When the returns roll in on election night, the light-rail crusader arrives for his victory party at O’Dowd’s on the Plaza.
“The Elders were playing Irish music. ‘A land known for freedom, soil and sky’ seemed an appropriate choice for the hope of light rail present now in the festive room,” writes Rochelle.
Then, “after a moment of celebration, Sandy was asked to say a few words.”
Mystery reads more like fantasy
By MIKE HENDRICKS
The Kansas City Star October 9, 2006
If history repeats itself, Clay Chastain’s light-rail plan has zero chance at the polls next month.
However, were life to imitate art — or rather, a paperback mystery — well then, that would be another story.
Then Chastain’s plan would have way more than a chance of winning Nov. 7. It’d win in a landslide with 63 percent of the vote!
And instead of being the source of ridicule, our hero — Clay, that is — would be widely celebrated. He’d successfully battle the real bully boys this time, rather than the imagined establishment ones he used to fight. Even after one of those bullies nearly twisted his arm off in a gruesome assault.
“Oh, my God. Stop. You’re hurting my hand,” he’d whimper.
You haven’t read the book?
Neither had I until this weekend.
I missed Larry Rochelle’s light-rail page-turner when it came out a few years ago. But as Rochelle is ever the self-promoter — you have to be if you’re a local author — the Overland Park poet and mystery writer is once again pitching 2002’s Death and Devotion to coincide with Chastain’s latest light-rail campaign.
“I changed his name to Sandy Banteen and fictionalized his struggles to get light rail started in this unenlightened backwash of a city,” Rochelle explained in an e-mail interview. (He asked and answered the questions he thought I might ask.)
If from that you get the idea that the author is somewhat sympathetic to Clay’s dream of building a light-rail system in KC, then you’d be correct.
Likewise, Rochelle admires Clay’s pluck. He claims Chastain has been maligned by his critics.
“Every gadfly has his or her moments of indiscretion,” Rochelle says, “but Chastain has ideas, savvy and persistence: all qualities of a person who can get things done.”
Well, maybe yes, and maybe no. Chastain hasn’t exactly gotten a lot done when it comes to light rail, despite all those petition drives.
Nevertheless, he has kept the dream alive, which is not a bad thing. Who knows? What if Kansas City voters finally did approve one of Chastain’s plans? How might it happen?
Rochelle asked himself that, and so a fictional Clay Chastain became a central character in one installment of Rochelle’s Palmer Morel mystery series.
As the book blurb tells it: “The body of an infant found near the base of the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City triggers the involvement of tennis pro Palmer Morel, who is drawn into a bizarre plot by a psycho killer to stop the plan for light rail in the city.”
He’s smart and smooth. Women fall for him easily. They offer him wanton sex.
Morel, not the Chastain character.
Still, Sandy Banteen gets what he’s after, despite opposition from the daily newspaper, The Kansas City Eclipse. And in spite of the City Council’s plot to discredit him and violence at the hands of an affluent sociopathic lawyer who is not above cold-blooded murder.
When the returns roll in on election night, the light-rail crusader arrives for his victory party at O’Dowd’s on the Plaza.
“The Elders were playing Irish music. ‘A land known for freedom, soil and sky’ seemed an appropriate choice for the hope of light rail present now in the festive room,” writes Rochelle.
Then, “after a moment of celebration, Sandy was asked to say a few words.”
And right there, you’re reminded that this truly is a work of fiction.
When’s the last time Clay Chastain said “a few words” about anything?
To reach Mike Hendricks, call (816) 234-7708, or send e-mail to mhendricks.kcstar.com.
Willa Goodheart, honest and hard-working white collar worker finds herself connected to a police investigation for a serial killer; and she hasn't a clue why - that is, until she begins digging.
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