Wicked Wednesday Villains We Love - Michael Lister's Gauge

"Did you just take a picture of me?"

The voice is not hostile. In fact, it's friendly and even a little whimsical. But that doesn't last long. Remington is in deep trouble. He discovers this when he attempts to take another picture of the man behind that voice, and a rifle slug nearly takes his head off.

"I'm tired of having my picture took." As Remington flees into the woods the words of the murderer echo in his head..."It's the end of the line, partner."

But it's not the end of our encounter with Gauge, the killer in Double Exposure. It's just the beginning.

Michael Lister's suspense novel, Double Exposure, places his hero in mortal danger early in the story. Remington retrieves his camera trap from deep within the Florida wilderness and discovers a series of photographs that could make his reputation as a photographer. That's the good news.

The bad news? Those photographs could also get him killed.

The photos expose the murder of a woman and the man who murdered her. Remington has to get out of the woods and to the police. Unfortunately he's not alone, as he discovers when the camera trap is triggered and the flash goes off. And a voice from the dusk asks a question. "Did you just take a picture of me?"

Gauge is one of the most disturbing villains in crime fiction, because he's so damn likable. I haven't encountered a villain quite like this in crime literature since I first read The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson.

Even after being shot at, Remington finds himself talking to the very man who is hunting him, courtesy of a walkie talkie he lifted from one of Gauge's friends, called in to help hunt Remington down. Remington had to kill the man in self defense, and Gauge uses this knowledge to his advantage.

"You out there killer?" he says over the airwaves. He plays with Remington's emotions, pointing out the similarities between them. Both men have killed, both in order to defend themselves. At least that's the story Gauge feeds to Remington as he tries to create self doubt in the young photographer's mind. This self-rationalization has only one purpose, of course...to flush out Remington, kill him, and destroy the evidence. The soothing voice of the devil could be the man at the corner diner having breakfast with you before a deer hunt.

What do we know of Gauge? He's an employee of the Florida Wildlife Dept, as evidenced by the patch on his uniform. He knows the woods as well, perhaps better than Remington, who grew up in them. He comes from the same background, the same culture. And we also know that he has killed a woman, and buried her in the Florida woods. Remington has the pics to prove it, and Gauge can't allow him to leave these woods alive.

The author described him in these words: "Gauge is a character I feel like I "met" or was introduced to far more than one I created. He seemed to arrive fully formed to do only what he wanted to do. I view him as a charming shark, a sociopath. He is honest and practical and as cold as you'd expect someone without a soul to be. He doesn't have a conscience and he doesn't believe he's missing out on anything. Unburdened by empathy, he has decided to try and have fun during every immoral act he commits."

We see what Michael Lister means as the novel progresses and the night deepens. Gauge continues to talk to Remington, even flattering the young man. He's giving Remington odds on his survival. They started at 20 to 1. They're now down to 12 to 1.

"I'll take a piece of that. Put me down for twenty," Remington says.

"You got it," Gauge replies.

The reader gets the impression that Gauge is actually an OK guy. But the illusion doesn't last when Gauge strikes out at the person Remington cares most about. I never saw it coming. Neither will you.

It's easy to create a protagonist you can admire. It's a lot harder to create villains with sympathy who aren't two-dimensional. Michael Lister does both. And it's a pleasure to read. If we're lucky, we'll never meet Gauge in person...or someone like him.

Wicked Wednesday - Villains We Love: Edgar The Bug

Some villains capture our imagination because they are attractive, smart, or because we empathize with their human side. Heck, we might even want to have dinner with the really charming ones

(provided that we're not on the menu, of course).

Then there's Edgar. He doesn't have a human side. He's a bug. A really, really big one.

He's the main villain in the hit scifi comedy Men In Black, which also star a couple of guys named Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. But don't concentrate too much on them. Sure, they put in pretty good performances, but Edgar's the real star, and he makes the movie what it is...a lot of fun to watch.

Edgar is, as Jones describes him, "a massive cockroach with unlimited strength, a massive inferiority complex, and a real short temper". But that doesn't mean he lacks a sense of humor. He's quick to dispatch a joke or a wisecrack, usually just before he dispatches with some pesky human that stands between him and his goal.  Edgar has come to earth from another planet seeking a small galaxy the size of a marble, a source of incredible power being held by some Arquillian Prince hiding on earth. Seems our planet has become a favorite destination for all kinds of illegal aliens (and I don't mean the kind that wait on our tables and pick our vegetables).

