited action—the story is told in a dream-like voice that inhibits both the darkness of the main character and the potentially riveting action scenes. This is easily forgiven however, because of Arnston’s strong grip on the story and its effects on the reader.

The Venus Diaries was Harry Anrston’s last published novel—it was number nine by my count—and if it isn’t his best work, it is very close.

Harper Paperbacks originally published The Venus Diaries in January 1994.

ACT OF PASSION by Harrison Arnston

When I was a teenager my parents belonged to a bulletin board service called Prodigy. It was around 1990—I was in High School, but the exact year escapes me. The Prodigy service was cool. It had a large array of discussion boards that—for the most part—got some pretty neat participation. The arts and literature board was active and it attracted quite a few writers including Douglas Clegg, David Bischoff, Marc Iverson, C.A. Mobley, S.K. Wolf, Harry Arnston, and so many others that it would be impossible for me to remember them all, let alone list them.

Harry Arnston had his own discussion group called Harry’s Bar and Grill, and it was a gathering place for readers, writers, and anyone else who wanted to discuss genre fiction—both what to read, and how to write it. I was in awe of Harry. He wrote nine, by my count, novels; they were all paperback originals and very much in the mystery genre. Two were courtroom dramas; one was a thriller with its seeds in World War Two, while still another was more like a private eye novel. His work was interesting, and he was a consummate gentleman. I emailed him several times, and he always responded with an obvious kindness that I still admire.

Unfortunately Harry died in the mid-1990s—the last email I sent him, somewhere between 1993 and 1994—asked him when his next novel was due out. His response (certainly not verbatim): I have two novels completed and sold to St. Martin’s Press, but I don’t know when they will be released because they keep firing my editors. I never saw those two novels, and I have always wondered what happened to them—did they ever hit print, or did they die with Harry?

I haven’t read all of Harry’s work, but over the few years I frequented Prodigy I read everything he put out, and I really quite liked it. Which brings me to my belated point: A few months ago I came across one of Harry’s novels in a thrift shop. It was in surprisingly good condition, and even better, it was one I hadn’t yet read. The title: Act of Passion.

Act of Passion is a straightforward courtroom drama. Ann Cohen is the mistreated wife of real estate developer Marty Cohen. Their marriage is a sham—Marty is a little man who loves to bed other women, and his taste trends toward the kinky. The novel opens with Ann drinking herself the courage to confront Marty—earlier in the evening Ann and a friend had seen Marty in a perverted sex act with his mistress, and Ann has had enough. She is finally going to file for a divorce, but before Marty makes it home the police knock on her door.

They ask her several disturbing questions: Where were you this evening? Do you own a gun? She doesn’t understand what they are doing until they arrest her for the murder of her husband. This is where Act of Passion begins, but it is a long way from its end. Ann enlists the help of one of the most highly sought criminal attorneys in the country. He made his name representing a local mobster, and he readily agrees to represent Ann.

Act of Passion was a fun novel to read. It was published in 1991 when the courtroom drama was all the rage, and it has all the elements of the genre: courtroom scenes, investigators, lawyers, judges, and even gangsters who know more than they want to tell. The characters are well conceived—they are not fully developed, but they fit the story perfectly and they, specifically Ann, are rendered to be likable and believable. The plot is also very much the expected, but Mr. Arnston adds enough twists and turns to keep it fresh and exciting.

I enjoyed Act of Passion a whole lot, and while it does have few a creaky moments—the favor of a mobster, the incredulous naiveté of Ann—it holds its own as not only a blast from the past, but it also still has a voice and power sixteen years after its original publication.

If any of you have any information about Harry’s work, especially those two novels he sold to St. Martin’s, please clue me in. I enjoyed his work when he was writing it, and Act of Passion reminded me I need to keep looking for his novels, and there are several of them I haven’t read.