Love, death, etc.

I've done a slew of reviews lately, and two came out today in the Scene. One's that trashy novel from Eric Jerome Dickey I mentioned last week. Like I said, it's not my idea of heaven, but I did have a little fun writing about it. You'll find the review here.

The other book is an altogether different critter, though not necessarily a more worthy one. Truth at Last is an account of the Martin Luther King assassination by John Larry Ray, James Earl Ray's brother. For those of you not up on your assassination lore, James Earl Ray initially pleaded guilty to shooting King, recanted almost immediately, and steadfastly maintained his innocence until he died in prison 10 years ago. Virtually no one who was close to King believes the official scenario, which says Ray was the lone assassin. Neither do I, so I was pretty interested to see what this book would be like. Unfortunately, it's a self-serving mess, and doesn't do anything to explain the facts of King's murder. Still, it's an interesting document, if only because it gives you a sense of what James Earl Ray--and the rest of the Ray clan, for that matter--was really like. It certainly reinforced my own impression that Ray just didn't have the initiative and single-mindedness required to stalk King and kill him without assistance. Go here to read my review.