Smith and Jones, as agents J and K, have the unenviable task of stopping Edgar before he captures the galaxy and destroys earth. Not an easy task, since earth is still a big planet and Edgar is wearing a disguise. Edgar is played by Vincent D'Onofrio in a brilliant performance, and he handles the not so subtle personality of an insect with creepy humor and skill. This bug doesn't just make your skin crawl...he tears it off and wears it like a suit (it's his disguise). It's somewhat effective, although as time passes the flesh begins to peel and decay (the makeup artist for this movie has won seven Academy awards).

By the time the MIB's catch up with Edgar, he looks like he needs a lot more than just a shower and a shave. Once he's tracked down the galaxy, he heads for the nearest unlocked spaceship to make his getaway, hauling along an unwilling Linda Fiorentino, who plays the medical examiner. As Edgar explains to her, "It's a long trip. I'll need a snack".

All great villains have at least one redeeming feature, and Edgar is no exception. He's a family man and has quite a large one...75 million to be exact. He doesn't hesitate to stand up for the puny bugs on our planet either, and when some insensitive human kills a fly or sprays some insecticide around, Edgar squashes them like...well, like a bug. It isn't pretty, but it's kinda fun to watch.

In the end, the Men In Black rescue the galaxy, save earth and send Edgar to that big garbage dump in the sky. I was hoping he'd be resurrected for the sequel, but alas, it was not to be. The MIB franchise has three movies under it's belt, but the first one is still the best, in large part due to D'Onofrio's portrayal of Edgar. 

In this scene from the movie, we get to see both the Bug's sense of humor and his ruthless response to the appearance of a pest control employee. As he talks to the man, it's apparent that the "pests" he is referring to are not the insects who scurry about (many of whom are probably his relatives) but the entire human race! 

Wicked Wednesday - Villains We Love: Professor Moriarty

The first of an occasional series that examines the villains, crooks, and scoundrels who have made a strong impact in the history of crime fiction, both on the printed page and the big screen. We follow their exploits and cheer when they are defeated. And at times, we can't help but admire them.

Every decent story has conflict. That's especially true for crime stories. Without conflict, there would be no story and every tale would end on page one with the words, "And they/he/she/it lived happily ever after".

But good stories aren't like that. We demand more from them, and conflict is essential, whether it's Man vs Nature, Man vs Self, Man vs Society...or Man vs Man. It is this last that concerns most crime fiction, the battle between the good protagonist and the evil adversary. And there may be no more famous adversary in modern crime fiction than the nemesis of detective Sherlock Holmes...Professor Moriarty.

Who is this criminal mastermind, a man described by Sherlock Holmes as the "Napoleon of crime"? Despite appearing in over 60 films, television shows, radio adaptations, plays, and even video games, Moriarty was created merely as a convenient prop used by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to kill off his detective, Sherlock Holmes. The author could not have imagined at the time that this mathematician turned underworld criminal would acquire a life of his own.

Moriarty appears in just two stories by Doyle, the first being The Final Problem, where he is used to dispatch Sherlock Holmes. The other appearance is made in The Valley Of Fear. Holmes describes his adversary with these words:

He is the Napoleon of crime, Watson. He is the organizer of half that is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city. He is a genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker. He has a brain of the first order. He sits motionless, like a spider in the center of its web, but that web has a thousand radiations, and he knows well every quiver of each of them."

Holmes goes on to describe his efforts to put Moriarty out of business, with more than a touch of admiration for an adversary whose intellect is equal to his own. And Moriarty returns the favor, but this mutual admiration only goes so far. Moriarty warns Holmes to cease his efforts to destroy his criminal empire: "I am quite sure that a man of your intelligence will see that there can be but one outcome to this affair. It is necessary that you should withdraw. You have worked things in such a fashion that we have only one resource left. It has been an intellectual treat to me to see the way in which you have grappled with this matter, but I say, unaffectedly, that it would be a grief to me to be forced to take an extreme measure."


Holmes, of course, refuses to back down. The pair converge at Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland, where Moriarty allows Holmes to pen a farewell note to Dr. Watson (what a gentleman!) before attacking the detective. Both men plunge over the falls to their deaths. The End. But not for long.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle thought the Sherlock Holmes stories were keeping him from other projects, but revived Holmes due to popular demand (and for the money, let's be honest). But he did not revive Moriarty.

Little did Doyle suspect that his sinister creation would acquire a reincarnated life of his own. The website IMDb lists over 50 screen appearances by Moriarty, the earliest in 1908 and the most recent in 2014.

Sherlock Holmes lives on. And as long as he does, as long as writers continue to write stories that feature the slender detective with his hawk-like nose and razor sharp mind, Moriarty will live on as well. For what criminal, what adversary can possibly challenge Holmes as an equal? After more than a century, we've come to realize that Holmes wouldn't be Holmes without his arch enemy.