Critical Mick

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Reviews by the Clown that All Other Critics Want to Strangle with a Black Turtleneck

Hunting the King
by Peter Clenott
Künati, 2008

Sweeping Fast over Dangerous Ground

Critical Mick is so far behind in his unruly reviews that he has caved in and accepted an offer from the site's longest-standing fan. Please give your attention to investigator and aspiring sci-fi author Langdon R. Danbrown's first ever guest review.

Gunfire exploded all around me. Men reloaded with amazing calm, heavily armed men whose steady eye would scare off back-alley drug fiends. I believe the two closest, AR-15's with safety catches thumbed off, at ease in desert camo, could threaten away any attack with their beards alone. One muttered an observation about goddamned Iraq. Muzak violins poured Smoke on the Water from tinny speakers.

Some men have their best thoughts in the morning shower, like that Greek who shouted "Eureka." Not me. I am Langdon R. Danbrown, author, award-winning website haver. I get my revelations at the local indoor gun range.

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! I ran down and examined my target. Bullseye! It was a moment that shook me to my shoes. The Hollywood actress in Get Smart = Anne Hathaway. William Shakespeare's wife = Anne Hathaway? The same? How could that be? Shakespeare was by all accounts dead a hundred years ago or even more. How could his wife still look young enough to be starring in Hollywood movies? Why had no one ever noticed this was peculiar? I abandoned my rented rifle and strode straight out to my Vespa. I knew then I would never return to idle practice in this gun range again. I was on a mission to uncover the long-suppressed truth. And bring it to light.

From the Case Files of Langdon R. Danbrown, Relentless Seeker of Truth and Author: Who, really, IS Anne Hathaway? The world doesn't know. Her secrets are as obscured as if a giant tie had flown up in front of them.

2 - LAX Airport, 6:40 AM

I dropped into sear 12A, intending to write down all my notes for the documentary expose I would eventually make. Time traveller? Vampire? Immortal as seen in Highlander? Anne Hathaway could be one of those. Maybe a time traveller bit by a vampire? No one had ever thought of that possibility before. I reached for my trusty legal pad to try to get my thoughts straight, but there in my bag was a new book I had purchased in the airport. Hunting the King by Peter Clenott. I figured I was on a cross-country hunt, too, so reading a good novel about a search and a chase might give me ideas and inspiration.

Clenott's story began in Baghdad a couple of days before the American invasion of 2003. An Iraqi archaeologist made a desperate phone call to one of his friends, saying please come over to my house and let me tell you a powerful secret! Hurry, before mobs of lawless ruffians break in! The archaeologist raced across town but it was too late, his friend was splattered all over- but he and his nephew machine-gunned the looters before they could walk off with the priceless artefact that could change the world! The rush of the airplane taking off was a lot like the rush of the novel's pace.

Meanwhile in Afghanistan an American archaeologist called Molly O'Dwyer was reaching a long-buried secret cave complex, old as the hills, just as a big tank battle fought its way along! Molly, just like Indiana Jones, dynamited her way through the entrance and charged through ancient corridors seeking the answers to the mystery of Jesus's illegitimate daughter, Hannaniah.

I read and read, all the way to Florida. I didn't even stop to eat the croissant. My objective: Daytona Beach- the location where according to People magazine Anne Hathaway was filming her next movie.

3 - The Flagler Tavern, New Smyrna Beach. 8 PM.

I spent the afternoon getting my teeth whitened.

"Hey, I love ya baby, you're looking good," said all the Hollywood types in the bar.

"You betcha," I smiled, cocking thumb pistols.

The actors, directors and casting agents made pistols out of thumbs and fingers and shot me a wink. "OMG, don't leave here tonight without talking to me, baby, I wanna tell you how good you're looking!"

"On the set today- OMG!" I cried. "You will never guess whose thighs have plumped up fat with cellulite!" All the Hollywood types, eager for gossip, threw excited names around the bar.

"Well," I continued my bluff, "I'll just say that Anne Hathaway's best friend really needs to count her calories." To illustrate, I made big fat thigh shapes in the air. With my hands.

They shrieked with delight. "Nora? Nora Barnstormer?" I nodded conspiratorially, then quickly scrawled on the inside cover of Hunting the King while they were all professing about how they had been thinking, OMG, Nora's thighs had been looking overinflated!

Keeping my conversation as superficial as possible, I fortified myself with another pint of that Hawaiian courage before I snuck past the bearded Tom Petty and dropped over the balcony to the avenue below.

On a twisted ankle I snuck away into the salt of a sea-wind night. No shmoozing with gorgeous actresses for me. Like Molly O' Dwyer, her Italian occultist sidekick Dr. Nina Cavalcante, and hunky Polish aristocrat love interest Teodor Kwiatkowski, Langdon R. Danbrown was on a mission.

4 - The Swankiest Hotel in New Smyrna Beach. 11:38 PM.

