Ah yes, Arlene.
Certain persons have been kind enough to imagine a resemblance between the character of freelance journalist slash itinerant spy Arlene Harte and my humble self.
I wish.
No, barring a passing similarity in hair and eye color, Arlene is waaay cooler than me. When she waltzes on stage in Prepared for Rage she is working at her day job when Hugh Rincon, back from Blindfold Game
in a cameo appearance, recruits her to talk to an old source, Hari Assoun, who as per usual with Arlene has turned into a bosom buddy:
They discussed her family (“Arlene, my dear, you got to get married. Who cares for you elsewise in your old age?”), his family (“My wife, she is with someone else now, but she will be back, I know this thing in my heart.”), and world affairs (“Is this president of yours mad, Arlene? Is he blind and deaf? What is America thinking with this invasion, this war? We Turks know all about war, Arlene, we have Iraqi Kurds sitting across our border from Turkish Kurds, waiting to join hands and make their own country, and then what? Chaos! Anarchy! Apocalypse!”).
After two cups of coffee, when Arlene could hear the blood sizzling nicely in her veins from the caffeine, she got to the point. Hari at first was obdurate. “No, Arlene, much as I want to help you always, this man I will not discuss.” She coaxed and pleaded, and did not make the mistake of offering more money. Hari was for hire, not for purchase.
After some grumbling followed by dire warnings (“This is dangerous, my very dear Arlene. You could get hurt. I could get hurt. Your future husband could get hurt!”) Hari allowed as how, yes, he did still come in the way of the odd bit of information, and yes, perhaps, on very rare occasions there might be a whisper of Isa.
Isa, as some of you already know, is the villain of the piece. Not a nice person.
Of course, neither is Arlene (some of you may remember a little incident with duct tape and a ball peen hammer in Blindfold Game) but one of my all-time favorite characters nonetheless.
8 Comments
SJ’s birthday is the 23rd tring to get athread going at 6 word stories . Started with ” the bessed event crept ever closer . but it didn’t post ?
I’m not familiar with 6 word stories, Ed, sorry.
Dana,
Just got done reading the first four chapters from Silk and Song. Very nicely done and I want to know more about Johanna! Just sixteen and ready to set off on the adventure of a lifetime….
CathyO
More to come…
Maybe tomorrow your first book will arrive . 2and 3 are here already as well as 2 and3 of the Roland Green books , And the first shall be last .
Dana,
Got my Zazzle order today and everything was perfect. Have to say that the photo you took and have available in stamps and postcards looks so awesome in person. Wow, is all I can say.
CathyO
Dana, Love your books. I do have a serious query about the opening scene of Prepared for Rage. At the end of the book you give sources, but none cite the cultural source of the horrifying practice in Pakistan you depict of raping and torturing a woman for a misdeed of her brother. Is that an actual cultural practice of the Pakistanis? An important question, I think.
The practice of “honor rape” is, unfortunately, not solely a Pakistani custom, it happens across the Muslim world. The first chapter of Prepared for Rage is based on one such that did in fact happen in Pakistan, and because the victim was willing to speak out it received a lot of attention in the world press. I didn’t — couldn’t — believe it when I first heard about it, and then did some research and found it was only too true.
It doesn’t happen everywhere or all the time, from what I can make out, but even once is too many times.
Post a Comment