oBLOnG Hub Return to MusicWords Home Page

Shortcuts to Justice

Tuesday, March 6, 2007:

One of my guilty pleasures is reading sleazy mystery/suspense novels. I just finished Survival of the Fittest, by Jonathan Kellerman. I'm not going to complain about the graphic sex and violence. That's what we expect from Kellerman. But the ending of the novel made me uncomfortable in a very different way.

The bad guys in this book are killing handicapped minority children, and it becomes apparent at some point that their motives have something to do with a twisted eugenics agenda. They're telling themselves that they're purifying the human race by getting rid of the trash. They use a slogan penned by Hitler. One of the victims is Jewish, and Kellerman's sleuths (Alex Delaware and Milo Sturgis) work hand in glove with an Israeli cop to track down the malefactors.

The book is marred by a hoary cliche ending -- Delaware is knocked out by the bad guys, but rather than simply strangle him, they tie him to a bed, wait until he wakes up, and then discuss their crimes with him until the good guys (Israeli secret service agents) burst through the window and rescue him in the nick of time. Jeez, Jonathan, get a grip.

But that isn't the problem. Here's the problem: In the aftermath, Delaware learns that three of the cohorts and probable financiers of the chief bad guy have promptly died in mysterious "accidents." Kellerman never comes right out and says the Israelis hunted them down, but there's no doubt whatever that he intends the reader to infer that. And his main character, Alex Delaware, never reflects that there might be anything wrong with such a course of events.

So I'm asking myself, what's the difference between these eugenics sickos hunting down and murdering handicapped kids and a conveniently unnamed Israeli secret service agency hunting down and killing folks who may have been financing a eugenics movement of some sort? Kellerman never gives the reader any evidence that the financiers even knew about the killings of the handicapped children. It's guilt by association. Also guilt without trial. The Israeli agents are judge, jury, and executioner.

Now, you and I may smugly agree that the world would be a better place if there were fewer people financing neo-Nazi eugenics propaganda. No argument there. But see, the eugenics sickos were likewise convinced that the world would be a better place if there were fewer handicapped non-Anglo children running around.

So the question is, who gets to decide that it's okay to kill a few people because the world would be a better place without them?

Kellerman seems to feel that it's okay for the Israeli secret service to do that. I don't think I'll be reading any more of his books.