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literary Reviews by Gloria Loree Evil Eye By Michael Slade Viking/Penguin Books of Canada 425 pp.. $29.99 cloth detail, Clarke says, "If we were sausage grinders, we would be able to write a lot faster." But they don't. If there is an autopsy in their story, they call up a pathologist and get the exact details of how the autopsy would be done, how a wound from a blow to the head with a pointed club (for example) would look and write it into their story, including every detail. The two authors purposely put the exact year in their books to note that, at the time of writing, the information on things like court rulings and DNA technology are current. The two went to Africa to research the Zulu history they wove into £17/ Eye. But lots of writers do thorough research. What, in part, makes these stories so intriguing is the basis of these story lines. Clarke and Banks draw on their experiences in past cases; between them they have been involved in over 100 murder cases and one third of those involved certified, criminally insane people. These guys are full of "thriller" material. I stopped taking notes while Banks described how a bullet enters the skull and what kind of damage it does to the brain, the skull...everything. He once based a case on the damage a bullet does and contended the bullet his client shot into the head of the victim wasn't the one that did the fatal damage (he lost the case). The underlying current of truth in their stories titillates. And there doesn't seem to be one type of person whom it titillates the most. When asked who they think their audience is. Clarke replied, "Everybody." He noted an 86-year-old woman who wrote to them on pink bunnyshaped paper after the release of each of their books, telling them how much she and her family enjoyed them. At a book singing an elderly woman approached them in her walker and asked them to sign their book for her 11-year-old grandson. When Clarke was about to caution the woman about the content, she cut him off and said her grandson had read all their books, not to worry. Telling it as they see it is fundamentally important to Clarke and Banks. "We have never backed off from being graphic." says Banks. "You can't start trying to create things in order to satisfy what you think others want.' Graphic it is. But the authors contend their violence is not depicted in a mindless manner. Banks contends that if people are going to blame violent crimes on fiction, they are just trying to ratio nalize behaviour that is abhorrent to them--and they arc "looking for a way to deny responsibility for their own conduct." Clarke says the cutting edge of where books are going now are these psycho-thrillers. "People like to get away from their humdrum reality for a little while." The two authors state the obvious when they say people are free to pick up Anne of Green Gables instead of a Slade novel, but their point is well taken. After all, I put down Jane Austen for a while. ~~ Tamarind Mem By Anita Rau Badami Viking/Penguin Books of Canada 266 pp., $19.99 paperback C o comparisons between Anita Rau Badami's first novel. Tamarind Mem. and Amy Tan's Joy Luck Club are no doubt going to be made. Badami and Tan have the same ability to help the reader get inside the minds of women from their own culture (in the case of Badami and Tan. Indian and Chinese respectively). They include the universal machinations of gender roles and generation gaps while adding the notable differences in how any one culture adds a unique set of rules, usually unwritten, for women. Other similarities between the two writers lie in their wonderful storytelling: seeing family situations from both sides of the gender gap. and intimate renderings of characters using gentle humour and honest detail. Badami says she likes to get inside the minds and hearts of the M ichael Slade is not real. Slade is really two criminal lawyers, Jay Clarke of North Vancouver and John Banks of Vancouver. The characters in their murder mysteries are not real. The characters are composites of the people the two authors have known. And that is scary. Their latest book. Evil Eye. is very scary. I had nightmares that are usually reserved for the once-a-year viewing of a horror flick which I attend under the trickery of my partner who says he's not really sure what the film is about. Suffice it to say I'm not a horror fan. Or replace horror with "thriller" as the marketing folks at Penguin would like us to do. I write all this because while I was shocked with all the gruesome events in the book. I did gain respect for the Slade series and its authors. I'll even admit to turning the pages past my bedtime...I had to find out who dunnit. The story is full of gore. The promotional release from the publisher starts out like this: " A schizophrenic skinhead stomps two cops to death...The mother of a third generation R C M P officer is brutally murdered...A senior R C M P officer is killed and disemboweled... A flashback to events of a century earlier finds British forces facing off against thousands of Zulu warriors...Welcome to Slade country." I read this and thought, "Not my cup of tea." This sounded too gruesome to go on. but hey. we've got a local writer here so I bravely put down my copy of Austen's Emma, and persevered. And kind of glad I did. The accuracy in detail of the book makes the reading, while troubling, easy to picture, easy to believe and easy to get drawn into. As for the Criminal lawyer Jay Clarke of North Vancouver is the coauthor (along with John Banks) of the latest Michael Slade psycho- thriller, Evil Eye.