Something missing

Review by New York Times Review

THE Civil War was not a simple collision of opposites. There was internal dissent on each side: Northerners who wanted to placate the South, Southerners loyal to the Union, and thousands of deserters from both armies. In "The State of Jones," Sally Jenkins, a Washington Post reporter, and John Stauffer, a Harvard historian, recreate the life and times of the bold Southern dissenter Newton Knight An indigent farmer in Jones County, Miss., the flinty, blue-eyed Knight was conscripted into the Southern army in 1862 and soon deserted. He organized a small band of neighbors that used guerilla tactics and swamp hideouts to fend off pursuing Confederate troops. Knight's vastly outnumbered group became a thorn in the side of the South, which was preoccupied with the invasions of Grant and Sherman. Knight and other Jones County residents aided the North during Reconstruction. Although Knight was married to a white woman and had several children by her, he simultaneously had a long-term liaison with a former slave of his grandfather, named Rachel. At a time when most Mississippi blacks did not own land, he deeded farmland to Rachel, with whom he had a number of children who worked side by side in the fields with their white siblings. Jenkins and Stauffer suggest that Knight was a religiously inspired antislavery warrior who "fought for racial equality during the war and after" and "forged bonds of alliance with blacks that were unmatched even by Northern abolitionists." But Knight poses special challenges for biographers. He comes down to us mainly through second-hand accounts, such as his white son Tom's sometimes-unreliable 1934 biography. There's the rub. Jenkins and Stauffer create a lively narrative, but is it factual - or fictionalized, like the movie script about Knight by the screenwriter Gary Ross, which, the authors report, inspired them to write the book? These issues are the subject of an Internet debate that began when Victoria Bynum, a Texas State history professor and author of the well-researched 2001 book "The Free State of Jones," wrote a review on her blog, Renegade South, in which she characterized Jenkins and Stauffer's book as a good read but inaccurate and unjustifiably politicized. Jenkins and Stauffer responded with counterevidence and claimed that Bynum had launched "turf warfare" to promote her own book. Others joined the exchange, pointing out small factual errors made by Jenkins and Stauffer, as well as the larger one that Jones County did not officially secede from the Confederacy, invalidating their book's subtitle. The dearth of dependable primary evidence about Knight forces Jenkins and Stauffer to rely often on conjecture. Their book fills lacunas with words like "perhaps," "it is possible," "likely," "could have," and so on. More than 50 pages is devoted to Knight's war experiences, hard information about which is scant. One battle described, Vicksburg, may have little bearing on his biography, since, as an endnote says, "there is no absolute proof that Newton was at Vicksburg, and a case can be made that he was not." (Bynum gives evidence that he was not.) It's impossible to gauge Knight's alleged early antislavery views, as Jenkins seems to concede in a blog comment: "We don't say categorically he was antislavery before the war." Jenkins and Stauffer describe the ex-slave Rachel as a caring soulmate who symbolized Knight's forward-looking capacity to reach across the racial divide. But we can't be sure, since, as the authors write, "there is precious little direct evidence of their relationship." Jenkins and Stauffer bring historical contexts to life and offer provocative interpretations, but they pile hunch upon hunch about Knight himself. Unless a new cache of sources about his life turns up, he'll remain as elusive to biographers as he was to the Confederate troops that chased him through the wooded marshes of Jones County. David S. Reynolds is a distinguished professor at the CUNY Graduate Center. His most recent book is "Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson."

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [October 27, 2009]

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Review by Booklist Review

*Starred Review* Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (2003) is about a young, autistic amateur sleuth. Monk is a popular television series about a detective with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). This debut novel introduces us to a character who appears to have elements of autism and OCD, but here's the twist: he's a professional criminal. Martin Railsback is a housebreaker with a short list of clients from whom he's been acquiring things for years. He makes regular visits to their homes, cataloging their possessions, tracking their purchases, learning their lives. Most of his thefts are small food from the pantry, toiletries, books of stamps. Only occasionally, and only after a great deal of precise preparation, will he help himself to an object of actual monetary value. And here's another interesting thing about Martin: when one of his clients gets into a sticky situation, Martin will risk his own safety to help him or her out of the jam, even if being a hero means he may have to come into actual, physical contact with a client. This is a splendid novel, written with loving attention to character and detail; Martin is so vividly realized that he threatens to step off the page and into the reader's own living room. A loopier Bernie Rhodenbarr? A less lethal Dexter? Martin falls somewhere in between, but with a little word of mouth and some shrewd promotion, he could be the next big thing.--Pitt, David Copyright 2009 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

