Critical Mick

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Stingy Jack Meets Picky Mick!!!!!!!!!!!!!.mp3 (5.1 MB)
by R. Scott Taylor
Booklocker.com, 2007

A Fiery Coal Flung from the Devil's Own Hoof

Perhaps because he's the son of biker gang members, R. Scott Taylor has written a novel of thieves and outlaws. Stingy Jack collides a modern-day burglar named Adam Beesler, busily planning a major jewel heist in Boston, with a seventeenth-century Irish brigand named Jack O'Keeffe. The latter outsmarted the Devil himself- twice- when Old Nick came to collect his soul. That soul now walks the earth, incapable of finding even drunken oblivion, his path lit by a lantern containing a fiery coal flung from the Devil's own hoof.

For the first one hundred pages Adam is unaware that he is caught up in a cosmic game of Good versus Evil. He cracks a bookstore's safe, fleeces a suburban home's valuables, rips off an ATM and boosts a car. His eyes are on larger prizes, though. Adam calls in help from his mentor, Nicky Simms, for a stroke that will net a cool three million. A young lady, Clarissa Deleeuw, is tempting Adam into giving up the game. Those millions sure would make a nice stash of "going straight" money.

Throughout those episodes, a shadowy figure stalks Adam. It finally pulls up a stool next to him in a basement bar and introduces himself, launching into a tale of thievery across the Ireland of the 1600's. Jack's stories, over the course of this and future drinking sessions, form roughly half of the novel. Outside the bars, the day of the big heist grows nearer. Will Adam go through with it? Will he come clean to Clarissa? Can she be trusted? Can Nicky be trusted? Can the ghost whose meager generosity has left him labelled "Stingy Jack?"

Here's a short excerpt. In this flashback, Nicky teaches the young pickpocket Adam the art of armed robbery: 

The clerk needn't have worried. A gun with nine bullets in its chamber is incapable of firing.

R. Scott Taylor said it himself: "Rewriting is hard (especially if you chiselled it in stone), but it's a necessity." As with Eric Wilder's Big Easy, I believe the novel Stingy Jack would have been more enjoyable after another editorial pass.

Inconsistencies appear on many pages. The beer that Adam buys Jack when they first meet in that Boston pub is a draft Guinness (page 103). But on the next page, Jack is drinking from a bottle. Another time, Adam departs the police station and jogs toward the Hyatt. A liquid rush overwhelms his bladder, and inexplicably Adam is back in the cop shop's toilet (page 91). On page 24, the main character's last name even changes.

Awkward phrasings could have used polish. For example, "The young thief puffed out his chest, though with subtle undertones." (page 14) I comprehend what Adam is doing, but why describe the action in terms used by food critics? Here's a description of a security guard being struck by a stone:

I like how the experience occurs completely from Brian's point of view, and the stone is a blow that he never saw coming. That's true to life. But, is "sidetrack" a better term than "intercept"? And who sees his brain become mushy if Brian is unconscious?

Kaye Trout has posted a favorable review. Readers who pick up Stingy Jack looking to be swept into an entertaining spell might not be bothered by these points, but typos give me red pen fever. It's hard to dream when you're itching.

Critical Mick says: I'd like to see R. Scott Taylor pull off a Gerard F. Bianco. A re-worked Stingy Jack could be a real prizewinner. I can definitely see the story becoming a good amine film, a preference Mr. Taylor intimated in our interview. The material on how Adam's crimes are committed was interesting, and Jack's tales were always colorful and entertaining. But, picky bastard that I am, I can't recommend the novel in its present typo-heavy form.

Critical Mick would gladly buy Jack a pint!

Read Critical Mick's November 2007 interview with R. Scott Taylor!

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This Page Was Last Updated On 30 November, 2007.