I tailgated into the garage of the swankiest hotel in New Smyrna Beach, rode the elevator to the top floor, and approached a maid pushing her room service cart. "Hello maid, can you tell me which room Anne Hathaway is in?"

The maid looked at me as if I was some kind of stupid guy.

"Hathaway's best friend, Nora Barnstormer, asked me to run this hot new novel over immediately." I held up Hunting the King and explained that its style and scale were of big-screen proportions. "See, the inscription inside?" To make my cover story look better I had forged

This took a lot of liberties, I very well might get my impersonating head bashed open, at which time my brains would fall out. At the feet of the real Peter Clenott. But the maid shrugged and gave me the room number.

5 - Penthouse Suite. 11:50 PM.

Only when the door was opened and a small, sweaty lady stood before me did I realize that I had no idea what Shakespeare's wife looked like. In all my exhaustive research Google hadn't offered a picture.

"Why, yes. I am an author and investigator of the world's most arcane mysteries. I have an award-winning website also."

Blue eyes pierced me. (Not literally.) I felt as cornered as Molly O'Dwyer and her motley crew at Clenott's exciting climax. But for me there was no ancient tomb complex to duck into.

"Your books are a heap of shite, Dan Brown! But I suppose ye had better come in."

She turned away. Instead of running, I followed the sexy Nora Barnstormer into the hard tiles of Anne Hathaway's private penthouse abode. There could have been Highlander-style swordsmen hiding in there. Or security guards, like the ones who had pitched me bodily out of the reception places of so many New York publishing houses. The door clicked shut. The woman switched off the DVD.

Menacing as Judas when he had Jesus alone in the garden, Nora viciously towelled her short, wet hair.

"Do… do you known when Anne Hathaway will be back? I have questions."

"I have questions too. Like where's me bleeding earrings that I let the silly cow borrow?" She twisted the towel into a whip, snapped out an angry pop. "I bet she's lost them in some biker roadhouse, Dan, like she did my Egyptian ankh necklace in Las Vegas."

"Danbrown," I hesitantly corrected. "Langdon R. Danbrown."

Flame-haired Nora flashed those angry blues at me again, and snapped the whip-towel's tail against the hardcover I cradled over my heart. It left me weak in my secret places. I fumbled and Peter Clenott's novel fell to the leather seat.

"Hunting the King, Danny? I was just after thinking I knew that cover. I finished that very one today on the beach."

"I read most of it today on the plane! It made a great plane book."

"Well, Clenott doesn't write such a bad beach book either. Bejaysus! I swear, people think the movie biz is all glamour and excitement?"

When I didn't agree immediately, Nora Barnstormer lashed her bullwhip towel to ensure I was giving her my attention. I leapt and complied.

"Glamour and excitement me eye, Danbrown. Sitting on the same pile of blazing-hot sand for hours, watching stranded jellyfish congeal like gravy, while some poxy bollox of an aspiring actor throws tantrums over his 'motivation'? Poor Anne had to do this one stupid scene twenty-nine times, God love her. How she ran in and out of the waves looking unflappably happy I can't bleeding begin to imagine! Thank Christ I was at least in the background and could hide a couple beach books under my towel. Glamorous my size-twelve ass!"

She snapped the towel again to make sure that I agreed. I voiced my agreement heartily.

"Fer Christsake, Dan! What are you doing here anyway? You're not ever secretly the author of Hunting the King, are you? It was a lot like that Da Vinci pile of muck. You're not after Anne to star as Molly O'Dwyer in some big-budget studio version, are you?"

"I'm here seeking love. No! I mean, an answer. An answer that crosses ages. Someone who has crossed ages. Not resurrection, reincarnation. Or maybe reincarnation. Poetry. Beautiful visions. I want to hang upside down in a cave."

"You're babbling, Dan."

"I'm babbling," I restated.

She swept into my personal space. Thoughts flashed like Ulysses's fleets across wine-dark seas, deep purple seas. Sails that flashed and sparked pure white. Anne Hathaway is a fraud, dear reader. If anyone deserves to be Molly O'Dwyer in the movie version of Hunting the King, it is Nora Barnstormer.

"Immortality? The Supernatural?" she whispered.

"You betcha."

6 - Right after that. Midnight.

"Come on then," she whispered.

Nora took my hand and pulled me through the balcony doors, out to Anne Hathaway's helipad where a UH-60L's massive rotors began to spin. A clandestine voyage, sweeping fast over dangerous ground, seeking an ancient secret- with a beautiful and spirited woman! Life had become just like Hunting the King.

"Wait! Nora!" I cried. "My book-"

"Forget the book, let's go!" she thrust me into the cabin. The copter rose, tilted and roared us into moonlight.

"I didn't get the chance to finish it! Whose grave is it, buried beneath those Iraqi sands?"

"Whose do ye think, ya cute but stupid muppet!" Nora's hands lingered as she strapped me tight in.

Oh! Jesus!