An expert thief unexpectedly finds himself aiding his victims in Dicks's charming if rambling debut. During his hours off, barista Martin Railsback burgles the houses of folks he calls his "clients," taking only what they won't notice is missing: for instance, "three boxes of long grain rice... two rolls of toilet paper (in Martin's estimation, the Gallos had excellent taste in toilet paper), three cups of olive oil" and, on occasion, something really valuable. The system works beautifully until the day Martin drops a client's toothbrush into the toilet and feels compelled to replace it. This act of simple decency sets him on an entirely different course, and pretty soon he's breaking into houses to improve the lives of their occupants. Martin's own life starts looking up, too, with the possibility of romance and a new avocation, but the specter of real peril looms. Dicks struggles with digression and repetition-Martin's obsessive allegiance to the rules of his pastime becomes exasperating-but he's created a winning hero in Martin, a crook with a heart of gold. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Dicks combines the neurotic atmosphere of a Woody Allen film with the light touch of Lawrence Block's Bernie Rhodenbarr novels (The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart, 1995, etc.) in a unique debut. The fantastically bizarre leading man, obsessive-compulsive Martin Railsback, specializes in stealing things that no one notices have gone missing. Early on, Martin's vengeful, meticulous replacement of his abusive stepfather's prized baseball card led him to his rule-driven life of crime. "If the missing item will be noticed, don't acquire it," is his first imperative, while his second requires a rigid awareness of his victims' sense of perception: "When items go missing in a house, the suspicion of theft occurs only if the possibility of a thief exists." Martin supplements his part-time job as a barista by stealing toilet paper, groceries and other necessities from wealthy suburban "clients," as well as auctioning off their detritus on eBay. Dicks expertly crafts the setup, showing us Martin's deep-seated need for stability and routine, then turning his world on its head when the compulsive thief accidentally knocks a client's toothbrush into the toilet. This necessitates a nerve-racking, breathless mission to replace itwhile its owner is home, no less. Turning a philosophical corner, Martin embarks on an altruistic mission, trying to make his clients' lives a little better without their knowledge and risking his own tenuous subsistence in the bargain. A very funny adventure about the mechanics of burglary and the fragility of an orderly life. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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1 Martin opened the refrigerator and saw precisely what he had expected. The Pearls were nothing if not consistent. A gallon of milk, long since expired, cold cuts, opened jars of jam, tomato sauce, a carton of eggs, and, in the door, what Martin had predicted: salad dressing. More salad dressing than anyone would ever need. Newman's ranch, blue cheese, Thousand Island, French, Italian, two brands of balsamic vinaigrette, and Martin's favorite, parmesan peppercorn. In the nine years that the Pearls had been Martin's clients, he had yet to see a head of lettuce or a fresh tomato in their refrigerator, yet there was always an excellent supply of salad dressing. And unlike most of his clients, the Pearls' salad dressings rarely reached their expiration dates, so someone in this house was using the dressing, but to what the dressing was being applied remained a mystery. Martin took the bottle of parmesan peppercorn and examined it in his gloved hand. Satisfied with its expiration date, he placed it in the burlap sack and scanned the rest of the refrigerator. The sack, which hung off his left shoulder by a length of rope, was more for appearance's sake than anything else, a means of projecting an image of which he was quite proud. In Martin's estimation, he was at the top of his game, a master of his craft. Though any bag or sack would do, and some might serve him better, he had become attached to his burlap, and so on his shoulder it remained. Martin then checked the butter drawer and found four and a half sticks. Selecting two and placing them in his sack, he closed the refrigerator door and headed for the pantry, reexamining the list that he had tucked carefully into his coat pocket. The list was written in French, so that in the event he was one day caught, it would be indecipherable by most police officers. Realistically, Martin knew that it wouldn't take long for any self-respecting detective to have the list translated, but the cautious nature of the list enhanced the image that Martin attempted to project. beurre [butter] sauce salade [salad dressing] detergent Æ lessive [laundry detergent] conserve [canned vegetables] savon [soap] diamant [diamond] Martin found the Pearls' pantry well stocked with vegetables and selected two cans of peas, a can of corn, and two large cans of whole, peeled potatoes. Had the supply of vegetables been low, he would have bypassed this item on his list, adhering strictly to Rule #1: If the missing item will be noticed, don't acquire it. Certain items could be taken from a home without anyone ever noticing, particularly if one is familiar enough with the homeowner's inventory to determine how long an item has been in stock. A bottle of Liquid Plumber, for example, should never be taken during its first month on the shelf, because the homeowner has likely purchased it for a specific reason. A kitchen sink is slow to drain. The bathtub is filling with water during a shower. In these instances, a missing bottle of Liquid Plumber, which isn't cheap, might be noticed. But after thirty days, it's safe to assume that the homeowner has solved whatever plumbing problem from which he or she might have been suffering, and then the bottle can easily vanish without a trace. Sure, the client might one day think, "I thought I had bought an extra bottle when it was on sale," or "I didn't think I had used it all up," but as long as Martin followed Rule #2, these thoughts would be quickly dismissed. Always married, without children, maids, or dogs. Rule #2 was based upon a theory that Martin had proven long ago, and one that he considered to be the keystone of his success: When items go missing in a house, the suspicion of theft occurs only if the possibility of a thief exists. The secret behind Martin's success was that the possibility of a thief operating in his clients' homes never entered their minds. Excerpted from Something Missing: A Novel by Matthew Dicks All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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