Pop quiz, Hot Shot. What do you do?

[Jun]

If you have seen the movie Speed as many times as I have, you would remember this line. Here Dennis Hopper the bad guy asks Keanu Reeves the cop in several hostage situations. One of the clever solutions was "Shoot the hostage."

These days I'm reading a thriller by Michael Connolly called "The Narrows." He's popular and won many awards. I like him better than James Patterson but not as much as Robert Parker. ABout the same level as Jonathan Kellerman.

In the book's climax there is a dilemma, sort of, for the hero. It goes like this -- The hero, Harry Bosch, is in a physical struggle with the bad guy, the Poet, a serial killer. Harry has a gun in hand but the Poet is using all his strength to grab the gun from his grip. Harry is losing the grip. His partner, an FBI agent Rachel Walling, is far away and running toward them. She also has a gun.

Rachel is too far away. Harry is on the verge of losing the gun to the Poet. In their struggle they are both leaning against the railing of a river. So what should Harry do?

解释一下: 好人甲手中有枪，被坏人乙捉住，二人挣扎，同时好人丙从远处跑来，她有枪但太远。好人快坚持不住了，但决不能让乙把枪抢去，故一同坠入河中。

In the book, Harry pushed both of them over the railing to fall into the river. [I'll stop here in case you want to read the book to find out the ending.] I think that's dumb. There can be a much better solution to this struggle. Harry could do better.


[I'll let you take a guess, then reveal my own plan.]

[CAVA]

Exciting stuff!

Can't he let go of both the gun and the Poet so that they both fall into the river? (assuming that a shot from a falling man is not going to be that accurate)

Or given your new explanation in Chinese, can't he just shoot and shoot until there is no shot left in that gun?

I've watched too few action movies to suggest a good alternative

[tiffany]

bosch? storry set in LA, right?

[Jun]

Yup. That was my first thought too. Just empty the magazine so that the gun is useless. Rachel is running over anyway. A hand-to-hand combat wouldn't be such a bad idea.

Yeah, it's the Harry Bosch series set in LA and Las Vegas.

I MUST start on George Pelecanos soon. Saw him last weekend at National Book Festival. He said he doesn't write serial killer novels -- nothing wrong with it, he's just not into it. He prefers writing crime novels with a social subtext. He sounds like my kind of guy! He used to be a blue collar worker for years, spent 10 years writing one novel by long hand, sent it to a publisher in NYC. No agent, no prior reputation, nothing. A year later the publisher wrote back saying they want to publish it. The rest is history. He's now quite highly regarded. He is local to the DC/MD area. And he has been working on the HBO series The Wire for a while.

At the NBF I also saw Alexander McCall Smith. He wore a Scottish kilt! He was so hilarious and witty and occasionally wacky. Such a fantastic performer -- a rare thing among writers. The audience in the tent laughed their heads off, me included. Why is it that the British celebrities are so much better public speakers than the pathetic American celebrities?