"But I need to know which band of adventurers will uncover the tomb of Christ, Nora, and claim the prize? The Vatican's? The Islamic fundamentalist's? The CIA's? That psychotic insurgent guy's?"

Nora strapped herself into the seat facing me. Waves flashed past far below. We left America behind.

"Dan, would ye ever shut yer gob about that book! Cop on, it's not exactly credible- Clenott states that the first American invasion of Iraq took place fourteen years before 2003? The Iraqi archeologist Mohamoud Jama bursts into the office of the chief curator of antiquities and announces he has made a discovery in the Syrian desert- but when Molly O'Dwyer finds his site, it's somehow magically relocated well within Iraq?" This fiery redhead kept snapping a figurative towel at Peter Clenott's butt. "And when Molly has to scream for the Afghani troops not to shoot her, she shouts ‘can somebody get us the bloody hell out of here' in her best Arabic...? last time I was in Afghanistan, the people spoke Pashtu and Dari. It was a good beach read, but your Hunting the King wasn't exactly Shakespeare."

Shakespeare! The mention of that guy reminded me of Anne Hathaway. I stopped looking at Nora's thighs.

"Nora- how long have you been Anne Hathaway's best friend?"

"Years! Why?"

"Has she visibly aged at all in that time? Has she ever told you stories of ages past, details she could not possibly have known?" Nora cocked her head, listening. "Is she, in fact, the time-traveling vampire wife of William Shakespeare?"

Nora said nothing for a long time.

"Danny boy…have you never heard of stage names?"

"It is kind of implausible, when you put it that way…. But the search- hey, it brought me and you together." My whitened teeth gleamed forth my knock-out smile.

Nora laughed and groaned. "Anyone who believes in immortal celebrities is as daft as whatever gobshite started spreading rumors that my thighs got fat. Crickey! I spent hours tonight on Anne's thighmaster, I'm wrecked!"

"Your thighs look great to me," I praised. "You're darn pretty. Darn, darn pretty."

"Tee hee!" she said.

"How about wrapping this fast-paced whirlwind journey up with a big kiss, hottie?" I cried.

"You've overlooked one advantage, Danny," my beloved Nora's eyes blazed with Irish mirth. "I finished Clenott's novel. I already know how the story ends!"

I would be a bad book reviewer if I gave away the ending.

(In the end, I really got my rocks off!!!)

THE END. (OF THE REVIEW ONLY.)

Hunting the King is indeed a good plane and beach book. That's where I read it.

Critical Mick says: Danbrown's hunt for the truth may have gone a bit off-track, but the comments that he and Nora made about Peter Clenott's Hunting the King are accurate enough. It's a fun, fast-paced book that ends with a decent twist- perfect for a beach or plane near you.

But, Danbrown... in your relentless pursuit of truth, are you sure you've checked your facts?

Read Critical Mick's September 2008 interview with Peter Clenott!

Yo! This review and all content on the DFA Guide site are copyright 2008 Mick Halpin. All links to other sites and documents are copyright to whatever source wrote something cool enough for Mick to give it a referral. Try to claim them as your own work and bad karma will catch up with you, baby. Believe it.

Irate, huh? Managed to piss off another one? Direct your hatemail to mick @ mickhalpin dot com.

This Page Was Last Updated On 23 July, 2008.

Epilogue – The Atlantic Ocean, 1:05 AM.

It would have been great if that had actually happened. I warned you at the beginning that I am not only a relentless truth-seeker but a writer. With an award-winning website. We writer guys get to make stuff up and sometimes it is not 100% what happened.

Critical Mick is harsh, he will reveal what Nora really did. So it is best if it is heard from me and not as a scathing editorial note.

For starters, I was lying about her lingering hands as she strapped me safely in. There were no straps. And somewhere in there with the sweeping rotors and the blazing over the moonlit ocean, right after I realized that Anne Hathaway the actress is not = Anne Hathaway Shakespeare's wife, I asked:

"Um… where are we going in this big helicopter, anyway?"

My beloved Nora's eyes blazed with Irish mirth. "No destination in mind, Dan Brown. Just a mile high over open water."

I looked out the open door. Damn, we were high!

"I'm a huge reader, Dan, always have a book in me hand. I used to be married to a novelist, you know. Not some aggravating eejit rambling on about albino killer monks, claiming it's all God's own truth! A real novelist, Dan."

"Danbrown," I corrected. "Langdon R. Danbrown-"

"That Angels and Demons really got on my last nerve, you know?"

"What-? You have me confused with-"

Her hair whipped like flames as she thrust a sun visor into my hands. Nora shoved me in front of the open door and her powerful thigh raised a sexy boot, chest high. I noticed that Nora's boots were made of pages torn from hands of bad novelists that she had killed to supernaturally maintain her own immortal youth. "All descriptions are accurate, is that so Dan Brown? Let's see how well a real Langdon would survive a plummet with only a sun visor for a parachute!"

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