Black and White and Dead All Over by John Darnton

Theodore S. Ratnoff is dead. The assistant managing editor of the New York Globe was found near the fifth-floor conference room with the tool of his trade — an editor's spike, used to "kill" stories — sticking out of his chest, and the only compliment he regularly gave ("Nice. Who?") impaled on the spike.

Young upstart reporter Jude Hurley is assigned the story; young no-nonsense police detective Priscilla Bollingsworth is assigned the case. They must work together (while dealing with their attraction to one another) to find out all the facts before the newsroom becomes a morgue (and I'm not talking about the one where they keep the news archives).

Author John Darnton brings 40 years of journalistic experience (and a Pulitzer Prize) to Black and White and Dead All Over, lending the details an authenticity that carries the plot through its slow parts, namely the mystery.

The murder investigation is entertaining enough, and Darnton does a fine job with that portion of Black and White and Dead All Over, but it's the behind-the-scenes operations of a modern daily paper that really shine. It is most memorable as a playful satire on the industry and especially of those individuals who choose to make it their career.

Just don't take it too seriously because Darnton has a biting wit that peels the veneer from some very self-important people. His tome is one of good-natured mean-spiritedness. Darnton's supporting characters are thinly veiled caricatures (drawn with a good deal of literary license) of his former co-workers at the New York Times. (Judith "Dinah" Outsalot, for example, is obviously based on disguise-happy food columnist Ruth Reichl.)

For those so inclined, there is also an unabridged audiobook of Black and White and Dead All Over read by Phil Gigante. Though his reading is otherwise unremarkable, Gigante offers some appropriate (and skillfully rendered) accents to characters of Western European extraction.

Interestingly, Black and White and Dead All Over was the second I read in a month (the first was Bad Things Happen) where the murderer left a note quoting from Hamlet — which doesn't say much for us fans of Shakespeare, I must admit.

Ran directed by Akira Kurosawa (adapted from King Lear by William Shakespeare)

Ran (1985). Screenplay by Akira Kurosawa, Hideo Oguni, and Masato Ide from the play King Lear by William Shakespeare.

In most cases, an actor will wait until he is of a certain age before attempting the role of Shakespeare's King Lear. It is odd, though, for a director to do the same. But in this case, I would have to say that it was the right decision. Ran is Japanese director Akira Kurosawa's version of Lear with samurai. He uses the basic story of the play to illustrate a period of Japanese history replete with land wars and feuding families.

Hidetora is the Lear character. As he is getting old, he wants to split his three castles among his three sons: Taro, Jiro, and Saburo. Saburo, the only one who will not blindly follow his father's orders, is banished during a long, painful scene. The remaining land is split among the two sons. Taro marries Kaede, whose family was killed and their land stolen by Hidetora in her childhood, and who therefore is now living back in her family's original home.

Kaede is the most interesting character in Ran because she has the most pure motive: revenge. She wreaks her vengeance among all the members of the family who cross her, keeping her one goal firmly in her mind: that she will never again be forced to leave this castle. Meanwhile, Taro and Jiro are quick to remind Hidetora that he placed them in charge when he tries to pull rank on them as "Great Lord."

There is a lot in Ran that could have been shortened to make a tighter story, but Kurosawa relishes in the details and gives a far more nuanced picture that takes into account character motivations and individual personalities. Many of the aspects of King Lear are evident, and nearly every character has a counterpart, but this is really Kurosawa's film, not Shakespeare's.

Hidetora goes crazy while the Fool accompanies him on his wanderings, avoiding the only son who would tell him the truth, Saburo. Although the story projects a happy ending, this is, at its core, a Shakespearean tragedy in which, of course, nothing good can come of characters' prideful motives. It's still shocking to see, and Kurosawa makes it both surprising and inevitable. Ran is undoubtedly one of Kurosawa's masterpieces, and the last one of that rank that he made.